Structural Changes To Programming To Attract Audiences .

What does an ad say about a society? When viewing a product advertisement, many people never stop to think why the ad and product appeals to them. However, when a more critical look is taken, it’s easy to see precisely how ads are carefully tailored to appeal to trending values of a targeted demographic, and how that makes it easy to examine the society of those whom the ad is targeted at. In the analytic writing Advertisements R Us, Melissa Rubin provides an excellent example of this, as she crafts a logical and clear analysis of a 1950’s Coca-Cola magazine ad which thoroughly explains how advertisements can reveal quite a great deal about the society in which they were created.

Society uses manipulation to divert people’s attention every day and oftentimes people do not realize that they are being manipulated. An advertisement through television is one of the many ways that people are manipulated. TV uses advertisements daily by incorporating subliminal messages to get people to do things that they would not otherwise be thinking about doing. The following articles “Can TV improve us?” by Jane Rosenzweig, On Sale at Old Navy: Cool Clothes for Identical Zombies!” by Damien Cave and TV’s War of Words” by Deborah Tannen exemplify instances where manipulation is being showcased at its best.

In an effort to expose the epistemology of television, which Postman believes has not been effectively addressed, he examines the effects of TV on several important American cultural institutions: news, religion, politics and education.  All four institutions, Postman argues, have realized that they have to go on television in order to be noticed which, in turn, requires them to learn the language of TV if they are to reach the people.  Therefore, they have joined the national conversation not on their own terms, but on TV's terms.  Postman contends that this transformation of our major institutions has trivialized what is most important about them and turned our culture into "one vast arena for show business" (80).  In the case of broadcast news, we see visually stimulating, disconnected stories about murder and mayhem along with a healthy dose of infotainment delivered by friendly and likeable anchors that remind us to "tune in tomorrow".  In the case of politics, we have discourse through distorted paid TV commercials and "debates" in which the appearance of having said something important is

Augie Fleras and John Lock Kunz further the argument, pointing out that what appears as mainstream and unbiased is, in actuality, socially constructed. Fleras and Kunz point out that news items (i.e. the events or issues that are covered) are chosen by personnel (such as editors) on the basis of personal, institutional, corporate, and commercial priorities. 7 In other words, the news media is market driven. The mainstream news media, therefore, are not merely

Television is advertising. It is a medium whose purpose is to sell, to promote capitalism. In 1977, Jerry Mander, a former advertising executive in San Francisco, published Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television. In the book, Mander reveals how the television networks and advertisers use this pervasive video medium for sales.

According to Robert Scholes, author of “On Reading a Video Text,” media, especially television, can hold a person captive and paralyze their ability of acknowledging what’s real. Scholes wants his readers to learn how to analyze and criticize the media, to avoid believing in their ideology. Throughout Scholes’ article he teaches the readers the skill of analyzing to avoid this “power.” Scholes was able to pull this off by describing the accurate message of a twenty eight second Budweiser commercial with the techniques they input to the commercial. Americans have to start analyzing the media and the ideology they present with these three matrices: visual fascination, narrativity, and cultural reinforcement.

In today’s society, remaining connected and knowledgeable of current events and the newest trends is vital to staying ahead in business, education, and social standing. This information is supplied to everyone through the internet, newspapers, television, and radio. One can tune into stations such as CNN, NBC, Fox News, Al-Jazeera, and many others (“SQs of Media Outlets”). In order to meet the needs of viewers, readers, and listeners, the ideal media system would contain accurate, quick information, with a purely impartial view on the facts as they are known. However, this modern media system has not maintained an objective view, pushing opinionated and slanted reporting onto the population in order to create profit and gain customers. The exploitation of information media for personal gain has created a toxic and inaccurate present, constant in today’s society.

In today’s new, the truth is often being withheld from viewers. Many of the stations that we trust to deliverer facts are now being filled with opinions. David Westin, the president of ABC News since 1997, provides insight to this growing problem. In his compelling argument, he states that news channels are often giving fact-less opinions and misleading the viewers. Often they cannot even distinguish between fact and opinion. Westin backs up his arguments using logic, facts, and personal experience. These means lead him to persuade the reader to believe that opinion journalism is, and will continue to be, a huge problem.

He says, “There is the eclipse of the public intellectual in the general media by the pundit who substitutes outrageousness for thoughtfulness, and the concomitant decline of the essay in general-interest magazines” (Gabler). The general media is making the public intellectual look less important by indirectly comparing them to a critic who exchanges the remarkable, in terms of ideas and information, for things that appeal to society on a more trivial front. This opinion is tied into a statement made in Sachs’ essay. Sachs’ main point of view is that excessive TV viewing is causing problems. In accordance to what Gabler says, Sachs indirectly addresses the cause. He states, “Television and related media have been the greatest purveyors and conveyors of corporate and political propaganda” (Sachs). As people are exposed to controlled media, it can influences their perspective in a detrimental way. Sachs mentions that, “America’s TV ownership is almost entirely in private hands, and owners make their money through relentless advertising” (Sachs). This advertising as mentioned above in this analysis isn’t benefiting anyone and causing some to not think rationally as they give in to unconscious

Representations of advertising in famous social media, for example, film and TV assume a critical part in molding open thoughts regarding publicizing. On the wide or small screen, these "insider" perspectives of promoting are about as close as many people get to what really happens on a normal premise in the work and lives of the individuals, who develop the pictures of yearning and utilization that populate contemporary society. This unit looks at what is all in all the most conspicuous presentation of the universe of publicizing in pop culture in the first decade of the current century—the TV arrangement, Mad Men. Its name alludes, obviously, to Madison Avenue, the recent venue of New York 's greatest and best publicizing offices, and to the individuals generally male—who work in them. Mad Men is set in America during the 1960s, a kind of brilliant age for promoting before the turmoil of Vietnam, social equality, and woman 's rights. The focal center of this unit is the way the pilot depicts the key social issues of gender and sexuality. These are by all account not the only topics that may be analyzed in investigating the hugeness and fame of Mad Men, however they are probably the most pervasive social and social subjects. The scenes show both the internal workings of agency life, and the substance of commercials from the period—both of which are locales where gender and sexuality is shown.

Commercial Television has been playing big role in our lives for about 60 years already, whether it is the Morning News, Downton Abbey or The Britain’s Got Talent show (Johnson, Turnock, 2005: 1). Commercial television is entertaining, educating and informative and tries to fulfil viewer’s wishes of what they want to watch. British audience has been able to choose what they watch since 1954, when government published the Act of Television which allowed the creation of the first independent television in the United Kingdom. The creation of ITV broke the BBC’s monopoly and introduced country a new era with free market and diverse television channels (Williams, 2010:151).

Relationships between the television advertisers and distributors drive producers of television programs to create content that will attract an audience. Television advertisers have a product to sell and use television to broadcast commercials to attract and inform viewers about their products. The advertisers must purchase air time from television distributors in order to have access to the audience they desire. Mittell argues that “most creators of television do not enter the industry to make money, as the creative side of the industry is highly risky and unlikely to produce wealth”(Mittell, 95). Even with this argument, Mittell acknowledges that money is a factor in the creation of television programs, even if the goal is unrealized. Television content creators cannot help but be motivated and influenced by the advertisers and distributors

This development has also been foster by advances in technology. The introduction of both web based television programming as well as digital television recording devices allow consumers to bypass commercial messages and watch their favorite programming uninterrupted. Almost all of the traditional advertisement opportunities to gain potential customers have been undermined by one way or another. This trend has likely arisen from the fact that consumers are desperate to avoid advertisements since they have grown generally skeptical of marketing messages in general (Stewart, 2009).

He argues that commercialised media in the new public sphere have turned the public sphere into a place where advertising is prioritised (Habermas, Lennox and Lennox 1974). A point that backs this theory up is the way the mass media influences television in a political way, as it is deteriorating the public sphere (Hart,1994). This opinion is key in the context of explaining the public sphere theory as it helps to highlight a key point in the modern democracy.

Television and internet news programs have began to stray away from a strictly informative report of current happenings to vague, non-factually based entertainment stories. This is a direct result of society’s desire to worry about everyone’s feelings. In the past, viewers passionately desired accurate information and statistics on the nation’s current events. As of now, a different generation of viewers and new’s providers bestow the supply and demand of news stories based on emotions, rather than fact. With extremist groups becoming increasingly popular the demand for highly biased news is snowballing. New’s corporations like FOX capitalize on this by providing news that is consistently biased to one point of view. Having a one-sided production such as FOX creates a type of animosity between them and their competition. This seems rather childish, making these top tier new companies look like a joke. In result, a viewer will struggle to find a new’s broadcast that provides more than a couple of relevant stories based on factual information. Instead, the bulk of content is displayed in a look at me, feel bad for me, or look at them format. From this, the broadcasters work at the heart-strings of their viewers. They get the viewer to invest emotion into a story, creating a reaction and desire to hear, see, and feel more. Given the response, broadcasters see interest in emotionally based stories skyrocket and interest in factually based stories