In her documentary, Kilbourne (2010) explored the dark side of advertising that has perennially sold mankind undesirable trends. Advertising content is often beyond the borders of sound communication across many cultures even though its role towards the consumer is increasingly important. Advertising contributes to the general media’s role in the society by socially constructing certain practices that may not be necessary. Kilbourne (2010) highlighted the mishaps of advertising including selling us what we don’t need, values and concepts of normal are major issues negatively associated with advertising. Advertising presents the media with a major opportunity to define what the society upholds as values. The consequences of this are groundbreaking. Grabe (2009) observed that by constantly relating to violence with men as the villains and women as victims for instance, ads instill fear among women and popularize violence as a weapon for men, making the latter susceptible to arrests. Advertising also brings forward conceptualized standards of reality that people across the world use to gauge themselves. The contemporary culture in many societies can be linked to advertising and its grave consequences. Unfortunately, the standards are often almost impossible for most of the audience to achieve, such as relating models to what men desire in their spouses. These are some of the adverse effects that result from the advertising culture that bring forth multiple undesirable things. (224 words)
Advertising affects many dimensions of how I view myself and others, and how others view me. Advertising uncovers a dimension of me that is in most cases incomplete or handicapped. The comparison that is commonly used in advertising involving elegant models or other conceptualized scenarios that reference exceptionally gifted personnel will always uncover a gap in some instances. Personally, I have mixed views on others as a result of advertising. In most cases, I see them as lacking in some areas which can be physiologically or other things that can be identified with an individual. Similarly, others see me privileged in some areas like or unlike them, and/or underprivileged in others. They can see me as being close to perfection from a morphological perspective as set by the advertising standards, or as trendy with regard to the modern standards. The latter can be a burden especially if the aspect being referenced is difficult to achieve. (155 words)
Individuals may use various approaches to protect themselves from the ill effects of advertising messages. First, individuals should realize that advertising is highly psychosocial in nature, with the ultimate aim of controlling the audience’s thinking through unrealistic means in many instances (Rinn, 2012). Individuals can then evaluate what they should worry about or what affects them in the real sense. Secondly, a collective effort from members of the society is necessary to curb these challenges of advertising including marketers, consumers and the authorities. Consumers will be better off if individual efforts are directed towards diluting the ill effects of advertising through advocating for an ethical advertising culture. Finally, people should counter the effective use of consumer knowledge used by marketers through learning and criticizing where necessary the features used in various ads. Critical thinking is important in understanding the ways of marketing and how they apply to an individual’s life. This can eliminate the unnecessary burden on consumers imposed by marketers and encourage more adaptive thinking. (166 words)
The psychosocial theory offers a profound explanation with respect to the relationship between advertising and media and behaviors of different people. Nevid (2012) argued that the interaction of human beings and their environment subjects them to constantly changing identity ego. Marketers use the positioning technique to identify and match the audience’s concerns with images that will effectively elicit emotional responses. A focus on psychosocial needs such as social acceptance and personal image in advertising influence people’s behaviors significantly. The use of certain images in advertising that focus on slimness in women and selling the smoking habit exemplifies this perspective. Advertisements develop as psychosocial needs also change with age. Segmentation in advertising increases the effectiveness of ads that take the psychosocial perspective. The consequence of such advertising similarly increases the conflict between an individual’s psychosocial status and what the media presents as acceptable standards through advertising (Nevid, 2012). As a result, there is a motivation to achieve a certain area of life that pushes individuals into exhibiting certain behaviors. The pairing of identified physiological needs with conceptualized images of reality is a prevalent practice among advertisers that motives human behaviors. (189 words)
These media messages have a cumulative effect for a number of reasons. One, the prevalence of these messages increases their effect. This is aggravated by the fact that advertisers increasingly use an integrated approach which significantly links most of their messages if not all and thereby eliciting even stronger effects. Two, the contemporary perspective of globalization promotes the effect of advertising messages through the use of identical ads. A local ad today is likely to be similar to a foreign ad targeting the same audience or segment, this trend creates a lasting and stronger global effect that increases from a globalization perspective. This emphasis on particular psychosocial needs across the globe has a cumulative effect that arises from the creation of global standards that do not take into consideration the diversity of different world cultures. (135 words)
References
Grabe, E. M. (2009) Television News magazine Crime Stories: A Functionalist Perspective. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 16 (1999): 155-171
Kilbourne, J. (2010) Killing Us Softly 4 [Video]. Retrieved form http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnDOdG0U07I
Nevid, S. J. (2012) Essentials of Psychology: Concepts and Applications. Belmont: Cengage Learning.
Rinn, N. A. (2012) Implications for Addressing the Psychological Needs of Gifted Individuals. Gifted Child Quarterly, 56(4): 206-209
