#4

Morgan Russell
Media, Literacy and the Environment
Assignment # 4


1. AD Nauseam Parts 3&4

When we watched the movie Consuming Kids I was shocked by the way advertisers target and manipulate children into wanting products. In the section “How Do Kids Read Commercials” fox writes about his realization that children are unaware of the intentions of advertisers. A child does not comprehend that the marketers are trying to sell them a product. I find it very disturbing that we are showing children these commercials in school, when they watch it at home we see that the effects are bad enough. However by providing it in school we are literally teaching them to be consumers. Children understand that school is supposed to be a time for learning, and part of their day is consumed with learning, which products they need to buy.
The movie Persuaders discusses a company called Acxiom, which divides consumers into seventy basic types based on age, salary, previous purchases and where they live. How to Tell You’re a Details Reader shows how magazines categorize their readers in the same way in order to sell advertising space. Categorizing people into ever-more specific groups is a tactic used to promote and sell many items and ideals. This is clearly helpful for the advertiser, but it is also convenient for the consumer, it eliminates the clutter and allows us to discover what we really want. The question however is whether we would want it, or by understanding their consumers are the companies becoming even better at making us want products? It is also scary to think that they know all this information about each of us.
As a waitress I really connected with the final section of part 4. This section discussed how bring water to a restaurant table used to be standard practice, with influence from the Coca-Cola company this is no longer practice. If the average person drinks about 64oz. of fluid a day the goal is to make sure a good portion of that is a product rather than tap water. I find myself promoting drinks, before asking people what they would like because a larger bill equals a larger tip, (and hey, I only make $3.90 and hour). But after reading this I found myself questioning whether I was simply a part of this selling machine, promoting more and more consumption.

2. Get Smarter

Over the course of history humans have always increased their intelligence and adapted when in difficult situations, we will continue to do this with the advantages technology provides.
At the beginning of the article Vasilakis says “The trouble isn’t that we have too much information at our fingertips, but that our tools for managing it are still in their infancy.” I believe that we do have too much information and the way we are managing it is making us unable to focus on legitimate information. However Vasilakis points out that there is no going back. Although some of us may want to, realistically it is true that we cannot go back from here, so we must learn how to better manage the abundance of information we encounter every day.
Vasilakis goes on to say that as our technology becomes more capable so do we. I completely disagree with this statement. Yes our species or country or company become more capable of completing a specific task in a short time. However this means that the individual people become accustomed to only using this technology and are now completely incapable of ever completing the task on their own. Is the capability of the group more important than the capability of people? I don’t believe so.
Modafinil can keep a person awake for more than 32 hours, and offers a “cognitive-enhancement effect.” I clearly cannot disagree that this may be advantageous but I don’t believe it should be used on a regular basis. I personally would not want to live in a constantly drugged state even if the effects were as mild as those of modafinil. I don’t feel that drugs like this encourage learning but offer an easy way around it and force us to rely on them.
We are increasingly becoming dependant on technology and drugs. Vasilakis agrees that it would be disastrous if these systems were to collapse. However says that since we already depend on them it cannot hurt to add more complexity and levels to this. I disagree, it seems that we need to work on becoming less dependant rather than more!


3. The Persuaders:
· Advertisers are more and more concerned with emotional and unconscious thoughts of consumers.
· Narrowcasting, or targeting more specific groups. Diving consumers into types.
· Advertisements are increasingly mixed in with programming, or might even be the programming.
· Products have an identity that matches the identity of the consumer.
· Want product loyalty. Partially why products are given identities. Increasing numbers of advertisements directed at children and teens.