1.5 - Mass Media and Pop Culture

People of all ages are influenced by advertising. Right from when we are infants to when we become adults we will all have grown up around the media. Advertising is all around us. It is on billboards in towns and cities, posters on the streets and in stores, in businesses or even in our very own homes. Advertising is in books, magazines, in movies, on the television, and even on the Internet. In our North American generation everyone will be affected by the media and advertising that comes with it.

Advertising can influence each and everyone of us through a positive and negative way.

1. Advertising influences us on the way we dress. This can have a positive side to advertising and a negative side. There are many types of clothes out there. Some that are appropriate and some that are inappropriate. The positive side to advertising of clothing is that we can find the type of clothing we like. Clothing advertisements are everywhere, which allows individuals to see the type of clothing they would like to wear. The negative side to the advertisements of clothing is that some people become addicted to shopping. They may want to buy everything they see. There are also advertisements out there that are inappropriate. In adds people are wearing clothes that show too much skin which can be disrespectful to our own bodies.

2. Advertising can influence the way we behave and speak. The positive side this kind of advertising has on us is that as infants it can teach us how to speak. The more television and movies watched as children the more we can catch on and learn how to communicate. Even as we grow older we can use the media to help us learn new words and meanings. The negative side of this kind of advertising is that in our generation we can catch on to many innuendos, which a lot of them are inappropriate. Some of the language on movies and television are inappropriate as well. The more we view and hear this negativity, inappropriate language and behavior in the media the more we will catch on and start to behave and speak the same way.

3. Advertising can influence the way each and everyone of us feels about ourselves. This can have positive and negative influences. In advertising we mostly see attractive, and well fit models. This usually makes us say to ourselves, "I wish I could look like that," or, " I want to be like him or her." This could be positive because it could allow us to change our bodies for the better. It could make us want to take better care of our skin, hair and over all bodies. This could be a negative thing because we could take it a step to far. We could become obsessive of how we view ourselves. This could cause people to suffer from bulimia, anorexia and other diseases that could harm our bodies even more.

4. Advertising can influence us on how we spend our time and our money. When there is advertising all around us it is difficult to not want what is out there. The positive aspect to advertising is when you are looking for a certain product it is relatively easy to find what you are looking for with all the different adds out there. If you use your money and time wisely it can be a positive aspect to ourselves. The negative aspect to advertising is that people can get carried away and spend their money way out of control. This can take up a lot of our time and our money, when we could be doing more useful things with our lives.

5. Advertising can influence our health related choices. There are lots of products out there that are healthy to us, and that are not healthy to us. We can get sucked into the non-healthy products through great advertising, or we can get sucked into the healthy products through advertising. The positive aspect to advertising is that it can influence us to make healthy choices, and buy healthy products. There is also a negative aspect to advertising which can influence us to make unhealthy choices.

6. Advertising can influence our attitudes towards violence, sexism, stereotypes, and racism. There is no doubt that over the years we have started to see more violence, sexism, stereotypes, and racism through advertising in magazine adds, posters, movies, television, and the net. Some of these influence us positively and negatively. We begin to view these genres and see how they affect people. These adds can help to prevent violence, sexism, stereotypes, and racism. They can also promote these things as well. This can be negative towards us because viewing the violence, sexism, etc all the time can cause us to believe there is nothing wrong with it. When in reality these things can be hurtful and disrespectful to ourselves and to others.

The mass media influences my life, and I am sure it influences the lives of people around me. We have all seen adds for products that we may or may not like. The mass media influences us to want to buy what we see if we like the product. The media can change the way we view ourselves, and how we view others. It can make us want to change our appearance, change the way we act, or even change the way we think. The mass media is only going to grow larger within our society. It will affect who each and everyone of us grows up to be.