Blog #8

TV is going to change now that people can skip commercials. You are going to see more and more product placement for two reason.
The first reason is obvious. As people skip commercials, buying air time is going to be less effective so product placement is going to increase because people watch the show. This has some good and bad effects. The good effects are that the show is going to cost less to make becuase half the set is going to be provided by advertisers. The cars are going to be paid for, the furniture will be provided, the clothing, and anything in the set that you can sell will be paid for by advertisers. This will take the jobs away from set designers and degrade the quality of the set. It will also make it so less advertisers are needed to support the show because you save money on buying the set and paying the set designers. You will also see a decrease in shows that aren't set in our time period because it will be harder for advertiser to put products in the set, especially for Sci-Fi because it requirs unique set designs.
You also are going to see more productplacement because advertisers are looking for more creative ads that people don't realize are ads. They will be more effective because people aren't prepared to think critically about them. This makes the ads more effective and would probably be the natural shift anyway because of its effectiveness.

Blog #7

The media has a wide range of influence on us. The most surprising thing I have found is that mass media is made to bring the product to the consumer. The networks are selling their audiences so companies can sell to the audiences. It all seems very circular. It makes me wonder how the quality of our entertainment would change if we had a different system that didn't use money as its main influence. With money involved it makes everything very biased and makes it very important to learn how to weed out the bias and get our own view. The money does make more people join the industry so we get more points of view. But the only point of view we get is the point of view of money seeking companies so people watching only get the view that you need to earn money so it makes sense that our society is centered on money and the economy.

Product placement plays a big role in the media industry. The only way it is effective is if you are undecided about a certain product. No matter how many times I see my favorite show drink pepsi, I am still going to prefer coke. I think the same holds true for anyone, because most people are smart enough not to be completely persuaded by the shows the watch. I think the effectiveness comes from the undecided group of people. If someone had never drank a coke or a pepsi, and then saw somebody drinking a pepsi on their favorite TV show, they might go try it. This is still limited persuasion because most people also know that companies pay to get their products on the show, and it doesn't mean that that character likes that product, so product placement, along with all other advertising, has lost its effectiveness because we are constantly bombarded by adds. Adds can draw in customers that don't know about a product, but a product has to be good for it to continue to be successful.

Commercial Blog

One ad on the radio I hear a lot is the Shane Company commercial telling me that I have a friend in the diamond business. The target market of this add is 20-30 year old males who are thinking about getting married. They are encouraging men to either get a ring for their engagement or buy a diamond necklace for his girlfriend. The ads are targeted to the middle class because it tries to tell you how you can afford a diamond. The benefit sought for the diamonds are a great gift for someone and the product is meant to be used for a long time, usually forever, and in the case of the engagement ring it is meant to be worn every day. There is brand loyalty to try and get you to buy all your diamonds from the Shane Company. The commercial addresses you not being immediatly ready to buy by saying that they have a diamond for all budgets. The core product is diamond jewlery. The quality is high becuase each diamond is hand selected and there is no real product augmentation. The financial risk is lowered by saying there is jewlery for all budgets and the functional risk is lessened becuase it is said to be of high quality and last forever. The social risks are not getting the proper jewlery for your girlfriend/wife. The ad uses transfer propaganda to get your emotions into it and bargain prices because they buy direct from the manufacturer and that saves you money. It also uses the different and unique claim becuase their diamonds are different becuase they are hand selected. The ad also uses classical conditioning by associating gifts for your girlfriend with diamond jewlery.

Blog #4

The media has a huge impact on the stereotypes we place on men and women. The media shows the man as the one who has to do anything difficult. In school this means that the guy is expected to get the right answers and be a sports star. In the workplace it means that the guy has to come up with all the spectacular ideas. This is a bad attitude to have for both men and women because it puts too much pressure on men and it make women feel like they can't succeed. There are stereotypes when people are shopping too. Store keepers think that a man coming into a store is more likely to steel something than a woman.

American Choppers shows many core American values. One of the main ones is progress and success. The main idea of the show is to see how fancy you can make a motor cycle for someone which symbolizes the successes they've had. Another core American value is that they have is materialism. They exemplify the idea that the people with the fanciest things are people who are happy. The message they are sending is that people who own fancy motorcycles are the people who are going to be the happiest.

Blog #2

Media conglomerates are becoming more and more common now. They pose dangers because there is a possibility that only a handfull of views are put forth. Having only a few views put forth will group people into a fiew ideas. This restricts the freedom of speach of the smaller viewpoints which could bring valid points that would be ignored if conglomerates took control of everything. Also, if all the media outlets are owned by the big conglomerates, they can push their own media agenda because they are the gate keepers to what gets exposed to the public. Another danger is that the media conglomerates can bully unpopular views from the remaining smaller outlets by either buying them out or just intimidating them into stopping their views. Media conglomerates can be very dangerous, but as long as there are opposing conglomerates, they should be able to balance eachother out.