Monday, September 15, 2008
Fallacious Advertising
Advertisements of all kinds are around us every single day and I think that they are images that we should and must be accustomed to. Some ads may be harmful when they hit a personal note, however, most are just there to get in our face and sell us a product. At the beginning of the year in my Contemporary Literature class, I discovered the true meaning of being literate. I learned that not only does literate mean being able to read and write, but it also means being literate in other aspects of our world, such as the computer, magazines, and yes even advertisements. If we cannot become accustomed to advertisements we, in a sense, are illiterate in modern society. They are thrown in your face everyday whether you know it or not. Those that are harmful to us tend to be the ones that stand out the most. So to answer the actual question, yes advertisements can be harmful, but under certain conditions and circumstances.
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3 comments:
I think you raise a great point about literacy, readsalot. Very true--literacy applies to many different areas, not just reading. It also applies to listening to others' views and just being discerning in general. What I worry about when I look at advertisements, however, is how much supposedly literate individuals buy into them. Do we sometimes believe ourselves to be independent thinkers, literate and discerning individuals,when, in fact, we are being taken in by the materialism around us?
I think part of the real issue here is not WHETHER we're surrounded by advertisements (I think we all agree that we are), but whether we SHOULD be surrounded by them. Is the extensive advertising we're exposed to harmful to our culture in general? I believe so. In fact, when I went to Europe, I actually noticed a huge decrease in the number of ads I saw (mind you, there were still plenty). I think the slew of ads thrown at us daily says a lot (of bad things) about our culture.
I think most people don't really think about ads. It has become instinct in our culture just to ignore them. People have evolved their way of preceiving advertising. At one time advertising probably had a greater affect on people than it does now. People have almost become immune to advertising.
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