Covert Prestige Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Covert Prestige - Essay ExampleThis phenomenon, known as covert prestige, implies that the speaker or organization has a favorable affinity with the minority group that the slang is borrowed from (Savan 65). This gives the audience some instant familiarity with both groups and promotes their sense of fairness and individuality, even piece of music exploiting the concept of race and victimisation a mass marketing technique. However, this instant bonding may be an insult to the outgroup and embarrassing to the speaker. The bond formed by this appropriation of language is a shallow pandering to the fragile white need for acceptance by an out group, as well as having the potential to be insulting and demeaning to slow people and their socialisation.America has witnessed an onslaught of products that have been promoted by loosely linking the product with the black culture through the use of black slang. These products run the gamut from individual promotion to political parties, and f rom underwear to news items. They are all advertisements utilise to promote a product or an audience. However, care moldiness be taken when analyzing an advertisement as Savan points out that black talk has become part and parcel of American talk and is not easily marooned or categorized (Savan 72). A recent promotion for a political segment on FOX News illustrates the multiple factors that need to be considered when using cross-cultural slang for promotion, and the difficulty in effectively implementing it. Figure 1 is a televised byline that was used to promote a FOX News segment that was meant to state the public of Michelle Obamas impact on the presidential campaign. The byline referred to Ms. Obama as Figure 1 (Koppelman) Obamas Baby Mama. The phrase is used among the black culture to indicate the single mother of someones child. Used in the black environment it has the potential to be a term of endearment, but may also be an insult and does not stand up to cross-cultural tr anslation. It is in the same class as the n word. Assuming that Fox news would not be so egregious as to blatantly use racism in their broadcasts, it must be that Fox was trying to appropriate a black phrase in an effort to egress to be more black. This effort was not too far from the early 20th century vision of the misguided white men in blackface that used black language to entertain a white audience, and in doing so became a horror show (Savan 75). It was an attempt to show that they understood black culture without any true racial sensitivity. Savan seems to underestimate the potential for racial backlash and contends, For the most part, that rented association is working (69). Savan has failed to recognize the importance of cultural and social contextualization when evaluating an audiences solution to black slang. The Ms. Obama characterization demonstrates the difficulty that advertisers face when trying to capitalize on covert prestige. Some phrases and words have worked t heir way sufficiently into the mainstream as to have lose much of the African-American monopoly that the words once held. There is some safety in using a word that is connected to a culture, but not owned by them. The phrases you go girl or Whassup may have become sufficiently mainstreamed as to be part and parcel of the American language, but it still requires a degree of cultural sensitivity and knowledge to make