Image Analysis

Secure Internet: It's more than just for kids

Click-Click-Click. How could one - maybe two - words trigger a cascade of snowballing events that can cause so much destruction and mayhem. With so much information at the end of a fingertip or a mouse icon, it's easy to forget about the falsehoods and dangers that can lurk behind colorful website pages and creative user profiles. There is nothing that says people can't lie about who they are, what they write, or what their motives are, and people - like sexual predators - use this to their advantage. Although discussions of online sexual predators may seem to concern only naive teenagers and children, it, in fact, concern all who use online social sites and this will be proven by the analysis of Pedro Junior's Internet Segura: Date PSA (public service announcement), statistics, and laws.

Internet Segura: Date

Pedro Junior's Internet Segura: Date PSA was created along with 2 other PSAs for a campaign about Safe Internet for the Brazilian advertising campaign Talent. This image (displayed at the top of the first page) has two rooms on either end of a computer conversation.

Starting from the left, there is a lovely woman in a blue dress with a matching blue beaded necklace sitting in right side profile. To her left and in the background, there is a city skyline behind a balcony fence, which is the only wall like thing in the frame. In front of her and to the viewer's right, an elegant computer desk with slim computer ware on top. Lastly, there is a hand with a bouquet of red roses coming out of the computer.

On the right, there is a roughly reflected image of that on the left. Starting on the left of the right side, there is a computer ware, but it is bulkier and dingier than that of the left side. Further right, there is a grotesque male figure clothed in a brown necklace, curvy tattoos, and a thin piece of cloth resembling women's underwear that is partially hidden by the PSA's text. Lastly, in the background and to his right, the wall has a display of pornographic pictures.

Color Power

With the short time a PSA has to make an impression as people flip through pages or fast-forwarding through commercials, PSA's need to use tools that express meaning as soon as someone looks at it. For Junior's PSA, Color is the tool that does that the best.

As the left side illuminates the situation of the victim, the right side shines a light on the shadiness of the predator. The main color of this half is green. Green in this PSA means the same thing as it does in the Wizard of Oz and Disney movies: it signifies the villain and their wicked and evil deeds and thoughts. Also, as Cherry mentioned, green has a sensual connotation to it as well being the symbol for fertility and being the color of the ever reproducing nature and the sexy green M&M (Cherry). The black and shadowiness of this half add emphasis to the meaning of green since it too is "used as a symbol of menace or evil" and is "associated with unhappiness [and] sexuality" (Cherry). Overall, this half shows the heinousness of the inevitable outcome of this scene.

Decor

The next tool that this PSA employs is the arrangement of objects within the image's framing. This image is roughly symmetrical - reflected almost exactly over the middle line - drawing the viewer towards the middle to where all the action is occurring. Beyond the symmetry of the image, the limitation on sight affects what the viewer sees and what they know. On the left side, the only information the viewer has, without being able to see the rest of the woman's room or what her life looks like, is that this woman is well-off and is trusting and naive enough to play into this predators hands. For the right side, the limited sight draws the viewers eyes to the back wall where the man's pornographic pictures hang, suggesting that he wants to make this woman his next trophy on his wall. Ultimately, the composition and framing of this PSA drives the viewer to certain conclusions about the figures and the situation.