Power Abuse in Government

Power Abuse in Government Question: You have been introduced to several definitions of power. How do these definitions help you to understand power as you see it exercised in the world around you? Please give examples to illustrate your answer. At the creation of time, as per the book of Genesis in the Holy Bible, a command was given to Adam and Eve to not eat of the Tree of Knowledge. As they both did so, they became acutely aware of â€Å"right† and â€Å"wrong† and were subjected to the punishment of their Almighty, Powerful God; and so began the understanding of power. How power is used often reflects the values and beliefs of the user. As a noun, the word â€Å"Power† has numerous meanings. The Oxford Dictionary (2013) defines power as the capacity to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events. Hobbes (in Nagel, 1998) identifies power as a person’s means to obtain some future good and Heywood (2007: 456) posits that power is â€Å"the ability to influence the behaviour of others, typically through the power to reward or punish†. This essay is an attempt to enlighten the reader of the concept of power and will explore this rationale further with specific concen tration on the teachings of Heywood and of Kenneth Boulding in conjunction with his book The Faces of Power, where he reveals his premise that there are three categories of power: threat power, economic power, and integrative power. At some point in time, every person wishes to possess power in some degree. Whether that is power over a brother or sister, the ability to influence friends or work colleagues, or, perhaps, running for political office. Because power is, at its core, the ability to obtain a described outcome, at some level the objective, according to Russell (1938), of all members of an organization is to obtain power. In his book Politics, Heywood (2007:11) comments that â€Å"Power can be said to be exercised whenever A gets B to do something that B would not otherwise have done. However, A can influence B in various ways†. It is these ways or â€Å"faces of power† that Heywood (2007) describes the first face of power as that of decision making and how actions, in some shape or form, influence decisions. Decision making is an ongoing process that occurs on a daily basis. On a small scale, a local shop owner is constantly making decisions that will have a direct impact on the success o r demise of his/her business. On a much larger scale, is the decisions making of a government. It is here that the teachings of Boulding (1989) have the most influence when he claims that power has three categories or faces. The first face is the power of threat—the stick—the power to destroy. Boulding goes on to state that the existence, and especially the possession, of the means of destruction, such as weapons, enhances the probability that they will be used and a very good example of the power of threat is to look at a situation in 2010 by Mexican drug cartel members on the families living in El Porvenir, Mexico. The cartels, according to an article written by Gibson and published on Examiner.com in 2010, threatened to kill every child in the border town unless the parents paid a fee for their protection or left the town. As a result of this threat, the families either paid the fee or, as a majority indeed did, fled for a neighbouring town. Another of Boulding’s faces of power that conforms to Heywood’s theory is Economic Power—the carrot—the power to produce and exchange. Globalisation has made trade with foreign nations a much easier opportunity compared to previous decades. However, tensions can, and do, run high in businesses and governments. An illustration of economic power could be that of China. It could be said that China has an economic power over a large portion of the World in that a majority of consumer products are produced in China. If international relations between China and the U.S.A. were to take a turn for the worse and in turn China were to place an embargo on exports to the United States, one of China’s largest importers, this could have a crippling effect on the U.S. economy. Boulding’s (1989) third face of power is that of integrative power—the hug—the power to build relationships. He explains that integrative power is when B does an act for A out of love or respect or want and not because A has the power of making B do said act. A very good case to demonstrate integrative power is that of a volunteer wishing to enlist in military service. Although there are countries where conscription is still in place, the majority of States rely on men and women volunteering to serve their country. It is improbably, but still possible, that an individual decides to dedicate X amount of years being browbeaten or vituperated to learn a trade or to achieve professional qualifications. Indeed, this could be obtained by attending university or a local trade school with much less difficulty. The individual enlists his or her service out of love or from a sense of duty to their nation. Yet another concept of power that is introduced by Heywood (2009) in his thesis is the power of agenda setting. The media seems to be one of the major players when agenda setting is the issue. Fox news in the United States is commonly referred to as a right-wing media outlet. As Ackerman (2001) explains, â€Å"When it comes to Fox News Channel, conservatives dont feel the need to work the ref. The ref is already on their side.† Alternatively, MSNBC is typically described as left-wing opinionated. An illustration of the type of coverage that is reported is the topic of Obamacare in the U.S.A. When Fox News covers the topic, the primary information that is passed along to its viewers is how much Obamacare will cost the U.S. citizens via way of taxation and that the Democratic President is trying to force unconstitutional laws on the American public. On the opposite side of the spectrum, when MSNBC reports on the subject, the argument is how the healthcare bill will benefit the p oor and the individuals that presently cannot afford primary care. This, undoubtedly, swings in the favour of President Obama. The final argument that Heywood posits is the power of thought control which he describes as influencing others in what they think, want, or need. To demonstrate this, attention is turned to television; children’s television to be more specific. Children’s television channels are consistently bombarded with commercials for the latest toys and any parent dealing with a child pleading for them to buy that latest toy knows perfectly well how influential those commercials can be. When watching these commercials, the parent is typically harassed with comments such as â€Å"Dad, I want that!† or â€Å"Mom, I NEED that!† when in reality, the product being advertised could simply be the identical doll or toy truck that the child currently owns but in a different coloured dress or paint style. As declared by Barnes (1988:1), â€Å"Power is one of those things, like gravity and electricity, which makes its existence apparent to us through its effects, and hence it has always been found much easier to describe its consequences than to identify its nature and its basis†. It has been put forth in this essay that power, as described by Heywood and Boulding, has numerous faces and the development when these powers are enacted has positive and negative consequences. It is assumed by many that governments use and abuse their power on a continual basis. However, as it can be seen from this work, governments are not the only actor to use and occasionally abuse their power. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ackerman, S. (2001) ‘The Most Biased Name in News’, FAIR [online], 01 July, available at: http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/the-most-biased-name-in-news/ [accessed 12 January 2013]. Barnes, B. (1988) The Nature of Power, Cambridge: Policy Press. Boulding, K. (1989) Three Faces of Power, London: Sage Publications. Gibson, D. (2010) â€Å"Drug cartel threatens to kill every child in Mexican border town† Examiner [online], available at: http://www.examiner.com/article/drug-cartel-threatens-to-kill-every-child-mexican-border-town [accessed 10 January 2014]. Heywood, Andrew (2007). Politics, 3rd ed., Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Nagel, J. (1975) The Descriptive Analysis of Power, London: Yale University Press. Russell, B. (1938) Power: A new social analysis, New York: Norton.

McDonalds is A Competitive Fast Food Firm Essay -- Fast Food Industry

A Competitive Fast Food Firm Firms within the fast food industry fall under the market structure of competition. Market structure is a classification for the key traits of a market. The characteristics of a market that is competitive would include: a large number of buyers and sellers, easy entry to and exit from the market, homogeneous products, and the firm is a price taker. Take McDonalds fast food restaurant for example. In 1954, Ray Kroc became the first franchisee appointed by Mac and Dic McDonald in San Bernadino, California. He opened his first restaurant in De Plaines, Illinois (near Chicago), and the McDonald’s Corporation was created. By 1959, the 100th McDonald’s had opened in Chicago. In the early years of the 1960’s, Ray Kroc had bought all rights to the McDonald’s concept from the McDonald’s brothers for $2.7 million. In 1963, the 500th restaurant had opened. By the end of the decade, McDonald’s was listed on the New York stock exchange, had opened restaurants in every state of the union and also outside the USA. By 1972, assets exceeded $500 million and sales surpassed $1 billion, a new McDonald’s restaurant was opening nearly every day. In 1984, Ray Kroc died, but his company was then serving 17 million customers a day, equivalent to serving lunch to the entire population of Australia and New Zealand. If McDonald’s lined up all the hamburgers sold since 1955, they would have circled the equator 103.75 times and reach to the moon and back 5 times. Today, McDonald’s remains one of the most competitive franchises ever created because they still have a large number of buyers and sellers, easy entry to and exi... ...dustry is the ease of entry into the market. Start-up franchises within this market structure can begin operating with relatively low initial investments (compared to other industries). This is not the case where monopoly companies, such as Microsoft is concerned. There are numerous barriers to entry into a Monopolistic market structure, capital being one of the most prominent barriers. If a new franchise offered the consumer a quality product at a reduced price, then the chance of success are greatly increased. McDonald’s established a name for themselves by offering quality food and fast, friendly service. This is a very important concept in the fast food industry. Once they established themselves to the consumers and became more visible, they created more demand, which lead to a greater revenue for them.

An Investigation Into the Language Used in Childrens Advertising

An Investigation into the Language used in Children’s Advertising Contents Hypothesis Introduction Methodology Analysis Conclusion Evaluation Bibliography Appendix Hypothesis In my investigation I am going to analyse the language used in children’s television advertising looking specifically at whether the language used is aimed primarily at the children or their parents. Introduction I have chosen to look at the language used in children’s advertising because I am interested in how the language of advertising can be used to influence children and their parents and am specifically interested in trying to analyse this for girls.I hope that I can also draw on my own early experiences to help me with some of my conclusions. When I was 4 years old I wanted the new ‘Baby Born’ doll really badly and kept asking my mum until I got it. When I did get it, I played with it constantly and gradually lost the different accessories that came with her. I remember c learly that when my little sister played with her Barbie dolls when she was younger that she would use an American accent when making the dolls speak.I was never sure why she did this but I did find it amusing. I am aiming to find out whether language in advertising is manipulative, whether it reinforces traditional gender categories and whether I believe it to be a positive force or not. The use of language in television advertising is influenced by other factors such as whether voices used are that of a man, woman or child. The studies I have read indicate that voiceovers given by men are far more effective for successful marketing than those by women.The 1979 study found that quite often even if the product was seen as female, most girl targeted ad’s used men for the voice-overs and that where women voice-overs were used they were only for girls products which would seem to imply that these products didn’t warrant the recommendation of a man. Studies found that peop le respond better to male voices than female voices. I have read some studies on children’s’ advertising and a book on advertising (see Bibliography) and the findings of these made me interested in finding out whether modern advertising supports the findings of these studies. ‘Children learn personality and behaviour patterns through the imitation of their own parents attitudes and behaviours and will acquire the patterns of behaviour more rapidly where there is an attractive model whose behaviour is rewarded’’ (Smith, 1994). As part of my work I am looking at whether my adverts support traditional gender roles. Methodology I will watch advertisements on children’s television channels. The channels I am going to be watching are Nickelodeon and Nick Junior.To carry out my investigation I needed data and the only way for me to collect this was to watch children’s’ TV, record the advertisements, transcribe them and then analyse my findings. My transcriptions have been included in my Appendix. To ensure that my data and any conclusions drawn from analysing it are valid I have used actual adverts and transcribed them carefully, and not made up any of my findings. I must not over generalise as it is easy to assume that what I find from my transcriptions is true of all advertisements and this is incorrect as all adverts are different.To analyse my data I am going to look at pragmatics and grammar. I may also make observations on lexis and semantics. I decided to analyse my data this way because I am looking at the language of advertising, i. e. the words and how they are used and also how it influences and this will help me answer my key question. My data is organised by transcript and I am going to analyse each of my transcripts separately. I hope that this will give me common results that I can include in my conclusions. Analysis Transcript 1 Syllables |Total number of words | |1 |41 | |2 |16 | |3 |3 | |4 |0 | I was interested in seeing the complexity of the words used in these adverts and I looked at the number of syllables in each word in each advert.The table above shows the number of words with 1, 2, 3 and 4 syllables and clearly shows that simple words of 1 and 2 syllables comprise the major part of this advert. Only one of the 3 syllable words is used in the main part of the advertisement which is aimed at the child, the other two are in the end part which is delivered by and directed at adults. This advert is for a Chou Chou doll that has bruises that disappear when the area is warmed up. This is going on the idea that parents make their children ‘all better’ if they are hurt.This will appeal to young girls as not only is it a doll that they can play with but it is also something they can care for and ‘make better’ themselves, just as their parents do for them. The sing song voice used in the advert mirrors the way a lot of adults talk to their babies and small children and little children learn by copying or imitating their parents so this advertisement could influence little girls by letting them behave like a grown up on a doll that gives them a reaction.They want the responsibility of looking after something and this doll pretends that they are responsible for making it better. Depending on how old the child is, they may believe that they are actually making the doll better. Every time the sing song voice is used it is delivered in the same way, in the same tone of voice and is to the same tune. This shows prosodic features: the effect of the sing song voice followed by the child’s statement is almost one of versification, in the pattern of 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 4, 1, 5.The language used in the advertisement along with the visual triggers are likely to create desire for the product and if the parents feel that it will encourage their children to be caring and responsible then their purchasing decisions are likely to be influenced . It does encourage caring as the child playing with the doll makes the doll better and also reinforced caring by the use of caring language such as ‘Mummy be your doctor’, ‘Mummy make me better’, ‘Here’s your medicine’ (sing song voice) and ‘I love you’ (little girl).The language in this is not openly manipulative but the constant repetition of the name of the doll, ‘Mummy make me better’ will ensure the child remembers the name of the product even if they are quite small, and will want it. By casting the little girl as the Mother figure, and using the sing song voice to indicate the little girls role i. e. ‘Mummy make me better’, ‘Mummy loves her daughter’, it encourages the child to want to take on that role. I feel that this advertisement reinforces the traditional gender behaviour patterns because the little girl playing with the doll is being encouraged to behave like a traditiona l caring mother.There would be a very different impact if the sing song voiceover was that of a man because traditionally the parent that looks after sick children is the woman. I think that the language in this advert is primarily aimed at children. However because it encourages caring behaviour it can influence the parents Grammar This advertisement uses short sentences in the beginning which are aimed at the child watching the advert and at the end it says ‘bruises disappear with warm Chou Chou Mummy Make Me Better from Zaph Creation’, this is aimed at the parents as it is a longer and more complex sentence.The words used are mostly one or two syllables, with the exception of three which are three syllables, ‘medicine’, ‘disappear’ and ‘Creation’. The use of simple words with a small number of syllables shows us that it is primarily aimed at children. The sing song voice featured in the advert uses repetition, ‘mummy make me better’, ‘mummy be your doctor’, ‘mummy make me better’, ‘mummy loves her daughter’ and ‘mummy make me better’. This emphasises the name of the product and helps whoever is listening to store the name in their memory. Pragmatics The language is simple and active rather than passive i. . shows the child ‘doing’ mummy make me better ‘here is your medicine’. Active language is involving and shows ‘doing’ rather that watching. Transcript 2 |Syllables |Total number of words | |1 |45 | |2 |7 | |3 |1 | |4 |0 |Once again I looked at the complexity of the words used. The table above shows the number of words with 1, 2, 3 and 4 syllables and clearly shows that simple words of 1 and 2 syllables comprise the major part of this advert, with most of these being one syllable. This advert is for a digital house where the 6 pixelated girls living in it can earn points and get the best room in the hou se if they have the most points. Every pre-teen wants the best room with the best things and this is appealing to their interests. Im Queen of the house’ implies that the girl with the best room is the best and most popular out of them all. The fact that this advert is delivered mostly in song and in an American accent exaggerates its appeal because a lot of pre-teens use an American accent when they are playing because they imitate the role model in the advertisement, which in the case of this advert, is a teenage American girl. The language in this advert is aimed solely at children.It appeals directly to the interests of pre-teens. Grammar The slogan pick pick pixel chick roomies emphasised the name of the product by repeating the first sound of the product name twice before it and also by using alliteration. This advert mainly comprises of a single long sentence punctuated by one second pauses which help give the advert impact. The viewer has time to absorb one part of th e advert before the next part is delivered. Pragmatics ‘’There are lots of games to play yeah the fun never stops. ’ This will appeal to pre-teens as it is an environment over which they have full control and there are no adult figures involved, and what pre-teen hasn’t imagined or even fantasised about the fun they would like to have in a house with no adults and how late they would go to bed! It is not openly manipulative but it plays on the (rather attractive) idea of having as much fun as you want in your own house and will therefore encourage pre-teens to want this product.This makes it subtly manipulative. Transcript 3 |Syllables |Total | |1 |29 | |2 |11 | |3 |1 | |4 |1 |The language used is simple and comprises mostly of one or two syllable words. The table above shows the number of words with 1, 2, 3 and 4 syllables and clearly shows that simple words of 1 and 2 syllables comprise the majority of this advert, with most of these being one syllable. This is an advert is for a glittery temporary tattoo set. It openly reinforces traditional gender categories as it is clearly aimed at young girls, and girls trying to make themselves pretty and girls that are looking for the ‘wow’ factor.The language in this advert is aimed at children. Grammar This advert does use manipulative language ‘everything you need†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ indicated to the watcher that they need the product instead of just wanting it and ‘wow get these great glitter tattoos’ makes them more desirable and is almost acting as a command by using an imperative – get it, get it, get it! ‘They look so cool†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ all children want to be cool and will want a product that they think will make them cool. express your style’ gives the impression that this product will allow the user to be stylish by indicating that they have style and that this product will help them to express it. It is almost elliptical because it is economical with the number of words used and relies heavily on the visual accompaniment. Pragmatics It is delivered by a mature woman and shows the process of choosing and applying the tattoo. This makes the children watching the advert think that it is easy to use, fun, pretty and makes them want it.I don’t believe that the language used is a positive force because it is openly encouraging young children to want and use tattoos at an age when they are not mature enough to understand the difference between temporary and permanent tattoos. It could influence a rash decision in later life to get a permanent tattoo because they had a cool glittery one when they were young. Children are a very easy target for advertising and so are very vulnerable to suggestion. They then use their parents as an easy target for pester power.Transcript 4 |Syllables |Total number of words | |1 |34 | |2 |9 | |3 |1 | |4 |2 | The language used is simple and comprises mostly of one or two syllable w ords.The table above shows the number of words with 1, 2, 3 and 4 syllables and clearly shows that simple words of 1 and 2 syllables comprise the most of this advert, with a lot of these being one syllable. Both of the 4 syllable words are used in the end of the adverts which is aimed specifically at parents This is an advert for a doll that has over 80 sounds and recognises her accessories and the name you give her. This advert is delivered as if the doll already belongs to the child; ‘you can name My Baby’.This makes the child want it as it. Generally the language used is not manipulative but by saying ‘you can name My Baby’ it is making the statement personal to the viewer and is likely to create desire for the product. The majority of the language in this advert is aimed at children with the ending aimed at parents. Grammar The use of the word ‘can’ in this advert is makes the naming of the baby modal because it is allowing the child to cho ose the name of the baby.Personal pronouns play a great part in this advert as the word ‘you’ is used 3 times and is always referring to ‘you’ as the child. This involves the child and is likely to make them want the product more as they feel a sense of ownership. Pragmatics The doll makes over 80 sounds which would also appeal to the child as real babies make more than 80 sounds and the child wants a doll that is as real and life-like as possible. The doll also comes with accessories that it recognises.This is appealing as most parents want to spoil their child and the little girl will want to spoil her ‘baby’. I believe that this product will be attractive to parents as it encourages the child to be responsible as they can look after and interact with the doll. This makes the advert a positive force as it is teaching the child to be caring. This is stereotypical as there is the voice of a woman featured in the advert which acts like the mothe r figure of the child. The girl with the doll acts as the mother figure of the doll.Transcript 5 |Syllables |Total number of words | |1 |44 | |2 |7 | |3 |8 | |4 |0 | The language used is simple and comprises mostly of one or two syllable words.The table above shows the number of words with 1, 2, 3 and 4 syllables and clearly shows that simple words of 1 and 2 syllables comprise the most of this advert, with a lot of these being one syllable. Both of the 4 syllable words are used in the end of the adverts which is aimed specifically at parents This is an advert for a Baby Annabel accessory set consisting of a sheep toy that plays a soothing melody and a beautiful quilted bed set. It definitely reinforces traditional gender categories with the little girl ‘mother’ putting the baby to bed, playing a lullaby.I think that this is a positive force as it is making bedtime appear to be fun instead of something that young children avoid as best they can. This will make it more a ttractive to parents for the same reason that it might make it easier for them to put their own children to sleep. This advert is exploiting bedtime as it can be used as a fun time. The parents may see buying the doll for their child as an easier way of getting them to go to sleep, as Annabel is in bed, they should be too! In a way this exploits the parental desire to get children to bed as the advert implies that this product will help.The language used in this advert is aimed both at children and their parents. The majority of the advert targets the child but the ending targets the parents. Grammar The language is subtly manipulative as it says ‘you can lay your Baby Annabel in her bed’ which will make any child that already owns a Baby Annabel want the bed to put her in. The language used here is elliptical because the pauses in the advert create sentences which aren’t complete in their own right ‘but don’t be sad†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ and ‘listen to the sheep†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ The sentences are a mixture of complex : ‘here comes the night but don’t be ad you can lay your baby Annabel in her bed, time for sleep I wish you sweet dreams’ and compound : ‘the baby Annabel bed with soothing melody and a beautiful quilted bed set sweet dreams for your baby,’ sentences. Pragmatics ‘Sweet dreams for your Baby Annabel’ suggests that if you have the bed to put your doll in she will have sweet dreams. If you don’t have one of these accessories then your doll won’t have sweet dreams. This brings up that everyone wants the best for their child and wants them to be happy and therefore makes this set a must-have for young girls and their Baby Annabel dolls.Transcript 6 |Syllables |Total number of words | |1 |37 | |2 |10 | |3 |1 | |4 |1 | The language used is simple and comprises mostly of one or two syllable words.The table above shows the number of words with 1, 2, 3 and 4 syllables and clearly shows that simple words of 1 and 2 syllables comprise the most of this advert, with the majority of these being one syllable. This is an advert for a beauty kit from Bratz and includes airbrush colour, lip colour, stencils and body glitter. This advert is delivered as a set of instructions, and as instructions are meant to be followed it is manipulative in the way that it is telling the viewer how to apply the make-up to the doll.There are only five instructions and not all of them are directing you to do something to the doll so it is attractive in the way that is simple. Parents may find this product appealing as if it is that simple it will keep the pre-teen safely occupied without parental assistance. The use of the word ‘magic’ 4 times in this short advert reinforces how amazing the product is. Anything that is magic is very likely to appeal to pre-teens. There are clues of traditional gender rules, a big one being that the advert is for a make-up produ ct which is aimed at pre-teen girls.The Bratz products are a pre-teen version of Barbie products and allow the girls to apply the make-up themselves in a way they want to do it. For the reason above I think that this advert is a negative force. The language in this advert is aimed only at children. Grammar This advertisement uses alliteration in the product name, ‘magic make-up’ and this is repeated 3 times throughout the advert. There are a lot of imperatives used, ‘turn it up’, ‘draw it on’ and ‘stencil it there’. Generally pre-teens respond to commands and this may increase the influence of the advertisement.Rhyme is used in the middle of the instructions for the use of the product, ‘stencil it there†¦glitter everywhere’. Rhyme can make information more memorable which could increase the impact of this advert. Pragmatics Body image is an issue raised by this product as by glamorising airbrush techniques, girls may feel under pressure to look a certain way and to have matte skin. This issue is also big in the world of celebrities as women that girls look up to as role models never get seen without a perfect face as their pictures are airbrushed.The doll’s face is going to look matte and perfect as airbrush make-up is used and if the pre-teen’s own skin doesn’t look the same when she starts wearing make-up she may feel ugly. Transcript 7 |Syllables |Total number of words | |1 |37 | |2 |11 | |3 |2 | |4 |2 |The language used is simple and comprises mostly of one or two syllable words. The table above shows the number of words with 1, 2, 3 and 4 syllables and clearly shows that simple words of 1 and 2 syllables comprise the most of this advert, with a lot of these being one syllable. I have found that it is unusual to have words of 3 or 4 syllables that are not featured in the product name. This is an advert for a Polly Pocket product that is a nursery with 5 newborn Dalma tian puppies.The first thing that I noticed about this advert is the instant use of alliteration in the title of the product, Polly Pocket Puppy Playhouse. The language used by the young girl is delivered in rhyme; this makes it easier to remember as it is more likely to stick in your mind. It uses ‘young’ monosyllabic language such as ‘lots to do’, ‘so sweet’ and ‘fun for puppy and you’ so that the young girls understand exactly what the advert is trying to say. It also uses some slang, teen-speak, for example ‘wow neat’It doesn’t teach the child to be caring as it is just a toy, they are not looking after the baby Dalmatians, they are playing with them on the Ferris wheel and the see-saw. I wouldn’t say that there is a positive or a negative force as the aim of the product is purely for fun. There is also no parental manipulation as there is nothing for them to gain or nothing for their child to learn b y them having the product. The language in this advert is aimed purely at children. GrammarThe grammar used is elliptical, when I looked at the sentences in the light of where the pauses are I noticed that they are not complete in themselves, for example ‘lots to do’, ‘look a ferris wheel†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢, ’a see-saw that’s a table too’ and ‘dalmation babies’. Pragmatics There is a change of register at the end of the advert. The major part of the advert is delivered in a child-like way. The end of the advert, which is delivered by a male voice-over, is a complete adult sentence ‘puppy playhouse with 5 newborns other puppies sold separately’.There is no audio proof that this product is aimed at girls but as there are only girls featured in the advertisement we get the impression that it is, although the voice over is that of a man. Conclusion The language used in the majority of my adverts is aimed at children. Where th e language is also aimed at parents it is usually towards the end of the advert, with the majority still being aimed at children. The following table shows a summary of whether the language used in my adverts is aimed at children, their parents or both children and their parents. Advertisement |Children |Parents |Children & Parents | |1 | X | | | |2 | X | | | |3 | X | | | |4 | | | X | |5 | | | X | |6 | X | | | |7 | X | | | If I had chosen educational toys for my study of language in advertising I think that more of the language would be aimed at parents. I think this because the parents would make a purchasing decision based on the educational value of the product as opposed to the play value which is offered in my chosen adverts.Where my adverts are aimed at both children and their parents, there seems to be some positive benefit for the child, from the product. An example of this is My Baby Doll, see Transcript 4. It encourages the child to be responsible and caring and therefore appeals to the parents as well. Transcript 5 – Baby Annabel’s Bed Set, appeals to parents as well because it makes bedtime fun. The table below shows the total number of words in all the advertisements I looked at and shows how many syllables are in each. This shows conclusively that the words used in children’s advertising are generally very simple as there is a huge predominance of monosyllabic words. Syllables |Total number of words | |1 |267 | |2 |71 | |3 |17 | |4 |6 | Several of my advertisements were subtly manipulative, and appealed to the mercenary and materialistic side of the children.I found this interesting because the results of one of my studies showed that advertising directed to children made them more materialistic and acquisitive. This study found that because the children were more acquisitive, it encouraged conflicts with both their friends and their parents. This study said that as children have under-developed reasoning, they can’t w ork out whether information is rational or realistic and that they could easily be deceived and influenced by advertising. Nearly all of my advertisements definitely reinforce gender categories i. e. the traditional role of the female, whether this be caring for children or making themselves look pretty. One of the studies I looked at (Lois. J.Smith, 1994) showed that children learn a lot about sex-type behaviours from television and the characters used are attractive models to copy because they are generally good looking. Advertisements show children how to behave and they accept the images they see as real. Evaluation I think my study is quite effective in terms of looking at the language related to young girls. I think my study would have had more validity if I had used a much larger range of advertisements, and if I had covered both play value and educational toys. It would also have been interesting to have included an equal number of advertisements aimed at boys and at both se xes. This would have allowed me to compare the language used in different areas and would have made my results more valid.On its own my key question was a little vague and if I had only addressed this question my study would have been very short. By including whether the language was manipulative, whether it reinforces traditional gender categories and whether or not it is a positive force I made my study more effective. I collected my data by watching and recording advertisements and transcribing exactly the language used in them. I don’t believe that there could have been a more effective way of collecting my data. I analysed my data by looking at grammar and pragmatics. This was interesting; however I could have improved my study by making more specific observations on lexis and semantics. Appendix

Obesity, Dopamine, And Addiction - 1223 Words

Obesity, Dopamine, and Addiction There is a large portion of the world’s population that has progressed past the point of having to struggle for food on a day to day basis. The days of an obese person being a sign of wealth and power are relatively gone in our society, and now even the poorest of us can find ourselves over weight. A big part of this can be chalked up the amount of food we can produce and that junk food is cheaper and tastier then the healthy alternative. With this a lot of the time it is just as simple as we don’t get enough exercise for the amount of food we eat but â€Å"clinical practice and epidemiological data clearly show that weight control is more complex than expected† (Riva, Bacchetta, Cesa, Conti, Castelnuovo, Mantovani, Molinari, 2006, p. 457). We are starting to see that to some people, eating is perhaps an addiction that needs special attention. How can something so necessary such as eating become a problem and addiction to some? 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