Visual Literacy Series: Manipulation through Images

Foreword

Visual Literacy Series articles serve as one of the academic courses in this precise field. The main aim of this research is to focus attention on the analysis of the topic of “mass culture,” its visual representations and the ways it takes action through imagery and its components. The theoretical framework will be covered from a “counter hegemonic” stance and, essentially, the project involves the attempt to create a diagonal discourse that promotes visual literacy through the idea of art as a pedagogical and revolutionary act, since it moves collective subjectivities.

Visual Literacy Series will be mainly divided into the following chapters of content:

1. Where the necessity begins: examples and contextualization of control

2. A background to mass culture

3. Cultural Industry and what it implies

4. Manipulation through images

5. How is this manoeuvre orchestrated?

6. Learning to identify manipulation: conditioning factors

7. A critical eye to the situation: Visual Literacy

Manipulation through images

In her article "In Search of the Buy Button" (2003), Melanie Wells, a contributor to Forbes magazine and founding director of the Wells Narrative Group in New York (2014), hypothesises that public preferences can be accurately predicted and even controlled when designing products. Wells (2003) points out:

Neuroscientists say that, by peering inside your head, they can tell whether you identify more strongly with J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, say, than with J.R.R. Tolkien's Frodo. A beverage company can choose one new juice or soda over another based on which flavor trips the brain's reward circuitry. It's conceivable that movies and TV programs will be vetted before their release by brain-imaging companies (Wells, 2003).  

The scientific advances in neuroimaging technology paved the path for numerous industries, such as entertainment and advertising, to allow them to manipulate and influence individual preferences by appealing to their brain's reward circuitry. However, knowing how far away the scenario Wells' hypotheses is impossible. Despite that, studying brain mechanisms and how they work is becoming increasingly important in a society that is overwhelmingly immersed in the development of new technologies. So much so that today, the possibility of new gadgets or devices that can predict or even control our cognitive functions is not far from imaginable and has become more and more believable as technology continues to develop rapidly. The science fiction series Black Mirror may be a good example to explain such propositions (Brooker, 2011). That being so, the aim is to establish the keys and manipulative characteristics of visual objects, for which an analysis of the brain processes involved in the processing and interpreting of them is carried out.

Critical ethical questions are raised by the possibility of emerging technology to anticipate or regulate cognitive functioning. It emphasises the necessity of establishing moral standards and laws to stop the abuse of such technologies. To safeguard individual liberty and privacy, it is crucial to strike a balance between technical innovation and ethical issues. To predict and stop any detrimental effects that employing technology in this area may have, it is essential to have a thorough understanding of how the brain processes and interprets visual information.

Figure 1 – Black Mirror, Episode 2 – Season 3, “Playtest”

The human brain is plastic; in other words, it is formed throughout life. Lev Vygotsky, a Soviet psychologist who developed the cultural-historical theory in psychology, explored the concept of brain plasticity. He suggests that this feature is due to the fact that the individual is subject to a process of neurophysiological maturation that occurs in interaction with the socio-cultural environment and which is what will eventually give rise to knowledge (Vygotsky, 1987). It is in this unstable environment of brain development where the experience of mass culture takes place and is specific to each generation, as this will depend on the objects of consumption —and knowledge— that are promoted and distributed to each generational stage. Rather than just being a concept, mass culture constitutes the reality that individuals are continuously immersed in. Throughout the history of thought, it has been characterised by different names (e.g., mass society, control society, disciplinary society, and a lot more) and described by different terminologies (e.g., capitalism, consumer economy, technological advances, and individualism) (Vygotsky, 1987). Most of them are connotative in their formulation, and those do not explicitly highlight the obvious.

According to Warren Neidich, an American neuroscientist who has worked as a visual artist since 1993, the brain develops depending on the stimuli it receives. This means that those impulses that are endured more frequently will provoke the reaction and growth of the affected neurons. If this happens repeatedly, neuronal spaces reserved for other stimuli will undergo apoptosis or cell death (Brea, 2005). Therefore, for practical purposes, it is deduced that the landscape of experiences shapes the brain it undergoes. Furthermore, given that the experience of the individual, in particular, is dominated by the informational content they encounter, this will be determined by mass culture in general. The theory proposed by Neidich, under the name of "Neuronal Group Selection Theory'' (Brea, 2005), suggests the following:

1. The human brain is shaped by the visual and cultural landscape.

2. Neuronal groups affected by frequent stimuli suffer a significant increase in the efficiency of their functions.

3. Those neurons that are not stimulated eventually disappear from the brain map.

Then if, as the author suggests, the idea of mass culture is taken into account in this system, it is easy to understand the manipulative dimensions that the latter exerts on the human brain (Brea, 2005).

Figure 2 – Brain plasticity at stake

Therefore, it can be affirmed that mass culture not only orientates individuals as to what they should be in society but also manages to construct their brains. This establishes what kind of neural circuits will be used and the processing and interpretations that will be made from the information presented. It is not that the hegemonic powers subjugate the subjects, but that part of their thoughts and opinions belong to them since they were their creators to a certain extent. The idea that mass culture influences people's brains has significant implications for our understanding of how people process and interpret the information provided to them. It suggests that popular culture has the power to alter the neuronal connections in our brains, affecting how we perceive and engage with the outside world. Even if this does not indicate that hegemonic forces control people entirely, it does imply that some of their beliefs and behaviours may be influenced by the cultural setting in which they reside. In this perspective, the concept of mass culture stresses the complex interaction between individual agency and cultural influence. It raises fundamental questions about the nature of free will and the extent to which others influence our decisions.

Today's world is a visual one whose imagination is full of optical metaphors. Since the expansion of the media took place with the development of cinema and television, a change in the conception of space and time has occurred. This dimension comes together and appears "folded, intensive, and rhizomatic" (Neidich in Brea, 2005: 235), recalling the proposals of fragmentation and rhizome put forward by authors Deleuze and Guattari. This is to say that contemporaneity is experienced hurriedly through the multiplicity of experiences offered by the different technological media —resulting in culturalization being a heterogeneous process, that is to say, without content or defined meaning. Neidich affirms that the community previously explained based on the presence and place in which it existed now occurs on the basis of interests. This happens because culture is an allegory of the visual panorama, which the system controls (Neidich in Brea, 2005). Juan Martín Prada also offers the idea of the "war of visual documents" in which collectives are immersed because, for the author, the world today is composed —and overcrowded— with images (Martín Prada, 2018).

Figure 3 – Installation fragment of My feet (Erik Kessels, 2014)

Deleuze and Guattari explain this phenomenon with the term "visibilities," which refers to visual information that is not codified and remains irreducible to spoken or textual meaning. The authors propose that if the eye is accustomed to experiencing these "visibilities," it will be exempted from the "dialectical relève of the visible in knowledge" (Armstrong in Brea, 2005: 124). Therefore, the idea that the simple processing of visual content deprived of interpretation results in the loss of cognitive capacities and causes ignorance, although once a mere philosophical hypothesis, is today ratified by the neurologist Warren Neidich. The idea of "visibilities" by Deleuze and Guattari emphasises visual information's influence on how we think. The idea that merely absorbing visual information without further interpretation causes cognitive decline; and ignorance is crucial to consider because it implies that how we consume and interpret visual media directly affects how cognitively developed we become. Neurologist Warren Neidich has endorsed this concept as being validated by current scientific studies, further emphasising the need to pay attention to how visual content is delivered to us. This investigation raises significant concerns regarding the influence of mass culture on our cognitive processes and emphasises the crucial function of visual media in doing so.

This environment of mass culturalization in which people are educated ultimately determines their development as individuals. Therefore, the formation of subjects in the system, this modelling mechanism, constitutes one of the fundamental pieces within the social apparatuses of domination and capitalist exploitation today (Martín Prada, 2018). Furthermore, it finds in the manipulation of the sensible (referring to the term coined by Jacques Rancière, Frenchaesthete philosopher and an emeritus professor at the University of Paris VIII and the European Graduate School, in his book The Distribution of the Sensitive (2009)) one of its main assets of control and authority. Sanford Kwinter, architectural theorist and co-founder of Zone Books Publishers, of Canadian origin, states: "A regime can be said to impose a configuration on such a field insofar as it organises, allies, and distributes bodies, materials, movements, and techniques in space while simultaneously controlling and developing the temporal relations between them (Kwinter, 2002)." This means that, effectively, for a system to function correctly, it must take control over the individuals who inhabit it and the interactions that take place between them, control over the culture, after all. One could therefore say that mass culture becomes a necessary tool for capitalist systems of hegemonic power since it is through this tool that these systems find their meaning and correct functioning. They are provided with the instruments that allow them to set the machinery in motion, always through the collective mind's control, manipulation, and modelling.

Figure 4 – Pop Culture poster

Thus, so far, it has been established that

1. the development of the brain is related to the stimuli it receives,

2. these stimuli are mostly given through visuals and mass culture, and

3. the system intervenes in these processes to perpetuate itself and find its own functioning there.

In addition to the fact of this plasticity that converts the brain into a modifiable object, the factor of the information through which this action is carried out must be added. Although human beings are neurophysiologically predisposed to be manipulated (insofar as their brain processes are configured based on the stimuli they receive), this does not mean that manipulation occurs in a categorical way. For this to happen, there must be a manipulative intention, as all manipulation requires a subject that promotes it. Given the object of study of the present project in terms of mass culture, the subsequent articles of this 101 series will analyse the case of manipulation at the hands of systemic capitalist apparatuses through the visual objects that make up the former. Therefore, defining the executor of the manipulative action will be examined further.

As a result, the connection between mass culture and the brain is intricate. It depends on both the brain's adaptability and the information it takes in and the individual who is consuming that information. Although the brain can be tricked, this only sometimes means it is being done all the time, as it is processing vast amounts of various information at all times. Analysing the motivations behind the visual components that make up the system is crucial to enhance our comprehension of the manipulative aspects of mass culture. Further articles will explore more the ways that mass culture and the visual components that make up capitalism's systemic apparatuses use it to control people. Understanding the manipulative action will help better grasp how mass culture affects the brain and what it means for society's own personal development.

Bibliographical references

Brea, José Luis (Ed.). (2005). Visual Studies: The Epistemology of Visuality in the Age of Globalization. Madrid, Spain: AKAL.

Brooker, Charlie. (2011). Black Mirror [television series]. London, United Kingdom: Zeppotron.

Kwinter, Sanford. (2002). Architectures of time. Cambridge, United Kingdom: The MIT Press.

Martín Prada, Juan. (2018). El ver y las imágenes en el tiempo de Internet (Estudios visuales). Madrid, Spain: AKAL.

Rancière, Jacques (2009). The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. [1st. ed. 2000]

Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Collected Works. Cognition and Language: A Series in Psycholinguistics. Editors: Rieber, Robert W., Aaron S. (Eds.).

Wells, Melanie. (2003). In Search of the Buy Botton. Forbes Magazine, pp. 62-70.

Visual Sources

Cover Image: Are You Rea#1 by Robert Heinecken. Available on: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/48167?classifications=any&date_begin=Pre-1850&date_end=2023&q=media+manipulation&utf8=✓&with_images=1

Figure 1: Black Mirror, episode 2 – season 3, “Playtest”. Available on: https://dazedimg-dazedgroup.netdna-ssl.com/1800/azure/dazed-prod/1250/7/1257969.jpg

Figure 2: Brain plasticity at stake. Available on: https://theconversation.com/what-is-brain-plasticity-and-why-is-it-so-important-55967

Figure 3: Installation fragment of My feet (Erik Kessels, 2014). Available on: https://www.doppiozero.com/sites/default/files/erik_kessels_my_feet_2014.jpg

Figure 4: Pop culture poster criticising mass consumption. Available on: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2a/bb/a0/2abba050476fec35d8fe0d6814361d34.png