As Fiske points out "Shopping malls are selling more than just commodities to us, they are selling us meanings".

Building, landscapes, townscapes, shopping centres and advertisments are sending us messages all the time. This can be referred to as "Cultural Transmission", where different cultures are being transmitted to us through shapes of buildings, positions of buildings and layouts. We are constantly being sent subliminal messages, which are in fact controlling us, and helping us to establish our identity.

Cities, towns, rural environments, housing estates etc; all have connotations, as syntagm, paradigms, which all work together to transmit a message to other people about who we are and our identity.

For places and spaces, we studies West Quay Shopping Mall in depth to understand the cultural ideas that were being transmitted to us.

The front window displays played a large part in this. They displayed pictures of sexy women or half dressed men, that had a positive effect of enticing you into that shop, simply because you want to look like that woman, you want your boyfriend to look like that man and vice versa. Music, bright lights, mirrors and vibrant colours were also used in order to attract the consumers attention and entice them into the shop.

Adorno expresses how he believes that we become like pawns on a game of chess when we enter a shopping mall, as we are being controlled where we move. Once you enter the shop, the layout creates what Adorno calls "a false sense of need". They do this through the power of adjacencies. They place a handbag, shoes and hat, next to a pair of trousers and a top, making you think that you need the extra accessories when you don't. The idea of need turns into a matter of want. Marxists also believe that we become agents of social control, through the fact that we only shop in certain shops.

Many people who can't afford to shop in the expensive shops, shop in the cheaper shops, but are afraid to admit to it, and hide their bags. They are creating a false sense of identity, and this has happened because of the false sense of needs. You think you need expensive goods and you don't. However, once again, we are passive, and conform to it anyway. Sort of like the hyperdermic needle.

Sender message reciever

The desire to want is injected into us and we conform, no questions asked.

Shopping malls are very gendered. They transmit messages that they re designed to suite the needs of a woman for example; Isles are big enough to fit prams down, baby changing facilities are in the ladies toilets, and there are about 70% of womens shops in comparrison to the males 30%. When we went to West Quay 70% of the shoppers were female until lunch time when it became 50/50. This transmits the message that in our culture, men should work and women should have children and shop. Bowlby said "shopping gives women a sense of freedom", when in fact they feel controlled and intimidated by the security cameras and security guards watching them all the time.

Postmodernists point out that shopping malls are simularcrims. Bandrillard refers to this as a "representation of a representation". I feel that shopping malls are based on the structure of churches. They have just been modernised. This is true too of the commodities we buy. For example: fashion trainers imitate sports trainers, contemporary fashions imitate the fashions of the 60s, 70, and 80s etc: We are running out of ideas, and are just re-vamping old ones.

So, places and spaces can be understood as texts just like magazines advertisments etc; because they are all transmitting messages about our culture, the norms and the values, which all influence our social and cultural lifestyle. Like texts, building, townscapes and landscapes are all transmitting a prefferred reading and how we interpret it depends on our cultural and social belefs which effects our ideas of society, thus our identity, who we are, and the way we percieve things. It's an on-going cycle.

Principal Examiner's Comment

The candidate has obviously undertaken a detailed case study of a specific shopping mall and this experience is put to good effect in the context of the question. There is some tendency towards assertion and even over statement but also a reasonable facility with some relevant theoretical constructs. The concluding paragraph is particularly strong but, unfortunately, not all of the ideas expressed here have been fully explored in the exposition. Nevertheless the candidate is familiar with the idea that places and spaces can be analysed using the techniques of deconstruction; a strong indication of Level 4.

AO1 7
AO2 14
Total 21