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Advertising As A Social And Economic Good Media Essay

发布时间:2018-02-14
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Perhaps the best definition of advertising with reference to the subject matter might be that offered by Wells (1992) as 'paid non-personal communication from an identified sponsor using mass media to persuade or influence an audience' (Pickton et al., 2004). Advertising exist in human's life naturally and importantly. It provides high standard of human life and improve people more expect on the innovation wants. Advertising make a very important role in the social and economic. In these recent years, the advertising has both positive and negative evaluation from lots of critics, 'whether advertising as the healthy and unhealthy social and economic good' become to a very hot topic. As Leiss cites,

'lots of people have claimed that the advertising plays more straightforward role in transmitting an ideology that perpetuates the status quo and its exploitative social relations, through the presentation of a world view that encourages the audience to interpret reality in ways that work to the benefit of those who already possess economic power' (Leiss et al., 1997).

This study is going to outline the advertising cases for and against advertising as a social and economic good. Additionally, the essay will use relative examples to support my standing point, specifically, the analysis in different approaches which seems to be the most convincing discourse throughout the research and explained in details in latter texts.

In today's social environment, public is more interested in the concept of 'healthy', which is a generic term for describing a positive outcome for any social products including advertising. Advertising focuses on the customer's desires, and the benefits of advertising extend beyond the interests of advertisers to include the interests of the public's requirements (John, 1998). When the advertising as a social good, it creates a socially conscious image that promotes socially appropriate levels and therefore enhancing customers' vision and awareness (Jones et al, 1994).

Mostly, people would bring the public service ads in mind when connecting social conscious to advertising. The Red Ribbon in China is a non-profit organisation, or say it an activity, which aims at helping AIDS patients. Celebrities in The Red Ribbon set an advertisement nakedly for the purpose of appealing to people care about AIDS and AIDS patients, which is similar to the scene in the film Calendar Girls (directed by Nigel Cole in 2003, UK). The advertisement for this public-interest organisation is apparently a sustaining case for advertising as a social good.

Advertisers have an opportunity to exert a positive influence on decisions about media content, defined as a 'healthy' social good in this context. Today's advertising is involved in material of excellent 'intellectual, aesthetic and moral quality presented with the public interest in view' (Somosierra, 2007). So, the advertising can be recognised as a social good, which can 'contribute to the betterment of society by uplifting and inspiring people' and 'brighten lives simply by being witty and tasteful' also (Somosierra, 2007). Today, the advertising is kind of art to present the beautiful things. There are a lot of methods of merchandising which can attract customers, for example, advertising is now something of a fashion leader. It can create fashion tide which let people to follow and admit.

Besides, advertising's nature itself determines it is very important for all society. For instance, every time when people buy products, they would associate with advertising. The advertising provides useful channels for public to get what they desire, which is the tool through that a better standard of living delivered to society. In the 21st century; the advertising has more far-reaching means. Since one of its main functions is introducing what people need, it draws a focus on products or service towards the customers.

The better standard of human's life includes diverse service and products, better quality products, and 'healthy' social responsibility. For these reasons, according to advertising's nature and cognitive marketing, which it can make to customers satisfaction and economic value, advertising is necessary to improve the standard of public life. By the development of technology and productivity, people have high expectation of creature comfort and pabulum. In order to fulfil this, potential customers are categorised based on different needs, characteristics, or behaviours during the process of adverts production. Advertising can improve circulation of substance and satisfies every level of human needs in this way, and therefore, it can be identified as a healthy social good.

'The advertising can be a useful tool for sustaining honest and ethically responsible competition that contributes to economic growth in the service of authentic human development' (Somosierra, 2007). As quoted, advertising plays an important role in the process of which an economic system guided by moral norms and responsive to the common good contributes to human development.

Nelson also claimed that the advertising is a good thing for society rather than a detrimental entity. Advertising can increase product differentiation, reduce price elasticity of demand and shift consumer purchases towards higher-priced brands and beverages (Nelson et al., 2001). Advertising is necessary in the functioning of modern market economies, and would be 'the most efficient instrument for utilising resources and effectively responding to needs of a socio-economic kind' if only it 'conforms to moral standards based upon integral human development and the common good' (Somosierra, 2007).

Many critics maintain that advertising exists primarily to create demand among consumers (Leiss et al., 1997). People have certain types of wants and needs and from the forward of economic development, people cannot be satisfied by their current goods which they have already obtained. In the current crisis of economic recession, so to speak, governments put advertising in an even more important position for the purpose of increasing the sales and productivity, e.g. the advertisement of the decrease in VAT policy in UK and the increase in issuance of tourist visa in US, which would evidently stimulate consumption and domestic demands. The official advertisements might be seemed as a tool in terms of economy, because they bring motivation and power back to the recessed market, i.e. advertising makes contribution to help with recovery of economy.

People themselves nowadays are perfectly capable of discovering what these are, especially in certain maturity markets. They can recognise what kinds of goods are they really want. The advertising is as if the promotional channels to present the goods. Customers are free to make decisions to select what they like. The ill products will be washed away in the competition by customers' awareness and common sense. Without the advertising activities, the world would become monotony; the chain of production and marketing would be problematic either in microeconomics or macroeconomics. As a result, the advertising can drive economic forward, which also refers to an economic good.

In a way, advertising expands human's vanity - people compare to each other with unnecessary and extravagant things; fulsome substance requires are very useful for the marketing development, but it also gives big threats to the social public which human's merit is incarnated by the goods. The power of advertising to increase false needs in people is by its frequency activities. The danger is that, while advertising wields great social power, the unethical advertising can damage the social environment. The problem of advertising as the diplomatic advertiser can becloud people's awareness. Advertising creates demand "by manipulating people's normal motivational impulses" and the controller behind, as Leiss indicates, the advertisers, who "manipulate people by subtly mixing reality and fantasy, by creating a 'magic show' that makes it hard to tell what one's 'real needs' are or where to draw the line between sensible behaviour and careless overindulgence" (Leiss et al., 1997). For example, from the advertising's inducing, men buy Ferrari to show-off and attract women. Women carry the Louis Vuitton handbag to pursue their vanity. However, this has become a universal acknowledge of the public which is incorrect, and made the problem of advertising as an unhealthy social good even more outstanding. It is hard to transform those luxury goods like Ferrari and LV into essential things though they surely have their brand values; the fact is that the fantasy has been enlarged too much to see the 'real needs'.

All the advertising activities cannot give people better standard of human life yet they create more grievous social turbulence. The 'bad' advertising is creating the issues of the social and environmental ills. Because advertising is capable to 'distort society's values and priorities, resulting in an overemphasis on the private pursuit of material satisfaction and a serious neglect of public concerns' (Leiss et al., 1997), there are obvious social phenomenon, the scope for creativity in advertising has been reduced by the stringent regulations set by regulatory bodies which the majority of today's beer advertising is centre around humour and sex. The public will be guided into wrong awareness of using consuming product. In today's alcohol industry, the social environment is corrupted by the consumption of alcohol that there is criticism of the advertising of alcoholic drinks includes that it distorts consumer preferences and creates unnecessary wants (Jones et al., 1994).

Also the unethical beer advertising will damage the social environment. The beer advertisement considered unethical only is screened if regulatory bodies such as the Advertising Standards Agency allow it. Thus the responsibility of ethical advertising should not only be put down to the beer corporations. It is the duty of all parties involved in advertising to promote responsible advertising. Food magazine UK (2007) undertook a study to discover the effect that exposure to alcohol on television has on teenage drinking in the United Kingdom. They found that alcohol brands were frequently present on popular television series watched by teenagers such as Hollyoaks and Emmerdale. BBC news (2003) reviewed the 'binge drinking' culture (drinking alcoholic beverages in a purpose of getting intoxicated by heavy consumption of alcohol over a short period of time) which is still popular in youngsters in the UK according to a government report. It mentioned the age period of binge drinking run earlier from 16 to 24 which is younger than before, and the consumption is more heavily as well (BBC, 2003). In a social context, these two cases are highly contrasted to the beer advertisements as on one hand, the alcohol industry especially beer goes strong on positive parts of their products e.g. relaxation and energy, while undoubted more and more young people seems being misled on the other. Furthermore, Unethical beer advertising as Carling's television advertisement featuring actress Julienne Davis contained clear sexual connotations but since it had no direct implication of sexual success, it was allowed to be aired before 9pm. It was perhaps due to the humorous theme of the advertisement where the male involved gave all his attention to the beer rather than the alluring female involved. The advertising, 'its propositions assume the form of suggestive commands, and some times, in order to attract people's attention, the language use in the advertising is tinged with false familiarity' (Dyer, 1982). The unethical adverts, therefore, causes an impact going against to social good.

In today's market activities, the truth may have been shaky by some unethical advertising (Ewen, 2001). For example, KFC and McDonald's always say 'we are taking care of our customers' health', but, they still provide the unhealthily products to the public. The American documentary film Super Size Me (Morgan Spurlock, 2004) follows the independent filmmaker himself during a month he eats only McDonald's, and the result attests to its so-called 'healthy food' has poor nutrition and seems serve only for its own profit. It is possible to say that this is a sort of cheat and misguidance particularly when speaking to the public.

Sometimes, advertising is unpopular for the public as its disturbing nature. They see it as a kind of coercion. The advertisers are free to compete, and post their advertisements to other places if they receive complain from the ambience and the audience. The freedom is, to some extent, part of the basic ideology of advertising (Dyer, 1982). However, public is imposed to accept the unattractive advertisement and its 'freedom', and merely interested in (Whyte, 2007).

Advertising is used both to increase sales of an existing product and to introduce new products. Ambler (1996) explains that the main impact of advertising is to persuade consumers to trade up to more expensive, higher quality brands (Nelson et al., 2001). The decision making of business firms by aiming persuasive communications at the psychological domains in which consumers are vulnerable. However, from its essence and scientific cognition, contemporary advertising created human's unnecessary needs and wants, and the demand for some particular products emerge consequently, as the luxury goods mentioned before. Social unnecessary wants and needs revolve around the desire for belonging and affection that described as crackpot goods, ideas, and services. With regards to the beer industry, this would imply that the advertising of Guinness deliberately seeks to manipulate consumers into purchasing their products - the demand must be created since advertising 'sells' it.

Advertising is not always as effective as firms expected. For the public, advert might be the proof of the guarantee of quality, whereas, as a matter of fact, advert is not intended to have this meaning for firms. It is a 'psychological manipulation lies behind building the reputation' instead (Whyte, 2007). Some claimed hereby that advertising is a waste of time and money if the product is good enough. In terms of advertising in economics, however, advertising would make a product famous then earn more profits to the company, i.e. though adverts can make big firms bigger, it can also make small ones smaller. In this sense, advertising as an unhealthy economic good that create monopoly market system, which advertising in particular uses hypnotic language and imagery. The monopolistic business strategy is wildly use by the large business firms. Business firms always use advertising to expand their market share, which the expansionist and manipulative approach to the problem of popular consciousness (Ewen, 2001). People start to lose its power to select the right product that they have been hypnotised by the frequent advertisements.

In addition, too much advertising would cause other big economic problems as well but not only the size of firms, e.g. over-consumption and crisis of credit card. Both of them are posed by excessive adverts which mislead the public, and bring out the hug loss in the economy of state.

The 'good' or 'bad' of advertising is regarded by the viewpoints of the public. Using the case that analysed previously, for instance, the beer maker can no longer depend on merely promoting its products due to the increase in public awareness on societal, healthy and environmental factors. Their identity and brand image based upon their actions are open towards public scrutiny and it is important that they be viewed in a positive light as consumer's continuous growth in interest in what they perceive as ethical brands is thought to have a large influence upon product sales (Pickton et al., 2005). The discerning beer drinker usually bases his choices purely upon taste. So, In order to estimate the degree of effect that beer advertising has on consumption, business organisation needs to focus on the motivational factors that can shape customers' drinking habits.

Those two viewpoints have both positive and negative point from advertising's inherent characteristic. The advertising has significant potential for good than the bad overall, which the positive of the characteristic of advertising is identifying customer needs and going to satisfying the customer needs. The modern social world dehumanises and alienates people while modern mass culture from the advertising activities, attempts to conceal or compensate for the deficiencies in a person's real social and personal life (Dyer, 1982).

From the changing of business environment, the ethical issues play more and more important roles in the free market, and the ethical advertising can only help the free makers to achieve their competitive advantage. The concept of corporate social responsibility has been present in society for centuries while with the increasing of competition, the growth of a more educated, informed and discerning consumer is evidently more vital in society. The ethically and socially responsible organisation can gain big success, and the ethical adverting is the best way to present the organisation's morality. Hence the business firms need to improve their corporate social responsibility to promote ethical advertising either for business or the society.

Advertising in itself is neutral. There are many factors which can determine whether its outcomes to be a social and economic good. One cannot possibly say it is good or not without understanding its use in a specific case. The most convincing case can only stand in certain context but not another. The complexity of advertising becomes the reason why it can be controversial for the cases has been outlined and discussed.

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