Native Advertisement

Native advertisement is when news companies agree to “sneak” advertisements into their reports disguised as actual news. This takes many forms though primarily is found in print advertisements. Below is a link to one such native advert.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/abagg/kid-rave

The audience seems to be adults, as the title grabs the attention of the viewer effectively, be it parents or children. The audience then finds that there is a company, CrizKiz, which plans fun and adventurous parties for little kids (6-12 years old). As we can see from the first few lines, it attempts to persuade the reader that this kind of party is superior to other young childrens’ parties. 

The text is made of a lot of pictures attempting to show the different party style and also the reaction of the kids as better when compared to the norm. The tone is excited yet laid back. In that, the kids are very clearly having a great deal of fun and the parents in the pictures are completely okay with what is happening around them. 

Like many other native advertisements, it blatantly advertises CrizKiz, but tries to conceal its own bias, which it does not do very well. It uses personal pronouns in order to appeal to a wide range of people, hence creating a bandwagon effect. The engagement comes in the title when it mentions a group of elementary school students raving like adults. It is high developed through the pictures and sentences to seem like a real news article. However, it is not diverse in structure or word choice. It uses very few literary devices, trying to seem normal and spontaneous.

Generation Like: A short reflection on an excellent documentary

In todays class, we saw the documentary titled "Generation Like", which explored the role of social media in shaping advertainment. It tries to answer the question:

"Thanks to social media, teens are able to directly interact with their culture -- celebrities, movies, brands -- in ways never before possible. But is that real empowerment? Or do marketers hold the upper hand?"

To convey my thoughts on the answer to this question, I will try and evaluate the possible consequences of people structuring their identity around commercial products and initiatives. 
Due to the boom of social media today, people have started to try and construct their identities through their profiles.
 Your 'Profile Pictures' and 'About you' along with the pages you have 'followed' or 'liked' are supposed to structure your identity. People have started taking this idea seriously, and begun carefully maintaining and 'spring-cleaning' their social networking profiles. This is no surprise considering the steepness of the slope of success social media has had over the past 5 years. Due to this extensive use of social media by consumers, producers along with marketing agencies have started to build advertising profiles. This ensures that advertisements are targeted toward specific people.
 But the fact that digital citizens' identity is constructed through their profiles is frightening. If people continue doing this, it will lead to an eventual loss of human values that we today abide by. Sure, social media is a good medium to spread awareness. But when you start describing yourself by the value of a material good, service or initiative, it just takes away all humane values. 
Loss of cultural values may also take place. When teens are supposed too be praying, celebrating festivals or doing an activity that relates to their culture, they may be on social media, 'constructing' their identity, being exposed to multiple advertisements and pop culture. Techniques such as product placement are used in songs or movies to promote their use.As these advertisements and pop culture slowly become a part of life, there may be cultural loss. 
Such a construction of identity may also lead us to not having a specific identity. Due to the vastness of the advertisements we are exposed to in a day, we may become confused. In the end, we become really clueless as who we are or what we want to buy and this proves to be a real menace in some societies.
But this change is inevitable. Advertainment has become a part of our daily life. There are billboards everywhere, and advertisements on radio and the television. This paired with the boom in social media has further accelerated the advertising industry. There is bound to be a change in our lifestyle and identity eventually, if it continues to grow at the same rate. Even though it is not visible as much now, it is happening, slowly but surely.

Go back to Australia Iggy! [Personal Response to the berating of the Indian community in the music video 'Bounce']

Back in the day, Iggy released the song 'Bounce', which on hearing for the first time, sounds like a typical Azalea song. It has the drop to make you bounce, and the beat to make you sweep.The lyrics, as usual, have words that rhyme with Iggy and make no apparent sense whatsoever. But on watching the video, oh my, you will not think of the song in the same way ever again. The lyrics have no real meaning, and the context of the music video make them demeaning and even more, well, meaningless.
This video is filmed in three different situations, the first film sequence depicting  'The Big Fat Indian Wedding'. Iggy walks in wearing the Sari, but in a very different manner from the norm. The revealing nature of her costume mocks the traditional image of a sari. A sari symbolises a woman's beauty and the Indian culture of respect for the elders. Saris are normally supposed to cover a woman from head to toe, but Iggy walks in almost half naked, revealing more than she should. This is cultural appropriation, and the 'sari' that Iggy has donned is an insult to it's own culture.
During this sequence, there are short screens of Iggy riding an elephant through the streets of Mumbai in a gold clad outfit. This symbolises the power she is trying to exert over the people on the streets. It feels as if she wants to show how she is at the pinnacle of being 'Indian' than anybody else, by sitting on top of the great animal and looking down at the commoners, literally.
In the other scene, Iggy is shown in front of an open temple, where people go to pray everyday. Dancing in front of the idol everyone worships is just not very nice, Iggy. There are also a couple of different people in this scene. A priest is shown conduction the venerations, and after they are done, he takes a big puff of his cigarette. There might be some priests who do that, but showing it on screen is just not acceptable.
These scenes keep on interrupting each other, and this goes on until the end. The lyrics just don't sync with the video, and whatever the song tries to convey is completely false about Indian culture. No, people do not 'bounce' in Indian weddings. No, people do not wear half-cut saris to weddings and dance like you don't give a care in them. People who have a positive opinion about the video say that it celebrates Indian culture. The scenes though just don't look like she's celebrating Indian culture. Sometimes, it feels as if Iggy tries to berate the Indian culture. Given Iggy celebrates Holi and dances in the wedding with a lot of spirit, this video still doesn't give an impression of celebrating Indian culture. It appears as if Iggy and the director were stuck between celebrating Indian culture and appropriating it, and have made a complete mess of what was already a really bad song.