As a part of my digital literacies class, we were asked to choose an organisation and a digital literacy issue to address within the chosen/aforementioned organisation. I chose Netflix because the company had previously come under fire for reportedly using ‘misleading imagery’ in their movie/tv show posters to promote them to selected audiences. We had to design and create 3 different pieces that effectively communicate said literacy issue with the company in mind. The content would have to reflect and be in line with the chosen organisation which in this case is Netflix.Introduction
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Both photos in the draft and the final image were taken from a website called unspash.com where photos are free to use under the unsplash license. In my first draft, the words ‘Who’s watching?’ were used instead of ‘Perspective.’ Who’s watching seemed too general and unclear compared to perspective. The pictures used in the draft and the final image also differ as the photos in the final image were more cohesive. This first image shows a male portrait by whereslugo (2017) cropped in half with his eyes open along with an image of a woman’s portrait by Liane (2018) also cropped in half with her eyes closed merged. The image and the words symbolise how the male gaze dominates over the female gaze which is why her eyes are closed whilst his eyes are open. The words nudge viewers towards the intention behind the image and comes in line with the intended audience of this image which are young adults and adults. In utilising Canva, a technique called ‘Generation’ was used in the creation of this image. Using the Generation approach meant creating several different drafts with different models and ratios of each models face (Moulton, n.d.). This comes from one of the comments I received from my peers advising to ‘show more of the male face to show the dominance they have over the female’. Kress and Leeuwen (1996) stated that the image on the left side tends to be regarded as the ‘Given, the image on the right side, the ‘New’, and a centre which bridges the two and acts as Mediator.’ The positioning of the woman on the left is to catch users’ attention as to why her eyes are closed and the man’s eyes are open. Kress & Leeuwen (1996) influence another technique used where the top half of the image is usually ‘more salient’ than the rest of the image and is usually where ‘the idealized or generalized essence of the information’ is located. This also draws on Meng and Shen (2019)’s article where they talk about a ‘sense of order’ and how physiological and psychological factors affect how ‘the eyes respond to the sample’ or in this case the image. Image 2
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All the photos of the women that were used in this image were taken from unspalsh.com and were all free to use under the unsplash license. From left to right, the credit for these photos is given to, (Ast, 2020), (Silva, 2018), (Gardner, 2017), (Ferrero, 2017) and (Hernandez, 2018) and the Netflix logo was sourced from Canva. In the draft image, the message is placed the bottom and based on peer feedback, the suggestion was made to possibly include the ‘Right to choose’ tagline at the top of the image. After several drafts, I found that it would be more cohesive to place the tagline along the sides of the image rather than the top as in the drafts the tagline looked out of place.The second image comprises of the cropped images of five different women placed side by side with the word ‘Right to choose’ along the sides as well as the bottom of the image. The idea behind this image was to send a message to women and tell them that they do have a right to choose how they want to be represented in the media. Canva and its built-in tools were used in order to create this image. Like the first image, the ‘demanding image’ technique was once again used in this second image with the models in all the five pictures looking directly at the viewer to create ‘an imaginary interpersonal relationship’ to evoke a sense of understanding between the females (Hu, 2019). The Vector technique was also utilised in this image where several diagonal lines are made between the images to ‘visually stimulate the viewer’s interest in the image from the facial expressions of the models in the photo’ (Hu, 2019). A clear digital literacy assumption made here is assuming that female users are aware of the issues of the over sexualisation of women in the media. The black and white filter used in this image is intentional because the message behind the image is meant for all women in general regardless of their race or skin colour. This filter takes away the consideration of skin colour and just portrays women. The repetition of the words on the left and right side of the image as well as in between the spaces at the bottom are simply to reinforce the message and the bold font in white makes the message stand out.Image 3
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The image of the woman and man in the photo were also taken from unsplash.com and were free to use under the unsplash license. The image of the woman is by Campbell (2015) and the image of the man is by LinkedIn Sales Solutions (2019). Peer feedback advised including more of the female body to show the sexualisation of women. My reasoning for sticking to this image is because of the slight nod it already has to the sexualisation of women through the slightly exposed bra strap on her shoulder.The third image consists of a portrait of a woman as the main image with a ripped paper effect around her eyes that reveals an image of a man along with the words ‘The Male Gaze’ with words at the bottom of the image as well. The idea of using a portrait of a woman as the main image and the paper rip at the eyes to reveal a white male is to convey this message that there is more than what meets the eye.
A combination of Canva and photoshop were used. For techniques, ‘Iteration’ was used (Moulton, n.d.). While the main image was already decided on, adding on the ripped paper along the eyes required a lot of ‘reworking and making new versions to see what better suited the intended outcome better’ (Moulton, n.d.). Additionally, the Slicing technique which is the slight distortion that is present in the image was used. This distortion symbolises this idea that our reality is not what we think it is and by slicing this image, part of the truth comes out in the form of the image of the man between the ripped paper effect. A factor that is considered is the use of colour and saturation in relation to the overall salience of the image. Hu (2019) states ‘that the stronger the color, the higher the salience is’ which is why the contrast between the main image and the image between the ripped paper effect is intentional.
