Financial phantasmagoria: corporate image-work in times of crisis

Our purpose in this article is to relate the real movements in the economy during 2008 to the ?image-work? of financial institutions. Over the period January?December 2008 we collected 241 separate advertisements from 61 financial institutions published in the Financial Times. Reading across the ensemble of advertisements for themes and evocative images provides an impression of the financial imaginaries created by these organizations as the global financial crisis unfolded. In using the term ?phantasmagoria? we move beyond its colloquial sense of a set of strange images designed to dazzle towards the more technical connotation used by Ranci�re (2004) who suggested that words and images can offer a trace of an overall determining set-up if they are torn from their obviousness so they become phantasmagoric figures. The key phantasmagoric figure we identify here is that of the financial institution as timeless, immortal and unchanging; a coherent and autonomous entity amongst other actors. This notion of uniqueness belies the commonality of thinking which precipitated the global financial crisis as well as the limited capacity for control of financial institutions in relation to market events. It also functions as a powerful naturalizing force, making it hard to question certain aspects of the recent period of ?capitalism in crisis?

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Which Is the Most Convincing of Them All? Exploring Anti-Domestic Violence Posters.

Although domestic abuse of women by men has received significant media, police, and research attention, domestic violence directed toward men has been marginalized across the board and is still rarely treated seriously. The purpose of this research, then, is to examine and compare different anti-domestic violence messages in which the abuser's gender is not always clear. In Study 1, 200 U.K. participants (100 females and 100 males, aged 18-67, M = 28.98, SD = 9.613) evaluated posters that varied across three levels; in that the subject (male or female) was depicted as being silenced, bruised, or experiencing live abuse. The results showed that the posters featuring female victims were all rated as more effective than posters showing male victims. In Study 2, 140 different U.K. participants (95 females; 45 males) aged 18 to 59 (M = 27.27, SD = 10.662) evaluated the cartoon facial images of Disney characters who had been altered to look like victims of violence and real-life corresponding photos of human models. The results showed that the realistic posters were found to be more believable, emotional, and effective than the cartoons. The implications of such perceptions are discussed

The power of pictures: Vertical picture angles in power pictures

Abstract: Conventional wisdom suggests that variations in vertical picture angle cause the subject to appear more powerful when depicted from below and less powerful when depicted from above. However, do the media actually use such associations to represent individual differences in power? We argue that the diverse perspectives of evolutionary, social learning, and embodiment theories all suggest that the association between verticality and power is relatively automatic and should, therefore, be visible in the portrayal of powerful and powerless individuals in the media. Four archival studies (with six samples) provide empirical evidence for this hypothesis and indicate that a salience power context reinforces this effect. In addition, two experimental studies confirm these effects for individuals producing media content. We discuss potential implications of this effect

A window on reality: perceiving edited moving images

Edited moving images entertain, inform, and coerce us throughout our daily lives, yet until recently, the way people perceive movies has received little psychological attention. We review the history of empirical investigations into movie perception and the recent explosion of new research on the subject using methods such as behavioral experiments, functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) eye tracking, and statistical corpus analysis. The Hollywood style of moviemaking, which permeates a wide range of visual media, has evolved formal conventions that are compatible with the natural dynamics of attention and humans’ assumptions about continuity of space, time, and action. Identifying how people overcome the sensory differences between movies and reality provides an insight into how the same cognitive processes are used to perceive continuity in the real world

A pragmatic cognitive model for the interpretation of verbal–visual communication in television news programmes

The combination of the verbal and the visual track in television news discourse poses a considerable analytical challenge. In the viewers’ minds the co-habitation of these two semiotic channels triggers a complex network of inferential processes, based on expectations of coherence and relevance, with which they make sense of the representation of the world offered in the news. Through the analysis of a number of news items, this article considers the cognitive processes which viewers may activate when extracting meaning from the multimedial messages contained in television news. The analysis of news items from two British television networks offered by the authors traces the possible meanings that, it is assumed, become available to a potential, ‘idealised’ or ‘implied’ viewer, who accesses the information with some social and cultural knowledge of contemporary Britain. Building on existing studies, the article proposes a model for the classification of verbal–visual relations

Expression of Bcl-2 and Bax in Mouse Renal Tubules during Kidney Development

Bcl-2 and Bax play an important role in apoptosis regulation, as well as in cell adhesion and migration during kidney morphogenesis, which is structurally and functionally related to mitochondria. In order to elucidate the role of Bcl-2 and Bax during kidney development, it is essential to establish the exact location of their expression in the kidney. The present study localized their expression during kidney development. Kidneys from embryonic (E) 16-, 17-, 18-day-old mouse fetuses, and postnatal (P) 1-, 3-, 5-, 7-, 14-, 21-day-old pups were embedded in Epon. Semi-thin serial sections from two E17 kidneys underwent computer assisted 3D tubule tracing. The tracing was combined with a newly developed immunohistochemical technique, which enables immunohistochemistry on glutaraldehyde fixated plastic embedded sections. Thereby, the microstructure could be described in detail, and the immunochemistry can be performed using exactly the same sections. The study showed that Bcl-2 and Bax were strongly expressed in mature proximal convoluted tubules at all time points, less strongly expressed in proximal straight tubules, and only weakly in immature proximal tubules and distal tubules. No expression was detected in ureteric bud and other earlier developing structures, such as comma bodies, S shaped bodies, glomeruli, etc. Tubules expressing Bcl-2 only were occasionally observed. The present study showed that, during kidney development, Bcl-2 and Bax are expressed differently in the proximal and distal tubules, although these two tubule segments are almost equally equipped with mitochondria. The functional significance of the different expression of Bcl-2 and Bax in proximal and distal tubules is unknown. However, the findings of the present study suggest that the mitochondrial function differs between mature proximal tubules and in the rest of the tubules. The function of Bcl-2 and Bax during tubulogenesis still needs to be investigated