Candy Paint

Indispensible aspects of our society, cars have become a very useful way of expressing oneself to others. Whether one is buying to show off status or to accommodate for an increasingly larger family size, our society transposes certain stereotypes from vehicles onto the people that drive them. Many of these stereotypes are obvious to the general public, like a middle-aged woman driving a mini-van who is known as the “soccer mom”, or a vehicle with tinted windows and large rims being identified as a youth likely in their late teens or early twenties.

What is interesting about vehicles is that they are everywhere in our society and this causes some to become immune to the fact that they act as a medium. Additionally, the greater the knowledge that one has of vehicles, the greater the ability he/she has to further stereotype drivers by the vehicle they are operating. Croteau and Hoynes explain this idea when they write “Understanding or ‘decoding’ these messages requires knowledge of the conventions of the medium and the workings of the culture” (275). Thus, if one knows specific types of exhaust and stereo systems, he/she can further dissect who may be driving a vehicle by what the actual vehicle entails. Vehicles, therefore, present a medium where multiple mediums inside the whole can determine the interpreted meaning by the audience. With innumerable variations at one’s disposal, vehicles are an extremely unique medium in our society.

Take a look at a Honda commercial that displays people's faces as cars

Home or Away?

            Across our nation one can find massive establishments that bring together thousands of people on a regular basis. The structures that I speak of are without a doubt professional sport stadiums. Many do not view these stadiums as mediums because as children they were raised calling the stadium by a nickname, and not realizing the corporate connotation behind the actual name. Take for instance the TD Garden in Boston. Most of the people that I know from the Boston area simply call it the “Garden”, leaving out TD Bank which is the arena’s formal name. This concept can be seen with numerous stadiums like Tropicana Field being called “The Trop”, HP Pavilion being called “The Shark Tank”, and many more.

            Additionally, within each stadium one can find an absolute jungle of advertisements. Take for instance during hockey games where the boards along the ice are seamlessly lined with advertisements. Furthermore, seating sections are even named after corporations such as the Dunkin’ Donuts section at Fenway Park. Croteau and Hoynes summarize these examples when they write “the concept of ‘mass media’ has been based on a communication structure in which a small number of ‘senders’ direct messages to a large number of ‘receivers’” (74). Professional sport stadiums are great examples of mass media as they communicate to a vast number of unknown receivers. Yet, as this may be true, many do not realize that these stadiums act in this manner because they have been conditioned to view the corporate names and advertisements as commonplace.

Here's a video of all the NFL Stadiums. Take note of how many have corporations in their name:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BpWqKzG8pE

What's Your Sign?

             When thinking of a medium, I considered how people usually communicate and immediately thought of speaking, or vocal communication. Yet, as I thought about how those communicate when they are unable to use their voice, I came upon sign language. The idea of using only movements by one’s hands to convey an extremely complex message is extremely interesting. Additionally, the application of sign language is much larger than most anticipate.

            The most basic application of sign language would be the fundamental concept of using one’s hands to create letters and words. This is commonly seen at public functions such as an event speaker, with a person sitting on the side translating his/her words to sign language. What is intriguing here is that the audience interpreting the signs from the person creating the sign language is interpreting these messages as ideas created by the speaker. Thus, the speaker’s ideas depend on what the person creating the signs relays to the audience who depends of the sign language. Croteau and Hoynes explain this idea when they write “in the education example, the structure of education constrains students, but students also have a great deal of leeway in what they study” (21). Relating back to the idea of the event speaker, the person creating the sign is constrained by the event speaker, but he/she ultimately has absolute control over what he/she relays to the audience through what he/she decides to sign.

            What sign language presents is this setting is whether the event speaker or the person relaying the signs has more control over the message constructed. What do you think?

Here's an example of two guys doing sign language of another's piece of music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCZkQ_s-Bdk&feature=related