Blog Paper - Advertising

When I sit down and watch an episode of the television classic “All in the Family” I notice that Archie Bunker, the main character, usually is drinking a “beer.” It is just plain beer, not a Budweiser. However, if you turn on an episode of a television show today, you will most likely see a person drinking Starbucks coffee, or going to a McDonald’s. Have we as a society have become so shut off by commercials that we need “sub-commercials” in our shows and sporting events?
In the film “The Persuaders” Douglas Rushkoff sets out to try to figure out basically where the line is between the advertisers or “persuaders” and the public. In the “weblog ethics” reading it talks about how some journalists get some of their information from weblogs and how people who post on the blogs should use good so called journalistic judgment when posting. This is because of the journalists using information they have found on blogs. Now this poses an interesting question; if journalists are using information they have found from the public, who is the real persuader in that situation?
On one hand you have the media (the advertisers, journalists, etc.). The job of journalists is to report news stories. The trick to their job is they have to report the truth, and they are supposed to research, interview, and dig deep into a story to find out what the truth of situations are before they go onto air. If they report something false they have to go back and say they reported incorrect information and correct it. There is also the advertiser whose job it is to show a product and try to get people to buy it. No matter how they do it, they try to get a product to be sold. Whether they use celebrities, humor, drama, or sex advertisers will try to move their product.
The question to me is; is this really necessary? During what should be a game that lasts an hour and a half, I have to suffer through that length of time if not more of commercials that interrupt my game. Note to television stations and advertisers; I don’t need to see any more! Please, if you have a product, make a commercial, not an announcement during my shows or sports.
The media and journalists are not the only people who are to be blamed in this confusion. The American public is also to blame. We as a society have become so immune to normal commercials that they do not have any impact on us. We always want more of something or something to be bigger, better, faster, etc. This has caused every car manufacturer, restaurant, or gas station to have a higher degree of competition with each other than ever before. Also, we have so much influence on things that go across air even in news broadcasts. People post rumors and truths and thoughts on weblogs and there have been some instances where broadcasters have reported things they read on a blog and then later found out it wasn’t true and had to go back and correct themselves.
What really needs to happen is we as a society need to become more responsible for ourselves. We need to make decisions for ourselves. We need to be more responsible for our actions and look into things before we spread them around. Advertisers also need to have regulations. There needs to be some restrictions as to how much advertising can be put into shows. Also, journalists need to make sure things are truth before they report it. Basically, everyone needs to act like adults and be more responsible for things.