http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8
In its iconic 1984 advertisement for the launch of Macintosh Computers Apple made a bold statement about the insidious nature of technology laid the groundwork for the company’s wildly successful (though carefully crafted) ‘maverick’ or outsider image.
What or who is negated?
The ad presents a future where technology has rendered its users passive recipients of information. Technology is ubiquitous, drab and vaguely threatening. The users of technology are depicted as mindless, slack-jawed and sickly. They are surrounded by controlling forces, herded like cattle to a position of viewership and then brainwashed by slogans and platitudes. In a way it is the existing technology of the time that is negated. In a sense the advertisement suggests that technology in its current form is confining, drab and perhaps even harmful.
What standards are created by the image or advertisement?
The image of resistance is paramount. The advert positions the product as the choice for those who would seek to step out of the mob. The image of the running girl is also important. She is young – but more importantly – she is very physical and healthy. She stands in stark contrast to the sunken and ashen faces that surround her. In a way she is painted as the user of this “new” technology – young, healthy and resistant to control.
The advertisement also taps into the deep-seeded fears that technology will be used as a force of evil/control in the future. The final textual references to 1984 notwithstanding, there are other visual parallels to Orwell’s work evident in the advert. The image of the speaker is not unlike the visage of Big Brother, and the presence of the armed security guards brings to mind a fascist police state.
Are these standards fair? Is the advertisement or image ethical?
By condemning what has come before it, Apple hopes to distance its product from associations to earlier technologies. In a way it attempts to reset commonly held notions about technology by literally smashing them. By creating an artificial “outsider” status for its product it attracts a segment of the population that may have previously been alienated by technology.
There is nothing innately unethical about the advert save that it plays upon certain fears.
The standards it creates are however problematic. A reaction to this advert would undoubtedly be colored by a person’s overall view of the nature of technology. Those threatened by the rise of computers might consider that Macintosh product is simply another brick in the wall, or they might interpret Mac as a subversive new element to the tech landscape. Moreover those with a great deal of knowledge about computers (a limited population in 1984) might look at the advert as an olive branch to the technophobic elements of society.
In the end the advert suggests that it is possible to resist dependence on technology and instead use it for personal betterment and to resist the powers that be – provided that you choose the right technology.
