Signs of Life in the USA - Assignment Example

Signs of Life in the USA: Quiz Inter-cultural communication has been the most significant basis for the demographic development experienced in the civilization of the world. Vast area of knowledge necessarily takes the help of sign languages or semiotics in the process of academic training across various teaching communities. This way of communication has always helped in storing valued knowledge relevant to each period of time in the cultural development of many societies even in the history. According to Maasik and Solomon, study of semiotics is a device for intersecting the learning of American culture and popular culture (vi). The authors are optimistic about the better scope of semiotics in teaching than the traditionally advocated lectures because the new methodology encourages the students to explore the course work assignments through a number of visual media aids. Moreover, they also believe that semiotic techniques are helpful for the students to comprehend and explain ideas about things related to the past as well as the present times. In this way, semiotics can connect the learning strategies related to both popular and American cultures with more examples from the everyday life of people. Another importance of semiotics in learning the American culture is that it provides for easier understanding of vast database with the help of digitalized processing of information through symbols and pictures. 2. In a sense, American mythology deals with the expectations of superhuman attributes to characters in literature and individuals from real life with their messages for social wellbeing along with self-styled gender-specific roles. Semiotics techniques in communication are largely related to mass media and visual arts in America. Movies, television shows and theatrical performances etc benefit directly from semiotics in the process of advertising. Visualizing the characters of stories and sagas require gender specified role definitions. Some of them are attached to the positive emotions while others are attributed to negative feelings of mankind. As a result, semiotics helps in making the cultural modeling of both individual and mythological characters with special qualities through pictures and symbols. There are specific differences between myths and archetypes. “An archetype is anything that has been repeated in storytelling from ancient times to the present” (367). There are comic sequels like ‘Batman’, movies like ‘Men in Black’ and novels like ‘Harry Potter’ etc to stand phenomenal models of archetypes. They are strategically and visually different from their predecessors like ‘The Iliad’ because of the changes brought by cultural beliefs. Culture plays a vital role in defining the stake for both men and women in the society. The book, ‘Sings of Life in the USA’, reveals the value system of the American society that assigns gender-based provisions for understanding the responsibilities of women and men with regards to family relationships (19). A cultural picture of the society entrusts the women with more emotional care for the elderly stakeholders; while men are supposed to provide more physically demanding assistance to their family. The importance of an existing application of the ‘American myth’ in the popular culture is visible from the division of behavior models meant for both men and women characters. The book specifies courtship behavior as an example, in which the males are treated as initiators and the females are found to follow the proposals. Semiotics applied in the popular culture of America has changed from time to time based on the relevance of each gender model visualized in different period of the cultural development. As such, it is important to see that a flexible viewpoint exists to evaluate the relevance of the mythological portrayal of both men and women, particularly with regards to changing social contexts. While considering the above fact, a generalization can be made that changes in semiotics is a basic requirement along with popular expectations about gender roles. 3. Communication is most priced when it matters large volumes of sales of commodities. The importance of advertisements through semiotics is explored by Twitchell in his finding about the making-marketing cycle in business with specific roles for all the stakeholders. His studies about the relationship between marketing and semiotic applications deals fairly with the consumer behavior based on psychographics, ethnographic, macro segmentation and other related elements of the socio-marketing relationship. VALS2 + (Values and Lifestyle System) in the American context explains the behaviors and standards of consumers based on the quality and identity of each product in the market (183). According to the author, buyers of products and services form abstract groups of interests, social status, quality expectations etc. Twitchell makes a relationship pattern to describe the stereotypical models present in the invisible scaffold of marketing in the American context of business. The two inversely placed pyramids of behavioral groups of customers explain the traditional segmentation of marketing in the USA (185). In the top pyramid, actualizers at the top denote a group of wise buyers who doesn’t need any advertisement. Fulfilled group are a satisfied lot while the believers are a group influenced by common beliefs and traditions. Achievers are the real actors in the success of the advertising deal, for they value prestige. The strivers are non-significant players if they are old, and they are often leasers. As the marketing tactics shows, experiences are an enthusiastic lot that play a vital role in the promotion of advertisements. Makers are the most industrious of all, who try a hand in almost all the tasks associated with their daily life. Strugglers are the group away from the reach of marketing because of their poor income despite the hidden desire to buy things. These character segmentations are ideals for large scale marketers like those of automobiles, beverages etc in expanding the public reach of their products for improved profitability through advertisements. 4. American popular culture has always shown the traits of natural role of genders through literary works and visual arts in which both males and females have differentiated parts to play. A large number of people in the US are of the traditional view that makes this behavioral classification between males and females. However, Devor challenges this tradition by claiming that gender roles are cultural creations and not natural models (672). A critical observation of the American popular culture finds that masculinism and femininism do exist in the visual arts and literature. These bifurcated gender-modeling represents males as aggressive and dominant characters; while females are passive and obedient counterparts. This stereotypical representation of gender roles promoted by the American popular culture clearly indicates that role reversal in the social point of view is a remote reality for the American population. According to the author, the gender divisions in social exposure of both male and female are the hierarchical patterns of the cultural views of the American population. This static belief around the two genders forms a classic picture of both males and females in the political systems also. While men are shown as greedy for power and leadership; women are portrayed with their love for material things. Social application of subversions and inversions of gender roles at public events is thus challenged by the existing gender structure in the popular culture of America. In simple words, the character definition attributed by films and other popular culture can significantly affect the proposals like role-reversals, subversions and inversions of male and female participants. 5. Professor Omi has a very critical view of the role of the American popular culture in the making and maintenance of racial ideologies. His statement, “Popular culture……….our ‘racial’ existence” (678) looks into the fact of racial discrimination that prevails in the social scenario of America. The author says that the popular culture production in US has created the platform for making a racial atmosphere across the diversified societies. The examples of televisions shows that visualize the derogatory roles of different ethnic groups indicate that producers of such programs are focusing on the wild publicity of their products without consideration for the humanitarian values. An overview of the total quality of the products of the American culture makes it clear that the increasing number of incidents in which racism is exposed wrongly translates to the cultural distances between the segmented demographic groups within the country. For instance, the racism and color discrimination prevailing in the movies represent the black community as sexually aggressive and intellectually compromised group. Such inferior representations of any particular group of the population have adverse impact at the macro-level social exposure of its members. The author further clarifies that, the popular culture has made racism a common sense among the American population and a stereotypical approach is spread towards different groups in the society (627). Moreover, the existence of racial classification has become politically popularized by forming and naming groups like ‘whites’, ‘Mexican’, ‘black’ or ‘Oriental’ in the present context, for which movies and other popular culture are the reasons. Works Cited Maasik, Sonia and Solomon, Jack. Signs of Life in the USA. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. Read More