"Reading a video text"

Robert Scholes’ essay “On Reading a Video Text” mainly explains how advertisers reel in consumers using “visual fascination” offering us “a kind of power through the enhancement of our vision” (Pg 1 Par 1). In Scholes’ view he talks about different forms of visual fascination which includes cultural reinforcement, “The process through which video texts confirm viewers in their ideological positions and reassure them as to their membership in a collective cultural body” (Pg 1 Par 2). In making this comment Schole urges us to notice that cultural reinforcement is an important element when it comes to commercials, and that it means when a commercial is played back usually it’s something u agree with, excepted or known to be true already its reinforcing and reminding you what you might of forgotten. He also then tells us how it progresses to commercials that are only 30 seconds long (myth narrative with cultural knowledge). A young black man trying to make it as an umpire coming from a small town finally one day he gets the call and is tested to see if he can make the call under pressure, his passing of the test and exceptance is shown in a later scene where the manager who gave the umpire a hard time is toasting him with a bottle of Budweiser with a background singing “You keep America working. This buds for you” (Pg 2). Schole himself writes, “We are given enough information to construct an entire life story. Provided we have the cultural knowledge upon which this construction depends” (Pg 1 Par 3). Scholes’ point is that advertisers count on that we the viewers understand and have the common sense to know there was a happy ending and by selling us this “American dream” that hard work pays off and we are rewarded they are selling us the product as well. (we will be rewarded..with beer?)