Prejudice by Design
Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognises before it can speak. – John Berger, Ways of Seeing.
What makes systematic discrimination? I believe that prejudice has the role within the politics of universal design that as the BA graphic design graduate trying to break into the creative industry, it’s hard to want to advocate when facing the uncertainty of trust surrounding political, social, and cultural biases.
I would state that we mostly focused on the idea of discrimination but not that much with the idea of prejudice but by definition what is prejudice? well, it preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience, and as you read John Berger’s quote “seeing comes before words”: as creatives that work with visual communications are we prejudice or are we trying to serve our target audience that is prejudiced?
I believe we hadn’t been properly educated about prejudice as I believe that we are overwhelmed by the polarising of organizations that govern people to pursue in unknowingly being prejudice by becoming competitive within the capitalist society in that a lot of people don’t know this definition especially the working class assumingly in fact of my learning experience through participating within higher education, it has taken time to properly learn about how we perceive values being expressed externally by speech and internally through textual communication.
In this video “Everybody’s Prejudiced (1961)” Is it reliable to trust second-hand and even third-hand information? as we live within the age of information as to describing modern society, we participate within digital communications but we used shorthand categorization to help with our memorization. H. Rosling (p.146, 2018) stated in the book “the media is the instinct’s friend. Misleading generalizations and stereotypes act as a kind of shorthand for the media, providing quick and easy ways to communicate.”.
By looking at this illustration of tips on not be fool by the sketchy news outlets. We had to be careful with trying to form trust with public information as media is deliberately manipulated in its nature. You are probably wondering why is prejudice is relevant as creatives and that because the design is very political by nature.
All media are extensions of some human faculty-psychic or physical. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act-the way we perceive the world. “As we begin, so shall we go.” “Rationality” and logic came to depend on the presentation of connected and sequential facts or concepts. — Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage.
As media plays an important role within our modern society or other words the global village; I believe that they are notion prejudice incorporated within digital communications today. In that Participatory culture can be anonymous; visual discourse can be modes of jokes that can act as the form of prejudice in that looking at memes as political weapons, MetaHaven (p.29, 2013) states “Political action in the 21st century has moved beyond the manifesto. To achieve scale, it is deploying new strategies with viral properties and Darwinian survival skills.” As there is cultural imperialism involved with global communications, socially and politically see rhetorical convergence as visual propaganda. So is antisemitism socially accepted by the nazis? When having political values we advocate for the specific cause in that can we view it as an advertisement or as propaganda? Prejudice is a matter of morality of the social standards we set for our normality.
“Whatever of social importance is done today, whether in politics, finance, manufacture, agriculture, charity, education, or other fields, must be done with the help of propaganda.”
― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
In writing this is that I am more of a diplomatic and moderate thinker so I have a hard time being political with the work that I believe politics isn’t really the pursuit of social justice but rather individual in that living within the politically correct and outrage culture. In the book The Politics of Design: A (Not So) Global Design Manual for Visual Communication, I discover more about political, cultural and social biases that arise within the visual landscape in that as the Graphic Designer wanting to be cultural aware I definitely recommend this book but of the nature of prejudice.
In this reference image, would it be prejudice for boys to be socially fashionable to wear pink? I believe that the notion of political correctness is in itself prejudice as we set social standards on what is considered normal.
In the tyranny of normalcy, R. Pater (p.182, 2016) stated “There are still systems in place that make us conform to an idea of normalcy. Surveillance cameras, social media, schools, workplaces, and the beauty standards in the media are all part of a structure that shaped our behavior.” There is the expectation to be socially accepted by following social codes within cultures and I believe that it’s easier and harder for people to develop a great reputation and I am not hinting about setting good manners but rather being confronted with both positive and negative prejudices when people decide your worth by the likability.
In looking at the Influence of persuasion; Social favoritism is 100% involved as we like people who are similar to us by what we deen culturally fashioned to be view as attractive in that R. Cialdini (p.177, 1984) stated that “School desegregation is more likely to increase prejudice between black and whites than to decrease it.” It’s isn’t systematic discrimination, it’s systematic prejudice that developed into systematic discrimination as I realized what the underlying problems could be within modern society. Unfortunately, word of mouth is social gossip and so mostly everyone will inherently be prejudice including myself in where our assumptions to accused people are a bit like having wich hunt when we develop distrust on the unfamiliar and different.
In being mixed race, I had experience forms of prejudices within interethnic interactions, we all can identify cultural biases but we should really view prejudice as preferential thinking because prejudice can be based on rational and realistic grounds. We cannot be sure if whenever if we are dealing with a case of prejudice or non-prejudice but prejudice may be positive or negative dependable within the social contexts. G. Allport (p.5, 1954) discuses the nature of prejudice by stating that “The basis of rejection was categorical, “Mr. Greenberg” was not evaluated as an individual. Rather, he was condemned on the basis of his presumed group membership.”.
When prejudgements become prejudices; it’s hard to say if they are misconceptions or truths when exposed to new information and as I explain about the dangers of trusting second-hand information, I think it’s hard to analyze it when we need social proofs but by concerning the nature of social framing within modern media; discourse is politically and culturally motivative by manipulating its context in that as gatekeepers or front end-users; we are all prejudiced by motivation as well of fear in a contextual sense.
In that as partisans, we live by a personal set of values to feels affirm and defend our membership of belonging towards the specific community when we are prone to engage in “free,” “wishful,” or “fantasy” thinking; we have the tendency to naturalize general information by the simplifying it into categories that are formulated as love and hate prejudices. In the non-creative context as just the human being, I inherently have general prejudice but as the designer, Am I prejudice by artists? As the artist, am I prejudice by designers? I believe it is important to accept differences but even more important to engage with intercultural communication and as I underlying develop social values involved with xenocentrism but admittedly I am still critically distanced from particular of things as I grow interests and disinterests.
It would be interesting to learn more about colonialism relation with the design as well of understanding public relations properly but I hoped that my writing inspired you and the final note on facing prejudice; it’s shouldn’t be the matter of blame as it’s an important matter of decency and learning.
Biography
Berger, J (1972) Ways of Seeing, Penguin Modern Classics.
Hill, M (2017) Everybody’s Prejudiced Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLu-f-BS5as (Accessed: 12 July 2020).
H, Rosling (2018) Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, Flatiron Books.
Mcluhan, M (1960) The Medium is the Message: An Inventory of Effects. 1960:Penguin Classic.
Velden, D, and Kruk, V (2016) Can Jokes Bring Down Governments?. Strelka Press.
Bernays, E (1928) Propaganda, Ig Publishing.
Pater, R (2016) The Politics of Design: A (Not So) Global Design Manual for Visual Communication, BIS Publishers.
Cialdini, R (1984) Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Harper Business; Revised ed. edition (1 Feb. 2007)
Allport, G (1954) The Nature of Prejudice, Cambridge, Mass., Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
