Journal Entry #2: Appropriation and Bricolage

Sturken and Cartwright discuss the phenomenon of “appropriation” as the act of borrowing, stealing, or taking other’s meanings to one’s own ends and "cultural appropriation" as the process of borrowing and changing the meaning of commodities, cultural products, slogans, images, or elements of fashion.  A related concept is “bricolage,” which ties to the idea of creating new meaning through the use of existing materials (making do).

From popular culture (TV, film, magazines, Internet, advertising), find an example of how the creator appropriates another’s meaning to his/her/its own end, or uses bricolage to create new meaning from existing objects. Post a link to the image and answer the following questions, citing evidence from the image or artifact to support your answers:

a.       What is the original intended meaning?

b.      In what way is the image/artifact appropriated or altered/recombined to create new meaning?

c.       What is that new meaning, how is it different from the intended meaning, and why do you think it is important?

Journal Entry #1: Real or Fake

This assignment is being posted early and can be commented on at any time, but it may be more beneficial for students to wait until after we have covered some of the material in class. Nevertheless, take a look and complete the assignment by the deadline.

Your job is to examine the images below and answer the following questions. Make sure to base your judgments solely on the image and do not do conduct research to find the answer.

1. Are you already familiar with this image? If so, do not comment further
2. Do you think the images are “true” or “false”? In other words, are they "real" or "faked."
3. What evidence do you have to support your conclusion? 

Please identify each image as you post your answer.

You can click on each picture for a slightly larger view.

1. Airline: This picture was allegedly taken by an individual aboard an 

Air France flight which crashed over Brazil.  

2. Katrina: This is purportedly an image taken by a red light camera in
New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. The black square shows the speed
of the vehicle as approximately 130 mph.

Desert: This is an image of a indoor ski complex supposedly located in
the Middle East in the middle of the desert.  

Welcome!

This blog will be used in part to complete the journal entry assignment for the Visual Persuasion class. On the assigned dates, I will post a question to which students must respond. However, I actively encourage you to also use this blog to post questions or insights into anything discussed in class. This site should be used to productively understand the concepts related to visual persuasion specifically and visual communication in general.