- Consumerism is defined as the protection or promotion of the interests of consumers (aka the general public), meaning higher powers such as the government want to influence people to believe in the same ideals as to what is best for them.
- Sellers of products use various advertising techniques to convince the public that luxury products are actually a necessity. They use celebrity endorsements and unique ways of advertising to differentiate themselves from their competitors, despite it being pretty much the same product, to convince consumers that they are the best.
- An example of something that has been advertised differently over the years is smoking. It has changed based on the views of society throughout time - so at first it was considered "uncultured" for women to do it compared with men, then Bernay's advertised them as "torches of freedom" which appealed to women because they associated smoking differently - as if you smoked you were sexually desirable and independent. This is a good example of how people thought they were making a free choice, but were actually influenced by the media's opinion.
- Another way advertising has influenced us is through food - with cake-making mixtures (e.g. Jemima's Pancakes) people believe they are being creative, when they are actually only completing simple tasks.
A good, yet extreme example of how consumerism is represented in animation is 'The Lego Movie'. Their government have brainwashed common workers and consumers of their products and have influenced them to all work in sync. This is shown through a song that they have introduced to the consumers; 'Everything is Awesome', and instructions into the right way to live, which have brainwashed the public into thinking the political views are their ideals.
In this video some examples of the instructions given to the consumers are demonstrated, as well as everybody working in sync.
No comments:
Post a Comment