English Writing 11-1/ National Image/ Pursuing Freedom from Market Imagery

Pursuing Freedom from Market Imagery

             All advertisements and brand images originate from misconceptions. Brand images are especially considered as a more intentional illusion, for there is a clear purpose that lies behind the protruded imagery. Promotions are done in strategic, selective level, without the notice of normal citizens (Williamson). Because advertisements and promotion of national image at a governmental level has an inherent tendency of selectively omits the hidden and exaggerates the shown, the receiver of these images tend to be more passive then the days when promotion was done in a unclassified, slow way.

             However, such phenomenon has been accelerating ever since the creation of mass media. People no longer consume materials; they purchase and utilize signs created by the distortions of reality (Baudriallard). A product’s function is less important than what it had been in the past. More important is the congregated emotions and social atmosphere around the product. For example, if one brand is more popular than the other, the brand is chosen solely for that reason. Consumers nowadays cannot differentiate the taste between McCafe and Starbucks, but many still prefer Starbucks if affordable. This is the reason why companies invest innumerable dollars of money on advertisement and promotion. If it had been only companies, this phenomenon would have limited effects, but because governments started to utilize its national image to sell products, the integrity of this condition has increased.

             Before exploring the reasons of what influence this phenomenon has inflicted, it is crucial to understand the mechanism of this set of incidents. In order to do so, deconstruction of an initial case would be helpful. For such purposes, Korean reaction toward Italian food pasta would be most apt for analysis. Interesting aspect of Koreans is that they eat pasta in special occasions such as dating or anniversaries. This supports Baudriallard’s claim, for it is not the taste that drives Korean to give ritualistic meaning towards pasta, it is the cultural content congregated with the food. The denotative elements such as wheat or tomato are not manipulated by Italian government or commercial conglomerates, but the connotative components such as luxury or healthiness certainly are. At least for a number of Koreans, pasta is a luxurious cuisine.

             The factual matter of this imagery is not important. Whether there is a historical record that directly refutes this illusion is irrelevant to the construction of the distortion in reality. Because signs create images, they are irresponsible for factual and logical proving. It is an intuitive process where cultural symbols have meaning instead of factual proving. When soap dramas send out scenes of luxurious pasta restaurants or when Italian government spend money on promoting their cuisine, imagery becomes formidable by such refutations. It indirectly goes through the signification process without literally stating the luxuriousness of the food. By doing so, cultural mirages gain momentum and appear to consumers as a real being. This process is called privation of history, for it erases the history off a relevant sign, and fills the sign with profitable meanings (Barthes).

             Such fraud can only be done because consumers are unaware of the actual information. They never went to factory sites where tomatoes are canned by machines instead of beautiful Italian ladies hand-picking ripe red tomatoes under the sunshine. There no longer exists the real pasta for the culturally deceived. A new profitable invention waits to be eaten. From the power to arrange signs and symbols, the state or the companies gain power to make profit by distorting the reality. The profit is evenly distributed from the government with tax and companies with cash.

             National brand image is no different from the myth derived from Italian pasta. Only difference between the two is that it is a much bigger discourse that contains smaller products such as pasta, benefiting the state with the profit driven out of it. Brand image explicitly shows off its purpose of commercialization. The purpose of such illusion is not morality, people’s benefits or knowledge; it is only hard cash. From this, people are objectified, treated more of a wallet that pays for this well-assembled sign, not material. Beautiful colors and grandiose rhetoric explaining the significance of culture in advertisements can be thought as servants of consumerism that deceives individuals.     

             The only way to stop this tragedy is to fight back the power to construct meaning and signs from the state. Instead of distorted depiction of fake reality, individuals should be more skeptical of governmental efforts to promote national image. People should form civic spheres to voluntarily share information to protect each other from the power of capital and state. Individuals who are aware of the Chimeric breeding of state and company should never sway towards passive obedience towards cultural hegemony. They should get a clear grip of what is happening, and reclassify the signs and the context around themselves.

References

Books

Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Seoul: Hyundae Mihak, 1995

Baudriallard, La Societe de Consummation ses Mythes ses Structures. Seoul: Munye Chulpan, 1991

Online

Williamson, Lucy. “Selling South Korea: No ‘sparkling’ brand image”. BBC. 31.01.2012. Web. 05.03.2012