Group 1 Presentation Summary

We are discussing the meaning and importance of media literacy and how this translates to our current forms of media. We will discuss topics such as semiotics and framing. Our objective is to teach the class the significance of media literacy and how its meaning has changed over time. We chose media literacy because it is important in our world now due to all of the social media that is using semiotics and framing. For example, with the political strategies used today in Twitter and Facebook, we can see how media literacy is used when it comes to campaigning. That is why we have chosen to do our presentation on media literacy.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17nGE8viplHIDTvlwEcKQjK1EzC1Pic-8Q5EZMFJD-Lg/edit?usp=sharing

The Society of the Spectacle

Guy Debord’s book “The Society of the Spectacle” revolves around the idea of the media taking control over materialism in order to lead society towards an essential need for modern commodities. Debord describes the spectacle as “…a permanent opium war waged to make it impossible to distinguish goods from commodities, or true satisfaction from a survival that increases according to its own logic.” (13) The media makes it easy to display products as essentials, tricking the public into believing they need something more in order to live a fulfilled life. This occurs every day in the world as modern advances in technology and fashion capture the eye of the average human being.

            The spectacle’s impact is mentioned as “…the historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life. It is not just that the relationship to commodities is now plain to see, the commodities are now all that there is to see; the world we see is the world of the commodity.” (Debord, 13) Debord describes a commodity as an item that is uneasy to avoid. In order to fit in, society is forced to share the same amount of interest in objects that are viewed as valuable by many. A company’s use of various labels and brands are provided to sell products, which are not even an actual necessity, besides coming off to others as unique.

            The commodity as a spectacle is also revealed as “…another facet of money, which is the abstract general equivalent of all commodities.” (Debord, 14) Money commands society and that will never change. As long as sales are high and increase year by year, the media will constantly manipulate us into buying these products buy releasing lavish commercials and constant ads. A trending business move used by different brands this day in age involves the use of celebrities and those constantly in the public eye. They are paid to sponsor and advertise a product in order to spread a nationwide campaign which makes money off of their followers and fans.

            One good example is the Proactiv company, which is a brand of skin-care products. Their business constantly uses random celebrities who claim they are suffering with acne, although their photos used for proof are outdated and possibly retouched. They appear to finally have clear skin and urge young adults to buy this product in order to cure themselves. This plan easily works as Proactiv has become the best-selling skin-care business in the country.

            Another constant use of sponsorship revolves around the shoe industry. Brands such as Nike, Puma and Adidas portray countless athletes, actors and musicians in their footwear to promote their sneakers as special and desirable. The average price for a pair of well-named sneakers quickly increases due to the high demand. The public desires them and will pay any amount to stand out or in this case, fit in with society all due to the power of the spectacle.

By Peter Merly

Works Cited:

Debord, Guy. "The Society of the Spectacle." Chapter 2: The Commodity as Spectacle.

Society of the Spectacle

Society of the Spectacle

“Ladies and Gentlemen do you know about the new and top of the line product that can help you not only save money but also improve your way of life?” This is just one of the many lines that you could hear today either on the radio, television, and phone and even email. In today’s society, you hear endless amounts of advertisements that tells you various ways to improve your way of life. However, even after gaining this product you feel satisfied for only a moment. Soon thereafter, society begins to inform you of another product that you must have. Then strangely enough you feel compelled to buy even if it  So why is this? Why is society so keen on making us spend on these products? Why not survive on the basic needs of life?

It’s simply because society has become a spectacle which was developed by Guy Debord in his book The Society of the Spectacle. Debord states that the society of the spectacle is “the developed modern complement money where the totality of the commodity world appears as a whole, as a general equivalence for what the entire society can be and can do. The spectacle is the money which one only looks at, because in the spectacle the totality of use is already exchanged for the totality of abstract representation” (Debord 49). As such within an economy in which money is a basic necessity to survive in the world, the spectacle aids in helping money flow within the economy. Moreover it shows that people actually help the spectacle by spending money on trying to become something we can only dream of becoming. It may range to looking like a celebrity, wanting to look young, owning a top luxury car etc.

Furthermore Debord even states that "the spectacle is a permanent opium war which aims to make people identify goods with commodities and satisfaction with survival" (Debord 44). This signifies that not only does the spectacle provide you the temptation of becoming a celebrity, looking young etc but has also evolve to become we need in order to survive. Even though our hair naturally protects from the elements, but making our hair look like a known celebrity does little to ensure our survival. Due to this the spectacle has commanded people to utilize commodity in order gain value out of something outside our basic needs for survival.

One example is gaming companies such as SuperCell which provides multiplayer mobile games. Their business provides entertainment through their various games which people can battle others online. However within their games they have ranks and levels that make the game progressively harder to players. Due to this the company utilizes a strategy known as "pay to win" in which players can actively use money to buy in game currency which in turn helps players progress the ranks and level with more ease. Despite the fact it may be easier to just learn the game or play a different game, yet people are hooked on the idea of dominating opponents which provides a satisfaction. It was not necessary for people to go online and win a game in order to survive everyday life.

Works Cited: Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

The Commodity as Spectacle

The Commodity of the Spectacle by Guy Debord shows the illusion that has been created by humans, as everything around us has become a spectacle. Debord commentary on mass consumerism in our society shows that commodities have become so engrossed into our lives that we have become unaware of it. The spectacle is all around us as both the physical and the intangible as it “holds up to view is the world of the commodity dominating all living experience.”

            A commodity is viewed as something of value or use. However, in our the society as the spectacle, commodities and many objects have become pseudo-commodities that have be created and given a value by companies to continuously fuel the economy. The concept of someone needs versus their wants has become distorted. We have replaced ‘necessity with a necessity for boundless economic development,’ changed the “satisfaction of primary human needs with an incessant fabrication of pseudo-needs.” We are now viewing our wants as needs as consumers and have become socially unconscious to this constructed idea of temporary gratification.

            Therefore, when we buy something such as a new shirt based on our pseudo-needs, we only feel temporary gratification when we first buy the shirt and for a short period after. Eventually our excitement and temporary gratification for this new item begins fades away. Therefore, we must continuously fulfill this void of emotion by buying a new item again and again. Retail and technology industries have manipulated the concept of temporary gratification in their marketing strategy to ensure customers continue to come back to buy their latest products.

            Debord’s commentary in the The Commodity of the Spectacle foreshadows how extreme commodities would dominate our lives in the 21^st century. In relation to this distortion of our needs, the commodities that we possess have become “glorified to the behavior it regulates.” In the spectacle, commodities are viewed as something that is more than their basic function but seen as items that can transform and improve our life. For example, fast fashion retailers, which refer to retailers that rapidly move from one fashion trend to another and sell their clothing at a low and affordable price, have glorified current fashion trends. Current fashion trends have been marketed to create the illusion that these items are more than just articles of clothing that cover the body but can make your life better only if you continuously buy the latest item. As well as making it seem as though you never enough or the clothing items you have are constantly going out of style and must be replaced with new merchandise.

            Lastly, the use of money has become the biggest spectacle within our society. Money “is an abstract general equivalent of all commodities” since we need money to buy and consume all commodities. When we look at money not for its purpose or function but at its physical appearance, it’s just a piece of paper with printed ink. However, we have transformed this item into the representation of our world and believe without money and its function we have nothing.

Work Cited:

Debord, Guy. "The Commodity as Spectacle." The Society of the Spectacle. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.

Rosenblum, Paula. "Fast Fashion Has Completely Disrupted Apparel Retail." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 21 Mar. 2015. Web. 

The Spectacle: Looking at a Society Through a Rose-Colored Looking Glass By Zeinab Said

Everything, from logos to ads, plays an important role in getting you, the consumer, to buy what you are taught is necessary. We become hypnotized by the different wants of life. 
Photo derived from  http://crappypictures.com/shopping-at-target/

       The society of the spectacle is under the influence of some metaphorical drug that when taken puts you under the disillusionment of thinking that buying materialistic things can fulfill that “missing” happiness. This is a society that is convinced that it is not happy, which is why I found many of what DeBord was saying to lead back to finding happiness, or fulfilling some burning desire, which goes hand in hand with the wanting of glamour or “comfort.” I put quotes around comfort because the Google definition of the word is “a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint (1).” Outside of the spectacle, this should mean living with “just enough,” where needs are actual needs, not desires that are disguised as necessities. However, inside the spectacle, commodities and necessities are interchangeable.

This is an example of something that we actually need. Although there are different companies that compete for consumers, the point of this meme, through our conversations on commodity, helps us see just how bruised our perception of reality is. 
Photo derived from http://jokideo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Funny-toilet-paper-meme.jpg

       The spectacle opens your eyes to glitz and glamour. Think of the spectacle as an actual pair of prescribed glasses that you try on (that belong to your 2/20 visioned sister) but don’t really need because your vision, God bless you, is 20/20.  Remember, these are “spectacle” glasses. When you put them on, you see rainbows, unicorns, money, cars, mansions, people vacationing, happiness etc. You see a fantasy. You want to keep the glasses on because this is great. This world is so glamorous. You begin to desire it. It’s a “different” world, but guess what? It’s fake. Let’s step out of the spectacle now. You are looking through lenses that are less powerful than your actual vision. What’s going to happen when you take them off? Your vision won’t be damaged. Things will seem a little blurry for a few seconds, but then your vision will be restored. Despite what some of our mothers told us, our vision won’t go bad if you wear someone else’s glasses. It’s one of the many myths that we were taught are realities. I am about to sound a little crazier and compare these same glasses to the commodity as spectacle. To you (person with 20/20 vision), the glasses are a commodity. You don’t need these glasses. That fantasy life is the spectacle, but because you want to live in that world, you start to think you need the glasses, and that is ultimately what ads do to us. They take us to a world that we have been convinced we need to live in to survive. 

Debord said it best:
“Replacing [a] necessity with a necessity for boundless economic development can only mean replacing the satisfaction of primary human needs with an incessant fabrication of pseudo-needs, all of which ultimately come down to the single pseudo-need of maintaining the reign of the autonomous economy (Debord, Quote 51).” 

Examples of comfort outside vs. inside of the spectacle:
Outside: “I really need a car because it saves me so much time, and there are no buses that are close to my house, so I will buy a fair priced car with good mileage.”
Inside: “I want that car. (Insert celebrity here) was driving it. It looks so nice. I need it.”  

Works Cited

1. "Google." Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2016. Definition of "Comfort"
2. Debord, Guy. "The Society of the Spectacle." Chapter 2: The Commodity as Spectacle.

Can we distinguish between reality and the spectacle?

In American democracies, why is there such a symbiosis between corporations and the government? On the onset, these two entities seem to be completely unrelated. Yet the relationship between the two is so grand, that business executives, the one percenters have power equaling that of any politician. After all, Donald Trump with his exuberance of political experience, is the Republican nominee for President of the United States. Clearly, there is a relationship between the government (power) and corporations (money). If that alone wasn't frightening enough, one must also evaluate the strategies and tactics those in power use in order to solicit wealth. In ancient times, this relationship was more direct. A leader would force his people to pay tribute and assets. In today's societies, the people subconsciously are made to think they want to pay tribute and assets. These strategies are documented as the Spectacle of Society by Guy Debord. In essence, it convinces the people to create urges of intense consumption to the point where it seems like a base emotion with the usage of idealized imagery. Rather, this "inherent" desire of want has been exponentially amplified in order to stimulate a capitalist economy because of the connection between imagery and desire.

In a democracy, those in power cannot simply force their people to enrich the social elites. In response, a democracy would create conditions on which the people think they need to do this. In a capitalist democracy, the corporation is the answer to this dilemma. Corporations have been increasingly powerful over the years and have become ever more important to the American economy. Since their inception, they have been eliciting tactics in order to convince people to buy more and more -- especially when it's not necessary. The "Spectacle" as portrayed by Debord may be a misnomer. As he states himself, a spectacle is not simply about imagery. "The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images." Indeed, the spectacle is the usage of imagery to create an ideal -- an ideal in which money is the way to attain it. Now, how has the spectacle come to be? As written by Debords, "the spectacle is both the outcome and the goal of the dominant mode of production. It is not something added to the real world ­ ­ not a decorative element, so to speak. On the contrary, it is the very heart of society's real unreality. In all its specific manifestations ­­ news or propaganda, advertising or the actual consumption of entertainment ­­ the spectacle epitomizes the prevailing model of social life."

The endgame of the spectacle is to have people endlessly trying to attain it thereby artificially increasing the mode of production. But this "ideal" is not anything real or substantial - it's just placating to the sense of "want" to unhealthy levels.


Let's take for example Grease. In this movie, the spectacle is created with a two fold strategy. The first is to designated the exact opposite of the ideals of the spectacle. The character Sandy, is portrayed as a "goody two shoes" whose innocence blends with her studious and perhaps nerdy nature. When relationship issues occur with her love interest: Danny Zuko. She feels undesirable to the pint where she changes her entire image. She wears skin tight leather clothing and even smokes a cigarette in order to hide her "innocent" nature. As such, Zuko is appalled and immediately seduced over the "new and improved" Sandy. The imagery of showing the ideal and the un-ideal combine to show that smoking for example is a desirable trait and that it should be purchased to make your life better. When in reality smoking is the exact opposite for a myriad of reasons.


Capitalism abuses these idealism in the form of imagery in order to stimulate a mode of production. The question is whether it's a good thing that people like Debords were able to decipher it, or the fact that such a simple strategy being so effective is troubling.

Society of the Spectacle

The spectacle is the control society has over the people.  Socialization is the hand that pushes us in the direction that we are “supposed to” to be going in.  The spectacle is the idea of a perfect life.  This perfect life is unattainable but the spectacle makes it seem as though with hard work and perseverance, each person can achieve this unattainable, imaginary happiness. 

“The spectacle is the stage at which the commodity has succeeded in totally colonizing social life. Commodification is not only visible, we no longer see anything else; the world we see is the world of the commodity” (Debord Thesis 42). Debord states.  The Spectacle encompasses our entire lives.  Everything we do is to satisfy the spectacle.  We go to school to gain an education, to get a job, to pay for the things we think we want and think that will make us happy.  Once we are able to afford things that are essential, the spectacle brings out the greediness in people.  We always want more.  The spectacle trains us to always want more.  More clothes, more jewelry, more cars, more diamonds, more shoes, more information.  We are never happy with having just the essentials in life. 

 The makeup industry is using social media to its advantage and using it well.  Makeup artists are becoming famous using social media platforms and websites like Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube.  The companies are able to reach more customers using viral marketing just as Pavlick and McIntosh describe in Converging Media (Pavlick, McIntosh 19).  The YouTube or Instagram Stars gain followers and subscribers, the companies collaborate with the “Stars”, slap his or her name on a lipstick or eye shadow palette, and both profit off of the YouTube star’s subscribers.  These collaborations are always “limited addition” so the consumers have to “BUY NOW BEFORE IT’S SOLD OUT!!”

 (Screenshot of YouTube star Jaclyn Hill debuting her collaboration with Becca Cosmetics)

The spectacle has made the goal in our lives to be able to afford a lavish life style.  We see luxury on social media, in magazines, and on TV these things are automatically “#goals”.  We attribute a person’s success with their monetary value instead of the happiness and peace a person.  Debord calls it “a necessary pseudo-justification for a counterfeit life” (Debord Thesis 48).  Many companies use celebrities as examples for what the average person can have.   

Debord explains the spectacle as a commodity but it is also that of information.  We are constantly yearning for the newest news.  We need instant gratification in all aspects of life.  The spectacle has robbed society of patience.  The reason we’re constantly consuming products and information is because of this counterfeit life we think we need. 

(Photo I took at the Wynwood Art District in Miami, Florida in January 2016)

Works cited:

Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle, Chapter 2: The Commodity as a Spectacle. 

Pavlike, John V., and Shawn McIntosh. Converging Media: An Introduction to Mass Communication. Boston: Pearson, 2004. Print.

The Spectacle.

On the surface, the spectacle seems like complicated idea, but it actually affects us on a day to day basis. Developed by Guy Debord, the spectacle is the idea that media and consumerism controls and influences us. Commodity is spectacle. It gives people the ultimate desires and urges to invest time and money into certain products.

The iPhone is in my opinion the greatest example. Every year Apple introduces a new model and every year the public goes crazy. If you look closely, Apple usually doesn’t even offer the best phone on the market in terms of specifications. So why does the public go insane for these devices? Because people have the urge to buy the newest and latest thing. Debord states, “The spectacle is a permanent opium war designed to force people to equate goods with commodities and to equate satisfaction with a survival that expands according to its own laws. Consumable survival must constantly expand because it never ceases to include privation. (Chapter 44)” People will always continue to buy the newest products, because even though it's not essential for survival, people need to consume it over and over.

The spectacle is also powered by marketing and PR. Marketing and PR shape the way we think and perceive certain products, companies, and other humans. Marketing is designed to target a specific audience and make you think about what it is they are selling. PR is shaped to either change your negative way of thinking or help show the public the good from people/companies. Look at Nike’s signature catch phrase, “Just Do It.” This screams at consumers to basically just do it and buy Nike products. That line will be embedded in our brains forever, Nike controls that line and influences us around it.

Example: The head public relations chief for the White House is always trying to shape and form the way we think. Whenever a story needs damage control, they do their best to change the public’s opinion and perception about them. Hillary Clinton’s email scandal is also another example of PR trying to change our opinion about her.

News media outlets play a huge role in controlling how the public thinks about anything. There’s so many ways to get your news and even though it’s always accurate, it’s makes people form an opinion. After reading about the spectacle, it does make you think about the kind of society we live it, but it will not change from here on out.   

Works citied: Debora, Guy. The Society of Spectacle.