The Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture Pages 337-343

        In this last section of chapter eight the book talks about postmodern space, geography, and the built environment. Just reading the title I had no idea what this section would be about, but after reading it I now know it's about the separation of time and space because of the urbanization and communication between technologies that our world experiences today. One of the primary issues that lingers over the concepts of postmodernism is "the degree in which they are a response to the fading and shifting aspects of modernism and the degree to which they signal a new era of some kind, a new episteme, a new way of thinking and being, a new way of making art, popular culture, and buildings, a new way of writing fiction, and so on" (pg. 343). We do not live in a world that is postmodern, but in a world where the tensions of modernity and postmodernity are active and present. Globalization's production of a wide economic divide has caused global capitalism to stray further away from the center of economic wealth and technological advancement. 

The Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture Pages 401-413

        In these sections of chapter ten the book talks about global brands, globalization and media flow. Everyone knows what a brand is and everyone seems to have a favorite when it comes to a certain product. There will always be one you like more than another, but global brands make this a lot easier for everyone to decide. Global brands can be seen as homogenizing forces, bad consumption habits, symbols of capitalism and even result in the emergence of specific cultural and national identities under the sign of the brand. Certain brands can even become symbols of modernity or cultural imperialism. Before reading this I didn't even realize that global brands so closely related to globalization. Everyone identifies to a specific nation, region and culture, but the aspects of having a global and local identity are not contradictory, but interdependent. Each and every definition of globalization varies from person to persona and topic to topic, but because each and every person is different, each and every view of the world is going to be different. So understanding every form of visual media or image is essentially necessary to understand visual culture today. The ways in which popular culture is produced and travels the world has a great impact on each and every person, no matter how different. Television, cinema, the Internet, almost anything technological that can transmit a message is going to affect each person differently, but how we react to these messages is what ultimately defines our world, and what is going to be left of it after we are gone. 

The Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture Pages 389-401

        In this section of the book visual culture is taken into a broader sense and looked at on a global scale. The globalization of communication technologies over the past few decades has shown that global image flows may allow "an increased circulation of concepts, ideas, politics, and images, but this also helps to foster the growth of multinational corporations and the expansion of political influence by powerful nations over distant domains with fewer resources" (pg. 389). The idea of global scale, globalization, and images are all closely related. With things like satellites we are able to get images of the world. A global presence is thus created and the whole globe is connected. Certain images not only provide the visual pleasure of looking at an interesting image, but also provide information about current changes in environment, in historical ways, in political ways, etc. These images, especially satellite images, are great tools in the global sphere. There are so many ways to use these images to help us understand things; to understand the global movement of culture for example was have to define imperialism. Cultural imperialism "refers to how an ideology, a politics, or a way of life is exported into other territories through the export of cultural products" (pg. 397). In a sense it's like another way of broadcasting. This way of transmitting ideas, ideologies, concepts, etc. globally isn't anything new. When everyone knows what is going on in the world, increased globalization of media helps to confirm national ideologies giving people a sense of participation in the audience. 

The Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture Pages 265-279

        In this section of the book its all about advertising, consumers, and desire. Consumer products and brands and the advertising that sells them aim to present an image of things to be desired, people to be envied and life as it should be. Advertisements and advertisement companies have to predict what they think the consumer world wants, needs, and has to have. Because ad make promises to the viewer/audience it is our job to interpret these images in the best we know how. Not all images are going to be interpreted in the same way by everyone. The consumer world and consumer societies promote this idea of individual choice even though consumers are being told what to buy the advertisements make it seem like it was the consumer's idea. With a constant demand for new products, consumerism will never end, everybody always wants more. Also with so many products being made overproduction happens causing advertisement companies to work harder to persuade the consumer to buy more. The idea of selling self-sulfillment is a big money maker for advertisement companies; it is crucial to marketing and consumption. Advertisements plays on our emotions of envy, desire and belonging. Advertising asks us not to consume the product, but to consume the signs in the semiotic meaning of the term. No matter what the item or how we feel about it there will always be pressure and pleasure in consuming. There will always be that needing feeling to purchase that item, followed by a disappointment feeling after we purchase the item. 

The Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture Pages 183-200

        In this section of the book it talks all about visual technologies, image reproduction and copies. The term reproduction is defined not in the ways we think it might be; it is used to describe the ways that cultural practices and their forms of expression reproduce the ideologies and interests of the ruling class and the reproduction of ideology through media also reproduced the political order and its episteme. Technology has always been evolving over time, but what many overlook is that it has important and influential effects on society. Technology has a weird way of popping up when it is needed. Usually some one has a problem and then as more and more people have the same problem, someone eventually invents some way to solve that problem, usually with some kind of new and evolving technology. Photography emerged as a popular medium, not simply because it was invented, but because "it fulfilled particular social demands of the early nineteenth century" (pg. 184). From photography evolving, like all technology does, the world was introduced to image reproduction or the copy. Different things can be copied in different ways, but now when it comes to the image and the mass reproduction, it is much harder to tell which is a copy and which is an original. Not only is it hard to tell images apart, but also many kinds of artwork today. "Reproducibility as a quality of the medium moved the artwork out from the centuries-long emphasis on uniqueness and authenticity as the qualities that confer value to it" (pg. 195). The authenticity of an image or artwork is valued above all else and because of this it has become the center of all things. Our society values authenticity with just about everything, people, clothes, brands, images, artwork, icons, etc. A copy's value does not lie in its uniqueness, but in its aesthetic, cultural, and social worth throughout the world. 

The Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture Pages 223-260

        In this section of the book it talks all about media and how and where it is used. Media is used in everyday life and in our mundane routines. We see the world and our lives through theses screens  or information translated from those screens by voice output. Mass media and the masses refers to the changes in structure of our societies "undergoing industrialization and the emergence of a massive working class" (pg. 233) and how media on a global scale effects it and it affects media. Broadcasting and webcast media is almost an entirely different thing in itself. In this section broadcast is defined as  "one central source broadcasting a signal to many venues, but narrowcasts is defined as "targeted, vis cable and other means, to niche audiences". When the narrowcast model was introduced it allowed for the development of community-based programming, but when the explosion of consumer-user productions and web media hit, broadcast communications lost much of its dominance. Later in this section the idea of propaganda showed up again and how mass media is a form of propaganda in itself. Weather it is good or bad it is a very powerful thing that can serve many different social purposes in different cultures. Media, the public sphere, and national and global events are all persuaded by propaganda and mass media. Many different forms of media helped to create the public sphere and the differences between public and private emerged. The circulation of ideas has been sped up to basically instantaneous. The primary function of media promotes feelings of connectedness in the audience, and with that comes a national connectedness which in turn creates nationalism within the county. There are a variety of different people and communities to broadcast to and a variety of sources and media to broadcast.

Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture Pages 200-220

        In these pages of the textbook the first thing that I read about that was really interesting was about propaganda and how reproduction allows images to circulate with political meaning. I have heard and learned about propaganda before, but never really put two and two together. The only way for propaganda to survive is through images. The increased ability of images is to captivate and persuade which is basically the definition of propaganda. Another piece of this I found interesting was the issues of copyright and ownership that goes along with images and propaganda. Even though the audience is allowed to feel certain emotions and loyalty toward the images they see, for all audiences to see the image needs to be copied and distributed worldwide. "The proliferation of images through reproduction also means that images can be more easily accompanied by different kinds of text, which can dramatically change the signification of the image". Propaganda can be changed from city to city with the same intention of meaning, but the meaning can change so much, especially when text in added. The codes and laws of copyright and ownership not only regulate the amount and flow of copies, but also shapes peoples minds and ideas about what constitutes a legitimate use of a copy and what constitutes to be unlawful. "The Fair Use Doctrine (made law in the Copyright Act of 1976) permits copying without permission of the copyright holder in certain limited cases" (pg. 208). I thought this was interesting because who decides who gets to regulate these laws and say which "certain cases" are legitimate and which aren't. In the reproduction and the digital image section it talks a lot about cameras and photoshop. Cameras allowed the photographer to see the image immediately after taking the photograph, allowing "instantaneous pleasure of the image". With the advancement of computer programs like photoshop everyone is now allowed to edit, enhance, correct and manipulate an image in order to alter its composition, framing, color and combinations of elements and scenes. It has always been a possibility to fake realism in photographs with constructed scenes made from our imagination.