ANALYSIS OF MULTIMEDIA PRACTICAL RESEARCH PROJECT
Posters are a frequent tool of advertisers, propagandists, and protestors to communicate their massages. The use of poster as medium to convey the intended purposes could give great impact for its viewer or audience in a way that they could easily being persuaded by the content of a poster. This is because most of posters utilise specific words or combination of words – images to create meanings of the messages. The main idea of this poster is an anti-war protest. It is a self-expression to react against wars. Many people believe that there is never a good side to war. It is innocent children that have suffered the most from war and we have lost many of precious children, soldiers and innocent people because of it. This kind of anti war poster is a crucial tool not only to promote anti war campaign but also to support victims of wars in order to make the world a better place to live. This essay will analyse the use of poster as multimedia product to represent the practice of communication through juxtaposition of verbal texts – in term of typography –, representation of colours and images. This poster will be analysed in the context of its intended purpose, that is an anti-war protest. All aspects of analysis – verbal texts, colour and images – will be dealt with in turn in this essay.
Walter J. Ong in his book Orality and Literacy (1982) explains since the introduction of the technology of writing, it becomes the most drastic invention in human history. This is particularly in way it started the next generation of different type of writing forms such as print and computer. As he wrote “It [writing] initiated what print and computers only continue, the reduction of dynamic sound to quiescent space, separation of the word from the living present, where alone spoken words can exist” (Ong, 1982 : 82). Writing is not merely a bad copy of spoken word. Writing in fact has changed the way we think and talk. This is what Derrida in his book Of Grammatology was trying to draw. He coined the term “deconstruction” as crucial opposition between speech and writing. Derrida’s theory of deconstruction describes writing as a technology and communicative practice for indicating the politics of a situation or an event or act. He expresses the meaning of writing by stating, “The idea of the book, in which always refers to a natural totality, is profoundly alien to the sense of writing. It is the encyclopaedic protection of theology and of logocentrism against the disruption of writing, against its aphoristic energy, and, … against difference in general” (Derrida, 1976 : 18).
This poster tries to communicate the message using combination of writing, images and colour. The expectation of this attempt is that the audience will stop and look, then interpret the meaning of the message according to their own perception. As a tool of communication, writing has a powerful impact on our consciousness in way it could change our perception about the world around us. Ong, (1982 : 82) explains how technology of writing could affect our consciousness:Walter J. Ong in his book Orality and Literacy (1982) explains since the introduction of the technology of writing, it becomes the most drastic invention in human history. This is particularly in way it started the next generation of different type of writing forms such as print and computer. As he wrote “It [writing] initiated what print and computers only continue, the reduction of dynamic sound to quiescent space, separation of the word from the living present, where alone spoken words can exist” (Ong, 1982 : 82). Writing is not merely a bad copy of spoken word. Writing in fact has changed the way we think and talk. This is what Derrida in his book Of Grammatology was trying to draw. He coined the term “deconstruction” as crucial opposition between speech and writing. Derrida’s theory of deconstruction describes writing as a technology and communicative practice for indicating the politics of a situation or an event or act. He expresses the meaning of writing by stating, “The idea of the book, in which always refers to a natural totality, is profoundly alien to the sense of writing. It is the encyclopaedic protection of theology and of logocentrism against the disruption of writing, against its aphoristic energy, and, … against difference in general” (Derrida, 1976 : 18).
Like other artificial creations and indeed more than any other, it is utterly invaluable and indeed essential for the realisation of fuller, interior, human potentials. Technologies are not mere exterior aids but also interior transformations of consciousness, and never more than when they affect the word. Such transformations can be uplifting. Writing heightens consciousness.
As a central processor in our mind, consciousness will make a selection which stimulus is most likely being processed as information. As Hodd & White, JR (1980 : 34) explain “Naturally, we would except the pertinent percepts generated earlier to have a greater probability of entering consciousness than the less valued percepts.” Certain stimuli are selected and occupy consciousness because they have certain characteristics that draw our attention. This is for instance people organise ads in a manner so as to capture attention. Contrast, Colour and size of print are important characteristics to raise our consciousness.
On the choice of typeface, the title War On What uses shlop type of font designed by Ray Larabie. The reason to use this type of font is simply because it gives sense of terror and fear. And this type of font is a useful tool to illustrate the horror of the war. Gage (1999 : 22) states that “responses to colour, it is argued, go back to archetypal human experiences of black night, white bone, red blood, and so on.” The use of combination black-red on white could signify dead and blood, brought by war to the children and many innocent people, who suffer and die without even know and understand what war is about. White signifies cleanliness and purity for children and other innocent people. As Tschichold (2001 : 120) puts it “New Typography colour is used functionally, i.e. physiological effect peculiar to each colour is used to increase or decrease the importance of a block of type, a photograph, or whatever.” Hence, the already strong contrasts between black – the basic colour of the poster – and white can be greatly enhanced by the addition of red.
The same idea for the words GREED, ANGER, JEALOUSY, HATRED, AROGANCE, HEGEMONY is to signify the meaning of the word itself through this type of font – horror designed by Patrick Broderick –. The contrast colour between black and white explicitly indicates bad and good or darkness and lightness. The words in black signify bad qualities of human being. Whereas white signifies the nature of the world as a representation of the characteristics of God – purity, cleanliness, and sacredness –. The idea is derived from the iconography in the early Middle Ages, where the use of these colours in the Western Church represents specific offices. “Black, wrote Innocent III about 1200, is emblematic of penance and mourning, and thus used for Advent and Lent, white of innocent and purity, and was used on the feast of the Virgin…” (Gage, 1999 : 70).
The poem at the right side of the poster uses bearpaw font – designed by Dennis Anderson –. The font seems as it is written by hand with repeated lines and shapes. The intended purpose is to give sense that someone has written the poem for the soldiers and also for the war victims who died because of war. The last sentence “By the loss of another precious child” after the words “A World Diminished” is put above the images of war victims, which is in a grave shape. These sentences reinforce the images and the grave or vice versa, in order to deliver the message. As Cranny-Francis (2005 : 11) puts it “… the verbal and visual are interrelated to generate meanings.”
The juxtaposition of visual images and writings in the middle of the poster also generates the meaning and the idea of the poster. The title War On What related to this combination image-text, particularly the captions “WE’RE ONLY HERE FOR THE OIL” and “WHOSE WAR”. Both captions in satirical way indicate the political purpose (e.g. oil, money or profit) behind many wars, for instance The Iraq War or The Second Gulf War, which is by U.S. military, called Operation Iraqi Freedom. The question “WHOSE WAR” highlights the image of George W. Bush, JR. and his coalition groups who carry guns and money. This is what Barthes called “the text loads the image”. As he puts it “the image no longer illustrates the words; it is now the words which, structurally, are parasitic on the image” (Barthes, 1977 : 25). In other words the meaning of the image of George W. Bush, JR. and his coalition groups becomes more obvious with the words “WHOSE WAR” on it.
In short, all juxtaposition of images and texts has produced meanings that related to the intended purpose of this poster as an anti-war campaign. Barthes (1977:39, in Kress, G. & Theo Van Leeuwen, 1996:16) argues, “The meaning of the images [and of other semiotic codes] is always related to, and, in a sense, dependent on, verbal text. Images are too ‘polysemous’, too open to a variety of possible meanings. To arrive at a definite meaning, language [text] must come to the rescue”. In other words the images will be ‘disabled’ without verbal texts. And verbal texts furnish more obvious meaning to the images.
In summary, it appears that the utilisation of specific words or combination of words, colours, and images plays significant role to express the intended purpose of the poster. The choice of certain fonts and colours will affect the way we interpret the messages conveyed in the poster. The images also will be reinforced by the present of certain verbal texts. All these combinations will construct the whole point and idea of the poster.
REFERENCE
Barthes, Roland. 1977. Image/Music/Text: Essays. Selected and trans. Stephen Heath.
London: Fontana.
Cranny-Francis, A. 2005. Multimedia: Texts and Contexts. London: Sage Publications.
Derrida, Jacques. 1977. Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. London:
The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Dodd, David H. and Raymond M. White, JR. 1980. Cognition. Mental Structure and
Process. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.
Gage, John. 1999. Colour and Meaning: Art, Science and Symbolism. London: Thames &
Hudson.
Kress, G. & Theo Van Leeuwen. 1996 Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design.
London: Routhledge.
Ong, Walter J. 1982. Orality and Literacy. The Technologizing of the Word. London:
Routledge.
Tschichold, Jan. 2001. “The Principal of the New Typography” in Steven Heller and
Phillip B. Meggs (eds.), Text on Type: Critical Writings on Typography. New
York: Allworth Press.
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