written by Pajda Perina ©2006 for Curtin University of Technology, Perth
The focus of this essay is on the principles of what are the influences in design processes, and the dilemma of design ethics and responsibility while fulfilling the objectives of design.  chomsky and Hermann put their case of inconvenient truth about our media in their book Manufacturing Consent (Herman & Chomsky 2002), first published almost twenty years ago. Their understanding of media is as a filter of information to serve the interests of the powerful minority elite. They suggest media is using spin to choose and answer questions even before there are asked. As a prime source of information today the media (TV and newspaper) voluntarily contributing by selection and ordering of news which might or should interest views and readers.
Principles of Noam
Chomsky's argument
Chomsky’s book and partially movie Manufacturing Consent,
discusses corporate bodies
influence on the content of media. His point of view reflects the
understanding of the
system's structure and functions. Chomsky's idea of manufactured
reality by media is
not a conspiracy theory against our perception of reality, but rather
exploration of the
mechanisms, dependencies and our own contributions within it. "News are corporations
who are selling relatively privilege audiences to other businesses."
(Wintonick & Achbar
2004)
To Chomsky, the derivation of power is passed from the companies, and
profiteers
through media to influence the society. “The conscious and
intelligent manipulation of
the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element
in democratic
society.” (Bernays 1972) The society then
absorbs the information from media as
"common knowledge" and as facts. "We
are ready to believe almost anything if it comes
from a recognized authority," (Koch 1970)
The authority assigns the correct
understanding of values to propagated rhetorical worlds like democracy,
freedom, liberty.
The actual perpetuation is then questioned by minority about the actual
procedures and details of such values. For example, current political
strategy of spreading democracy by force can be viewed as "The false democracy of
elites"(Chavez 2006 United Nations)
A few techniques are used to manipulate and control the
opinions and values of the society through media. One of them is
creating various dependencies, both physical such as manufacturing and
transport, and psychological like fear. Western society propagated
individualism, which has two benefits for the control of masses -
individual consumption "The
first principle of mind control is distraction" (Jacobson 1985),and
the second the devastation of community action as a threat to power of
elites.
"There's two targets for
propaganda. One is what's sometimes called the political class. There's
maybe twenty percent of the population which is relatively educated,
more or less articulate, plays some kind of role in decision-making.
They're supposed to sort of participate in social life -- either as
managers, or cultural managers like teachers and writers and so on.
They're supposed to vote, they're supposed to play some role in the way
economic and political and cultural life goes on. Now their consent is
crucial. So that's one group that has to be deeply indoctrinated. Then
there's maybe eighty percent of the population whose main function is
to follow orders and not think, and not to pay attention to anything --
and they're the ones who usually pay the costs." (Herman &
Chomsky 2002)
It is problematic to obtain any other than advertised
information. The well known
misleading dependency on advertising was exposed in the movie Czech Dream (2004)
a hyper reality study of two film students who use their state grant to
promote the
opening of an entirely fictitious supermarket in an empty field. They
used slogans “Don't
Go, Don't Rush, Don't Spend” to draw over 4,000 people on the
opening day. Their
advertising agents said “We
can sell products which don't work, surely we can sell
products which don't even exist" (Klusak & Remunda 2004)
Surprisingly enough even the controversial nature of the movie
attracted many business
with the profit making approach-the bigger the scandal, the bigger the
advertising effect.
The popularity of Noam Chomsky is directly linked to this effect of
"exposing the truth
and the mechanisms" and attracting supporters even before those views
are fully
understood. “The
more we
study the major problems of
our time, the more we come
to realize that they cannot be
viewed in isolation. They are
systemic problems, which
means that they are
interconnected and
interdependent”. (Capra
1996)
As in the morality tale
Czech Dream the outraged reaction of mislead public could
have
been predicted, the official criticism from the Czech government only
exposed the closer
link of the interests of consumerism and did directly supported Noam
Chomsky theory. "In its
simplest level, the liberal theory of advertising is that consumers are
free agents
capable of making rational choices between products according to
information supplied.
The free market relies upon information supplied by advertising to
lubricate this process"
(Holder 1991) Chomsky’s argument then delusion
this liberal theory.
There are many options to consumerism as we know it. This world is
offering many
values to choose from to build upon society, as it was documented in
history. It is
suggested, values opposite to the current consumerism will be ever more
attractive. One
of the many options is worldly asceticism. According to Max Weber, in
worldly asceticism
people withdraw from society by living ascetic lives, but don't
withdraw from the world. In
this value system, the pleasures of the mind are considered to be
superior to those of
the body. It could be seen as a customers demand for more
environmentally friendly
information about product and that is exactly what they are getting. It
is my belief
however that the environment would only improve by radically lowering
our consumption,
which is in direct opposition to contemporary business models or/and a
present systems.
It is a Liberal view to apprehend environmental advertising as clear
demand of the
market, yet the practice in favour of critic’s views of using
the demand to only attract the
customers for further consumption. "The
advertisers appear to have absorbed the spirit
of resistance with more radial aspect as the demand for reduced
consumption levels."
(Holder 1991)
The
manufacture of common sense
To control the masses, which consists of individuals with
their own perception of reality
from non-identical points of view, the society structure demands the
need of a “common
sense” reality. This is a set of values that people would
generally agree on and the
knowledge and experience majority people would have. If this common
sense reality is
the base of the customers demand, then we have to search for the source
of such
"common knowledge and experience". In theory, the social structure of
society is need of
such reality. According to Professor
Chomsky, by media effort we are
encouraged to live in the hyper
reality world the media is creating.
Any hyper reality is deliberately
constructed reality with some kind of
aim, but then when critical
proportions of society reached, the
hyper reality becomes adopted as a
new commonly agreed reality.
It seems to be characteristic in nature for humans only desire to
dominate other groups
of animals. Similarly it is presented to us with certainty the endless
competition in nature
rather that cooperation. The common reality accepts these views,
similarly as the love
for controlled nature. Attempt to re-establish balance in between
nature and humans are
seen then as a extreme view. Extreme in the sense of undermining core
values of
existing system- the dominance of money over ethic, power over
cooperation and
compromise.
Satisfaction in design
Satisfaction by design
As mentioned earlier by Chomsky, for the fifth of the population,
furniture production
ranges from fully custom made pieces of fine furniture including
antiques and antiques
replicas to factory produced high-end small series production in good
quality materials.
The rest of the population aspire the values and therefore items owned
by the leading
class. This class is a role model of the dream to have, the items to
buy, the lifestyle to
live. As this is not possible for the majority of the population,
shortcuts are provided in
form of compromises on authenticity and quality without adjustment to
the life style
image. Those masses are aspiring the outer visual look of the
lifestyle, the shell, the
symbol of the values. Those people are deliberately encouraged by the
systems value
settings not to pay any attention to the story, the authenticity, the
meaning of objects. As
is any relationship, those missing personal relationships in this
example to the piece of
furniture are substituted firstly by the use of rhetoric to assign
values of the admired part
of the society and secondly by emotional context of design. Emotional
design will be
discussed later in detail. As the society pressure promotes
consumerism, new
technologies in furniture have been developed to span across the price
gap between a
real and fake imitation of the item. A new era of surface quality and
promotion of visual
effect dominate over the story, the origin, the authenticity of the
furniture piece. The
success story of Laminex ©, as similar companies can be prove
of such a move.
Role of ethical designer
The objectives of design are primarily to solve customer’s
problems while to the role of
the advertising is the offer the buyer never ending set of satisfaction
possibilities. The
role of designer and advertising are merging as the role of the
designer today is not only
the role of the engineer or inventor, but the creator of desire in
non-alive objects. As
such, it is understood that their role is making life more comfortable,
easier and
convenient. As there is no way of reaching ultimate 'convenience' by
the creation of
objects themselves it is an endless task.
To maintain the current system, entities designers, advertisers and
manufacturers are
joined by a common interest to production and profit. It would possibly
be simpler and
more efficient to advertise and manufacture only few the best design
solutions for
specific problem to satisfy customer demand. However, the
west’s experience of
industrialization has showed more ways to produce and sell an increased
number of
goods. One way is to design products with a deliberately limited
lifespan to encourage
repetitive purchases. The second is to re-design the shell of the
product to encourage
the social reasoning of purchase. And finally as the markets saturates,
and production
increases, the inevitable need for demand can be solved by employing
advertising to
create the customers need. It is presented as a help for the customer
to discover his or
her needs. In fact the product of advertising is the creation of demand
in the customer.
"To keep the
theoretically unlimited production at its highest level to secure
profit the
pattern of product must constantly change by creating a system of
production to control
and innovate what is consumed and in what quantities." (Holder 1991) .This
is linked and
supported by society's encouragement of individualism as discussed
previously.
Designer’s role should be not only to satisfy the
client’s demands, but also to educate
and always offer and options to those demands in accordance with
his/her own core
values. "Consumption
goods in being offered, accepted or refused, they either reinforce
or underdemine existing boundaries" (Douglas & Isherwood 1996) The
role of the
designer then is not to only participate and bluntly provide expected
solutions from the
world outside, but even more participate on creation of a better
society, rather than for
corporate gain. "The
starting point for a better world is the belief that it is possible."
Norman Cousins. The self coordination and participation in
reality as we know it is a key
element of its existence.
In good design planning, it is most likely a new solution, unlike the
familiar will be
reached. "The
assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the
acid
that corrodes all visionary thinking. (Bookchin 1989) This
inevitably will lead to a new
product, offering a new solution to people problems. As Henry Ford
quote “If I
had asked people what they wanted, they would have said
faster horses.” It is the business nature to
convince people to accept the industry solution of
the customers’ problem. In the recent case in
California an electric car produced by General
Motors has been taken from market according to
the movie Who
killed the Electric Car? (Paine
2006) In this rare case, the company's other
interests and political involvements evolved in
action against the demand of the customers,
completely denying publics interest in their
product.
Both designers through production, and mass
media, are trying to attract customers by
creating an audience. Both the designers and
the media are engaged in creating works of fiction which portray
credible worlds to
resonate with people's experiences. Emotional responses in design are
as old as a
profession of 'designer' which started with the industrial revolution.
As the society
changed to mass produced systems of consumption, we have lost any
emotional direct
link in between object. As the individuality of the object is dismissed
by thousands of
identical objects produced from one design, we have to establish new
way of relating to
the items. In the past each object had it's own story relevant to the
particular user. As
most of the items were hand made, the individuality of the object was a
necessity. These
relationships had been created by the personal experience of making,
bargaining at the
store with the maker, stealing or other ways of obtaining the object.
It is to be understood
that the desire to own an object was during the ages mostly underlined
by necessity.
for our every day life and survival is
Today as the necessity of object ownership
minimal, a new social necessity is take over the dominant role of need.
This desire of the
ownership is to be promoted by different way – and emotional
design is applied to re-
establish any connection between the user and the object.
Conclusion
The role of an ethical designer is to acknowledge those affiliation,
expose the structure
of the current system, and empower people to gain back their role and
responsibilities in
their lives. In cases when such a direct solution cannot be found, then
we should refuse
to participate in maintaining such dependencies or fears. As Czech
president Vaclav
Havel said: "We must
not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the
seemingly impossible to become a reality. " (Piper 2005)
Everything we used or participate on grows and flourish. Designers have
the opportunity
to influence choices of others. "The
medium will change from mass-produced and mass-
consumed commodity to an endless feast of niches and specialities. A
new age of
individualism is coming and it will bring and eruption of culture
unprecedented in history"
(Gilder 1994). It is as well a designer’s role
to help the customer to design their own
lives, to discover their own individual values, rather than propose
them.
In conclusion ,it is not an easy task for anybody to change value of
commodities in
current system and to be intellectually involved in this process as
paradoxically "The
educated and intellectuals are the most vulnerable to propaganda
because they absorb
the largest amount of second hand information and consider themselves
to be above the
effects of propaganda." (Jacobson 1985)
Resources:
Official site of Noam Chomsky
Unofficial torrents directory of Chomsky's topics
Czech dream movie. Movie
Who Killed the Electric car? movie
References :
Bernays, EL 1972, Propaganda, Port Washington, London: Kennikat Press.
Bookchin, M 1989, 'The Meaning of Confederalism', Green Perspectives,
no. 20
Capra, F 1996, Web of life: a new scientific understanding of living
systems, Anchor Books, USA.
Chavez, H 2006 United Nations, 'Address to United Nations', New York.
Douglas, M & Isherwood, BC 1996, The world of goods : towards
an anthropology of
consumption, [Rev. ed]. edn, Routledge, New York.
Gilder, GF 1994, Life after television, Rev. ed. edn, W.W. Norton, New
York ; London.
Herman, ES & Chomsky, N 2002, Manufacturing consent : the
political economy of the mass
media, [New introd. edn, Pantheon Books, New York.
Holder, J 1991, 'Regulating Green Advertising in the Motor Car
Industry', Journal of Law and
Society, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 323-46.
Jacobson, S 1985, Mind Control in the U.S., Critique Pub.
Klusak, V & Remunda, F 2004, Czech Dream, videorecording, Ceska
Televize, Czech.
Koch, H 1970, The panic broadcast, Avon.
Paine, C 2006, Who Killed the Electric Car?, videorecording :, Sony
Pictures.
Piper, JR 2005, The major nation-states in the European Union,
Pearson/Longman, New York,
N.Y. ; London.
Wintonick, P & Achbar, M 2004, Manufacturing consent
Noam Chomsky and the media, videorecording :, Madman Entertainment,,
[Australia]
|
About 
designed by Pajda | runing on 
| Ubuntu user
| proud member of 
