Journal #7:

Journal Entry #7: Advertisers and being socially responsible with advertisements

There have been many debates on whether or not advertisers should have to ensure that cultural norms illustrated in advertising are socially responsible.
An advertisement is by definition is any kind of announcement or praise of a product or service in a public medium of communication in order to make people aware of the product, want to use the product, or want to buy the product. The obvious forms of advertisements are print advertisements (newspapers, magazines, billboards), broadcasts (radio, TV), and internet advertisements. With this definition of an advertisement, clothing that people wear to advertise a brand or something they believe in or anything posted on the internet (such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and other social networking cites) falls under the category of an advertisement. How would it be possible to ensure that all materials posted on these types of sites would be socially responsible, while still allowing for freedom of speech? No one, even advertisers, should be limited as to what they want to say in an advertisement.
Cultural Norms and what is considered to be socially responsible is always changing. Cultural norms are formed by family, friends, and peers – not just media and advertising. Social responsibility is a set of values that is also made up by your family and peers. So who is to say what cultural norms are considered to be socially responsible or not?
The critics who argue that advertisers do not have to ensure that they are represent cultural norms as socially responsible use the Uses and Gratifications Theory to back up their argument. The Uses and gratifications theory was developed in order to address the different uses an audience has for particular types of media. Consumers have control over and can mutually engage with the media they are consuming. For example, individuals pay closer attention to media which they can relate to or display their values.
The second argument that people make is the media’s effect on women’s body images. There have been many studies done to oppose this argument. One is a meta-analysis of studies concerning body image and media was performed by Holmstrom from the years 1990 till 2002. The study analyzed whether or not the media had a significant impact on women’s body image. When reviewing all published articles, it was found that depictions of thin women may have little to no effect on viewers. And images of overweight women seemed to have a positive effect on women’s body images. This study found that a large percentage of past studies did not adequately define abstract terms such as “body image” or “self esteem” leading to inconsistencies. During the experiment the researchers showed women advertisements with thin women, average size women, and non-human subjects. Because there was little difference between the control and experimental groups, the findings suggested that viewing images of average women or non-human images was equivalent to viewing images of thin women. With the time of exposure to the images, the length of time had a positive correlation with how the women felt about their bodies: the longer exposure time, the better the women felt about their own bodies. This negates the concept of cultivation theory, which states that the longer an individual absorbs media, the more they believe media to be a reflection of the “real world.” The opposing side can argue that advertisers need to be socially responsible when showing cultural norms in advertising. The statistics they can use is the increase of eating disorders among both men and women. Media always portrays models and beautiful people as being skinny. In reality most people cannot be as skinny as models. This depiction of skinny women makes other women want to be like them and emulate what the models look like. This leads to the increase of eating disorders throughout the US population.
Another issue if sex in the media and advertisements also raises an issue to some people. When dealing with advertisements an important distinction to be made is the difference between obscene and indecent sexual content. Some people see the use of attractive and sexy models in advertising to be a problem, but the majority of the people believe that these ads are socially acceptable, while others may not. The use of sexual appeals is a good marketing tool because of its arousing, energizing, and attentional qualities. These characteristics produce a favorable response for the advertisers and the target audiences more frequently will buy the product because of the association. This process is also known as Sexual Conditioning or Classical Conditioning. Classical conditioning is when you pair an uncontrolled stimulus with a controlled stimulus together to produce a response. In this case the advertisers pair a product with an uncontrolled stimulus, for example a sexy model. The goal response would be that whenever someone sees that product they associate it with being sexy. This leads advertisers to argue that sex appeals are a good marketing tool. The opposed argument argues that sex in the media should not be used because it is not socially responsible, especially with children. Depending on the audience being targeted, it may or may not be appropriate.
In this argument I am in the middle with my decision. I think that advertisers need to be socially responsible to a point. I think that sex in the media should be allowed to be used as long as it is not very heavy on sexual content. Also, depending on the target audience there should wither be more or less of a filter on what is shown. When dealing with children, it should not be the advertiser’s responsibility to make sure that the children do not see the material. The parents should be the ones who decide what their children can and cannot watch. In order to decide what should be allowed to be shown, there should be a panel or group of people who are from different backgrounds and have different beliefs to decide what should and should not be shown.