Analysis Development of Bell Bajao - Case Study Example

Name Case Development: Bell Bajao Course Date Case Development: Bell Bajao Introduction Bell Bajao is a media campaign urging men and boys to take part in stopping violence against women. Bell Bajao is a simple, subtle yet a very powerful campaign to stop violence against women and the campaign started in India five years ago and has turned out to be so effective such that it has gone global. The message in the media campaign is conveyed mainly through television, radio, social media and print as well. This paper focused on analysis of three texts used in the campaign, namely; television, print and social media. The focus of the paper will be on the discussion of the three texts used in Bell Bajao campiagn at all three levels of Fairclough’s discourse analysis, namely: text, discursive and social practice. Fairclough’s Critical Discourse framework is also used to show the link between the properties language “texts” and discursive practices as well as social practice (Fairclough, 2003). Corpus Analysis Television Genre The genre is a television commercial. The TV commercial was directed by Bauddhayan Mukherji of Little Lamb Films. Bauddhayan Mukherji s a popular advertisement film director while Little Lamb Films is one of the leading production houses in Mumbai. Basically, the perspective of the viewers is that advert campaigns by Bauddhayan Mukherji of Little Lamb Films are produced after going through a comprehensive production process. The commercial starts with the text “Ball Bajao, Bring domestic violence to a halt” and ends with a male voice repeating the same text! This clearly informs the viewers the purpose of the cast; to stop domestic violence by ringing the bell (Huckin, 2010). Frame The television advert frames the issue of domestic violence by asking people to ring the bell and hence changing a narrative to influence people to change and become proactive in stopping domestic violence and not ignoring. The title of the commercial is Ball Bajao, Bring domestic violence to a halt”! This title gives the viewers an opinion that there is need to stop domestic violence by taking the action of ringing the bell. Additionally, the cast shows a man abusing his wife and then the neighbor hears and goes and rings the bell. The act of the man going to intervene when a woman is being abused will influence viewers to act in the same manner (Fairclough, 2003). Omissions The television advert omitted the role of women to stop violence because on the entire 1 minute advert only men are depicted as being the one taking the action to stop the violence by ringing the bell. Presuppositions From the start of the television cast of the campaign, there is an assumption that people want violence against women to end and hence the viewers will act to stop violence domestic violence by intervening just like the man in the show intervened when he encountered domestic violence (Fairclough, 2003). Insinuations The insinuation is that men should raise awareness regarding the right of women to have freedom from violence and mobilize men to speak whenever they encounter the rights being violated through domestic violence. Print Genre News Article: India Bulletin The article is written by Nita Bhalla and Lisa Anderson who is a renowned journalist in India. India Bulletin is a well known newspaper that upholds high standards of journalism and hence readers have the opinion that the articles are reliable and therefore the article is likely to have a great influence on the readers (Michael, 2002). Frame The title “India's "Ring the bell" is global call to stop wife-beating” is used to influence the reader on the content that the article will talk about and giving the reader a mentality that people should heed the global call and stop wife-beating (Huckin, 2010). The article goes on and describes an advert of how domestic violence can be stopped by an act of ringing the bell and pretending to ask for a phone, which stops the abuser from beating the woman. The article further gives statistics and negative effects of incidence of domestic violence and call on men to stop it. The description gives the audience an idea of what they should do when they encounter domestic violence while negative presentation of domestic violence will influence men to stop the act and take actions to prevent it (Huckin, 2010). Visual Aids The photograph showing a an artist applying make with a sad face and broken mirrors indicates the reality of domestic violence and why men should take an action to stop this ugly act (Druckman, 2001). Omissions The article omits the role women would play in stopping domestic violence because in the entire article the writer emphasizes the role men should play to stop the violence (Huckin, 2010). Presuppositions There is a presupposition that everybody is ready to heed the call of stopping domestic violence (Michael, 2002). Insinuations The insinuation is that domestic violence is dreadful and if men took an action to stop this dreadful act, violence against women can reduce dramatically (Michael, 2002). Social media Genre: Social networking The words deemed as most important in the text are in bold in order to intensify the meaning of the text. An example is “RING THE BELL” which emphasises the simple action that can stop the violence. Emotive language has been used in the text to emotionally influence the reader. According to Huckin (2010) the conditional, casual, along with purposive types establish the semantic basis of reason texts. Frame The use of second-person personal and possessive pronouns like we, seeks to address the reader directly as well as individually. Generally, when people are addressed personally, instead of part of mass audience, it is viewed as highly valued. The handling of individuals on personal basis is known as “synthetic personalisation” (Fairclough, 1992). Visual Aid The text shows a picture of a woman being beaten which is used to emphasize the reason why the call to ring the bell is important: to stop such acts. Insinuation The text insinuates that domestic violence is destructive and has crushed many women and so people should take action to save women from this by intervening whenever they encounter a woman being abused (Huckin, 2010). Research 2: Reconstructing campaign The research framework used in the analysis of Bell Bajao campaign is Critical Discourse Analysis framework (2001). Campaigns such as Bell Bajao are perceived as media discourse because they involve language and social practices and therefore the framework was used to illustrate the link between discursive and social practice with the properties of language texts (Fairclough, 2001). Information was gathered from a television advert, Bell Bajao campaign in social network as well as a newspaper article on the campaign; some of the texts that were used to reach out to the audience. These texts were analyzed basing on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis framework (2001). Therefore, the framework was used to illustrate the link between the properties language “texts” and discursive practices as well as social practice. Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis framework consists of discourse as text at micro level, discourse practice as meso level and finally socio-cultural practice as macro level. In this paper, the framework was used to focus on exploring the relationships between the language, ideology as well as power to establish how the campaign influenced people to heed their call to stop domestic violence. Therefore, the focus was analysis of the linguistic aspects of the Bell Bajao campaign and how the use of language influenced people’s (men) beliefs basing on the content of the campaign (Fairclough, 1992). Further methods used to gather information included books, publications, interviewing one person who has been impacted by the campaign and in one instance acted to stop violence and through online information. Additionally, Breakthrough has accumulated several individual stories of change where men who tell the trained reporters on how they “rung the bell” or took an action to disrupt the violence within the society. Men started stopping violence against women within one simple act: On hearing a man beating a woman inside a neighboring home, they would ring the bell or look for another means to disrupt the violence; they made their presence known. Such stories were retrieved electronically from Breakthrough’s website which contains various real-life experiences of many people who had rung the bell or took another action to stop the violence (India Together, 2013). Discursive practices This analysis entails studying the production, distribution and consumption of texts focusing on how power relations are performed. According to Fairclough (1992) critical discourse analysis considers the most pertinent textual and contextual aspects which contribute to the production and interpretation of a specific text. Advertisements such as Bell Bajao represent a relationship between the producer, product and the audience. Bell Bajao campaign is a public discourse because it has men as the mass and indeterminable audience. The campaign also has a complex and indeterminable producer consisting of Breakthrough, participants in the campaign and the media tools that were used to distribute the message against violence against women. The campaign is a two-way discourse because the producer and interpreter roles alternate where the advertiser is the producer and interpreter at the same time and the audiences are also interpreters (Fairclough, 1992). The message was distributed using various media texts and the texts used in the campaign build obvious cues on what is expected of the consumer: to stop domestic violence. The consumers of this campaign belong to ideologies embedded in this frame; the key ideology includes stopping domestic violence by men taking action to stop it and hence men are the consumers of Bell Bajao campaign (Fairclough, 1992). The main audience of the campaign is men. The campaign manipulates men to stop domestic violence by guiding and presenting an illustration of the action they should take to stop violence against women. For instance, “Bell Bajao, Bring domestic violence to a halt”. Titles of the texts also play a role capturing attention of men. The message is that there is a need for men to change and be the ones to stop domestic violence rather than being the perpetrators. The language used in the titles which is” Bell Bajao, Bring domestic violence to a halt” tends to persuade and finally influence men to take an action in order to stop domestic violence (Michael, 2002). The campaign also uses language in a manner that connotes its power over domestic violence to stop. Bell Bajao shows its audience they have the power to stop domestic violence by ringing the bell whenever they encounter violence. The campaign seems to insinuate that men who aspire to be responsible should respond whenever they encounter violence against women. They should intervene and let the abusers know that violence against women will not be tolerated. The use of positive representation of the campaign is evident when for instance the television advert shows a man pretending to borrow milk after hearing a woman being abused and then the man instantly stops abusing the woman and goes to open the door and apparently gets the message that he was heard abusing a woman and such abuse cannot be tolerated (Michael, 2002). Strategies used include; foregrounding of men as the champions of bringing domestic violence to an end. For instance, the print and the speech directly address men while the television advert shows the man taking action of ringing the bell. The rationality of this strategy is that in most cases men are the perpetrators of domestic violence and if their role in ending violence is recognized, it will play a big role influencing them to change and stop abusing women as well as stop other men from committing domestic violence by intervening (Delin, 2000). Another strategy is celebrity endorsement where the first male ambassador was a renowned celebrity Bollywood actor Boman Irani which is likely to influence many men who admire the celebrity. Another strategy is test evidence where the television advert shows a man actually stopping the violence by ringing the bell and the man stops. Positive representation is another strategy where the man is actually shown to have stopped domestic violence by ringing the bell; the abuser actually stopped abusing the woman and opened the door when “the bell was rang”! (Delin, 2000). Social Practices The level illustrates the wide societal currents affecting Bell Bajao campaign. Additionally, the level involves intertextual understanding that assists in understanding the extensive societal currents that that affect the text being analyzed (Lee, 2007). In this case, this includes the views on violence against women worldwide and specifically the position of people regarding domestic violence. The key stakeholders involved specifically are the youths and at large stakeholders include; society members who should intervene and take actions to stop domestic violence, agencies that may wish to implement Bell Bajao campaign in their communities, human right groups fighting against domestic violence, media and advertising agencies involved in running the campaign, groups aiming at achieving social justice and funders and donors aiming at achieving social change in the society, as well as governments interested in curbing domestic violence. According to McCue (2008) violence against women illustrates a historical unequal power relationship between women and men, which has resulted to men dominating and discriminating women and also violence against women is a significant social mechanism where women are perceived as inferior in comparison to men (McCue, 2008). Violence against women mostly takes place when the abuser deems abuse as acceptable and this is in particular dangerous in intergenerational cycles of abuse and cultural structures that tolerate violence against women. In various regions, women are even abused for being blamed of bringing dishonor in their families, violation of traditional gender expectations and for failing to honor their husbands. Perception of violence against women varies extensively from different countries because there are societies that do not condone domestic violence while others deem the practice as acceptable (McCue, 2008). Intertextuality in Bell Bajao occurs when the campaign uses words from other discourses to influence people to stop domestic violence. For instance, a male celebrity was used in the campaign. The likely effect of the campaign and its selected texts is to encourage the society, particularly male to have a sense of responsibility in stopping violence against women. The underlying social change is stopping violence against women. The change techniques that the campaign employs demonstrate behavior change in the society which has seen a remarkable decrease in people intervening whenever they hear or encounter domestic violence and this has been assessed by an increase in the number of individuals ringing bell against domestic violence (India Together, 2013). According to Fairclough, (1992) there are two kinds of change that affect the societal order of discourse and they include obvious democratization of discourse that entails reducing the obvious markers of power between individuals of unequal institution power and through stimulating private discourse in public mass-audience discourse, for instance in radio, television and print. This promotes distribution of private conversational discourse from private realm into institutional realm. In this case study, Bell Bajao campaign aims at spreading message against domestic violence from private domain into institutional realm for people to curb this vice in the society. Currently, an increasing number of males are ringing the bell. The Bell Bajao campaign has challenged the norms and changing behaviors and making violence against women that was once acceptable in India and society at large unacceptable indicating a change in societal practice as a result of Bell Bajao’s influence (India Together, 2013). Conclusion Based on the analysis of various texts used in Bell Bajao campaign, various linguistic devices such as foregrounding, framing, use of emotive words, catchy titles, and illustrations were used to influence men to stop domestic violence by taking an action of “ringing the bell” whenever they encounter domestic violence. Corpus analysis include analysis of a television advert, bell bajao campaign in social network as well as a newspaper article on the campaign. Fairclough’s discourse analysis has been used to analyze Bell Bajao case study and show the link between the language texts and discursive and social practices. The second research involved using communication channels, books, publications and interviews to gather information which revealed that that Bell Bajao campaign has received extensive coverage in media. Discursive practices reveal that the main audience of the campaign was men and language was used to influence men to influence men to stop domestic violence. Several strategies such as foregrounding men as the champions in stopping domestic violence were used. Finally, social practices shows that the Bell Bajao campaign has contributed greatly in the changing of societal norms and behaviors such as violence against women that were initially acceptable in the society but currently are unacceptable in the society. Bibliography Druckman, J., 2001, The Implications of Framing Effects for Citizen Competence, Political Behavior 23 (3): 225–256. Delin A, 2000, The Language of Everyday Life, London: Sage. Fairclough, N, 2001, Language and Power, United Kingdom: Longman Fairclough, N., 2003, Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research, London: Routledge. Fairclough, N., 1992, A Social Theory of Discourse, Cambridge: Polity Press. Huckin, T., 2010, Critical Discourse Analysis, Issue brief, National Conference of Teachers of English. Michael, A., 2002, Discourse Analysis, London: Greenwood Publishing Group. India Together, 2013, Ringing the bell against VAW. Retrieved from < http://indiatogether.org/mallika-interviews>. Lee, B., 2007, A Thing of This World: a History of Continental Anti-Realism. This study covers Foucault and his contribution to the history of Continental Anti-Realism. NW: North-western University Press. McCue, L., 2008, Domestic Violence: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: BC-CLIO. Appendix Figure 1: Print News Article http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/03/06/india-women-violence-campaign-idINDEE9250DH20130306 Figure 2: Social Media Text http://www.indiasocial.in/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/ring-the-bell-300x2761.jpg Figure 3: Photo of an artist applying makeup before the campaign http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20130306&t=2&i=710167477&w=580&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CDEE92516GR00 Interviews 1 “When a woman screaming in my neighborhood, I immediately remembered Bell Bajao — and I screamed, Thieves! Thieves! When the husband heard my voice he stopped beating his wife and began looking for the thieves. I was so happy that I had stopped violence.” 2 “I heard noises coming from my next door neighbor and I pretended I was looking for my missing dog and went and rang the door bell and the man opened the door. The man obviously discovered I heard him beat the wife and I was sending a signal abusing his wife would not be tolerated. From that day, I have never heard the man beating the woman again”. Read More