Travis Nomura COM 337 Multimedia In the world we live in today, cultural and political aspects are very

important when it comes to putting anything out in the media. You have to be aware of who your target audience is as well as everyone else that might come across it. Cranny-Francis says that, They neglected the cultural and political aspects of the aesthetic and fetishized the poetic(p. 157), she then goes on to say, In doing so they failed to acknowledge how the cultural or political specificity of their reading practice might disadvantage or disempower a reader from a different cultural or political positioning who might not make the same reading of a text.(p. 157) I think she is referring to how things were perceived in the past. Back when people could put anything online and not have to worry about backlash for their content. Back then there was no Facebook, twitter or social media that could spread the voice of a user that thinks your site is disrespecting his or her culture, they would have to keep that to themselves. Now with one press of a button you can speak your mind across multiple places at once. In the next paragraph she talk about how one response to this perspective is to focus on the reader. She says that, This work has been enormously productive in opening up a range of issues about how readers/users interact with texts, how they are incorporated into peoples everyday lives, how that process of situating texts in relation to the everyday determines, at least in part, the meanings that individuals make in their readings.(p. 157) This is very important to find out how your readers or users see different text.

When it comes to writing I can see both sides of the story. Most people wouldnt really think about they type of font that is used. As long as they are able to read it and they like it, they will use it. Most of my professors do not care what type of font you use; some of them actually got made when they were asked that question. As a student taking that professor for the first time I have no idea what his preferences are, but for the professor they do the same thing month after month and just want it to be readable. When designing a logo, paying attention to text is very important. Say you are designing a logo for an MMA fighter; hes not going to know what type of font he wants his name in. All he cares about is training. That doesnt mean you can use bubble font in bold even though you really like it. He would be the laughing stock of the fight by just walking out in that shirt. For visuals, its a little clearer on the aspects of her statement. But it can still go both ways. When picking colors and pictures, you want to make sure that you dont offend your users culture or create a political argument. By researching the target audience and what the purpose of the web site, you can easily find out what you can and cannot put on it. Say you have a Chinese client; you probably dont want to use the numbers 4 or 7 on their site because in their culture they are considered unluckly. If you were to go against her argument you can say that if you are going to sell this product or make this kind of site, the research says that you need these numbers or colors in it to make it successful. It doesnt matter what your culture believes in or what you think, if you dont have them then you will fail.

Sound is very important in multimedia, weather it is in movies or on the Internet. I especially liked her example about the telemarketer, In the telemarketing example, I was simply not prepared to listen while an automated device intruded into the private space of my home, and tried to sell me something. Furthermore, I was affronted that the intrusion was perpetrated by a company that was not even prepared to pay human agents to speak to me; instead they took the cheap option of using a computer voice (I sometimes wonder if this was an experiment to gauge how quickly respondents would hang up the receiver).(p. 62) In her eyes she thinks that the company doesnt care about the feelings of their customers. But in the companies eyes its a way to save money. A great example of movement and how it affected us is myspace and xanga. Users were given the freedom to customize their site however they wanted. Yes, that was a big drawing point in the beginning, but that meant putting flashing stars, cursors shaped like cows and scrolling text everywhere. To the person making the site it was cool, but to other people it was a crazy mess. This is why to me Facebook has succeeded while others have failed. By taking away the power to customize and making everyone the same has kept the peace. Without space, there is no webpage. You need to know how much space is needed in order to make you site look organized. By knowing what the client wants on his site you can start to map out where all your content is going to go. But what if the client wants too much information on one page; do you neglect his wishes and make the site how you think it should be?

Over all I think that I agree with Cranny-Francis. Taking into consideration the cultural and political aspects are very important in the multimedia field. Knowing whom the client is and what they are trying to accomplish can be a great advantage to anyone who is willing to listen.