The Shrinking World

         The world in the modern age is smaller than it has ever been before. This is due to many factors, including the invention of of vehicles that allow us to travel great distances in relatively short periods of time and more recently the information sharing technologies (namely the internet, as well as cheaper media production devices), which in a bit of a twist are rendering those other technologies obsolete as we can send information from point A, lets say Burma, to points B, C, Q, and Z, the rest of the world, in a matter of minutes. This shrinking of the world means that its many cultures are more connected than they have ever been before, and that connection is what we refer to as globalization.

Globalization in turn leads to the sharing of media, and when one country or culture adopts and then adapts say an entertaining TV comedy to resonate more with a local audience we have whats known as cultural hybridization, or glocalization. We can see this in one TV comedy in particular: The Office.

The Office was created first in the UK in 2001, and the show has since been adapted for audiences in the US, France, Brazil, Germany, and most recently Israel. Those adaptations follow the same format, but by changing the setting as well as the individual jokes and of course the language, the show is made more resonant within that particular country. 

Open Happiness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjixzd0qUew&feature=related

This Coca-Cola advertisement is a little old, I believe its from the past year’s Super Bowl, which is essentially the advertising event of the year (for American advertisers at least, but thats part of the reason I think its so powerful. It has staying power. The other two reasons why I believe it succeeds are its production values, which are sky-high, and the fact that it is quite simply a happy little story. The advertisement, while there, almost takes a back seat to the little insect-based vignette that unfolds as the usually creepy-crawlers band together to pull off a heist. That happiness is what sells the product, as the ad is basically saying, “Coca-cola makes the world into a beautiful place.”    

In this way the advertisement is an appeals to the motion of escapism, as mentioned in the lecture by prof. Straubhaar. That notion also plays into the safety appeal, as by drinking, or at least buying, Coca-cola we can escape to a happier time, i.e. our childhood. These kinds of advertisements generally play on that idea that once, as children, we had a much brighter view of the world and the products in these ads are offering to help us get back there. 

The advertisement linked to above exemplifies this approach in presenting nature in an idealistic, everyone works together for a common goal than shares in the end, childlike way. Also the song, Peter and the Wolf (which is a classic children's tale) by Sergei Prokoflev, is a song that we identify with childhood, or at least I remember it from mine (making me probably more susceptible to its wiles). In addition everything in the ad, from the colors to the setting and animations, is geared towards making the audience happy and in this regard the ad succeeds. In that success we are allowed that brief escape and the company hopes that we feel grateful enough to buy its product.