1. 1. The association principle is, “…a persuasive
technique used in most consumer ads that associates a product with a positive
cultural value or image even if it has little connection to the product”
(Campbell, 400). Just how much the association principle is used in advertising
today became evident to me after watching Generation:
Like and student presentations. In the film, Douglas Rushkoff brings the
attention of the viewer to Oreo’s recent advertising campaign supporting
same-sex marriage. Of course, a cookie has nothing to do with gay pride, but by
associating with it, Oreo was able to appeal to millions of consumers who may
be more likely to purchase their cookies because they agree with their views.
One example of an advertisement we watched in class that I noticed uses the
association principle is the Samsung washing machine one where the bear washes
his coat. In this case, Samsung is associating with being so environmentally
friendly, a bear would use their products. While it may be true that the
washing machine advertised in this video does save water, there is a good
chance that it is true that, “’Green’ marketing…is associated with goods and
services that aren't always environmentally friendly” (Campbell, 402). In both
of these cases, the company uses certain unrelated values to help their product
appeal to people and boost their sales.
2. Amazon’s success given the way the company began
really surprises me. Founder and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, “…realized books
were an untapped and ideal market for the Internet, with more than 3 million
publications in print and plenty of distributors to fulfill orders” (Campbell, 370).
Obviously, Bezos’s realization was profitable, as Amazon has become one of the
world’s leading media corporations. I think it is very interesting that by
finding a niche, books, which had not been brought to the internet, Bezos was
able to create an empire that controls much more than the selling of books. In
fact, Amazon has become the world’s largest online retailer and its Kindle Fire
has become more than an e-book reader, now rivaling apple’s iPad in the tablet
market. One student presentation on a Kindle Fire advertisement depicted this
competition. The commercial claims that the Kindle Fire is sharper, lighter,
and cheaper than the iPad, impressive claims for a book company to make against
a company known for their tablets. Bezos’s method of creating a massive media
corporation out of one of the oldest forms of media is revolutionary and proves
that by tapping into media undeveloped technologically, a company can grow to
control much of the whole media industry.
1. 3. While there are many negative connotations about
social media and how it distracts us from real life, by serving as a news
source, it actually serves to inform us about what’s happening in our town’s
and worldwide. Since I don’t have a television at college or read the
newspaper, I get a lot of my news from Facebook. Not only is it how I learn about events my
friends are attending or things that happen in my hometown, it is often the first
place I hear about world news. For example, I read statuses about last year’s Boston
bombing and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting before I heard about them
anywhere else. Brian Stelter of the New York Times agrees with me in Page One. He claims that people approach
him at work with new news stories 12 hours after he hears about them on Twitter.
Not only is social media the quickest way for news companies to get information
out, sharing and retweeting allows information to spread quickly. In 2010, for
example, Donald Trump’s accusations that Obama was born in Kenya and not Hawaii
spread like wild fire on the internet until April 2011 when, “…President Obama
released his long-form birth certificate, putting an end to what he called ‘silliness,’
and marveling at ‘the degree to which this [story] just kept on going’” (Campbell,
507).
4. Reblogging, retweeting, and sharing on social
networking sites do more than share news stories, they serve as advertising. For
example, I found the video I used for my presentation on Facebook because one
of my friends shared it. All Apple had to do was release their advertisement on
YouTube and let internet users do all the work. In Generation: Like, Ceili Lynch is one of these people that promote a
product or brand on the internet. She shares and retweets any and all things
about The Hunger Games in an attempt
to be considered one of the book and movie series’ “top fans”. Another way companies use people as
advertisers are sponsorships. In Generation:
Like, Steven Fernandez became YouTube famous from his skateboarding videos,
so famous that skateboarding companies began giving him free apparel for him to
wear in his videos to promote their brand. With all this online promotion,
controversy has erupted over, “…whether people have to disclose if they are
being paid to promote a product. For example, bloggers often review products or
restaurants as a part of their content. Some bloggers with large followings
have been paid (either directly or by ‘gifts’ of free products or trips) to
give positive reviews or promote products on their site. When such instances,
dubbed ‘blog-ola’ by the press, came to light in 2008 and 2009, the bloggers
argued that they did not have to reveal that they were being compensated for
posting their opinions. At the time, they were right. However, in 2009 the
Federal Trade Commission released new guidelines that require bloggers to
disclose when an advertiser is compensating them to discuss a product” (Campbell,
398).
1. 5. Advertisers have developed ways to appeal to
certain demographics and even to individuals, making advertising more personal
and therefore more effective. For example, “…a company like Procter &
Gamble, currently the world’s leading advertiser, displays its more than three
hundred major brands-most of them household products like Crest toothpaste and
Huggies diapers-on TV shows viewed primarily by women. To reach male viewers,
however, media buyers encourage beer advertisers to spend their ad budgets on
cable and network sports programming, evening talk radio, or sports magazines”
(Campbell, 394). I have recognized this advertising technique when I am on
breaks from school and am watching television during the day. I've found that
there are many wheelchair and Life Support commercials during midday programs
like The Price is Right, presumably because the elderly are the only ones home
to watch daytime shows like these. The Internet has allowed advertisers to take
personal advertising one step further. These agencies can use information
consumers provide online by liking things on Facebook, searching for things on
Google, or filling out surveys to create individual profiles for each person.
In Generation: Like, Douglass
Rushkoff illustrates this when he says, “When Daisy likes dozens of brands on
Facebook, those brands can learn more about a potential customer, and all her
friends, as well. When Ceili and her friends retweet news
about The Hunger Games, the movie studio is able to track the response in real
time. When Tyler goes on YouTube in search of the things he likes, YouTube —
which is owned by Google — can track his every move. This is where the currency
of likes turns into actual currency” (Generation:
Like, 2014). These companies then
compile the data they have collected on you to put advertisements on your
computer screen that will appeal to you. This is an example of a cultural
shift, how today’s society is shifting from privacy to surveillance.
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This is a screenshot of an ad that came up on my own Facebook. From my profile, Facebook found out that I am a teenage girl and would be more likely to be influenced by an add about female razors than a middle aged man would be.
1. 6. The film Digital
Nation really opened my eyes to how online gaming can be relevant in real
life. Previously, I thought gamers were antisocial nerds who didn't have any
friends. However, games like Second Life
and World of Warcraft can actually
serve to bring people together and to get work done in the professional world. World of Warcraft “…is the most popular
MMORPG, boasting more than ten million players around the globe. Users can
select from twelve different ‘races’ or avatars, including dwarves, gnomes,
night elves, orcs, trolls, goblins, and humans. To succeed in the game, many
players join with other players to form guilds or tribes, working together
toward in-game goals that can be achieved only by teams. Second Life, a 3-D social simulation set in real time, also
features social interaction. Players build human avatars, selecting from an
array of physical characteristics and clothing. Then they use real money to buy
virtual land and to trade in virtual goods and services” (Campbell, 86). These
descriptions would suggest that gaming is actually somewhat of a social
experience. Digital Nation, for
example shows a World of Warcraft
convention where players that have known each other for months or even years
and have been in the same tribe virtually finally get to meet each other in real
life. Some players interviewed even met people that became more than friends on
World of Warcraft. In fact, one third
of all female players reported finding a significant other through the game. Second Life is similar to World of Warcraft in that it is a way to
meet people, but unique to Second Life is
that it can be used in the professional world. Digital Nation interviews a woman that works for a worldwide
corporation and is on a team with people around the world. None of the people
have met in real life, but interact each day in Second Life.
This is a picture of people meeting up in Second Life.
1. 7. Is there any limit to what the public should be
informed of? Julian Assange doesn't think so. In We Steal Secrets this founder of WikiLeaks makes it clear that he
believes people have the right to information and without it, the public can’t
make informed decisions. He makes the claims that the government is implementing
cardstacking in that they are not telling the public the whole and therefore
true story. I think the most surprising
thing that WikiLeaks did was not to inform the public of secret government
information, but to inform them of how much the government is keeping from
them. Bradley Manning alone released thousands of secret files to WikiLeaks.
Some people oppose Assange, however. In 2010, “...after WikiLeaks released
thousands of confidential U.S. embassy cables into the public domain, the U.S.
Justice Department contemplated charging…Assange with violating the 1917
Espionage Act” (Campbell, 553). It’s
interesting that there is such a controversy over the availability of
information; some people think the public has a right to know it while others think the sharing of it
disrupts the war effort and is therefore a federal crime.
1. 8. One thing that really stood out to me in this
course was the third-person effect. This, “…theory suggests that people believe
others are more affected by media messages than they are themselves. In other
words, it proposes the idea that ‘we’ can escape the worst effects of media
while still worrying about people who are younger, less educated, more
impressionable, or otherwise less capable of guarding against media influence.
Under this theory, we might fear that other people will, for example, take
tabloid newspapers seriously, imitate violent movies, or get addicted to the
Internet, while dismissing the idea that any of those things could happen to us”
(Campbell 534). When I read about this for the first time, I asked my friend if
he thought other people were more prone to the media’s influence than he was.
Right off the bat, he responded yes, driving home the claims the third-person
effect makes. In Digital Nation
parents of children who play violent video games are guilty of believing their
kids will become more violent because of them. However, the kids and teenagers
interviewed at the Army recruiting center claimed that they completely
understood that the simulations they were participating in were only games and didn't
affect their personalities. While this may be true, they could also be like
their parents in that they don’t believe media messages can touch them.
1. 9. Perhaps one of the most prominent themes in this
course is our 21st century media culture aesthetic shift. This is a
shift from discrete to convergence. Media convergence can be defined as, “…the
technological merging of content across different media channels-the magazine
articles, radio programs, songs, TV shows, video games, and movies now
available on the Internet through laptops, tablets, and smartphones” (Campbell,
11). This convergence can be seen in many of the student presentations. The
Galaxy Gear is both a watch and a phone, the iPhone can take videos, play
music, and connect to the internet, and there isn’t much Google Glass can't do. In the past, people would have needed a camera, music player, computer and
telephone to do the things they can do today on one device. Another type of
media convergence is cross platform. This is, “…a business model that involves
consolidating various media holdings, such as cable connections, phone
services, television transmissions, and Internet access, under one corporate
umbrella” (12). Google is a perfect example of this in that they have tried to
take over many different media holdings, like search engines, phones, social
networking, and email.
1. 10. The things you post on the Internet are not
private and will never go away. While some people take advantage of digital
media as a way to preserve things, they fail to recognize the dangers of online
activity. In a few student presentations, digital media as a memory maker was
depicted. The Google ad showed that by using Google Chrome, a father could
write letters to his daughter that would be preserved until she was old enough
to appreciate them. If he had handwritten these letters, there would be no way
they could be as organized as they were when he emailed them and there would be
the chance they could get lost. With them on the internet, they would be accessible
anywhere, anytime, forever. In addition, in the iPhone and Universal Studios
commercials, children used their smartphones to record videos of their families
so that the times they spent together could be remembered for a lifetime.
However, there are drawbacks to living in a world that is shifting from privacy
to surveillance. Since, “…the inception of the Internet, government agencies
worldwide have obtained communication logs, Web browser histories, and the
online records of individual users who thought their online activities were
private” (68). While the government coming after you may be a bit extreme, what
you post on the internet is still public information. For example, one of my
teammates got in trouble with the athletic department for a picture of her with
alcohol on her Instagram. She had forgotten the picture was even there and hadn't
realized that the athletic department had access to her account. This goes to
show that one mistake online, can negatively affect you in real life.
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