30/10 Session

Research Question needs to be focussed and specific

Practical work needs to be general and broad

When starting to think about the practical work, it should be:
Explorative
Speculative
Relative
Open
Playful

We spent the session drawing in order to begin conjuring up ideas and ways in which we can begin thinking more about our sketchbooks. The first task was to quickly draw ten things to do with the words political and NHS together.
Then we had to take one of these drawings and come up with another ten to do with a social issue reflecting on that.
Following this, we took one drawing from the first ten, one from the second, and combined them along with something to do with our theme in a way that it would link in with our essay.
Whaaaaaat...
I did some really terrible drawings of some equally terrible ideas that are barely worth blogging:

I found this really tricky for a bunch of reasons:
1. It's hard to come up with ten different ideas in such a short amount of time
2. Drawing with no reference at all means ideas don't always come out right
3. Drawing about something I know little about is a challenge
4. Trying not to go for the obvious is hard
5. Combining the ideas of images without just creating a bizarre hybrid image that makes no sense is difficult
6. It was friday afternoon and my brain was not functioning

This task introduced us to the idea of instinctive drawing in order to think through the process.
- Trying to conceptualise
- It wasn't to do with the quality (thank god) but the ideas

The last task asked us to draw a bunch of hats reflecting the themes: Historical, social, cultural, technological and political
Then we had to draw a hat relating to our theme

I definitely think the session helped. It clarified that the drawing side of the module can be really loose, general and it can go off on tangents (to some extent) as long as its about getting ideas down 


Research Question Feedback with Pete

I also had a chat with Pete at the end to narrow down on my research question and I'm now going more down the path of researching the representation of the family unit in fast food advertising. 
I was told to look at advertising from the 50s up until now, and look at the similarities of the nuclear family

I can look at the adverts of McDonalds and KFC who have continuously focussed on social issues, relationships, emotions etc for their ad campaigns. Using new issues for branding. Adoption, step parents. Now focussing in on the 'less typical' family in order to relate to more people. 

- Look at Naomi Klein - No Logo
One chapter in particular - The Brand Expands

I need to come up now with a specific question. 

Research & Practice - Find, Observe, Record images

Walking around Tesco Express today helped me to collect images in support of research for my essay. The way in which junk food and unhealthy foods are advertised and marketed throughout the shop was really over the top. I'd noticed it a bit before, but I'd never actually realised that there is chocolate/confectionary on EVERY aisle. As soon as you enter the shop, at the end of the first aisle there are always deals on unhealthy foods like crisps, chocolates and fizzy drinks. 

Down that first aisle is full of high sugar and high salt foods like chocolate bars and crisps. 

All of this is opposite the sandwiches to tempt people to buy them around their lunch time. 

Then a small section is dedicated to fruit and veg, before you have to work your way through the rest of the shop to get to the tills. 

Chocolates are positioned next to bread, cereal, tinne meat/vegetables/fish and alongside bottled water. It's impossible to avoid. 

It's in your face constantly, begging to be bought. 

No matter where you are in the shop, there will be some junk food in your eyeline I swear. 

And of course it's right before the tills incase you want to grab some cakes and pies at the last minute for a quid. 

I'm also planning on looking at how advertising and marketing is aimed at children and how important it is that kids are properly educated about food, diet and exercise from an early age. 

Not only am I wanting to look at obvious junk food, but the issue of added sugar in what we think should be low sugar foods, like bread, cereals/breakfast bars and some ready prepared meals, even savoury foods like soups etc. 

I've always thought that schools should educate the children better about food groups, important aspects of diet and healthy lifestyles, and also what to look out for when checking the ingredients of our food. 

I did GCSE food tech and still didn't really feel like I knew that much. It's only over the past 5 or 6 years when I've been cooking all of my own food for myself and doing my own shopping that I've taken the time to research things myself. 

It's a confusing industry though, full of conflicting information and recommendations. I'll look into this further.

Sketchbook work: 

Added Sugar Label Article (US)

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/07/24/425908798/no-more-hidden-sugar-fda-proposes-new-label-rule

No More Hidden Sugar: FDA Proposes New Label Rule

Sixty-five grams of added sugar. That's how much you'll find in a 20-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola.

But can you picture 65 grams? It's about 16 teaspoons worth of the sweet stuff.

The Food and Drug Administration wants to make it easier for Americans to track how much added sugars we're getting in the foods and beverages we choose.

So, in addition to a proposed requirement to list amounts of added sugars on the Nutrition Facts panels, the FDA is now proposing that companies declare a daily percent value, too.

What this means is that, instead of just listing the 65 grams of added sugar in that Coke, soda companies would be required to list that it represents 130 percent of the recommended daily intake. In other words, that one bottle contains more added sugar than you should be eating in an entire day.

The percent value would be based on the recommendation that added sugars should not exceed 10 percent of total calories. In a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, that works out to a daily maximum of about 12 teaspoons.

i

Left: The current Nutrition Facts panel on foods. Right: The label changes that the FDA proposed in 2014 would list added sugars. Now the FDA wants the label to list the percent daily value, too.

FDA

Added sugars include all the sweeteners that food companies put into their products. That limit does not include sugar from fruits and other foods that are naturally sweet.

In announcing the new proposal, the FDA says it has a responsibility to give Americans the information they need to make informed decisions.

"For the past decade, consumers have been advised to reduce their intake of added sugars, and the proposed percent daily value for added sugars on the Nutrition Facts label is intended to help consumers follow that advice," wrote Susan Mayne, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, in a release announcing the proposal.

When sugar is added to foods and beverages to sweeten them up, it adds lots of calories without providing nutrients.

And as we've reported, over the last several year, evidence has been mounting that consuming too much sugar can increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

The FDA proposal expands on changes recommended in 2014, when the FDA laid out a template for a new overhauled Nutrition Fact panel.

The FDA will take public comment on the new proposal for 75 days, and the agency says it "will consider comments on the original and this supplemental proposed rule before issuing a final rule."

It's likely the agency will hear from food companies. The Sugar Association has already weighed in, questioning whether the move to limit added sugars to no more than 10 percent of daily calories is backed by adequate science.

Reading Texts & Writing About That Reading

Essay Research References

Some links to information / articles about the Sugar Tax

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/10October/Pages/Controversial-sugar-tax-report-published.aspx

http://www.northantstelegraph.co.uk/news/top-stories/could-a-sugar-tax-help-curb-child-obesity-1-7028223

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/24/sugar-tax-poll-obesity-cameron-oliver

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34603118

Public Health England report - Good for looking up statistics and plans for action etc
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/470179/Sugar_reduction_The_evidence_for_action.pdf

Quotes / Images for reference

Hill, A J. (2002) Developmental Issues in Attitudes to Food and Diet, Leeds, Proceedings of the Nutrition Society
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPNS%2FPNS61_02%2FS0029665102000757a.pdf&code=de258a795a302c513a840b894cced959

Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1967) 'The Culture Industry Reconsidered', New German Critique, No. 6 (Autumn 1975) pp. 12-19. 

"The culture industry fuses the old and familiar into a new quality. In all its branches, products which are tailored for consumption by masses, and which to a great extent determine the nature of that consumption, are manufactured more or less according to plan."

"Thus, although the culture industry undeniably speculates on the conscious and unconscious state of the millions towards which it is directed, the masses are not primary, but secondary, they are an object of calculation; an appendage of the machinery. The customer is not king, as the culture industry would like to have us believe, not its subject but its object. The very word mass-media, specially honed for the culture industry, already shifts the accent onto harm-less terrain. Neither is it a question of primary concern for the masses, nor of the techniques of communication as such, but of the spirit which sufflates them, their master's voice. The culture industry misuses its concern for the masses in order to duplicate, reinforce and strengthen their mentality, which it presumes is given and unchangeable. How this mentality might be changed is excluded throughout. The masses are not the measure but the ideology of the culture industry, even though the culture industry itself could scarcely exist without adapting to the masses."


"The cultural commodities of the industry are governed, as Brecht and Suhrkamp expressed it thirty years ago, by the principle of their realization as value, and not by their own specific content and harmonious formation. The entire practice of the culture industry transfers the profit motive naked onto cultural forms. Ever since these cultural forms first began to earn a living for their creators as commodities in the marketplace they had already possessed something of this quality. But then they sought after profit only indirectly, over and above their autonomous essence."


"What parades as progress in the culture industry, as the incessantly new which it offers up, remains the disguise for an eternal sameness; everywhere the changes mask a skeleton which has changed just as little as the profit motive itself since the time it first gained its predominance over culture." aka "healthy option" food which actually contains just as much, if not more sugar.

Establishing a Research Question

In today's session, I went in with a general idea of the kind of thing I would be interested in doing, and wrote out a massive mind map of stuff:

From looking at the food industry, meat production and it's impact on the environment, childhood obesity and fast food..
The way that fast food is marketed to children and families etc. 

I settled on the sugar industry. That way I can touch on the other aspects that I was looking at, like fast food and its advertising / marketing etc. As well as the important factors like the obesity epidemic, the rise in diabetes in children and other health issues etc. The way in which junk food is marketed in supermarkets and the fact that so many of us aren't educated properly about the effects that these foods have on our bodies.

I think it's something that affects too many people without them even being aware of it. There has always been an issue with the clarity of labelling on food, as well as the absolute unnecessary addition of sugar into so many foods, which has been shown to have increased over time without the majority of the general public really noticing.

It would be a relevant and current topic due to the conversations surrounding the Sugar Tax at the moment. I think this would make it an interesting challenge to illustrate and would be beneficial to me to have to illustrate a current subject.

It's something I've been interested in for a while. And in my own time I've already watched several documentaries like Fed Up, That Sugar Film etc. that I could revisit.

OUIL501 - STUDY TASK 3 - ESTABLISHING A RESEARCH QUESTION

Suggested Research Question.
This can be a topic of theme, but please try to be as precise as possible.

Researching the sugar industry and the need for change. It's a current topic but I don't want to just replicate exactly what's already being said... 
I don't have a refined question yet.
How sugar affects our health and contributes greatly to the issue of childhood obesity. The way that added sugars are hidden in our food, and how unnecessary it is. 
The way that the media gives us such conflicting messages about health - about the fact that eating too much fatty food and sugar is really bad for us, but at the same time pushing the advertising of junk food and fast food.


Which Of The Module Resources Does This Question Relate To?
You can find these on eStudio - Try to list at least three.

I think I could potentially find quotes that relate to aspects of my argument in:

Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1967) 'The Culture Industry Reconsidered', New German Critique, No. 6 (Autumn 1975) pp. 12-19. 

Storey, J. (2008) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture', 5th ed, London: Pearson. pp. 62-82.

Marx, K. (1867) 'Capital' [internet] Available http://web.stanford.edu/~davies/Symbsys100-Spring0708/Marx-Commodity-Fetishism.pdf


Which Academic Sources Are Available On The Topic?
Include a Harvard Referenced bibliography of at least 5 sources.


Briggs, A D M et al. (2013) Overall and Income Specific Effect on Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity of 20% Sugar Sweetened Drink Tax in UK: Econometric and Comparative Risk Assessment [Online] BMJ. Available from: http://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f6189 [Accessed: 24 October 2015]
http://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f6189



Livingstone, S (2005) Assessing the Research Base for the Policy Debate Over the Effects of Food Advertising to Children [Online]. London: LSE Research Online. Available from: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/1012/1/FOODADVERT.pdf [Accessed: 28 October 2015]
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/1012/1/FOODADVERT.pdf
Winkler, J T. (2012) Why Soft Drink Taxes Will Not Work, London, British Journal of Nutrition
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FBJN%2FBJN108_03%2FS0007114511006477a.pdf&code=906ecaa14bbe2ee8799cf8f415584175


Hill, A J. (2002) Developmental Issues in Attitudes to Food and Diet, Leeds, Proceedings of the Nutrition Society
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPNS%2FPNS61_02%2FS0029665102000757a.pdf&code=de258a795a302c513a840b894cced959

Tedstone, A. et al (2015) Sugar Reduction The Evidence for Action, London, Public Health England
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/470179/Sugar_reduction_The_evidence_for_action.pdf    


MacGregor, G A et al. (2014) Action on Sugar - Lessons from UK Salt Reduction Programme [Online]. The Lancet, Volume 383, Issue 9921, 929 - 931. Available from: http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(14)60200-2.pdf [Accessed: 24 October 2015]
http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(14)60200-2.pdf


Fed Up (2014) Documentary. Directed by Stephanie Soechtig [DVD] CA, USA: Anchor Bay Entertainment


That Sugar Film (2014) Documentary. Directed by Damon Gameau [DVD] Australia: Samuel Goldwyn Films


Bite Size (2014) Documentary. Directed by Corbin Billings [DVD] USA: Bond/360


Forks Over Knives (2011) Documentary. Directed by Lee Fulkerson [DVD] USA: Virgil Films & Entertainment


Hungry for Change (2012) Documentary. Directed by James Colquhoun and Laurentine Ten Bosch [DVD] USA: New Video


How Could The Research Question Be Investigated Through Practice?
What Illustrations would you make in response to this, and why?

I could look at visual metaphors and draw comparisons between food addiction and drug addiction. I could draw illustrations of statistics, make note of quotes and illustrate these...
Look at the way in which food is marketed to children - I could draw the unhealthy fatty sugary junk food made to look revolting but packaged up to appeal to children.
I could focus on the types of food that unnecessarily contain added sugar. 
I want to come up with a mix of literal and metaphorical illustrations that individually address the different aspects that my essay will address.


Peer Feedback - How could this topic be refined / developed?
Show this form to a fellow student. They should record their feedback in the box below.

Roland Barthes Written Task - Illustration & Authorship

Kyle T Webster is an international award-winning illustrator, currently working in North Carolina. He has drawn for BusinessWeek, The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and Nike, amongst other distinguished clients. His his work ranges from very graphic and stylised digital image making, to much more expressive or representational hand rendered work; demonstrated across editorial, branding, advertising and publishing. 

Webster clearly draws from many different references to produce a vast body of interchangeable styles. Establishing himself as a flexible practitioner, he is able to take ownership over all of the different styles he can create. He is explorative and inquisitive of the world, and having travelled a great deal and lived in many different countries as a child, he has a wealth of cultural references to draw from. As Barthes writes, 'We know now that a text is...a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotation drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.' It could be that Webster's success is derived from his openness to experiences in the world, allowing all of these ideas and references to 'blend and clash'. This is reflected in the choices that he makes about the creative work that he produces. 

Although his work is very varied, he is of course still the author and creator of it all. It is possible that perhaps each of his pieces of work do reflect something about him personally, even just that he is well travelled as mentioned previously, but arguably, it's completely irrelevant. Webster is moulding his work to fit numerous briefs, all the time producing solutions to problems. His work should be taken at face value and shouldn't spark a great investigation into the man behind it and his reasons for making it. Barthes stresses that the work should be viewed isolation from the author, criticising the idea that 'The image of literature to be found in ordinary culture is tyrannically centred on the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his passions...'' It seems obvious that the author should be acknowledged for the creation of the piece, but as Barthes said '...there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author' he states 'a text's unity lies not in its origin but its destination'. His argument explains that it is down to the reader to interpret the work, and after it's creation the authors intentions become less relevant. 

In Michael Rock's essay 'The designer as author', he takes from Wimsatt and Beardsley’s seminal essay ‘The Intention Fallacy’, stating '...[it] was one of the first to drive a wedge between the author and the text with its claim that a reader could never really ‘know’ the author through his or her writing.' This again, supports the idea that the work itself may not actually be particularly relevant to the author, beyond the fact that they authored it. Moving away from solely looking at Kyle T Webster, but considering the practice of illustration in general, it is in it's nature to become removed from the author. For example, in editorial illustration accompanying an article, it's not about the author of the image and much more about the text that it is paired with. The Illustrator may not share the same opinion as the one that he or she is illustrating because they possibly have different motives for creating the work.

585 words

Find, Observe, Record

Research & Practice

Working toward the 8 to 12 page publication and Thinking through Drawing 
This year the drawings support the essay
Drawings could spark essay ideas / further questions etc

I struggled last year with CoP and the way it was split up into written work first, then drawing after. It felt really detached and as though the illustration was an after thought. This year I think that keeping a sketchbook alongside writing the essay will act as another platform of research and make more sense all together.

What am I interested in?
Why?
How does it relate to my illustration?
What don't I already know about it?
How can I observe, record and respond to it?

The session involved us creating a mind map in order to open up some options in regards to our subjects of interest and bring about questions:

Then we were asked to carry out field research and given half an hour to do so.
I didn't really gather much in that time other than some menus from take away joints. I guess it's interesting to see how fast food is marketed towards students and placed right outside the uni.
I thought it was a pretty difficult task as we were told to avoid using the internet or the library as research. I think if I'd had more time I probably could've got stuck in a bit more. Also, sounds like a lame excuse but my phone had died so I couldn't take photos.

I need to develop my research through taking photos, noting down quotes, watching documentaries, doing first hand sketches etc.

I have a list of documentaries, some of which I've already seen, that I could watch (again) to help inform my research:
Food Inc
Fed Up
Cowspiracy
That Sugar Film
Supersize Me
Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
Vegucated
Forks and Knives
Hungry for Change
Food Fight
Bite Size

The Flipped Classroom

The Flipped Classroom refers to a radical model of education in which:
- There is no hierarchy in the classroom. 
- In theory, it abandons the idea of the tutor being more intelligent and knowledgable than the student.
- Learning is student centred, explorative. This leads to the development of a deeper knowledge and understanding. 
- Students are empowered and made to feel in control of their own learning

It is argued that a lot of learning that takes place when a teacher is in charge is only surface level and superficial. The Flipped Classroom idea means that learning becomes more deeply embedded. Students are encouraged to create their own answers and organise their own learning.
It is a popular model of teaching in the states.

The concept came about in Paris, mainly put forward by French philosopher Jaques Ranciere.

May 1968 Paris - Revolutionary rupture led by young students against the social order. Workers united with students who were angry for a number of reasons, including:
- Education wasn't about individual development
- Cost of education
- Exclusivity of universities
- Specialisms, which meant that learning wasn't rounded 
- Conservative 'boring' French society.

Students took over art schools and used print rooms to make revolutionary posters

Ranciere was a radical student at this time. His tutor was Althusser; a French Marxist. 
He pondered the question 'Why do people support an unfair capitalist society?' and came up with a theory: Ideological State Apparatus
His argument was that 2 structures maintain the status quo:
Repressive State Apparatus, i.e. Police, army, prison etc
Ideological State Apparatus, i.e. Institutions that reproduce the models of thinking that make people happy to remain in their place in the social order - Mental control. Churches, the media, schools...

In schools, students are taught to measure themselves against other people. The ideas of education being based on personal development are perverted to competing for numbers and grades. It was argued that people should be learning to work together. 

All traditional ways of thinking about teaching are about setting up scenes of power. It's based on the idea that someone knows something and someone else does not. Althusser had to defend the need for professors whilst still arguing for the idea of eliminating a hierarchy, but Ranciere disagreed with this paradox.

Ranciere challenged the social hierarchy and its logic - work, sleep, work...
Can't a worker be a poet, or an artist too? His ideas were about reclaiming the time that's supposed to be spent passively doing nothing. People could be more than just workers in their downtime.
The questions he asked were things like:
- What happens when students don't just play the role of students?
- Why do people only play the allotted roles that society gives them?
- Why can we not think beyond that?

The Distribution of the Sensible
- The world isn't equal to everyone
- People are fixed into layers, class systems, race etc
- People are split up and put into boxes; made to think of themselves as fundamentally different
- Superiority and Inferiority complexes arise
- It determines who can take part in certain activities e.g. certain galleries that only showcase specific pieces of art. 
- Causes divisions which is ultimately negative
- Separated society 
Ranciere wants a community

The Ignorant Schoolmaster
Joseph Jacotot, a French teacher exiled to the Netherlands taught in a school there without knowing a word of Flemish. The students wanted to learn French so he got 2 copies of a book in the 2 languages and essentially left them to figure it out for themselves. After this, the majority of the students developed a firm understanding of the French language and grammatical structure.
- This suggested that teachers can sometimes get in the way of learning. 
- Everybody is equally as intelligent as one another.
- It is the idea of 'Universal Teaching'
- We can teach what we don't know

Ranciere suggested: 
- Education is too reliant on a teacher explaining and giving answers
- Teachers are socialising students into reliance on someone giving answers. 
- This teaches students to accept hierarchies and that they are less intelligent than someone else
- It was argued that perhaps students just need a peer group and some kind of target, and they will learn successfully.
- An educator is not at all necessary.
- We are all equally capable of thinking, learning etc
- Anyone can be anything

Ranciere concluded than Universal Teaching would never catch on, but it must be announced to everyone in an attempt to improve educational institutions, the quality of learning, and our society.

The closest thing to Rancierean philosophy is The School of the Damned in London which is a totally free post grad school that exists in direct political protest to the commodification of education. It aims to stand as a model outside capitalism.

Conclusion
- The philosophy of The Flipped Classroom opposes a problem specific to society but not limited to education
- The world could be a better place with Ranciere's philosophy
- Education shouldn't be about competition, grades and numbers. it should be about a common pursuit to benefit all of society
- Even positive discrimination occurs which still prevents equality
- Self education is the key to our emancipation. It is important to find things out for ourselves without relying on an authority figure.