Hypercommercialism from what i understand is the excessive use of advetisements. From our text book, we find that " viewers now see 17 minutes of commercials per hour, 52 minutes a night and sit through commercial breaks that average over 3 minutes a piece." (McClellan, 2003) We also find that preimetime show writers are forced to reduce to writing 8 minute acts which is difficult for their story-telling. "An hour is now 41 minutes, and that is a terrible trim" (Holloway, 2005) Obviously we can see that Hypercommercialism has compromised shows 'artistically' as i would put. Advertisements are becoming more and more centralled thanTV programmes we see. TV stations were all about getting the best shows or the hits to viewers, now it seemed like finding a sponsor or advertiser is the main goal now.
I remember when i told my teacher that I wanted to study graphic desinging when i go to college, he who happens to work for the advertising division of a newspaper publishing company said "As a graphic designer (who does advertisments) you cant do things artistically as the way you want, you have to follow the client no matter how ridiculous or how disapproving you think their ideas are" That is life proof that advertisments are becoming a huge role in TV, a little too dominant i think.
As Blendi Salaj said, an author of an article Media Pursuit, "The way we think and what are values are surely come to us through the media, and one thing that has been overly abounding in American media is ADVERTISEMENTS. Everywhere u look you see or hear an ad. TV and radio fill an average of 20% with commercials now days, making it virtually impossible for any of us to not be affected by commercials. Not only are we being persuaded to chose one brand over the other, but we are being pushed to spend, spend, spend – get as deep into debt as possible and buy, buy, buy.
Over the past decades the influence of ads through the media on the society has not only pushed the wrong selfish and materialistic values down our throat but they have also attacked, changed and transfigured the good traditions."
If you ask me if i find these methods of advertising are annoying or not, I would definitely say a big fat YES! so advertisers have adopted a more subtle approach in advertising, which is product placement. how it works is that they cleverly commision writers for films, TV shows and news programmes to include the use o their products to their stories. It's a very subtle approach to advertise their products without having to annoy the audience's heads off with the in-your-face commercials. Plus it is more cost effective than actual advertisements.
In fact, product placement isnt something new, it has already been around for a long time. Take a look at music videos such as The Pussycat Doll's "Dont cha' where they dance in their videos wearing clothes off their fashion line PCD and 'Wait a minute', where the singers use Samsung MP3 players and place them around the subway station. Advertiser play with the psychology that many of us idolise these artistes so, we would also wanna buy what they are using, be it the gadgets or clothes. And how many times have we seen an artist using an iPod or an iPhone in any programme we see on TV? those are product placements done by Apple too!
All in all, as our text book says "critics see damage to the integrity of the media themselves and disservice to their audiences, defenders of hypercommercialism argue that it is simply the economic reality of today's media world" Indeed i agree with this statement, I dont find product placement and branded entertainment as annoying as the critics do, or at least not as annoying as interruptive advertisements during a show. Advertisers 'gotta do what they have to do', they need to earn a living too, and I think product placement is a mutual benefit for both advertiser and consumer. They get to advertise their products as they want and we get to enjoy the show. Besides, i think product placement gives us a more realistic sense of the use of the product rather than outlandish fake advertisements.
References:
http://mediapursuit.wordpress.com/2007/10/31/product-placement-hypercommercialism-and-other-issues-affecting-public-interest-in-america-today/
Stanley J.Baran, Introduction to Mass Communication Media Literacy and Culture (pg. 45-46)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Yes. I think commercials are pushing people into the debt trap. It can be deceiving in some way to beautify a product to lure consumers' desire for the product. For example, the Mastercard commercial. It speaks to the audiences that seems like, for some things you can't buy but your Mastercard can buy you almost everything you desire. This could easily tempt the young consumer to overspend and hence having to declare bankruptcy when the debt is unable to be payoff.
ReplyDelete