A Analysis of the Image’s Impact on Mass Media and Mass Society
A Brief Analysis of the Image’s Impact on Mass Media and Mass Society
Remembrance Day is a traditional holiday in the west, especially in the UK. On November 11th, people wear the little poppy, the symbol of this special holiday, to remember and mourn for those people who died for the country during the WWI and WWII. This image is a typical promotion by the mass media of Remembrance Day. In order to persuade the public to understand and participate in the Remembrance Day activities, the mass media promotes this image to consolidate people’s impressions of this holiday. After a long-term promotion, this image has become the representative of Remembrance Day, which shows that the image has an important impact on the promotion of mass media and the mass society. Based on the analysis of this image, this paper aims at analyzing the image’s impact on mass media and mass society. The analysis shows that images, as a promotion method of mass media, consolidate the mass society’s impression of a certain emotion and achieve the promotion effect of mass media.
To begin with, images could convey information, atmosphere, and emotions to the mass society. This image shows that a person is mourning for those soldiers die in the war. The image of poppy represents the death condition of a soldier. The black core of poppy represents a bullet shooting through a person’s chest. And red pedals represent the blood. The Remembrance Day came from the Battle of Flanders, one of the fiercest battles in WWI. In that battle, hundreds of thousands of soldiers died for their country. In honor of military personnel who died in this battle, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote the poem In Flanders Fields and aroused the widespread echoes. The native poppy then became the symbol of the dead soldiers in that battle, as well as people who sacrificed their lives for their countries in later battles. Later on Remembrance Day, people wear poppy to call for peace and commemorate those people who sacrificed their lives for the peace of this country. Meanwhile, the raindrops and the black tomb background convey a sad and solemn atmosphere to the mass society. And those words on the picture directly reveal the meaning of this image, which is to call for peace and mourn for those people sacrificing their lives for people’s happy lives today. By reviewing this image, the public could hold respect for the dead and understand the meaning of this holiday. The red poppy in the black tomb background creates a strong visual effect and deepens the mass society’s impression. The poppy shows people’s mourning, respect, and love for the dead. With this image, the mass society could understand the meaning of Remembrance Day and have the intention to show their respects and mourning for the dead by wearing the poppy or visit the cemetery garden.
In addition, the mass media are necessary instruments for achieving and maintaining mass societies. Mass society is any society of the modern era that possesses a mass culture and large-scale, impersonal, social institutions. It is an ideology about a small number of interconnected elites persuading and manipulating the condition of life of the many (Tichenor 163). In order to guide and persuade the public’s opinion, the small number of interconnected elites, such as the government and the companies, need the mass media to promote their concepts. For example, if the government wants the public to remember the meaning of Remembrance Day and wear the poppy to mourn for the dead, the government should arrange the social media, like televisions, the Internet, and broadcast, to persuade the public of this opinion. This image is one of those promoting methods that social media could use during the Remembrance Day period. By the repetitive promotion, the mass media could create an atmosphere and a social environment for, which makes it easier for the mass public to accept the promoted concept.
Last but not least, images are an effective way to promote a certain concept to the mass society and achieve a certain goal by the mass media. The mass media are diversified media technologies that aim at reaching a large audience via mass communication, such as films, radios, recorded music, television, the internet, etc. The goal of the mass media is to convey information to the mass audience and guide the audience’s opinion for a certain goal. For example, during the Christmas period, there are pictures of Santa Claus everywhere. These pictures aim to create the holiday atmosphere and encourage the public to purchase. When people see the image of Santa Claus, people will immediately feel the happiness of the holiday and this happiness will create a rush for them to purchase. It is the same sense with this image. The government wants the mass society to accept the meaning of Remembrance Day and hold respect and gratitude for those people who sacrifice their lives for the peace today. To achieve this goal, the government needs the mass media to promote this concept to the mass society. And to persuade the public to accept this concept, images could be used as one of the most effective ways of promotions. As discussed above, images could convey certain information, atmospheres, and emotions to the public. When people view this image again and again, they will have a deep impression of Remembrance Day and a deep understanding of the poppy as the symbol of this holiday. Furthermore, the purpose of the meaning of this holiday is not only to mourn for the dead, but also raise donations for the living veterans. In the current society, The Royal British Legion distributes the remembrance poppy in return for donations to their “Poppy Appeal”, which aims at supporting all current and former British military personnel. During this period, all public figures are supposed to wear poppies when they appear on the mass social media. For the donation purpose, the mass media needs to create a sad and solemn during this period and make the public easier to make donations due to the social influence and their sad feelings. By the widespread of this image, red poppies in the black tomb background have become the symbol of Remembrance Day that root deeply in people’s concepts. Every time the mass media wants to persuade the public to remember the meaning of peace, it shows this image and the public will respond with proper emotions. Images could create a strong visual impact on people’s memory. This visual impact, together with emotions and feelings when seeing this image, stores in people’s memory. And the appearance of this image will bring back the visual impact and the related feelings (Wimmer 22). That is why people will be happy when they see the image of Santa Claus. The images pose an effective and long-term impact on people’s memory of a certain feeling or concept. By repeating this visual impact, the mass media could guide and lead the mass audience’s opinions and feelings to achieve certain goals.
In sum, images have a strong visual effect on leading people’s feelings and emotions. By repeating the exposure of this image, the mass media could create a certain social atmosphere which makes the mass society easier to accept the concept. This image which contains the red poppy and black tomb creates a strong visual impact for people to understand the meaning of Remembrance Day. Meanwhile, the government could use the mass media to encourage the public to donate in favor of those veterans by consolidating the visual impact of this image.