After finishing this week’s readings I was ultimately attracted to the chapter on meaning and ideology with advertising, by Judith Williamson. It is interesting to think about how much advertising really does play a role in our everyday lives and how it has become a definition of how to live our lives and what should be important to us as a society. Sometimes these values that are being portrayed in the ads are good, but often times what you are seeing and what is surrounding us is advertising that is trying to persuade people to live a certain way that may not be the most realistic or ideal lifestyle. This has become an issue, especially in today’s society, when the media is always present in our daily lives therefore making it easier for ads to be influencing our thinking on a constant basis. As Williamson says in chapter 27, “Advertisements are one of the most important cultural factors moulding and reflecting our life today. They are ubiquitous, an inevitable part of everyone’s lives […]” (299).
Because of this large presence of advertising in our lives, it is important to look at what is advertised and the images that are portrayed. The first thing that came to mind is the way that women are depicted in ads and the pressure that is put on women as a whole in the society because of this. In an article from the TODAY show, they were talking to a woman who was a model for Ralph Lauren for eight years and just recently fired because they said she wasn’t fitting into the sample clothes that she needed to wear. As a size 4 she could not believe that they were firing her for this reason. Soon after this, she found an advertising image that had shown up on a blog site that had been photo shopped in a way that made her look unhealthily skinny. Ralph Lauren removed the ad and apologized for their poor retouching that resulted in a distorted image of a woman’s body. Filippa Hamilton, the model who was fired, said “It’s not a good example when you see this picture, every young woman is going to look at it and think that it is normal to look like that. It’s not. I saw my face on this super-extremely skinny girl, which is not me. It makes me sad. It makes me think that Ralph Lauren wants to have this kind of image. It’s an American brand ... and it’s not healthy and it’s not right.” (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/33307721/ns/today-today_fashion_and_beauty/)
The way that women are depicted is not only dangerous to the model, but also to the young girls looking at the ads. Baran and Davis discuss symbolic interactionism in chapter 11 when saying, “Social roles and many other aspects of culture are learned through interaction, through experiences in daily life situations. Over time, we internalize the rules inherent in various situations and structure our actions accordingly” (302). This would explain the way that our society gets its values and ways of life from the media and its advertising. After seeing a number of skinny perfect women in magazines getting all the guys, it would be understandable to think that a young girl would act accordingly and try to manipulate the features of the women in the ads.
Do you believe that in our culture advertising tells us who we are and who we should be? Do you think that the way that women are depicted and the way the images tell us that in order to be accepted we need to be painfully thin? To what extent does advertising really keep us trapped in these specific roles that we are supposed to play, and specific characteristics that each gender should have?
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As communications students, I think we are more aware of the impact of advertising on society than the average person. I heard that story about the Ralph Lauren model and it’s both wrong and sad. Advertisements tell us that if we purchase a certain product, our lives will be better. If young girls see a tall, skinny, beautiful model wearing a certain brand and getting the attention of a lot of attractive males, then they will believe that they too will be attractive if they wear that brand – or at least that’s what the advertisers want them to believe. I believe that everyone is impacted by advertising at some point in their lives, but people are not always as vulnerable as others. In “Meaning of Ideology,” Williamson says that “advertisements are selling us something else besides consumer goods: in providing us with a structure in which we, and those goods, are interchangeable they are selling us ourselves” (300). I believe he is saying that advertisements are not just telling us to buy a product, but they also tell us what we can become when we own this product. At some point or another, we have all been convinced by an advertisement that we need what it is selling to improve our lives, whether or not this is a conscious thought.
ReplyDeleteI think many people are not as quick to conform to the messages in advertising as they have in the past. As we can see with the Ralph Lauren model, society is not just accepting what they see anymore. Another good example of how people are questioning what they see in advertisements is the Truth anti-smoking campaign. They take what we have been told and make us question it.
In the discussion of Karl Marx and Marxism, Baran and Davis say, “Marx saw culture as something elites freely manipulated to mislead average people and encourage them to act against their own interests” (207). I think this is a good way to describe advertising. Those companies who have the money to advertise their products or services obviously have more power than the companies who don’t have the means to pay for advertising. I don’t think all advertisements are necessarily meant to mislead people or make them against their will, but they are no doubt trying to persuade people to buy their product, even if they use some sort of exaggeration about what the product can do for them.
Advertisements are incredibly powerful in manipulating our vision of society and how we should behave or look like. As Williamson states, “Advertisements are selling us something else besides consumer goods: in providing us with a structure in which we, and those goods, are interchangeable, they are selling ourselves” [300]. However, it is not really ourselves they are selling to us, but an ideology of ourselves—what society deems to be perfect. I completely agree with Jenna that this power media has to influence our behavior is having a negative effect on women. Television, magazine advertisements, etc are portraying them as stick thin and sex objects, increasing the pressure to adhere to that image. Like the model from Ralph Lauren, if you are not smaller than a size four, you have no business being on the cover of a magazine.
ReplyDeleteWe learn this through symbolic interactionism, a theory where “people give meaning to symbols and that those meanings come to control those people” [Baran and Davis 301]. The key point in this statement is that it is people who give meaning to the symbols media provides us. They provide us with representations—the “ideal” women—and then we develop an idea revolving around it, allowing these advertisements to influence our societal beliefs. Now, we can refuse to accept this, but when something is constantly being thrown into your face, it is very difficult not to believe it. We are after all, only human. This idea can correspond with the social construction of reality. This idea revolves around the notion that “social institutions wield enormous power over culture because we as individuals view the culture they propagate as having a reality beyond our control” [Baran and Davis 309]. We rely heavily on the media to make sense of our surroundings. So if we continue to see these false depictions of women, there is a very high chance those depictions will turn to reality. When that is achieved, you have a society of individuals who are attempting to assume the roles media has pegged on us, even if it means becoming an unhealthy version of ourselves. The media does not care for the well-being of their consumers. It cares about selling an idea that will in turn result in the selling of their product.
Michelle Kokot
I think that advertisements are a lot more powerful than some people think. They are meant to catch our attention and play up our emotions. Especially with television advertisements, not only do we have a visual, but sound as well. All aspects making up advertisements are well thought out, and their affects on people prove it. "Advertisements must take into account not only the inherent qualities and attributes of the products they are trying to sell, but also the way in which they can make those properties mean something to us" (McQuail 299). Advertisers know the power and influence they have and can push all the right buttons on people. It's what they're paid to do. I think advertisers don't tell us who we should be, rather who we may never be. We can never have enough products to improve who we are. Then because of this ideology, people feel they need to buy products to improve themselves so they aren't the only one.
ReplyDelete"Whenever we interpret sign systems during the course of daily life, this is a situated activity-it occurs in a specific social environments help shape and are shaped by our interpretation of signs" (Baran & Davis 332). Advertisements are always in social environments, and they have shaped peoples interpretations of signs by playing up their emotions. Advertisements really have a lot more power than it may seem.
If advertisers have so much power, i don't see why they can't use their advertisements to send positive messages rather than negative ones. I'm sure they can use strategies to market their products in a positive way rather than all negatively.
I agree with everyone above who has said that advertisements can have more of an influence than most people would think, especially on an unconscious level. Indeed, Williamson states in her article that “…even if you do not read a newspaper or watch television, the images posted over our urban surroundings are inescapable” (McQuail 299), so even if we don’t realize it, these ads are having an effect. No one can ignore the fact that all we see in the media and advertisements are unhealthily skinny and “Photoshopped” models and actresses, but this is especially true for young girls. I remember reading about the model that Jenna referenced in her blog, and I think this is an awful precedent to set, that even a size 4 is “too fat” to be a model.
ReplyDeleteI think this trend is particularly true for our culture, and I do believe that advertising in America does try to tell us who we are and who we should be, but I don’t think this is only true for our culture. Many other countries have issues with body image based on what they see in the media, though probably not as bad as in our culture. I remember watching an episode of Oprah where Jessica Simpson was promoting her new show, called “The Price of Beauty”, where she travels around to different countries to see what other cultures consider beautiful. In one of the clips they showed on this episode, Jessica sat with a model from France who is deathly skinny; I believe she was around 70 pounds. As a statement against the effect that advertising and the modeling industry has over females, she posed nude for billboards that were posted around Paris, showing off what can happen to a body when you let yourself be influenced by these messages. Using her experience as an example, I definitely think that the way women are depicted does say to us that we need to be painfully thin in order to be accepted. Clearly, this was an issue that needed to be addressed in another culture, though it is similar to what we face here. Indeed, Baran and Davis state that as part of the theory of symbolic interactionism, “self-definition is social in nature; the self is defined largely through interaction with the environment” (307). If all we are interacting with in the media is skinny models and actresses, how could we not be trapped into playing the specific roles that we are “supposed” to play, and define ourselves by the characteristics of what a female is “supposed” to be?
We are exposed to so many advertisements in our lives, let alone on a daily basis, that I don’t think we even realize what a great influence they have on us as individuals or as a society. The example of the model who was fired exemplifies just how strong advertising’s impact is on women, especially. In a materialistic society where we praise appearance and beauty products, we are giving in to the pressures of society. Whether it is subconscious or not, advertising does have an influence on society, especially young girls and women who feel self-conscious. The sex appeal praised by media and society are major contributors to this issue.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to symbolic interactionism, it is clear that we internalize these symbols, whether we realize it or not. Such high exposure to thin models, beauty and diet products, inevitably has led us to become a society full of consumers obsessed with appearance. “When it comes to the “symbolic message”, the linguistic message no longer guides identification but interpretation, constituting a kind of vice which holds the connoted meanings from proliferating” (McQuail, 294). I wouldn’t necessarily say that the advertisements tell us who are and who we should be, but they do influence decisions about ourselves. Advertisements suggest that women who are thin are beautiful, often ignoring any other aspects.
Advertising traps us in the sense that it reinforces ideas about what social roles we should be taking on. However, we are influenced by more than just advertisements. They do impact us, but only to a certain extent. We are also influenced by social and economic factors, among others. “According to Mead, the use of symbols transforms the socialization process” (Baran & Davis, 303). It is important to recognize these factors and not let them take control of our decisions.
From magazines on the racks on the grocery line to commercial breaks during one’s favorite television show to billboards along the highway, advertisements are ubiquitous. Consumers are bombarded with incessant subliminal messages through visual, textual, and verbal advertisements on a minute-to-minute basis. As written in Barans and Davis, “social roles and other aspects of culture are learned through interaction, through experiences in daily life situations. Over time, we internalize the rules […]” (302). Advertisements are utilized to plant the seeds of a company’s merchandise and commodities in the minds of consumers. They water and fertilize those seeds with the relentless broadcasting, promoting, and publicizing of the goods, resulting in the public’s unconscious acceptance of these images, products, and lifestyles as societal norms. The employment of advertisements is quite influential in our society, especially over women, as they depict and reinforce unnatural images of beauty.
ReplyDeleteBoth as marketable objects and intended audiences, women are constantly targeted by all sorts of advertisements from clothing to cars to even men’s cologne. Williamson states that “advertising sets up connections between certain types of consumers and certain products” (McQuail 300).Through the barrage of these aberrantly thin, half nude female images, ads are able to create and promote this “ideal beauty” as they also provide women with fallacious hopes and ideas that this false image is attainable by means and usage of the advertised product.
In a nutshell, advertising triggers the monkey-see, monkey-do effect. Women spend a lot of time, energy and money on their images in order to achieve the “ideal” body. The thinner and sexier a model is in an advertisement, the thinner and sexier women believe they should be and try to be that which leads to eating, dieting and exercising disorders. Advertising and the media dictate to the public what beauty is and what we need to be. The reason Jessica Simpson has this reality series about beauty across the world is because she was ridiculed for gaining weight. Though she is heavier than she was just a few years ago, she is not obese. In fact, she looks healthier than she did and she looks more like the “girl-next-door” now. As a society, we are trapped by these images because, despite some opposition efforts such as Dove’s Campaign and people like Filippa Hamilton speaking out, we as a society still accept and desire these “ideal appearances”.
I agree with Jenna that advertising affects the way women view themselves. From the time we were children playing with Barbies, we were exposed to unrealistic views of women that were considered to be the norm. I think it is a little conceited or naive to say that we can resist the influence of advertising because it is everywhere, even places you wouldn't expect. As Baran and Davis discuss, "According to Mead, human perceptual processes are extremely malleable and can be shaped by the sets of symbols we learn so that we will see only what our culture has determined is worth seeing" (Baran, 303). We become accustomed to seeing only what the media shows us - if the only type of women they portrayed look like pencils, that is what most people will see as the ideal woman.
ReplyDeleteWe also have to consider the power advertising has beyond conditioning. Even if you think you have managed to escape the influence of a lifetime of image-bombardment, there is still the problem that advertisers are actively trying to change what you think. Barthes discusses this in great depth in her piece in McQuail. "...the text directs the reader through the signifieds of the image, causing him to avoid some and receive others; by means of an often subtle dispatching, it remote-controls him towards a meaning chosen in advance" (McQuail, 294). The people in charge of advertising, the media, have already decided what they want people to think - and in terms of beauty and appearance, they want people to think that thin is in.
I think what Jenna is saying is interesting. Whether it's an ideology we've been conditioned with from a young age, or the advertisements that surround us...There is something that is causing us, the consumer/audience, to be affected by what is being shown continually to us. I absolutely think that the media is an instigator to female's having negative feelings about their bodies, and I also think that male's go through the same problems (secretly.) I like the article Jenna showed, and how a model was upset with the way she was photo-shopped. This is a PERECT example with how the advertisers are the ones to blame, because they are creating this "perfect female," that clearly doesn't exist.
ReplyDeleteBaran and Davis discuss this concept of social rules, which we learn through interaction "Over time, we internalize these rules inherent in various situations and structureour actions accordingly. Only in RARE cases do we consciously reflect on and analyze our actions. (Baran and Davis 302)" I think this is interesting because it almost seems as if this is all subconscience, causing people to have these negative reactions and feelings about themselves. And that there are very few who can realize that this is not a logical way of living, and can correct their feelings, coscoiusly. -- almost as if these advertisements are subliminal.
"...all images are polysemous; they imply, underlying their signifers, a 'floating chain' of signifieds, the reader able to choose some and ignore others. (McQuail 294)" "Hence, in every society various techniques are developed intended to fix the floating chain of signifieds in such a way as to counter the terror of uncertain signs. (McQuail 294)" These quotes from McQuail remind me of the Dove campaigns. its almost like a war between advertisers and Dove. Dove is the techniques that has been developed to fix the floating chain...In other words, make girls have a POSITIVE body image, rather than negative. A perfect example is the advertisement Dove puts out time and time again where they show a woman taking pictures, then being photo-shopped to look completely defferent, and perfect.
I don't think we can point our fingers and put all of the blame on advertisements for the way out culture reacts today, but they are definitely not helping to difuse this problem. I think that these advertisements just add fuel to an already self-conscios girl...almost like giving her that extra push that will cause her to hate what she looks like.
Unfortunately, I don't see this problem that young girls are facing, dissapear anytime soon. More companies need to "campaign for real beauty," the way Dove does, and take their fingers off the mouse that controls the photo-shop program.
Advertisements have undeniably shaped the way we think and act. I believe that advertisement consumption has become such a part of our daily norm, which we barely realize that we are a target for consuming it. The reality is we probably couldn’t walk out of our house without being hit with 8 different forms of advertisement. From television to radio, from billboards to a side of a bus, advertisements is everywhere we go (even on the back of our stop and shop receipts!)
ReplyDeleteJudith Williamson discusses the idea of an ‘ad world’ (McQuail chap 27. Page 299) This Ad world is what happens when false material “distort the real world around the screen and page.” The truth is, the ‘ad world’ is everywhere. I believe that this world can distort the meaning of a reality. What I mean by this is that through advertisements a woman may be perceived as something other than herself. This world has the potential to attract more individuals in an aesthetic sense, but will only hide the true significance of the advertisement.
Advertisements affect the way that individuals think about their daily lives. For example, if we look at advertisements we consume daily, we can conclude that woman are supposed to be stick skinny to be pretty, and are made to look and act like a sex goddess in order to achieve the man of their dreams. For the majority of woman living in America, this image is physically impossible to achieve, however, this is what sells products. The fantasy that using Quick Trim, the diet pill endorsed by the Kardashian’s will give me Kim’s body is unrealistic and impossible. But it undeniably works. One of my roommates even takes the pills and when I asked why she said “well this is what Kim uses.”
Advertisements are everywhere and has not only shaped what we think of others, but has shaped our everyday values and beliefs.
A terminology used to explain the effects that advertisement has on a society is called social construction of reality. (Baran and Davis chapter 11 page 309) This term represents a “theory that assumes an ongoing correspondence of meaning because people share a common sense about its reality.” Because the majority of people can see a specific add and it triggers the same emotions/thoughts, it is safe to say that this constant thought creates a reality whether it be sensible or true, it is still in existence.
I truly believe that advertisements as well as all media outlets set up unrealistic ideals for woman. I think it is impossible for the majority of people to attain such an image and as a result act as another factor leading the consumers of such a medium to further harm. We must remember that since advertisements have enough power over us to make us purchase a product, they have enough power over us to shape our mental processes.
Jenna asks do you believe that in our culture advertising tells us who we are and who we should be? I don’t know if advertising tells us who we are or who we should be but I do think it shows us an ideal. And in most cases an unobtainable ideal. Williamson writes, “certain advertising sets up connections between certain types of consumers and certain products,” (Williamson, 300). Williamson uses the example of a diamond being connected to love. However, a connection can also be made between the person viewing the ad and the people in the ad. In the ads we see the consumers are as Jenna said painfully thin. This sets up a connection in people’s minds that in order to appreciate the product in the advertisement, I have to look like the model. The problem is these models, as we saw in the Dove ad in a previous blog, are not real. They are photo shopped to an unrealistic extreme.
ReplyDeleteJenna asks do you think that the way that women are depicted and the way the images tell us that in order to be accepted we need to be painfully thin? I absolutely think these ads tell people in order to be as happy or as wanted as the women in the ads you have to be thin. This is definitely a problem for young girls. These are times when they are under peer pressure and are going though physical changes. In the Baran and Davis reading, they write, “The extent to which a person is committed to a social identity will determine the power of that identity to influence his or her behavior,” (Baran and Davis, 307). This idea greatly applies to young girls because they are so insecure. They strive to be the women in the ads and can even hurt themselves trying to get there.
I too, was struck by the reading on meaning and ideology in advertising. I believe that because of our education in media studies, we have gained a slight advantage in looking at things from a clear perspective and realizing what an important role advertising plays in our lives, but not everyone has that perspective. Advertising is something that is surrounding us on a daily basis, whether it’s billboards, magazine ads, radio advertisements, etc, we are constantly being sold a product, or more importantly, a lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteI instantly thought of the Mac vs. PC advertisements when reading this section, as it seems that those advertisements are very much focused on selling a certain lifestyle, and choosing what kind of person you want to be based on the computer you use. If you are a Mac, you are clearly hip, cool, smart and witty. But if you are a boring old PC, you are not as cool or trendy as the Mac’s in the world. I think that this advertisement is undoubtedly the most candid about selling a certain lifestyle or basing your purchase on what kind of person you are.
Symbolic interactionism is defined as the “theory that people give meaning to symbols and that those meanings come to control those people (Baran & Davis 301).” Going with this theory, it’s clear to see how symbolic interactionism is a HUGE part of advertising in any medium. When you are trying to sell a product, you are using symbols to help create meaning to the viewers/potential buyers, and you are hoping that the meaning of those symbols will have an influence on their purchasing decisions. Williamson also discussed this in Chapter 27 of the reader by saying, “suppose that the car did a high mpg; this could be translated into terms of thriftiness, the user being a ‘clever’ saver, in other words, being a certain kind of person. Or, if the mpg was low, the ad could appeal to the ‘above the money pettiness’, daredevil kind of person who is too ‘trendy’ to be economizing (McQuail 299).”
By buying certain products, or relating to the messages in certain advertisements, we appear to be making a statement about who we are as a person, even if we don’t realize it at the time. Are we trendy and hip? If so, then we buy a Mac. Are we thrifty and aware of our impact on the planet? If so, we buy a small sedan over an SUV. Each day when we are purchasing items, we are making a statement about the kind of person we are, and that seems to be the goal of advertisements. They appear to want to reach us in that manner, even if it’s subconsciously on our part.
I agree that advertising plays a large role in today’s society. Media, in general, plays a large role in today’s society. Ads are trying to sell something to people and so they often times do it in a not so realistic manner. Jenna discussed how many ads use extremely thin women to sell a product, but this isn’t realistic in the way most women look. It definitely can have a negative effect on females who constantly see these ads involving very thin women. These females watching may want to look like that and they may go to extreme measures to accomplish this goal. Advertisements do have a profound effect on the people who see them. Judith Williamson said, “Advertisements are one of the most important cultural factors molding and reflecting our life today. They are ubiquitous, an inevitable part of everyone’s lives (McQuail 299).” This is so true and it’s not always such a good thing as with the way women may view themselves after seeing thin women on TV. Also, it may not be good when it comes to men. There may be men out there who see these buff, muscular men in ads and they may feel they need to look that way. We don’t hear about this too much, but it could be happening. Baran and Davis say, “Media have become a primary means by which many of us experience or learn about aspects of the world around us (200).” I think this statement makes sense with media in general, but it may be different with advertising. People see advertisements and they think this is how the real world Is or should be. They believe that what they see in ads is how things are and they try to become like what they see. This can be dangerous and I think that advertising is basically telling us who we should be.
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