Intended Images

     In contemporary society, it is important what images that something has because they are used to make people to accept values that are embedded in the images. In other words, by connecting some images with values, powers which want to influence people can inject their ideologies and norms. Therefore, the strategy that tries to make good images and attach some intended values to figures, products or companies is used for many reason: political, commercial and so on.

     The video that I will cover below seems to advertise South Korea’s development and achievement. Through showing the transition images of Seoul (the capital city of South Korea) since the Korean War, the film shows how South Korea developed and overcame adversities within 50 years. Along with the music Arirang, one of the Korea’s representative traditional music, ad effectively expands its meaning in a broader range. In other words, not only do the ad show Korea’s achievements but also nation’s values: dynamic, diligent, potential and so on. At the end of the film, we can find that two main agents: Samsung and KBS (Korea Broadcasting System) who made advertisement appeared on the video. From this point, we can easily understand the hidden intends of this film. Samsung and KBS (national broadcast) want to connect their images with the values covered in the video. They want to make people think that Samsung and KBS have correlation with South Korea’s achievement and values. In other words, they want to be seen as the representatives of South Korea.

     Dominating power that wants to make people think in particular ways always seeks the way to injecting their ideologies to people. One of the best ways to achieve that goal is making some images and values that can be adapted for many people so companies, political agents and other powers sometimes try to make their images as national thing that insists they are the one who can represent your own country. Moreover, by doing so, they try to connect their images to patriotism. Therefore, it is easy to be dominated by those intended images in our daily lives so we need to ask ourselves that “Do we accept something as national and patriotic thing though it does not have acceptable reasons?”