Killing Us Softly through Advertising Essay

     Michael Jordan has star power that bridges age, race, and socioeconomic class. Nike understands this aspect of the popular superstar and decided to give him his own clothing line named Jumpman23. It is the most popular form of sports apparel available and the white logo that adorns each article of apparel is known worldwide. Michael Jordan is arguably the most loved and respected athlete of this generation, thus the ad for this company depicted in ESPN The Magazine takes advantage of his immense popularity. In an attempt to expand the companies influence Jumpman23 uses professional baseball player Derrick Jeter to send its message and promote its apparel. In the essay “Absolution for Sale,” Charity

In the United States of America, the media has become the breeding grounds of extreme hypersensitivity to race. The media has caused a lot of racial tension in many ways, including spicing up stories that weren’t actually racist. Sometimes people spread the wrong facts through media so the actual story becomes distorted. Sometimes, books will use harsh words to create a long lasting effect on the reader. Authors will use their choice of words to strike a certain emotion in the reader to create a point, but some readers get so caught up in the word they lose the meaning. Today’s media has created extreme hypersensitivity to race in many ways including distorted stories and distorted understandings.

In the documentary Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising’s Image of Women by Jean Kilbourne, she talks about how women are depicted in advertisement. The average American will spend 2 years of their life just watching advertisement, and most of these people will make the claim that the ads were not effective to them. Jean Kilbourne stresses that the advertisement companies make their ads quick and cumulative so that they almost seem forgettable. However, the advertisements will still resonate in your mind unconsciously. Kilbourne argues that the objectification of women in the advertisement industry: negatively affects the mental health of women with the societal need to be perfect, encourages the eroticism of violence, and tells women they need

What captures the attention of people when they view an advertisement, commercial or poster? Is it the colors, a captivating phrase or the people pictured? While these are some of the elements often employed in advertising, we can look deeper and analyze the types of appeals that are utilized to draw attention to certain advertisements. The persuasive methods used can be classified into three modes. These modes are pathos, logos, and ethos. Pathos makes an appeal to emotions, logos appeals to logic or reason and ethos makes an appeal of character or credibility. Each appeal can give support to the message that is being promoted.

According to Sr. Elizabeth Thoman, the Executive Director of the Center for Media Literacy in Los Angeles said, the public has produced fear generated by media violence. She calls this the "Mean World Syndrome," in which the impact may not be on potential perpetrators, but on the rest of the population, who begin to believe that violence is inevitable, that crime is everywhere and that they must be afraid. The projection of violence intensifies our views of the real world, making it seem worse than it really is. As the media increasingly reports the gory details of violent acts, the public becomes more immune. It may make the children more fearful as they come to believe that violence is as common in the real world as it is on television and as a direct result children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others.

The Miss Representation documentary film by Jennifer Newsom explores how media contributes to the under-representation of women in influential positions. This message is portrayed by delivering content through media and technology as well as advertising partial and/or often degrading interpretations of women. The consequences are becoming more and more dreadful. In today’s world, composed of a million stations, people will tend to do more and more shocking things to break through the crowds. They resort to violent, sexually offensive, or demeaning images. Jean Kilbourne, EdD, filmmaker, Killing Us Softly Author and Senior Scholar Wellesley Center’s for Women states, that “it creates a climate in which

     We live in a fast paced society that is ruled by mass media. Every day we are bombarded by images of, perfect bodies, beautiful hair, flawless skin, and ageless faces that flash at us like a slide show. These ideas and images are embedded in our minds throughout our lives. Advertisements select audience openly and subliminally, and target them with their product. They allude to the fact that in order to be like the people in this advertisement you must use their product. This is not a new approach, nor is it unique to this generation, but never has it been as widely used as it is today. There is an old saying 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' and what better way to tell someone about a product

The film that I will be reviewing is Jean Kilbourne’s “Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women” (Kilbourne). The overall purpose of this film was to educate the viewers of the severe distortion of the way the media portrays women in advertising. The film showed numerous ads where women are depicted as objects, both sexual and that of a man’s personal property. Women were also shown as the victims of violence in so many ads. The film addressed the effects that advertising has on eating disorders in young women. Anorexia and Bulemia are two of the disorders that are destroying young women in today’s society. These eating disorders not only affect the physical body but also destroy any self confidence or self esteem that the person may have.

Jean Kilbourne’s video Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Image of Women touches on how advertising affects the way women are viewed. Kilbourne a renowned speaker who likes to educate minds about the effects of advertising is portrayed on women receives her degree at Wellesley College and then went and received her Doctorate from Boston University. Kilbourne was appointed to serve on that National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in 1993. While on this council she was recognized to be an expert in media, gender issues, and lastly addictions. She has made many lectures across the United States and Canada to the help educate the students. Along with educating the young minds of students, Kilbourne has won numerous amounts of award-winning documentary films that speak on public health, media, and violence (Jean Kilbourne). With all this recognition and experience that she received throughout her journey, it gives her extensive credibility on this media related subject.

It’s no secret that since the beginning of America’s history, media has played a huge role in how we perceive people, especially in Hollywood. For instance, the majority of box office hits over the last century have featured all white casts. Yet the ones predominantly featuring African Americans, rarely become a box office success. I believe that racism and white supremacy in the media are so entangled into the core of America’s culture that they have become virtually unrecognizable. We as the consumers don’t even realize that having these images constantly being thrown at us is hurting people. The fact that since the Civil Rights Act over 50 years ago we are still fighting for equality, says a lot about just how far we still have to

Every woman wants diamonds because they are beautiful, rare, and are a symbol of success. There is something about diamonds that make every woman want one. Diamonds make a woman feel bold, sophisticated, and powerful. Something magazine recently published a diamond ad for A Diamond Is Forever.Com. A Diamond Is Forever . Com is a website that does not sell diamonds, but displays all the new styles of diamonds and how to purchase or create the perfect diamond for a customer. In this ad they are advertising a new style of diamond ring called the right hand ring. The advertisement is of a young, beautiful woman staring directly at you with a seductive look. On her right had she is wearing a

up about two thirds of the A4 sized advert. The picture is of a woman

Advertising has been defined as the most powerful, persuasive, and manipulative tool that firms have to control consumers all over the world. It is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service. Its impacts created on the society throughout the years has been amazing, especially in this technology age. Influencing people’s habits, creating false needs, distorting the values and priorities of our society with sexism and feminism, advertising has become a poison snake ready to hunt his prey. However, on the other hand, advertising has had a positive effect as a help of the economy and society.

Subaru puts a new Eastern satirical twist on the tradition Western sexy car wash in their advertisement for the Forrester which in place of Heidi Klum or Jessica Simpson sumo wrestlers scantily washing the new vehicle. This advertisement starts off with a dirty Forrester pulling into the car wash with seductive music playing in the background. Most audiences expect a group of supermodels in bikinis to come out and wash the car, however the elderly couple and the audience is surprised to see six sumo wrestlers come out in uniform to wash the car. The sumo wrestlers whip their rags and rub

When an advertiser places one of their advertisements into a newspaper, they want their advertisement to appeal to the readers of that particular magazine. They could have the exact same message, but considering their audience, they could make it more effective if they use a different strategy to market their product. This is very common for advertising strategies to change when the content of the magazine changes. You can relate the way that the magazine producers choose their ads by when Steve Craig says that "…program producers and schedulers must consider the target audience needs of their clients" (162). The types of advertisements are driven by the content of the magazine. Sports Illustrated provides a