Ace Ventura, Herman and Chomsky

Advertising has been a prevalent theme in all of the CMC classes that I have taken so far. I believe that this is because it seems to have the most impact on the public and also the most impact on the mass media corporations. As Herman and Chomsky tell us, a television show, magazine, or newspaper publication definitely benefits from attracting advertisers. And in turn, "the advertiser's choices influence media prosperity and survival" (267). Clearly, advertising is a profitable industry that increases media spending as well. However, what I think needs to be critiqued about advertising is that it purposely excludes certain demographics of people, based mostly on socioeconomic standing. When it comes to television or print publications, advertisers choose the media sources that maintain an audience that are purchasers or have the money to buy. This " Client Audience Profile" to me seems almost the same as stereotyping. It is the advertisers saying "if a person watches this show, they don't have the means to be buying our products and therefore we won't waste our money on advertising during this program." This is similar to Lyotard's idea of the metanarratives because the advertising and media industries are attempting to control how certain people view the world by only allowing certain demographics to have access to their products. While this strategy has seemed to be profitable for the advertising agencies, I think they are missing out opportunities to make products that appeal to these groups of people that they are ignoring. And these people should at least have access to KNOWING about these products and it should be left up to them whether they want to buy them or not.