Oraculum is a 2D, point & click, exploration narrative set in the not too distant future in the troubled dystopian city of Europa. A radical vision of an alternative future, where society has split due to a new technological drug called Focus. In the city of Europa, the population is controlled by the mega corporation Oraculum, using the Focus drug to infiltrate their everyday lives.
Below the city, in the subterranean society of Lower Europa, a population of anti-Oraculum individuals who have rejected the artificial paradise of above, live in exile and poverty.
Focus drug propaganda
The player takes on the role of Alice Leporium, a lifelong member of Oraculum’s security service, the ESA, and a Focus drug user. A year ago, following a spate of strange behavior, Alice’s twin brother Albus mysteriously disappeared and was never seen again. With Alice suspicious of the corporations involvement in her brother’s disappearance, and a sudden call from a mysterious stranger – Alice must go in search of Albus through the strange subterranean world of lower Europa, unfolding the true nature of Oraculum and her new role in shaping the future of Europa…
What is Oraculum for?
Oraculum is a 4th year (Hons) Creative Media, end of year group project in Dundalk Institute of Technology – which will be on show at the DKiT’s FIS 2012 exhibition, 6th – 8th June 2012.
As stated before in a previous post, I have luckily re-discovered many old projects from previous years in college, hidden on hard-drives. Unfortunately, I have never found anything (apart from photos) from my time on work placement with Cavan Institute in the City College of Plymouth, UK, back in February/ March 2009. Strange, considering as part of a work at the Reprographics department in City College of Plymouth, we shot hours of footage of the city of Plymouth itself, our experience during our many activities, and footage shot for our own leisure – with the intention of using that footage in future projects back home. A lot of footage, and yet I can find none of it – sad times.
WEE-Man from Eden Project – Devon, UK
Luckily, however, I happened upon meeting one of the students from that placement who since found a compilation/ promo video which was made using some of the footage we shot those 2 weeks. Its only a fraction of what we shot, but its still great to have something to look back on. Myself and two other Cavan Institute Multimedia students from that placement, Padraig Farrelly and Declan Brady, shot all the footage from the video – while Padraig and Declan edited it together. Having made a copy of the video, I changed the music on the video to royalty free music from Kevin MacLeod so there wont be any copyright issues with YouTube in the near future. It gives a taster of the great time we had as a group of students in the city of Plymouth those two weeks. Who knows – I might find more of those videos yet!:
If you would like to see more photos from the 2-week work placement (Including pics from the Eden Project, Exeter and Plymouth) – as well as a day-by-day journal of my own experience there (I swear I dont say ‘Dear Diary…’) – then check out my blog on the Plymouth work placement with Cavan Institute (2009) at http://eamonnsplymouth.blogspot.com/
Having built up a considerable amount of data on several different hard-drives over the last 5 years in college – I often have to search through many folders and sub folders, and sub-sub folders, in search of videos, graphics, animations or audio files I worked on in projects past, often coming into use again in new projects (Which is why I insist in deleting nothing, and retaining a copy of everything). For example, the intro video and audio used at the beginning of the recent BGL News Water charges report video, was in fact an intro video created for a project I worked on back in my second year in Multimedia in Cavan Institute (Except for the logo, which was created especially for the BGL News report video). Thankfully, it was during this search that I re-discovered the video from this old project, which has sat quietly in an a hard-drive all these years.
CLN anchorman still – Darragh Mulligan as ‘Ron Burgundy’
Paul Brady – Reporting for CLN
CLN interviews – Eamonn Cahill
CLN interviews – Leona Igoe
The video is a mash-up/ mix-up of sorts, of a collection of news report videos myself and the Multimedia Year 2 (MWD2) in Cavan Institute of 2007 – 2008, made as a group – with the intention of putting them all together as a single news broadcast – hence the news anchor (Darragh Mulligan as Ron Burgundy) shot on green screen. All the news report videos we did, ended up being very different to each other in that they looked as though they came from different news channels. Therefore, I decided at the time to gather all the videos from my fellow classmates and assemble them as a sort of ‘mash-up’, as though the viewer were jumping between different news stories. They are all under the guise of a fictional regional Irish news channel called CLN or Cavan Local News – except for my own offering at the end called +1News (Can’t remember why I named mine differently).
‘We is scientists’
Baiba interviews Grainne
John Wrenne
Angry builder – Grainne interviews John
Anyhow, its great to have them all to look back on in one single video. In it we have reports on the first male pregnancy, a viral outbreak in Cavan Town, New York hospitality crisis, Cavan building industry crashes, Cavan Institute closes and UFO sightings over Virginia. Content created and edited together as a group by MWD2 (2007-2008):
For my final CA as part of the Media, Discourse & Analysis module in college, I was required to work in a group with my fellow students Siobhan Gallagher and James Butterly, to work on a fictional news report/ broadcast based on a current topic in contemporary Ireland - which would display an assortment of the theories and topics covered in the module over the course of this semester. By doing this, we would present what we have learned from the module and put it into practice in a professional piece of media.
water shot
For the news report, we decided to cover the topic of the current water charges issue in Ireland – presenting a biased news report in favor of the charge, and implementing ‘scare tactics’ and specific imagery and language to intimidate viewers into complying with the proposed charge. We also wanted to include doctored vox pops (or talking head interviews) where we would speak to those in favor of the charge, and omit those who are not.
Vox pops – Elena Rimeikaite
Using a voice over (Our voice actor had to back out of the initial recording so I did the voice over), we implemented specific language and ‘buzz-words’ to put forward an ‘preferred meaning’ to the viewer, where we wanted them to comply with the charge and fear the possible consequences. See their peers and equals on screen, happily filling out registration forms, paying the charge and vocally approving the charge – we would subtly imply that everyone else is paying the charge – so the viewer should too. Shot angles were also carefully used in vox pops, where the camera ‘looks up’ to these ‘upstanding members of Irish society’ – making the viewer feel almost beneath them.
Water fountain
Informational statistics and figures were also used to get across to the viewer, the scale of those registering and paying the charge – while specifically omitting opposing figures which would show those who are opposing the charge. In addition, we also intentionally omitted footage covering opposition to the charge such as recent protests, as this would be in opposition to out ‘preferred meaning’ and lead the viewer to think otherwise.
DKiT – Carrolls building
To point out, many shots used in this pice were shot on location in DKiT (Such as vox pops and images of the campus). However, under fair use, we also used shots taken from Irish news broadcasts related to this report – mainly gathered from a number of broadcast videos provided on rte.ie. We do not claim to own these shots, but all footage was edited by ourselves. These additional shots complemented the report as a means of conveying the language of the report in a visual manner and suggesting the ‘preferred meaning’ to the viewer through instantly recognisable imagery (flowing water, happy faces, homes, known politicians). These worked in conjunction with the voiceover to get the report across to the viewer.
“I have to pay for water?” – Siobhan and James
Anyway, we put a good bit of work into it and are pretty happy with the end result. So heres the final video.
Enjoy!
For more info on the video such as early research and sources for video clips and statistics used, check out the production blog at http://begrandlike.wordpress.com/
As the fourth estate within an democratic society, the media, or more specifically news media, serves the role of providers of information to the masses and are required to keep watch on the other estates of society such as government, religious institutions and the upper or ruling classes – by holding them accountable and being critically in their analysis of those societal institutions. As such, the media is expected to always be un-biased and present all sides of an issue or event to the viewing public, so we the audience may form our own opinion.
However, as we all know, this is rarely the case. The media as we know it today, is a collection of companies and corporations, many of which spanning several countries and including sub companies, sister groups and shareholders. Therefore many news groups within the media have their own agendas or shared interests, which reflects on the content they produce or topical stances they choose to cover a story from – inevitably portraying a specific side of a story to the public, which we then decipher and form the basis of our own opinion. As such, we can see how media groups may choose to portray a ‘preferred meaning‘ of something to us and exclude something which may be in opposition to their own shared interests. By choosing not to cover a story the media is therefore removing it from the shared consciousness of the viewing public. In addition, as educators and outlets of information to the public, news media may choose to put a specific slant or perspective on a story – thereby affecting the opinion of the viewing public.
Corporate news - Media bias
In order to see this biased approach to content in the media today, we will look at a recent news story and analyise it further.
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RTE News coverage of Occupy Dame Street camp removal
In early March 2012, the Irish protest group Occupy Dame Street had been an active protest group camping on Dublin’s financial street, Dame Street, since October 2011. At 3am in the morning on March 8th 2011, over a hundred an Garda Síochána moved on the peaceful protest camp – forcefully removing protestors, confiscating equipment and personal belongings, and demolishing the camps tents and shacks. For the best part of the camps presence on Dame Street, much of Irish news had rarely featured the protest in news broadcasts – evidently choosing not to do so. By choosing not to cover the progress or events on Dame Street during the protest, public awareness of the protest was kept at a minimum – often resulting in the physical camp becoming an public nuisance and eyesore, alien and removed from the public.
As with the camps foundation months earlier, the removal of the camp demanded news coverage. The physical absence of the camp from the viewing public had made it news-worthy and something which must be addressed to audiences.
RTE logo
RTE (Raidió Teilifís Éireann), Irelands main semi-state public service provider, carefully balanced the coverage of this story by providing the opinions of those in favor of the camps removal and those who were against it. However, as we can see when we analysise RTE’s coverage – more coverage, content and airtime was given over to argue in favor of the camps removal. Much of this was presented to us as an un-biased story, seeing both sides of the story – but also incorporating specific keywords (Such as ‘health & safety fears‘) and language (Such as ‘necessary‘, ‘clean-up‘ and ‘welcomed‘) to highlight why this extreme action was needed, and should be condoned by the public.
Click on the link below to view RTE video broadcasts covering the removal of the Occupy Dame Street camp news story. Once there, scroll down and click on the third video thumbnail found beneath the main video window to view the video used in this article.
In this story, we see the use of footage showing us council trucks clearing heaps of debris – no where do we see the original standing tents and structures prior to to their demolition. Therefore, together with language such as ‘clean-up‘ and ‘health & safety risk‘ being used, we are given the suggestion that this site was a mess and a public danger which needed to be cleaned up for the good of public safety.
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Both party perspective
This report presents us with two interviews, one from participating protestors criticizing what has happened, and the other from a local restaurant owner blaming the Occupy Dame Street camp for the decline in his establishments customer numbers. The story introduces this second interview with a claim that local retailers welcome the removal of the camp and that customer takings are up 20% thanks to the absence of the camp from the street. This unfairly places the blame of customer decline on the camp and does not attempt to look at other possible reasons for decline. As the retailer interviewed also mentions a loss in employees over the period of the camp, we are also suggested that this protest was putting people out of jobs and therefore harmful to the countries economy at a time when jobs are hard to find. Also, by adding after the interviews that the protestors will continue to hold meetings and stage further protests on the site, paired with footage of protestors shouting, chanting and speaking on microphones – we get the sense that this group intends to continue to be an irritance to the public and make noise. It may also be pointed out that both interviews contrast in appearance quite differently. While the protestors (and footage of protestors prior to the interview) are seen in a very dark light, with lots of noise and activity – the retailer (and filler footage shown prior to it) are quite bright, colourful and peaceful. This more positive footage begins after the dark, negative-looking footage, with the words ‘After this mornings clean up…” – suggesting to us that it was the camp that was making the street look dark and depessing, while its removal has resulted in its improvement.
Occupy Dame Street camp (Prior to removal)
Current situation of news story
The last segment of the story consists of a reporter reporting from Dublin’s Pearse Street where she describes earlier events which took place that evening, where protestors moved to the street to protest in complaint to the camps removal. The reporter tells us that the protestors had ‘minor scuffles‘ with Gardai and that they caused ‘distruption to traffic‘. This paired with the close-up images of protestor groups filling camera shots (Which suggest large crowds of protestors to us – even if that may not be the case), shouting and chanting protestors, and a close-up image of Gardai struggling with something – suggest to us that this group of protestors on Pearse Street were very large in number, angry to the point of physically encountering peaceful Gardai, and a physical hinderance to the peaceful public around them.
In addition, the reporter uses language such as ‘minor injuries‘, ‘minor scuffles‘, and that the camp was ‘dismantled‘ rather than demolished or destroyed – so as to play down the protestors claims and right to be angry. She also goes on to suggest that Gardai were willing to give the protestors their belongings back so as they returned later peacefully, but that the protestors rejected this and wanted their belongings back ‘immediately‘. This suggests the idea that the protestors were unwilling to come to an agreement with the peaceful Gardai and that they were overreacting to what the Gardai had done.
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Example of biased reporting (In favor of protestors)
Click on the link below to see an example of the same news story, also covering the Occupy Dame Street camp removal, by Irish news agency IrishTimes.com. However this time covering it entirely from the perspective of the camps supporters and Occupy Dame Street participants:
Semiotics is the study of signs, sign processes and symbols used to communicate to us a specific meaning or message. This type of study can be applied to written word, print media, audio-visual media, body language; pretty much all forms of communication between humans. These signs often convey a message to us without us realizing it and as such are often used by the media to communicate specific messages, or ‘preferred meanings’ that they intend for us to decode.
“A sign is anything that can be used to tell a lie.” – Umberto Eco
As such, we use semiotics to analyze the use of signs in TV, radio, printed media such as posters and advertisements, street signs, music and online all content such as videos, images, articles and websites.
Here, we will analyze a contemporary advertisement print, going through different factors used in semiotic analysis:
Denotation & Connotation
Paradigmatic & Syntagmatic relationships
Myths & Narrative
Roles within advertising
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Old Spice – “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” advertising campaign
Here we have a print media advertisement from Old Spice’s (Mens body spray product) popular Old Spice man on a horse campaign. In the wider product campaign, video advertisements and print posters present the Old Spice man carrying out and associating himself with a number of random objects and activities often associated with being masculine or ‘manly’, thus playing on and suggesting a number of things we can associate the product with. Here, however, a simplistic print version of the campaign is used of the Old Spice man on a horse, holding a bottle of Old Spice, on a tropical beach, with a slogan saying “Smell like a man, man – Old Spice”. Simple as it is, this version still retains much of the wider campaigns message, while keeping the popular advertisements comical randomness that made it so popular.
OldSpiceAd_ImOnAHorse
Denotation & Connotation
Denotation is an item, which when seen by us, we immediately interpret. This can be a piece of text (such as this blog post) or an image or sound. Connotation is the meaning to which we arrive at having seen or heard the item denoted. This could be an image of a flower, which suggests to us connotations of beauty, sunshine, pleasant scents, etc. A sound may also suggest to us a specific feeling or mental image depending on the sound heard. Often, these connotations may differ from person to person as someone may relate an image or denotation to a specific life experience or feeling, while another may not.
In the case of this Old Spice advertisement, we have many strong connotations present. The topless man, clearly very fit with muscles on show; suggest masculinity, health, fitness, and female desirability. The mans pose, with hand on hip; suggests confidence in self and social outwardness (confidence with desirable partners being the most prominent in body fragrance advertising). The shirt loosely draped around the mans neck and hanging down his back as though a cape of some sort; may suggest heroism or the protective man as we associate capes with the ‘superhero’. The horse suggests to us a wild, rugged, rustic masculinity. However, as it is a pristinely white horse; this would suggest a conflicting sense of beauty, purity, cleanliness, honesty and positivity. This pure white is repeated again on the mans white trousers; suggesting he too is like the horse. The background setting of the beach, sea and tropical tree; suggests to us warmth, sun, sea air, relaxing atmosphere, no worries, holidays away, tropical/ exotic locations. All of this is set around the product almost in the dead centre of the advertisement. This suggests to us that all of this can be gained through this product, and with the Old Spice man holding it up to us suggestively; we get a sense that he approves or recommends this product to us. Additionally, we see diamonds pouring from the mans hand beneath the Old Spice bottle. This in itself suggests wealth, fortune and expensive jewelry; pouring as if from the product itself.
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Paradigmatic & Syntagmatic relationships
A paradigmatic relationship or paradigm, is a substitution of an image, piece of text or audio. For example in a previous blog post here, we spoke about the Marlboro Man used in an earlier Marlboro cigarettes advertising campaign. The Marlboro Man was an image used to substitute the preferred image or message intended to consumers of these cigarettes.
Syntagmatic relationships or syntagms, are the finished meaning we take from the paradigm. Again, in the case of the Marlboro Man paradigm, we take away a meaning from the image of a wild-west, rustic, masculine, hardworking, outdoors cowboy, out in vast landscapes with horses and cattle. Quite often without realizing it, we make these connections with these cultural meanings, thus playing on how we interpret the product being advertised and go on to associate with.
In the case of the Old Spice advertisement, we see the substitution of the paradigm of a topless man on a horse, on a beach. From this, we come to a finished meaning of a well-built, masculine, out-doors man. As he is on a horse, we connect it to a meaning of a rustic, cowboy type man; while the use of white again alters the finished meaning to something more pure, clean and honest. The mans clothes (or lack of there of) suggests a meaning of a stylish or contemporary man. The beach and tropical tree suggests a meaning of exotic and fresh scents, combined with a relaxed, warm and comfortable feeling. The diamonds pouring from the Old Spice mans hand/ the product itself suggest wealth or beautiful diamond jewelry (desired by women).
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Myths & Narrative
It was French literary theorist, philosopher and semiotician Roland Barthes, who developed the idea of the third level of signification; the myth. As we know with prior levels of signification; A signifier refers to any material thing that signifies, such as words on page, facial expressions, images, etc; while the signified is the concept any signifier refers to. Barthes’ third level, what he called ‘The Myth’, refers to our own individual life experiences, as well as societal and cultural values we have been taught; and thus, how we apply them to the signs we are presented with and decode. As each individual lives a uniquely different life to another, having experienced many different things that others have not, and having been brought up in a societal or cultural environment to other; Barthes suggests that each individual then applies these unique experiences and differences when decoding the information given, therefore suggesting that the resulting decoded meaning may be different to another individuals decoded meaning.
In the case of this Old Spice advertisement there are many elements used, which could be interpreted or decoded differently between two individuals. Taking the most obvious; the colour white used twice in the horse and in the mans trousers would suggest to many in western culture as meaning purity, peace, honesty or goodness (Often used in early western movies – the good guy would often wear a white hat, while the bad guy would wear a black hat). Through western media in films and television, as well as western literature; the colour white has become an automatic meaning for all things good and pure; cleverly used here to suggest to the targeted western audiences that the product is good, clean and pure. However, to an eastern audience, the colour white has a quite opposite meaning of coldness, death, misfortune or unhappiness in many eastern countries. Although clearly not intended for eastern audiences, this does show how its meaning could be decoded quite differently to an individual who has lived a different life experience or culture to another. In terms of individual experiences of individuals; the portrayal of a warm, sunny beach may nor appeal to someone who dislikes such an environment due to a bad experience or due to health reason such as allergies, travel sickness, etc. As such, while many may see the advertisement as an attractive and positive image of the ideal relaxing destination; another may see it as a negative location, due to to individually bad experiences associated with warm, sunny locations or coastal beaches.
In Katherine Frith‘s ‘Undressing The Ad‘ (1998), she states that there are 3 levels of meaning:
Surface Meaning – What we first see at a glance ‘on the surface’. Here in the Old Spice advertisement we see a man on a horse with a beach and sea in the background.
The advertisers intended meaning – In advertising, an image quite often is intended to do more than just show you something nice or entertain you, often they are intended to get a specific message across to you, or often ‘prove something to you’. This could mean anything from the product being of benefit to you, to you missing out on something. This Old Spice ad clearly has an intended meaning, intentionally made obvious so as to make it humorous (or a self parody of product advertisement such as this), therefore adding value to the product and making somewhat more popular for having done so. Here the intended message is that if you buy this, you will be confident, strong, handsome, more masculine like the Old Spice man in the image. The presence of the horse suggests that if you buy this, you will be wild and free. The tropical beach suggests that if you buy this product, you will be exotic, attractive, hot and relaxed. Combined, these intended meanings are intentionally obvious, bombarding the viewer, but once we get the humor suggested; we still come away from it with these same connotations.
Cultural or Ideological meaning – This meaning relies on the knowledge or awareness of the viewer. Similar to Barthes ‘Myth’, this meaning can only be decoded by the individual with the compatible life experiences or lived culture. Having shared in the life experiences or the cultural experiences that the image suggests; the individual successfully decodes the intended meaning. The portrayal of the well-built, masculine Old Spice man seen here, to many would suggest a meaning to us of the ‘perfect man’ to aspire to, or a desirable partner, this is due to a common taught culture of what healthy, athletic and masculine should look like. However, another individual who, due to life experiences or personal preferences, may not see the same suggested meaning, thus coming away from the image with a confused or negative meaning (thus the meaning fails in its intention). It is because the image relies on the more common and culturally accepted representation of the ‘perfect man’ or ‘what a fit and healthy man looks like’, rather than the possible alternative of what that image may mean to another individual, that this image is used.
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Roles within advertising
Quite often in advertising, we see men and women portrayed in a stereotypical manner; often due to what is being culturally accepted at that time. The portrayal of the stupid, housebound woman of advertisements in the 50s and 60s would not be acceptable today and would incite outrage from both genders, because attitudes (although still apparent in more subtle forms in advertisements today) are not culturally acceptable and thus a more equal attitude is encouraged. We do see however, portrayals of men or women in advertising as objects of desire or of negativity, due to they’re portrayal in a stereotypical way.
Women:
Mothers – A role required of women.
Strippers – A trope prevalent in pop culture, where the role of women as strippers for male entertainment is normalized.
Dolls – Women objectified as a lifeless, controlled toy/object.
Consumers – Inseparable from consumer goods and shopping. Feminism connected to consumerism.
Naggers – The trope of a complaining, overly talkative need for attention where linguistic violence is common.
Difficult – The weaker sex, controlled by men. Prone to personal, psychological or physical ailment.
Men:
Stronger sex
Cultured – Working or traveling outdoors.
Heros – Protectors of women. Dependent – women dependent on men.
Stupidity – Little emotion, simple ideas/knowledge, prone to stupid actions, does not think things through.
In the context of this Old Spice ad, we see the gender stereotypes of men played on intentionally. The Old Spice man is portrayed here as a strong and muscular man (‘The perfect man’). The tropical location and horse suggest he is cultured in the ways of horse riding and has travelled to exotic locations. As he does not need protection from the sun, seems relaxed and at ease in little clothing; it is suggested he travels to exotic locations quite often. With his stylish clothing, it is suggested he knows his fashion and wears stylish clothing over tacky t-shirts and shorts. His confident pose and cape-like shirt hanging over his back; suggests an element of subtle heroism and protective masculinity. Possibly added to by a supernatural-like talent for producing vast amounts of diamonds from his hands (also suggesting that he is wealthy due to this product). There may also be an element of stupidity here as the obvious random elements of a man on a horse for not particular reason suggests the Old Spice man is either eccentric, or a tad stupid in bringing a horse to the beach. As the advertisement does this randomness on purpose however; the stupidity is not entirely placed on the individual in the advertisement, but on the running theme/ setting of the advertisement campaign as a whole.
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If you would like to know more about the wider Old Spice ‘man on a horse’ advertisement campaign, which uses the humor of the random objects and settings to more effect, while also playing up to the role of the man in the advertisements intended message, heres one of the more popular videos from the campaign available on YouTube (Its quite funny):
