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On the evidence given in the text Cardiff is a place to be in the world of retail and entertainment where the old is mixed in with the new. It has a history and landmarks to a famous TV show. As retail and entertainment venues draw in the crowds, with that comes noise which they diplomatically stated as ‘the bustle’ but if you are looking for a break then the acres of the peaceful parklands will be the place to go. The text illustrates a place of collective identities where the masses will be drawn by the variety it has to offer as a city and it is not too far from the city centre.
A report from Experian noting the city’s growth in the retail market, outdoing cities of a larger scale and bigger population, making Cardiff a more appealing place to be and giving it an edge to their competitors to draw in the crowds. There are many discourses in the text one of which is back to giving the image of a young, vibrant and energetic city which is really a set of ideas to portray it as that. Another is that it illustrates that Cardiff is unique with what it has to offer and more than local.
As in Making Social Lives where the country side is assumed to be a place for quality of life and the city is a place of doom, the text in this assignment really encourages the reader to get excited about going to Cardiff. In the text the residents of Cardiff are given the social identities of being young, full of life, culture and are as excited about tomorrow as to what they are about today with ongoing plans for the future.
In a whole the text really paints the people of Cardiff as exciting and vibrant, just waiting to welcome and entertain you. Being in touch with technology as they offer you to view more about Cardiff on a video sharing website also suggest that they are up to date with modern technology once again suggesting that Cardiff is fresh and up to date. In the heading they put the English version then in Welsh; this also gives the residents their own unique identity compared to other cities where it is not assumed that one speaks Welsh.
I do not think that the welsh heading is there for the locals to read but to give reinforcement to the previous sentence about them as a community are only a few where Welsh is the native language this is their marked identity. It sends a message to the reader that they are Welsh before you even read the heading in English. The appeal of the text is to encourage those who want to shop where everyone wants to go shop and to those who need to be entertained. It sells most that contemporary societies want. A lot of people want to be part of that exclusive group to shop somewhere where it has earned rankings as one of the top retail places.
Most of us want to be in a place where everyone else wants to go, where entertainment is abundant and there is variety, this is what appeals to the younger part of society, to be part of something exciting. Assuming that we all know that Cardiff has a mixture of ethnic cultures which even though they are given the category of ethnic cultures there are a host of other identities to take into consideration under that category which makes them relational identities. The text does not show if or how they cater for the disabled or what the actual cultural events comprised of.
I assume that during this course we have learnt that Cardiff is home to many different races, cultures and ethnic minorities and it is a safe assumption to say that Cardiff embraces all the new cultures that have migrated from other societies and therefore I would imagine that parts of the different cultures would be part of what Cardiff has to offer today. As this social practise takes place there must be unmarked identities which for obvious reasons they are not going to put anything negative into literature that is intended to promote Cardiff and not demoralize.
No one wants to be informed that they will see the Street People of Cardiff even though we all know that they exist there too along with other identities those are just assumed as part of every society. The visitors they are appealing to in this text are mostly the young who want to be part of what Cardiff has to offer, to go and join this vibrant and fresh society which they are offering. They are constantly reminding the prospective visitor to be excited about going to Cardiff and even provide online tools to find the locations easy.