TOP
TEN MEDIA REVELATIONS
By:
Alyson Campbell
10.
What do Puppies Have to do With Beer?
Companies are
successful in using totally irrelevant ideas or objects to sell their products,
and this commercial is a perfect example of that. Producers don’t just use
these sneaky production techniques because they are cute, they most definitely
serve a purpose. Not only does Budweiser use puppies to capture the attention
of a young audience, but they also associate the idea of friendship with the
product as well. Thus, they were able to promote their product to a large and
diverse crowd using totally irrelevant ideas.
- “Ad agencies and product companies often argue that the main purpose of advertising is to inform consumers about available products in a straightforward way. Most consumer ads, however, merely create a mood or tell stories about products without revealing much else.” (Campbell, 399)
- “This type of advertising exemplifies the association principle, 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)
9.
Plain Folk and Famous People
Many advertisements
today use either plain folk or famous people to sell their product. The
persuasive technique of plain folk is used so that the plain folk watching the
advertisement can realize that if the plain folk in the commercial are using
the product, then maybe so should they. On the other hand, producers also use
famous people to sell their products. This way, since the plain folk watching will
most likely be inspired by this famous individual, they will want to use the
same products that they use. It seems contradictory for two opposite persuasive
techniques to both be successful, but they work the viewer’s mind in different
convincing ways.
- “One of the most frequently used advertising approaches is the famous-person testimonial, in which a product is endorsed by a well-known person.” (Campbell, 399)
- “Another technique, the plain-folks pitch, associates a product with simplicity.” (Campbell, 399)
8.
Pictures: The Key to Persuading
Our limbic brain is the
part of our brain that controls our emotions and feelings. This part of the
brain also processes music and images, and producers take full advantage of
this. They produce sounds and images that speak to our limbic brains, so it
creates an emotional transfer which then compels us to purchase or use the
object of association. Also, when news stories speak to our limbic brain they
are more powerful because they trigger our emotions and thus make for a more
realistic news story. This is an epistemological shift occurring from word to
image.
- “Eventually, however, through the influence of European design, television, and (now) multimedia devices, such as the iPad, images asserted themselves, and visual style became dominant in U.S. advertising and ad agencies.” (Campbell, 389)
- “In the twenty-first century, visual design has evolved in other ways, becoming more three-dimensional and interactive, as full-motion, 3-D animation becomes a high bandwidth multimedia standard.” (Campbell, 390)
7.
News is not Dying, Newspapers are
The demand for news is
not dying. However, the way news is being communicated is changing and greatly
affecting our society. We are going through a technological shift (analog to
digital) because news is being distributed to the public in much faster and
cheaper ways through social media websites and online versions of newspapers. With
much more convenient ways to receive the news, newspapers are becoming less and
less popular, and the demand for news is either staying the same or becoming
even stronger because the public now expects the news instantly. The question
we need to ask ourselves is, is it worth sacrificing good quality news and hundreds
of journalists’ jobs to fulfill our want for instant news?
- “Despite the importance of newspapers in daily life, in today’s digital age the industry is losing both papers and readers.” (Campbell, 277)
- “In the digital age, newsrooms are integrating their digital and print operations, and asking their journalists to tweet breaking news that links back to newspapers’ Web sites. However, editors are still facing a challenge to get reporters and editors to fully embrace that news executives regard as a reporter’s online responsibilities.” (Campbell, 290-291)
6.
Privacy VS The Right to Know
Even though Julian
Assange can be very convincing in his arguments for why the world needs WikiLeaks,
I do not feel comfortable with him releasing secret information to the world. It
is understood that informed decisions cannot be made as a public without information,
but WikiLeaks is dumping free information on the public and leaving it open
ended. Even though journalism is not supposed to be bias, a journalist’s job is
to essentially shape the news with sound judgment in order to influence the
public’s decisions in a positive way. Also, journalists give the public the
news they need, which isn’t necessarily everything.
- “‘Your obligation, as an independent news organization, is to verify the material, to supply context, to exercise responsible judgment about what to publish and what not to publish and to make sense of it.’ –Bill Keller, former executive editor, New York Times, 2011, writing about using material from WikiLeaks.” (Campbell, 491)
- “In the case of privacy issues, media companies and journalists should always ask the ethical questions: What public good is being served here? What significant public knowledge will be gained through the exploitation of a tragic private moment? Although journalism’s code of ethics says, ‘The news media must guard against invading a person’s right to privacy,’ this clashes with another part of the code: ‘The public’s right to know of events of public importance and interest is the overriding mission of the mass media.’ When these two ethical standards collide, should journalists err on the side of the public’s right to know?” (Campbell, 494)
5.
The Power of the LIKE
Our generation is being
generated by the power of LIKEs. Our generation has gone through a cultural
shift (from privacy to surveillance), because when we like something on the
Internet, we are not only telling the world that we like it, but the Internet
also takes the things you like in order to generate what they want to advertise
and expose to you next. Also, a shift from “need to know” to “need to share” has
greatly helped marketers. Marketers are able to use their consumers to further
their marketing because consumers will not only like things on the Internet,
but they will share that they like it as well.
- “Internet ads offer many advantages to advertisers, compared to ads in traditional media outlets like newspapers, magazines, radio, or television. Perhaps the biggest advantage – and potentially the most disturbing part for citizens – is that marketers can develop consumer profiles that direct targeted ads to specific Web site visitors. They do this by collecting information about each Internet user through cookies and online surveys.” (Campbell, 397)
- “The cookies they attach to your profile allow them to track your activities on a certain site. They can also add to your profile by tracking what you search for and even by mining your profiles and data on social networking sites. Agencies can also add online and retail sales data (what you bought and where) to user profiles to create an unprecedented database, largely without your knowledge. Such data mining is a boon to marketers, but it is very troubling to consumer privacy advocates.” (Campbell, 397)
4.
Defining Ourselves
The Internet has become a place of self-curation or self-exhibition. By use of the Internet and social media, people today are able to create an image of themselves online that, whether this depiction is accurate or not, is available for others to see. Everybody selects what they share and post and like, and this constructs a certain reality about oneself. However, because the barrier of the screen is in between a person and the rest of the world, this self-definition can be selective or even altered.
The Internet has become a place of self-curation or self-exhibition. By use of the Internet and social media, people today are able to create an image of themselves online that, whether this depiction is accurate or not, is available for others to see. Everybody selects what they share and post and like, and this constructs a certain reality about oneself. However, because the barrier of the screen is in between a person and the rest of the world, this self-definition can be selective or even altered.
- “Perhaps the most visible examples of social media are social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, Hi5, Bebo, Orkut, LinkedIn, and Google+. On these sites, users can create content, share ideas, and interact with friends.” (Campbell, 54)
- “The site [Facebook] enables users to construct personal profiles, upload photos, share music lists, play games, and post messages to connect with old friends and meet new ones.” (Campbell, 54)
3.
The Ultimate Convergence Tool
Also known as our
personal tracking devices, our smartphones are the ultimate convergence tools. With
this aesthetic shift from discrete to convergence, we are able to make phone
calls, send written messages, take photos/videos, watch movies, listen to
music, play games, and connect to the Internet which opens up many more opportunities
for the user such as social networking sites to connect with even more people. Also,
with all of the apps in the App Store, one is able to do replace many more
objects with their smartphone (See video). Being able to do all of this on one
device makes for much ease for the user. Instead of having to have multiple
devices for all of these different purposes, convergence in the smartphone
allows the user to have just one device to do everything for them. However,
with convergence in mind, this changes the ways some companies are doing
things.
- “Convergence of media content and technology has forever changed our relationship with media. Today, media consumption is mobile and flexible; we don’t have to miss out on media content just because we weren’t at home in time to catch a show, didn’t find the book at the bookstore, or forgot to buy the newspaper yesterday.” (Campbell, 59)
- “In order to satisfy those demands and to stay relevant in today’s converged world, traditional media companies have had to dramatically change their approach to media content and their business.” (Campbell, 59)
2.
Google is Taking Over the World
Google is something
that most people could say they cannot imagine their lives without –especially
if people realized the about of things that Google actually owns now. Google is
the ultimate file cabinet for all information (whether the information is true
or not). And in addition, this powerful search engine has allowed great ease
for the searcher. Instead of rummaging through the file cabinets while singing
your ABCs, all one needs is at the tips of their typing fingers.
- “The ramifications of media convergence are best revealed in the business strategies of digital age companies like Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and especially Google—the most successful company of the digital era so far. Google is the Internet’s main organizer and aggregator because it finds both ‘new’ and ‘old’ media content – like blogs and newspapers – and delivers that content to vast numbers of online consumers.” (Campbell, 12)
- “Google, established in 1998, had instant success with its algorithmic search engine, and now controls more than 65 percent of the search market and generates billions of dollars of revenue yearly through the pay-per-click advertisements that accompany key-word searches. Google has also branched out into a number of other Internet offerings, including shopping (Froogle), mapping (Google Maps), e-mail (Gmail), blogging (Blogger), browsing (Chrome), books (Google Book Search), and video (YouTube).” (Campbell, 63)
1.
Technology is Powerful and Everywhere
Twenty first century
digital technology in the United States is not good or bad, but it is powerful.
Technology is extending to all aspects of our lives, and we need to learn how
to control it. Technology only becomes bad when we use it in negative ways like
replacing our time with screens instead of experiencing what is actually around
us. We need to learn how to use technology in order to not take away from what
is around us, but rather enhance our exciting lives that we are hopefully
living to the fullest.
- “Socrates, himself accused of corrupting young minds, worried that children exposed to popular art forms and stories ‘without distinction’ would ‘take into their souls teachings that are wholly opposite to those we wish them to be possessed of when they are grown up.’” (Campbell, 15)
- “Today, with the reach of print, electronic, and digital communications and the amount of time people spend consuming them, mass media play an even more controversial role in society. Many people are critical of the quality of much contemporary culture and are concerned about the overwhelming amount of information now available.” (Campbell, 16)
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