Monday, January 31, 2011
Advertisements Far and Wide
As I continue to read Culture Jam I become more and more aware of the advertisement perspective Lasn points out in his chapters. As I was driving back to Gettysburg yesterday I took a few minutes just looking at all the things that were meant to catch my eye and sell me something. Whether it was a new car to a funny phrase to drink a certain type of beer, it was something I never really paid attention to. I never really looked at how much we are constantly and unconsciously reading and buying into advertisements. However, advertisements never stop we are always surrounded. Whether we are driving, watching television, checking our e-mail or even walking around campus we are always reading something. To me there are better things than soda, clothes and food that we could advertise but, we as a country to not see the importance of advertising things that could benefit the people educationally or actually making people think for themselves. When I think about advertising in this way it is quite concerning but really we don't know a world without advertisement anymore, and we cannot simply ignore it.
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Ads are a powerful form of media manipulation, so to speak, so I am glad you addressed this in your blog as well as connected it to a real-life example. You say you are concerned about advertisement, but what about our friends in -Second Skin-? Are you just as concerned?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you took the time to deliberately look at the advertisements and messages around you as you drove home. It's sometimes surprising what we see, when we make the decision to take a closer look.
ReplyDeleteI look at advertisements all of the time. I like to be aware of my surroundings! Surprisingly, I literally only remember "food" places or advertisements. I guess you could call me greedy for that, but it helps in every situation. More people need to be aware of what is around them, they don't understand how important it is!
ReplyDeleteI agree completely. Everywhere you go and you everything you do is surrounded by advertisements. The sad part is, the only time we even take notice is when somebody points it out to us. We see so many everyday that make us want to spend money and don't think anything of it. It's part of our normal environment which is pretty bad. We shouldn't have to see some kind of new burger or restaurant every time we turn our heads.
ReplyDeleteIt's impossible to go a day without seeing an advertisement anymore. And whether or not we are consciously taking them into account, we do subconsciously. Now that you looked at those billboards on purpose, do you think that the next time you would buy a car or drink a beer you would think about the ads?
ReplyDeleteThere are so many advertisements out there now that I don't notice hardly any of them anymore. Something has to be really eye catching for me to even notice advertisements anymore.
ReplyDeleteIt's so true, we are always surrounded by advertisements. What I'm not sure is if it's a good thing or not that we can block them out. We try to ignore these things, but then the companies will push advertisements even more to get us to actually pay attention. It reminds me of when the same comercial airs twice in a row, it catches my attention even though I call the company or tv channel stupid for doing it.
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