Week 5: Ad Deconstruction

For the assignment, I chose a piece that was less of an advertisement and more of a public awareness I thought related well to our subject matter of the class.

As you can see above, the ad depicts a seen of a person, appears to be a girl, being sexually assaulted by her phone. This “advertisement” is, to put plainly, disturbing with a clear message: watch out for predators on the phone.

Through the deconstruction process, I was able to delve into the content matter of the image in greater detail. Instead of selling a product, it was selling awareness of the dangers of social media and young children.

A girl, assuming young and stylish, is depicted in the image, through the clothing and body structure. The camera positioning puts emphasis on the rear end and phone, and the imagery is eye catching. The image retains attention because of the subject matter and message. The creators do a swell job portraying a young, innocent girl being sexually attacked by a “predator,” shown as her phone. The innocence is portrayed through the use of colors and statement. The text reads: “Sexual predators can hide in your child’s smartphone.” The assumption the ad makes is the girl is innocent, unaware, stupid, or “easy,” and also makes the assumption that is only girls that are attacked.  In reference to class, the assumptions relates somewhat that everyone and their child has a smartphone. Not true.

This image puts parents on alert and urges them to become aware of their child’s use of their smartphone. Not only does the image target parents, but also targets teens with phones. This places tensions and sometimes a unnecessary lack of trust instilled between parent and child.

All in all, this brings back the message of you can’t believe everything you see and read on the Internet. Any person can be conversing with a person online that is not being completely truthful with that person. With that said, and the message the advertisement sells, we all need to be aware and teach our children and students proper use of the Internet, with emphasis of social media. The unnerving imagery concerns me about my students and their social media activity not monitored.