Constructed images of men in the advertisement

Advertisements are essential to demonstrate the constructed image of men nowadays, which is masculine and good-looking. Here’s the advertisement produced by Adidas, Hong Kong. Nick Cheung is a famous movie star in Asia, this advertisement displays the image of a muscular man to a certain extent that a popular movie he participated before, which is called “Unbeatable” in 2013. The image and success of Cheung would have a great influence to audiences in order to achieve their goals by working hard. Another key elements is the copywriting, which is accurate in the advertisement, which remind the audiences that they should not hesitate to do anything or else they would regret or lose in their entire lifetime.

On the other hand, the advertisement in the west is different from Hong Kong. It is an advertisement with a constructed image towards man produced by Under Armour.  The most essential element is the body shape of the man, which has a good physique and nude with his upper body. Besides, the girl in the bed is another constructed image provided by the advertisement.  She is pretty and attractive as well. These two elements combined seem to be a man’s dream, which is the man having a perfect body shape that others are envious of him. Furthermore, the description at the bottom of the advertisement “ mankind” signifies that only muscular men would have this kind of situations happen in their life.

Student Name: Chu Chi Wai

Media images and the external world

Media images are detached from the external world to a certain extent. I watched Aladdin a lot when I was a primary school students, it was a cartoon series with fantasy and musical elements produced by Disney in 1992. It actually represents the concept of "Orientalism" since there are orientalist views of the western countries that can be found in the series. The main character - Aladdin indeed represents as a typical model of the western stereotype of the Arabs. In the movie, Aladdin is poor and dirty. Besides, he is a beggar and he loves to steal other people's property at the beginning of the story. The social phenomenon, such as extreme wealth between the rich and the poor, and the behavior of avarice are also shown in the movie. Another interesting aspect is that the film actually shapes Middle East as a very dangerous and uncivilized place where there are a lot of desert and monster.

Media images and the external reality can be closely related although most of the media images are edited and published by the authors in order to achieve specific goals nowadays, such as create noises and gimmicks in the society or making profits to them. However, it may represent some of the truth although it only contains and reflects certain sides of the story/event. Therefore, we ought to think critically when we are absorbing different kinds of media images.

Student Name: Chu Chi Wai 

It used to be a private space

From my point of view, mobile technologies blur the boundary of private and public space to a great extent. Let’s use Global Positioning System (GPS) as an example to demonstrate my arguments. Every smartphone has GPS installed nowadays and it is extremely useful for us in searching and finding unfamiliar or unclear destination, such as buildings and streets.

However, your friends may have a chance to detect your location through social media platform (Facebook) by using its particular function. It sounds awful but your private space is no longer secure unless you change your privacy settings and your whereabouts becomes a public space while you may not realize at all.

To a great extent, the blurring of the boundary is favorable to our daily life. Using an incident of whether the teenagers should offer their seats to the elderly as an example, it actually could practice our critical thinking towards the behavior of the teenagers, the standard and atmosphere of our society nowadays whether we should give our seats to everyone in need in the MTR although we are very tired after work or we are actually ill but the other passengers have not noticed that at all.

Thus, once we set our post into public or the others share throughout the Facebook, it no longer becomes our private space and it may brings out different discussion of the performance and characteristic of someone by taking photos using our smartphones and upload it to social media platforms.

Student Name: Chu Chi Wai

Personal understanding and perception on McLuhan’s idea

McLuhan used his efforts and passions regarding to culture and technology with his entire life in order to prove us that his theory and argument “Medium is the message” is true. I totally agree with his idea and I would like to express that every medium has its ability to change and affect our daily life and future.

Besides, we should consider the medium itself rather then its content when we try to distinguish what the medium is as McLuhan suggests “Hot & Cold” in order to explain and classify the difference and characteristic of different medium, from traditional tools (print, radio) to modern tools (Facebook, Advertisement).

From my point of view, when I started to use a smartphone when I was 17 years old, my communication between my relatives and friends had changed since I tried to reply on WhatsApp more regularly rather than SMS at that time. Once I engaged with a new medium, it became much more convenient and reform our way of communication and the method of interact with the others to a certain extent. 

Nowadays, I could easily take a look at my sister’s photos that she shares on her Instagram in order to realize and visit her daily life in Taiwan since electronic media is an instantaneous exchange and extension of the human senses (McLuhan, 1989). Furthermore, we could travel around the world with our eyes using the smartphone without distance, and that’s why it maybe the external organs or needs of us right now.

Student Name: Chi Wai Chu Chiwai