The towering corporation monster

A section of the book that really stood out to me was part of the “Big and Bland: The Postwar Media” that had to do with how the change in media and technology and the growth of big business around the 1950s affected advertising. On the top of page 153 a family is sitting in their living room with baggy eyes as if they are being brainwashed from watching the TV. At the bottom of the page, the same family is sitting in the living room watching the TV with the big business monster behind it. This shows that TV broadcasting was serving companies that paid them for advertising and not the public. As we go into our digital unit, this section made me realize that the ways in which TV broadcasting changed the audience of advertising in the 1940s and 50s is comparable to the ways in which advertising through social media and other websites has changed in the more recent past.

Even if we are aware of some of the sneaky ways advertising targets us, the consumers, I doubt very many of us feel as though we are being brainwashed every time we turn on the TV, use social media, or read stuff online. I think we even sometimes feel that once we start learning about the ways in which companies use subtle advertising techniques we feel a little immune or above this because we are aware of more modes of advertising as compared to others.

Even though we can become more aware of direct, indirect, and very subtle advertising done by companies are we still subject to brainwashing?

I think it has become be easier to recognize subtle advertising on the radio, TV, and print newspapers than online. When you hear someone’s voice interrupting music or a news broadcast on the radio you are more aware that someone is trying to sell you something. As compared to the ads you might subconsciously see on the side of your screen on Facebook or skip through on Snapchat. Online advertisements can more accurately target who you are and what you buy based on your gender, things you search, and information you share online without completely being aware of it.

When I went home for Christmas, my brother told me he bought ads on Facebook for affiliate marketing where other companies whose products he was promoting would pay him to market their stuff on Facebook. For all the things that people purchased through the links of his ads, he was paid. This example of a sort of third party marketing, he explained, that occurs online all the time and is easy enough that my 17 year old brother made a couple hundred dollars in a weekend. He said he was buying ads for vegan smoothie powder and some fitness program.  This makes me wonder about how many types of subtle advertising I am not aware of or not aware of who/where they are coming from.

I liked how different “characters”- corporations, capitalists, certain economists, etc. had their own representative image in this book. I think a lot of the images were reflective of Goodwin’s own political views but informative and entertaining all the same. I think that if people start to view big business or corporations as giant towering monsters they may make more of an effort to get informed on who is trying to target them as consumers.