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Influence of media in our society
Influence of media in our society
Influence of media on contemporary society
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According to Robert Scholes, author of On Reading a Video Text, commercials aired on television hold a dynamic power over human beings on a subconscious level. He believes that through the use of specific tools, commercials can hold the minds of an audience captive, and can control their abilities to think rationally. Visual fascination, one of the tools Scholes believes captures the minds of viewers, can take a simple video, and through the use of editing and special effects, turn it into a powerful scene which one simply cannot take his or her eyes from. Narrativity is yet another way Scholes feels commercials can take control of the thoughts of a person sitting in front of the television. Through the use of specific words, sounds, accompanying statements and or music, a television commercial can hold a viewer’s mind within its grasp, just long enough to confuse someone into buying a product for the wrong reason. The most significant power over the population held by television commercials is that of cultural reinforcement, as Scholes calls it. By offering a human relation throughout itself, a commercial can link with the masses as though it’s speaking to the individual viewer on an equal level. A commercial In his essay, Scholes analyzes a Budweiser commercial in an effort to prove his statements about the aforementioned tools. The commercial described in Scholes composition is a “well-known Budweiser commercial which tells…the life story of a black man pursuing a career as a baseball umpire” (Scholes, p. 620). Scholes feels that this commercial elegantly proves his theory that video texts can hold a viewer captive and control his thought pattern through the use of visual effects, narrativity, and of course, cultural reinforcement. The commercial itself tells the story of a young black man, working as an umpire in the minor baseball leagues, risen from the provinces, having overcome great racial tension throughout his life, who “makes it” as he is accepted by a white manager after making a close call during a game. Scholes analysis of this video text references his tools of “power and pleasure” (Scholes, p. 619) many times. Throughout the commercial visual effects are placed in order to capture the audience as we are offered an “enhancement of our vision” (Scholes, p. 619) by them, according to Scholes. A key feature of the commercial, the slow motion v... ... middle of paper ... ...ct that 30 seconds later this powerful, beautiful car overcomes all evils by outrunning everyone in chase, lends a certain feeling of power to the viewer, makes us wish that we too, could do that. Unlike the Budweiser commercial, this video text does not sell the idea of America working, or the system working, instead it sells a dream, a fantasy. America may not work, in fact you may be out in the middle of the desert being chased down, but as long as you have this faithful 300ZX, you will be in control of your life. In the end, I find that Robert Scholes is correct in his conclusion that commercials hold a certain power, with which they can alter our decisions whether or not to buy a product. Through visual fascination, we are offered images we could never have on our own; through narrativity, we are told what to think and how to think it; and finally through cultural relativity we connect with the rest of the world. When these three forces are combined by advertising, our brains cannot help themselves, we allow ourselves to become brainwashed by corporate America. This is why Robert Scholes feels that Reading a Video Text should be taught in school.
Late night driving home, and a strange man is on the side of the road with an axe, but hey, he has Bud Light so why not offer him a ride? In this video ad of Bud Light a couple is lost at night in what seems the middle of nowhere. Seeing a man with an Axe carrying Bud Light Case, the male seeing that he has Bud Light wants to offer him a ride; they pull over and he gets in the car. A glass and bottle of Bud Light appears and the words “Always Worth It” displayed (Viral 0:24). Later, they run in to a mask man with a chain saw and is also carrying Bud Light, and so the male again was to offer him a ride and leads to the commercial ending (Viralstuff 0:28). In this ad, it attracts a white male, and female audience that has low income, and between the ages of 21 and 30, which makes sense because Bud light sell more to Hispanic males that have low income rate, and are between the age of 55-65 (Bud Light Consumer). The commercial will try to persuade you using ethos, logos and pathos. The ad shows that avid Bud Light drinkers will in
What makes a T.V. commercial memorable? Is it the product you remember or just the commercial itself? Many times it could be both, depending on the person that’s watching the commercial. Sitting down to watch the television is more than just enjoying your favorite TV show; it’s about seeing the different types of commercial that comes with it. Commercials will play a huge role in today’s society.
As a car drives by the window, the viewer sees the dog lift his head up and lay it down when he realizes it is not his owner. After this scene, the following words are shown on the commercial, “For some, the waiting never ended. But we can change that.” According to MADD, “In 2015, 10,265 people died in drunk driving crashes… 290,000 were injured in drunk driving crashes.” The next morning the owner walks in through the door and says, “I decided I shouldn’t drive home last night”, this shows how responsible the owner is because he does not want to hurt others if he had drove while drunk. In the background, the viewer hears the lyrics, “I’ll be waiting here for you, when you come home to me…” which supports the fact that the dog has been waiting all night for the owner to come back safe and sound. The next scene in the commercial says, “Make a plan to make it home. Your friends are counting on you.” By having the saying in third person, the commercial is trying to persuade the reader to drink responsibly because there is always someone waiting at home. In the end credits, the viewer sees the famous Budweiser logo with the hashtag friends are waiting. In the bottom of the ad, the Budweiser commercial had the words “Enjoy responsibly” on
Advertisement is a notable part of our society, it's not only in the uppermost urban neighborhoods but it’s everywhere we turn and look. It is what defines our generation as civilization and no matter what we do we cannot hide from it. In Naomi Klein No Logo she explains “Ads had to inform consumers about the existence of some new invention, then convince them that their lives would be better if they used, for example, cars instead of wagons, telephones instead of mail and electric light instead of oil lamps”(5). And that’s what Gatorade has accomplished by releasing commercials associating with some type of sport. It almost seems like that the corporation of Gatorade is controlling and deciding what we should drink and when we should drink it. If one sees a Gatorade commercial, it’s mostly dealing with a sport or an activity. It portrays to the audience that the men with fancy suits and big bonus checks are correct for their sim...
While some commercials may seem like they are trying too hard and essentially forcing consumers to buy their product, most advertisements have the same approach, hegemony. Instead of straight out saying “buy my product or we will hunt you down”, instead, companies will take their audience into consideration and move forward by attracting that specific group. Wall Street, for example, targets undergraduates because they can be easily persuaded and manipulated as most of them are still assimilating into the transition from high school to college; So, everything is new and open to interpretation. By exposing students to the lavishness and extravagance of an investment banker’s lifestyle, investment bankers can hook students and leave them yearning for more, as “they quickly become used to the respect, status, and impressive nods from peers” (Ho 179). Like getting addicted to a drug, these students are dependent on inclusion of investment banking when exposed. Because this is so ubiquitous, it is hard to notice. It is like the breathing, it is only when a person directs their attention to it that they start noticing it. This can be related to hegemony, it plays a role in a person’s daily life, but it is only when something goes wrong that a person will start investigating what went wrong. This is seen in Reading Lolita in Tehran, where Nafisi and a group of her
...wer in reality will be driving a newer model vehicle and attached this dream life to this particular vehicle. The car itself is almost like any other new car in the lot, but with the careful use of new modern manipulation the viewer will desire this car over any other. That is until a new commercial replaces the Kia commercial in the viewer’s mind.
The Budweiser’s Drinking and Driving Commercial, “Someone waits for you at home,” which aired in 2014 during the super bowl tugges at our heart as we watch the man and his dog become best friends. Throughout the video, Budweiser uses many strong sources of happiness and sympathy to strengthen credibility and appeal to ethos as well as building an argument. Towards the beginning and the end of the video we see pathos as it grabs on to our emotions and brings the argument together. This commercial hits home for many of us as we have pets at home who we love
A commercial aired during the Super Bowl has a very general and broad audience, therefore the theme of the commercial needs to be entertaining to more than one group of people. According to Dr. Frans de Waal, a professor at the University of Columbia, America is infatuated with violence and finds an individual getting hurt to be humorous (3-4). This supports the idea of generalization of a commercial to illustrate comedy that appeals to every type of viewer.
This book has opened a whole new perspective on advertising and the reasons we buy things and regret them later. Thinking that I have the urge for a McDonalds hamburger may feel real, or it might just be an elaborate, expensive advertising technique used to manipulate my buying behavior.
The viewer sits on the couch, nestled inside a cozy, warm blanket with a large bowl of buttery and salty popcorn on his lap. His heart starts racing as the movie reaches its climax. Just as his lungs stop breathing and his eyes grow wide with fascination, the channel changes to an old advertisement that he’s seen a thousand times. Ads like that one appeal to the three main techniques that have subliminal messages to viewers. These different techniques have proven to be effective with television watchers. Advertisers use these three techniques to target a certain audience.
Commercials make the viewer think about the product being advertised. Because of the amount of television children watch throughout the week, it allows the children to be exposed to the information over and over again. Per year, children are known to view thousands of fast food commercials. On a daily basis, a teen will usually view five advertisements and a child aged six to eleven will see around four advertisements (Burger Battles 4). Businesses use this strategy to “speak directly to children” (Ruskin 3). Although the big businesses in the fast ...
Advertisers and corporations are liable for using modern and sophisticated forms of mind control to the extent level of brainwashing consumers, in order to manipulate their choices and their spending habits. Our society is being negatively impacted, by becoming a consumer driven society constantly distracted by overwhelming persuasive advertisements, as opposed to ideal informative advertisements. The most vulnerable and negatively impacted targets of persuasive advertising are the younger, less mature, and/or less knowledgeable and self-directed consumers. Ironically, it was once said “An advertising agency is 85 percent confusion and 15% commission” (Allen). It is quite clear that social benefits are not part of this equation. The harm and severe social related costs far outweigh any economic growth and benefits deemed necessary for advertising and marketing companies.
“There are twelve billion dollars spent annually on ads directed at children” (Dittmann, 2004). These advertisements target young, impressionable minds, capture the attention of the child and imprint an ideal or message. While watching advertisements, a child develops a like or dislike for an activity or product. The strength of the desire is proportional to exposure. Desire creates action and action creates sales. I observed this principle with a sibling, my younger brother Eron. When a General Electric commercial came on television he, would turn and be mystified by the music and dancing of the actors. Around the age of eight, he expressed a very strong opinion that General Electric products are superior to other products. At this stage in his development, he did not have the cognitive ability to think abstractly to weigh all of the aspects associated with what makes a product of quality.
This paper is a piece of research involving a new measure in the ability to understand the effectiveness of a commercial. The project was evaluated by the rate of work given to be able to watch or listen to commercials. Techniques like the ones used reach back to a familiar name, B. F. Skinner. Recently, his techniques have been refined in order to study the behavior of humans. Changes and additions have been made to increase the ability of the recording apparatus. These include the recording of both forms separately, the ability to control slide or sound stimuli to keep from repetition or delays, and variations in the required amount of reaction for each subject. D’Arcy Advertising Company asked Associates for Research in Behavior (ARBOR) to use four separate, 60 second commercials. The main reasons for selecting four different commercials was to measure the different focus level for each, the different amount of interest for different forms of commercials of the same commercials, and to develop rankings for the commercials (Nathan & Wallace, 1965).
Commercials works through the human emotions and vanity and it appeals toward the psychologically domain turning into a temptation for weak mind people. For instance, if a person is at home watching T.V., very comfortable and suddenly, a commercial promoting any kind of food and drink comes up, that person will be hungry and thirsty in a couple of minutes. The advertising influenced his mind, provoking an involuntary reaction to do what the commercial induced him to do.