RE: "On Reading a Video Text"

When I was reading Robert Scholes’ article, “On Reading a Video Text” I couldn’t get over the fact on how in detail he explains the main message of a commercial that he is explaining about. My first reaction was when I was finished was that, do he do this to every commercial he sees? I kind of laughed at that moment seeing a guy at home watching tv, then all of a sudden a commercial comes on and he makes his family rewinds it and rewatch it and then he is asking what they all thought the main idea of the commercial was. I thought that was a little humorous, for that the dad wants to only watch commercials and the kids are dreading for them to come on.

What I believe he is trying to get and trying to say is that there is always going to be a message in a bottle and that there is a saying behind every message. Scholes argues that, “In this age of massive manipulation and disinformation, criticism is the only we has of taking something seriously.” What I believe he is trying to say is that in our era of advertising that is out there, we are all be brainwashed or “manipulated” as he says, that we don’t really have our own way of living. That one way to get our own output, our own say, is through criticism.

Americans today seem to skip over things a little too easily than we used to. We tend to skip what something is saying when we first look at it. However, is someone finds something they like or that relates to them, they’ll keep watching and enjoy and get the sense of feeling that we’re there with them every step of the way. Truly understanding what they are saying. People these days don’t really seem to get a sense of what the advertising world is saying and I believe they never will. We will keep just seeing the product on the screen and then want that product, they won’t go into depth believe that the commercial just shown meant something to them. Its going to be harder and harder to draw people in and show them what you really want to say.