Research, Audience and Context

While in viscom class many aspects of the nature of the communication were discussed. Ultimately they can be summed up in three categories; research, audience and context.

These notes express a relationship between the image and the audience needs to specific. While thinking about these relationships I began thinking about two specific instances where visual communication failed, or at least misread.

One of the images was a movie poster for the awful, looking Michael Bay produced Ninja Turtles movie.  However it wasn't the ugly looking turtles that caused issues.  The poster showed the turtles jumping from a burning skyscraper and a release date of Sept. 11.  Because of the connections of the turtles with New York City, the movie was reflecting imagery of terrorist attacks.

The other example was a tweet from the British embassy, celebrating the end of the War of 1812.   What hurts the image is that the British did not understand who their audience.  They were making a joke about the time they burnt down the White House, one of, if not the, symbol of American political power.  

I figure both of these images can give a fuller example of the importance of understanding the relationships between images and the audiences they hope to reach.