What I've learned about advertising from our class discussions, readings, and critiques of ad images is that we live in a world where the media has a powerful impact on how we choose to live our lives and display our identity. Of course advertisements are trying to sell us a product and make revenue, however they will go to great lengths in order to achieve this even if it means brain washing society through thousands of images. This is evident from Jean Kilbourne's "Beauty and the Beast of Advertising", where she states that "Ads sell a great deal more than products. They sell values, images and concepts of success and worth, love and sexuality, popularity and normalcy. They tell us who we are and who we should be. Sometimes they sell addictions"(121).
Not only is this a disturbing a cruel way for an industry to become successful but Kilbourne also mentions that the group that will be affected the most is children. "Adolescents are particularly vulnerable, however, because they are new and inexperienced consumers and are the prime targets of many advertisements. They are in the process of learning their values and roles and developing their self-concepts"(120). I believe that the effect of this is wrong on two levels, the first is that obviously we don't want our children being raised by the media and its superficial image of people and society. Secondly, children are the future of society and it will only result into a snowball effect in which each generation after that will be learning the same values and traditions of their parents.
In the "Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads: Sexism in Advertising" piece, Cortese discusses the different images that portray Men and Women. Women are usually seen as "Sex Objects" whereas Men appear as big strong and dominant figures. Now advertisers have come to a new trend that actually uses children in their ads to display these same stereo types. Advertising has gone beyond the next level and their should be something done about it. I believe that there should be some type of government regulation that places restrictions on the younger demographic that advertisers target. This decision would be more of a moral one because children under the age of 10 are not aware of the persuasive advertisers and their messages.
One attempt that is being made to counter these types of advertisements is the creation of policies by the APA(American Psychological Association) that prohibit advertisemnets that target young children. Members of the APA have met with members of congress, the Federal Trade Commision, and the Federal Communications Commision to address these issues. The APA also wants to raise awareness as well, not only on a governmental level, but in the schools and households as well. The more knowledge and education of the ongoing problem, the more aware parents will be about what their children are being exposed to. http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun04/protecting.aspx
New research and studies are also being conducted by the APA in order to demonstrate the effects the media has on children. Some recommendations that are being made by the APA to help this issue: are developing curriculumn for different grade levels in educating children about advertising, Support continuing education programs for psychologists on marketing to children, and many others that can be seen in the following link: http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun04/apatask.aspx
I agree with the idea of snowball effect and that if advertisement industries continue to go unchecked and affect the culture, future generations might find themselves in a situation similar to what was described in the movie called Idiocracy.
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