What are the main communicative functions of redundancy? What do we mean by saying the English language is 50% redundant?
Discuss the ways in which convention can be said to facilitate understanding. Think of visual communication that breaks or extends specific conventions. How does this affect the desire to communicate or the audience they reach?
I chose this example of advertising to analyse:
The first stage in the Shannon & Weaver communication theory is the source of information, so what message is wanting to be conveyed. The Atheist Bus Campaign aimed to place peaceful and upbeat messages about atheism on transport media in Britain, in response to evangelical Christian advertising, a very risky move.
The second stage is the transmission. The campaign needed to convey a message which would make people think, but would also create opinion. There was no real way of displaying their message without at least offending some people. The message is very light hearted but very opinionated.
The medium used was London buses, very effective as buses are running 24/7 and are seen by near enough everyone. The fact that the campaign wasn't linked directly to any company made it difficult to understand who was displaying the message. I think this adds to the entropic design as its making the audience think about what they're reading. It's definitely breaking convention.
The campaign was aimed at specifically religious people, it was stab at a christian campaign which advertised that "all gays would burn in hell for their sins." The impact made by the campaign was huge. They had Richard Dawkins funding the campaign and caused a lot of offence to certain people. The advertising campaign went global and was also started in Europe and South America.
This advertising campaign is a great example of entropic design as it breaks the conventions of the ordinary social order, it has a low predictability but conveys a meaningful and controversial message. The campaign can be seen in two very different lights, depending on the opinions of the viewer. It can be seen as very light hearted, merely displaying an opinion of the designer, or it can be seen as a stab at religious people. The advert received a lot of complaints but was never taken down. It shows how breaking convention and disrupting social normality can make such a big impact.
The second stage is the transmission. The campaign needed to convey a message which would make people think, but would also create opinion. There was no real way of displaying their message without at least offending some people. The message is very light hearted but very opinionated.
The medium used was London buses, very effective as buses are running 24/7 and are seen by near enough everyone. The fact that the campaign wasn't linked directly to any company made it difficult to understand who was displaying the message. I think this adds to the entropic design as its making the audience think about what they're reading. It's definitely breaking convention.
The campaign was aimed at specifically religious people, it was stab at a christian campaign which advertised that "all gays would burn in hell for their sins." The impact made by the campaign was huge. They had Richard Dawkins funding the campaign and caused a lot of offence to certain people. The advertising campaign went global and was also started in Europe and South America.
This advertising campaign is a great example of entropic design as it breaks the conventions of the ordinary social order, it has a low predictability but conveys a meaningful and controversial message. The campaign can be seen in two very different lights, depending on the opinions of the viewer. It can be seen as very light hearted, merely displaying an opinion of the designer, or it can be seen as a stab at religious people. The advert received a lot of complaints but was never taken down. It shows how breaking convention and disrupting social normality can make such a big impact.
To successfully advertise in a redundant manor you need to be able to communicate to almost anyone and everyone in a language/ meaning which is understood as being socially acceptable and conventional. The main functions would be to; be predictable, understandable and readable, following familiar rules which everyone can engage with on a comfortable level. The English language is 50% redundant because it follows an understandable and readable assembly/ rule which everyone who can read and write understand. But the way in which someone can use the English language to engage specific audiences shows how it can be manipulated to all sorts of meanings, meanings which some people may not understand/ agree with.
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