Soc2172a Advertising and Society

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Soc2172aAdvertising and Society

• Lecture 3
• Theoretical Perspectives on Advertising and Media

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Major Debates

• 1. Micro vs. macro level effects
• 2. Administrative vs. critical studies
• 3. Transmission vs. ritual perspective

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Defenses and Criticisms of Advertising

• Defenders say
• Increases standard of living
• Permits economies of scale
• Continuous product improvement and innovation
• Stimulates competition
• Critics say
• Wastes resources
• Raises price of goods
• Useless as information source
• Not clear that it increases sales
• Allows corporations to dominate

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Defenses and Criticisms (cont.)

• Lack of consensus amongst theorists
• John Kenneth Galbraith (neo-liberal economist)
  says end result is depleted resources,
  deteriorating environment, damaged
  labour-management relations
• Critical theorists like Douglas Kellner (see
  online article) and Daniel Boorstin say creates
  false needs or pseudo needs

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On the Other Hand.

• Martin Bell tells us that advertising performs a
  useful and necessary function.
• Decision making has a natural flow
• Awareness
• Knowledge
• Liking
• Preference
• Purchase

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Bells Consumer-Driven Model

• 1. recognition of need or want
• 2. search for means to satisfy
• 3. evaluation of alternatives
• 4. decision to buy

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Lavidge-Steiners Stair Step Model

• A marketing model
• 1. catch the attention of the audience
• 2. identify problem or need
• 3. identify solution to problem
• 4. offer evidence that solution works
• 5. identify action to be taken by consumer

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Critical Views Raymond Williams

• Advertising a "magic system"
• Tells us that consumption will solve all our
  problems
• In addition, obscures our choice of whether to
  see selves as producers or consumers
• Undermines democratic choice

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Christopher Lasch

• Calls advertising the propaganda of commodities

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Sut Jhally and Advertising

• Advertising has "colonized our culture
• Tells stories about how to satisfy real human
  needs (love, friendship, good job) by buying
• Tells us that, "Happiness comes from the
  marketplace"

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Cultivation Theory (George Gerbner)

• Culture Stories and messages that govern our
  conception of life and behaviour
• Stories about 1. How things are
• 2. How things work
• 3. What to do about them
• Media "cultivate" our conception of the world
• This is a macro level effect

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Advertising as a Social Institution

• Theories try to answer two fundamental questions
  about advertising and its relationship to
  society
• 1. What functions does advertising perform?
• 2. What are the consequences of advertising?

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Social Institution (cont.)

• James Carey
• Focus changed from information to persuasion
• Advertising exists not to sell products but to
  create demand for them
• Vincent Norris
• Creates more profit but wastes resources
• David Potter
• Advertising an agent of social control
• Creates consumer culture

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Social Institution (cont.)

• Charles Sandage
• Advertising educates rational individuals to make
  the right choices
• Michael Schudson
• Advertising is the art of capitalist society
• "capitalist realism"
• Richard Polley
• Advertising is a "distorted mirror"
• Morris Holbrook
• Mirrors social values (diversity, pluralism)
• People feel happier watching two minutes of ads
  than ten minutes of news.

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Innis and McLuhan on Media and Society

• 1. Oral Society
• 2. Literate Society
• 3. Electronic Society

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Marshall McLuhan's Theory of Hot/Cool Media

• Hot Medium
• - excludes
• - extends single sense
• - high definition
• - low in participation
• Radio
• Books, Magazines
• Newspapers

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Hot/Cool Media (cont.)

• Cool Medium
• - includes
• - needs completion
• - low definition
• - high in participation
• TV
• Movies

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Hot/Cool Media (cont.)

• Lecture?
• Seminar?
• Internet?

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Media Economics

• Media Organizations Content Supplier
• Produce content to attract audiences
• Media Content Products Produced By Media
• Programs, editorial content, features, coverage
• Audiences Consumers of Media Content
• Measured by size and composition
• Advertisers Consumers of Media Audiences
• Buy time and space to approximate audience and/or
  composition
• Sociologist Todd Gitlin says
• "Television programs exist to deliver audiences
  to advertisers"

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Douglas Kellner (Toward a Critical Theory of
Advertising online article)

• Kellner says In short, the mass media are
  structured so that consumers are more or less
  forced to see/hear advertisements

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Comparison of Trends in Major Media
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Advertising spending in Canada in 2005

• Television 3 Billion 24
• Daily Newspaper 2.7 Billion 21
• Catalogue/direct mail 1.55 Billion 12
• Radio 1.3 Billion 10
• Yellow Pages 1.2 Billion 10
• Consumer Magazines 665 Million 5
• Internet 519 Million 4
• Out-of-home 344 Million 3
• Miscellaneous 1.36 Billion 11
• (i.e trade pubs)
• Total Ad Spending in Canada 12.6 Billion
• Total Ad Spending in the U.S. 277 Billion (U.S.)
• Source Television Bureau of Canada 2005

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Types
of Mass Media

• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Television
• Radio
• Internet
• Other Yellow Pages, Billboards, etc.

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TV BY THE NUMBERS

• Average daily TV viewing per Canadian
  household 558 hr.
• Average daily TV viewing per American
  household 639 hr.
• Spending on TV ads per capita in Canada, 2004
  93
• Spending on TV advertising per capita in U.S.,
  2004 248
• http//www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM
  .20061012.wsrmedia12/BNStory/National/
  retrieved Oct. 14/06

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Neil Postman (1998)

• 1. Technological change is a trade-off.
• 2. New technologies are never evenly distributed
  over the population.
• 3. There is a powerful (hidden) idea embedded in
  every technology.
• 4. Technological change is ecological.
• 5. Media tend to become "mythic."

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The Structure and Role of Ownership in Canada
(Lorimer and Gasher)

• The critical difference between public and
  private forms of media ownership pertains to
  their bottom lines.
• Public ownership devoted to providing
  communications as a public service, to employing
  the mass media for social and/or national goals.
• Private ownership devoted to providing
  communications for the profit of media owners.

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Propaganda Model(Chomsky and Hermann)

• Thesis
• The media operate to serve the interests of the
  corporate and economic elite. Media offerings
  are processed through a series of filters and
  consequently act as propaganda which furthers the
  elite agenda.

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Propaganda (cont.)

• Media Filters
• 1. Media ownership
• 2. Advertising
• 3. Sourcing of information
• 4. Right-wing corporate "flak"
• 5. Anti-communism