LAUAN501 - Study Task 4 - Introduction

Study Task 4 Introduction

Proto question:

How are British politics represented through animation and cartoons?

My introduction about how are British politics represented in animation, so this is partly through symbolism of consumption and it's influence on a society. Also symbolism and motto's shown such as the Hammerskins, two claw hammers crossed, which based on a fictitious neo-nazi organization depicted in the 1982 film Pink Floyd - The Wall and animated in the music video.

What have I found so far?

Concepts/ideas

My idea/proto question is about how are British politics represented in animation, so this is partly through symbolism of consumption and it's influence on a society. Also symbolism and motto's shown such as the Hammerskins, two claw hammers crossed, which based on a fictitious neo-nazi organization depicted in the 1982 film Pink Floyd - The Wall and animated in the music video.

In relation to 'Animal Farm' from 1954, I have researched about the political imagery, characters and what morals they expressed for the audience, especially how their roles are played out in the story, such as seen throughout history, more recently at the time of the animation production. For example, Snowball the pig as the main protagonist imitating, Napoleon dictatorship but most notably Hitlers nazi Germany and when the regime invaded Europe, the Government controlling, manipulating and executing the population for control.

The second quote fits well with the first because (in triangulated quotes below), we as a society see fit to fall into a system of constant manipulation and influence from the higher ruling powers in politics and business, we are subject to our social patterns and processes of the masses, because we are only looking to the future goal and now where we currently reside as a population or society.

Triangulated core texts:

(quote, pages 38-39, 'Fundamental currents in Society, Chapter 1 - 'The Characteristics of Propaganda, Internal Characteristics. PROPAGANDA - The formations of men's attitudes, (author) Jacques Ellul - Author of the technological society).

1) “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organised.”    

― Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society

(quotes, page 59, 'the ideological genesis of needs', 'From Symbolic Exchange To Sign Value. 'The Consumer Society' - READER, Edited by Juliet B. Schor and Douglas B. Holt.)

2) "It is from the (theoretically isolatable) moment when the exchange is no longer purely transitive, when the object (the material of exchange) is immediately presented as such, that it is reified into a sign."

"The sign object is neither given nor exchanged: it is appropriated, withheld and manipulated by individual subjects as a sign, that is, as coded difference."
― Juliet B. Schor, The Consumer Society Reader

(Page 37-38, Chapter 1 - Organising Chaos, Propaganda, author - Edward L. Bernays)

3)“Consumption is a social relationship, the dominant relationship in our society—one that makes it harder and harder for people to hold together, to create community.”    

― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda.

Case studies - images, examples, phenomena have you found relating to your project - how do they link together? Triangulate? (Use at least 4 examples - images, stills, links to animations)