By Coleen Meyers
Feature Editor
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A close-up look at the media's use of
minorities in commercials will be
taken by Linda Malm art department
chairperson, today at 11 a.m. in the
PCC Forum.
With her topic The Images of Minorities in American Advertising, Malm
plans to examine hidden meanings in
television commercials. She hopes to
provide her audience with new "tools"
for weeding out messages in commercials.
"I am not looking at minorities as
victims. So many other people are
talking about that topic. Instead I want
to share ways of translating the hidden
messages in commercials."
Malms goal is to enable people to
walk away from her lecture with more
ways of understanding their feelings
about media messages. "So if a commercial makes you uneasy: if you don't
like it, if you feel somehow that it is
racist or sexist; I can convev whv vou
feel that way. Chances are the feeling
is probably valid." she said.
The production technique, the use of
the camera, the lighting, the choice of
words and the decision to use or not to
use a minority person are all elements
which work to create a message.
Video taped examples of award winning commercials which contain discriminatory images will also be shown.
"I could have made an easy case and
used those terrible commercials that
never win awards because they are so
discriminatory. We've heard enough of
'look how awful that is or look how
awful this is" and I thought it would be
more valuable to have people see discrimination mixed with the most new
and exciting advertising techniques.
Discrimination is also found in the
award winning commercials."
Malm will use a recent type of film
criticism, called semiatics. which
evolved from the study of linguistics to
explain the messages.
"However. I am not going to talk
theoretically. Instead, I am going to
talk about elements based on scholarly
theories. I'll tell and how these theories, like semantic analysis, are applied in commercials. We will take a
look at what the commercials are
exactly saying and not saying."
Malm believes that television
advertising reveals how the perceptions in our culture are changing.
Linda Malm
She believes television can be used
for an indicator.
"On the surface I think things are
getting better. I believe overt sexism is
being reduced. We see some people of
color in advertising now. But we still do
not see handicapped people in
advertisements unless it is an
advertisement for the handicapped,
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(continued from page 1)
And the numbers of minorities in ads
don't nearly match the numbers of
minorities in the population. So looking
at just numbers we have a long wav to
go"
Malm has a BA in English and Art
History from Tufts University and an
MFA in Theater Arts from UCLA. She
also has completed a year of graduate
work in screen writing and film production at USC. She has been an Assistant
Professor at Cal Poly Pomona and an
Associate Professor at the Claremont
Colleges where she taught television
and film production, script writing, and
criticism .She is published in American
Screenwriters and has delivered numerous conference papers on the image of
women in the media. Her most recent
research has analyzed how images
communicate.
The lecture is scheduled to last 40
minutes with a question and answer
period to follow. It is part of a lecture
series on "International Understanding" made possible through a $14,000
grant donated by a private foundation
in the Spring of 1986. This donation
enabled the library to buy books on
international communications and
sponsor a lecture series to explain the
material.
i
Library Director Joanne Kim said
her main objective is to provide students with additional cultural benefits,
other than books. Through this lecture,
which takes a closer look at the visual
language in advertising, students can
hear what is truly being said about
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