Media Advertising Criticism - Essay Example

Media Advertising Criticism Albion explains that advertising is the art of marketing using persuasive information from the sponsor through mass communication channels to endorse the acceptance of goods, services or ideas to the audience. There are various mediums of advertising; newspapers, radio, television broadcast, stage shows, websites, billboards, flyers, supermarket receipts, taxicabs among others (Albion 55). According to Beckman (34), free media refer to the persuasive information produced by advertising and public relations professionals for promotion purposes, as well as marketing through mass media at no cost to the creator. The major role of advertising is to increase sale of products and services, in addition to creating and maintaining the brand identity and image. It also entails communicating the change that exists in the product line and introducing a new product or service (Bartels 46). It is also viewed as a favorable representation of products to make customers, consumers and the public aware of the existent products. In other words, it lets potential users, buyers, and the public as a whole become familiar with the various brands of products, goods and services found in the market. Advertising has faced various criticisms regarding the content, ethics, privacy and the cost of the adverts. In this essay, we are going to discuss the reasons why advertising is essential irrespective of the criticisms that have been lodged against it (Beckman 70). Additionally, we shall examine in details some of the issues that bring about the criticisms of advertising. For instance, that it does not protect other people’s privacy and that it lays emphasis on inaccurate or inappropriate content. Beckman brings out the fact that media organizations at times misinterpret and withhold relevant facts because they are subverted by the advertiser’s demands. According to Beckman (87), the media sometimes publish or air programs without considering the issue of embarrassment and inconvenience brought about by the advertisement. This is because the individuals conducting the advertising only care about the massive revenues they will obtain after airing the adverts. Many countries have banned television tobacco advertising in order to protect the public interests. They believe that tobacco adverts may convince the younger generation that smoking is cool, yet is not. In some countries such as Canada, Europe, South Africa and New Zealand, the advertising structure operates in a system of self-regulation where advertisers, media and advertising agencies agree on the code of advertising standards that all stakeholders try to uphold. This aims at ensuring that the advertising is decent, legal, truthful and honest (Beckman 89). Thousands of policy researchers, opinion makers and politicians often wish to transmit information to the larger public. In order to do that successfully, they need a medium of communication. Therefore, media organizations always serve as the intermediaries of conveying such messages. Transmission of information and news to the public is extremely expensive, and this has prompted media organizations to significantly depend on advertising in order to cover some of their costs. There are few organizations and corporations that spend heavily on adverts, and this has compelled media agencies to accept advert orders from them irrespective of whether they violate the media ethics or not (Bartels 100). Advertising in its essential nature boldly appeals to the self-interest of customers for the patent and selfish gain of the capitalists. Therefore, criticizing advertising is to criticize capitalism and ethical egoism (Albion 48). Anderson makes us understand that, in the psychological point of view, people are in control of their mind; thus, they cannot be manipulated unless they allow it. There are three facts that uphold this statement. First, reason is volitional, a fact that negates determinism; thus, removes the support for the view that advertising possesses the power to make shoppers buy products they do not require or want. Second, rational values are objective, a fact that nullifies moral intrinsicness; thus, removes support for the charge that advertising is offensive, therefore; must be regulated or banned. Third, truth and certainty, through reason, are achievable; indeed, they must be achieved if a man and civilization are to survive. This is a fact that obliterates the doctrine of pure and perfect competition; hence the charge that advertising is a tool of monopoly power. Advertising allegedly achieves the goal of making consumers buy goods they do not want or need. It achieves this by changing their tastes and preferences in a way that conforms to the tastes and preferences of the advertisers. According to the change, advertising either taps the internal consumers’ urge to make them change their tastes, or as a powerful force in the environment that directly causes consumers to change their tastes. Critics maintain that advertising compel consumers to act in a way that they will not if advertisements did not exist. The philosophic doctrine that backs up this criticism is determinism. This doctrine denies the validity of free will, and proposes that individuals can do things because of influence (Bartels 40). Some of the criticism that is tied to media organizations wanting to earn without considering media ethics are that advertising deceives and manipulates consumers through subliminal advertising. This implies that customers are convinced to buy certain items because of the hidden messages that accompany the ads. The second says that advertising creates needs and wants by using techniques of persuasion. Critics say it is essentially the same as coercion. Let me proceed by discussing the charge of deception and manipulation. The first criticism assumes that man gets motivated by unconscious urges and instincts that he possesses innately. This implies that a man is determined to act the way he does because of internal stimuli. The essence of this criticism Freudian psychology applied to the evaluation of advertising. The manipulation is said to occur subliminally, below the threshold of awareness. The words “drink Coca-Cola” and "eat popcorn" were flashed on the screen in a movie theater in 1957 at a speed no one could perceive. During intermission, the sales of popcorn supposedly increased 58 percent and sales of Coca-Cola 18 percent. By that time, of course, Vance Packard had already cried “hidden persuaders”; ever since, the enemies of capitalism and advertising have been celebrating (Bartels 65). Another example is that playing a French song when advertising a French wine would make people to buy the wine in large numbers. This is opposed to playing a German song while selling a French wine. The media agencies rely much on advertising to cover the cost of production. The organizations speculate, simplify and exaggerate information to grab and hold onto the audiences (Albion 135). My personal attitude changed when I came to understand that advertising expands beyond the popular misconceptions that we acquire at a younger age; a conception that we hold up to date. As a result, emotions keep changing from positive to negative about various advertisements, it is essential to realize that advertisement is a rational, productive, moral, and more serious of all, a benevolent establishment for laissez faire capitalism. Arnold Toynbee reportedly says that he does not think that advertisements should be evil; it is a moral and intellectual pollution (Albion 140). It manipulate, trivializes, insincere and vulgarizes. It is a way of undermining our faith in the conception of ourselves. In comparison, John Kenneth Gabraith, sounds tame. He merely accuses advertisement of creating wishes that otherwise would not have existed and manipulation of customers into purchasing of unneeded new brand of goods. In defense of advertisement Kirkpatrick claims that advertisement by its essential nature unapologetically and blatantly appeals to the self-interests of customers for the selfish and blatantly gains of capitalists (Kirkpatrick, n.p.). So to criticize advertisement is like to criticize the capitalism and ethical egoism. The most fundamental level, attacks on advertisement are assaults on reason-on the ability of man to form concepts and also to think in principles. This is attributed to the fact that advertising is a conceptual communication to the public and at one time it is the conceptual achievements of others. Its goal is to sell the products to its customers, and the means by which the goal is achieved is by communicating what the advertisers refer to as the product concept. Therefore, an advertisement is itself an abstraction; it is a conception which the capitalists have produced. For this reason, advertisement is a conceptual idea of communication in a market economy, which is set to self-interest buyers about the self-interested, abstract achievement of the capitalists (Bartels 150). Criticizing advertisement at the most fundamental level is for that reason an assault to man’s consciousness. The social conscious of advertising has also affected mainstream corporations, but majorly, questions have been raised on the impact that is created by advertisements on the surface (Bartels 42). The fundamental thing that adverts does as a discursive outline is that it narrates the story of human happiness, this is how it sells. This is how it does its job. It sells its products by connecting people to their happiness and buying of the products. Particularly buying of these products is connected to the provisions at the market place. If a product is successful in telling the story, a story that is not only for an individual but that can organize the whole society. Then the story seems seemingly true, and then one needs to make more products in that way, and that is the way towards human happiness. The most definite example is the change of subliminal advertising. That is when someone looks at a place ahead of you at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant, a look at the picture of fried clam special; one might get deceived or prejudiced into changing taste-from hamburger to clams (Kirkpatrick, n.p.). One of the biggest criticisms facing media organizations is that they air inappropriate content. Studies have revealed that most media agencies operate on the notion that ‘sex sells’. Therefore, any advertisement that they air, they have to put some aspect of sexiness even in areas that it does not deem fit. For instance, they use erotic imagery to draw interests of people to buy a product. Most media agencies use pictures of pretty women, which in most cases are not even connected to the products being advertised. An advert of cologne may have a picture of a half-dressed pretty woman alongside the fragrance. In this case, the pretty woman is strategically put to attract the attention of potential buyers and users. It is because of such adverts that advertising receive criticisms from the corners of the society who oppose nudity. There have been instances of deregulation of professional advertising more so by doctors, lawyers, and dentists, these professionals have expressed hostility towards their associates who advertise. There are also three fundamental attacks on advertisement, which constitute the assault on the consciousness, the first attack attributes to advertisings as the coercive power that forces consumers to purchase goods that they never wished for. The second is at the level of metaphysics where this attack denies the choice nature of reason; which is free will; it consequently denies, either implicitly or explicitly, the validity of the human consciousness as such (Kirkpatrick 23). Another attack derides advertisements for how offensive it allegedly they are, ultimately, critics have advocated for the regulation and control of the allegedly offensive adverts. At the root, that is, at the point of ethics-these attacks have denied the fact that values are objective, that the values are a product of relation which exists between the material objects and the consciousness which evaluates them. As a result, it deprives the existence of rational options (Bartels 187). The final attack is which deprives of the contemporary economics sees advertising as an instrument of monopoly. At the epistemology level, however; this attack has denied the possibility of uncertainty and truth because reasons are allegedly impotent to know the reality. What man can do is to emulate the physics methods, by conducting statistically managed experiments, and effort to establish a doubtful, probabilistic knowledge. Advertisements have also created mere coercion. This has occurred as a result of the creation of needs that previously did not exist without it. That is highly persuasive, emotional, combative advertising, which is opposed to the rational, informative, and constructive ones. They have claimed to be a physical force which destroys a consumer’s sovereignty more than the free market (Bartels 197). These forms of coercive power take the repeated forms of advertising liquor, cigarettes, sports cars, color televisions, Gucci shoes, and deodorants as the evident of the power to force unwanted and unneeded products on the helpless and poor consumers. The charge on deception and manipulation has become more serious than mere coercion since manipulation is more devious. Manipulators can make an individual think that a product is good for them yet in the real sense; that may not be the case (Kirkpatrick 22). Many times advertisements have been found to be misleading and making false claims. For instance, advertisements on beauty creams, which show that they can easily change the complexion of an individual. The adverts that imitate sarees and jewelries also make big claims of the standard brand from a prominent place, where they are not a reality. We should also take keen notice on the advertisements that portray the women figures as beautiful and as sexual objects that are changeable with other objects, or stereotyped wives, housekeeper or mother. Some portray working women as dependent women and very receptive to the women advice and authority. Once the image of the product in the advert is created, the price will automatically shoot upwards (Bartels 120). Some adverts have also been realized to corrupt the mind of the young ones; the kids get carried away with such adverts that can promote certain behaviors, such as smoking and drinking. Some adverts have also influenced the youth into criminal behaviors that undertake the ventures at the danger of their lives. In as much as these drawbacks exist, adverts are still necessary in the present business environment. They are not social waste. They enable manufacturers to produce and introduce new products and sell them (Kirkpatrick 15). They also educate people on the new product and how to use them, perhaps it also strengthens the freedom of choice amongst people. In addition to these adverts increases the living standards by informing the society of the new products that are available in the market. For these reasons, we can say adverts are also useful to the society and the market activity. People should just keep watch on the drawbacks and pile pressure on the government to get involved in regulating the advertising industry. Manufactures should also avoid wasteful advertisements and keep advertising expenditure within limits (Kirkpatrick 15). Advertising has faced various criticisms from the social to the economic fields; these criticisms might portray advertising as drooling ogre, waiting to feed on a helpless consumer. The benevolence of advertising also exists and should not be questioned (Alderson 91). Despite the dominant role that advertising plays today in the society, there has been disagreements on their efficiency. Perhaps, we should lay focus on the adverts thought to be misleading, and that may make false claims rather than have a detrimental status of the entire activity. Works Cited Albion, Mark S. Advertising’s Hidden Effects. Boston: Auburn House. 2006. Print. Alderson, Wroe. Marketing Behavior and Executive Action: A Functionalist Approach to Marketing Theory. NewYork: Arno Press. 2008. Print. Armentano, Dominick T. Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure. New York: John Wiley and Sons. 2000. Print. Backman, Jules. Advertising and Competition. New York: New York University Press. 2003. Print. Bartels, Robert. The History of Marketing Thought. 3d ed. Columbus, OH: Publishing Horizons. 2010. Print. Kirkpatrick, J. “Arguments from Reason, Ethical Egoism and laissez faire capitalism.” In Defence of Advertising, 1-37. Print. Read More