n0de9 logo goes here
features about portfolio contact

OTHER CONTENT:
-------------------------
Articles:
In advertising we trust
Boom and bust
Westeimer

Poetry:
Soft Artificial Curves
Hope

THIS ARTICLE:
-------------------------
In advertising we trust:
1  Medium and message
2  Medieval media
3  Brand new world
4  Propaganda machine
5  Ad filters
6  Buy the world a Coke

 Propaganda machine
Modern advertising-driven mass media is a collaboration between:
1) Companies that must communicate their brand and their products
2) Agencies producing the advertising
3) Media conglomerates that mix this advertising with the entertainment
4) Audiences that consume the mixture, accept the brand and buy the product

Globalization has led to considerable consolidation among ad agencies and media companies that deliver mass media messages to the audience. Well known agencies such as Ogilvy & Mather, Young & Rubicam, BBDO, DDB, McCann Erickson and many others have been rolled up into a handful of global holding companies.


And most of the world's media distribution is in the hands of nine, mostly U.S.-based, media conglomerates including AOL Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom, GE, AT&T/Liberty Media, Sony, Dutch Philips, and News Corporation.

This concentration of media assets into ever fewer hands is seen as anti-competitive and even antidemocratic by opponents. While proponents of media consolidation argue

it's the inevitable result of globalization and the Capitalist nature of the marketplace.

Ethical implications aside, consolidation of the mass media system promotes our advertising-driven, mass-market culture. Companies can more effectively tell us about their products. We agree to listen as long as they’re paying for the free entertainment we want. It's a cozy little arrangement we've all grown up with.

Indoctrination into our product-hungry consumer culture starts as soon as babies can watch television. Critics on both sides of the Atlantic have blasted the BBC’s Teletubbies for intentionally targeting children less than a year old. Studies show preschoolers watch about 400 commercials a week. Kids are learning about our market-driven media before they even learn to read.

The PBS show Sesame Street spoofs the commercial system by having their shows fictitiously sponsored by letters and numbers. This lighthearted leveraging of children’s existing media-literacy helps elevate "the letter H and the number 5" to the level of a major corporation—a lesson not even lost on a six-year old.

continue >>