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How mass media effects american culture
How mass media effects american culture
Influence of media in america
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“What is consumer culture?”
In the late 19th, early 20th century a new phenomenon arose. Along with the development of industrial advances and urbanization of the emerging American culture was the growth and subsequent domination of the “consumer culture”. Consumer culture is a term that goes hand and hand with the American way of life today, but in those days it was a new and unique experience. Along with the development of the mail order catalog, advertising became a focal point of American mass media. Advertising can be traced back as early as Franklin’s “Philadelphia Gazette”. After the turn of the century hand bills were given in the streets listing goods and services that many merchants could provide, and the New York Sun boasted that, along with news, readers could view advertisements in full print. The U.S government realized the emergence of such a strong and forceful medium and that prompted them to slap the Stamp Act on any print advertisement way back in 1765. There are many facets of consumer culture that reach from retail and merchandise and to sports and leisure. The rise of baseball as a popular sport deemed it America’s favorite pastime (which is another example of consumer culture; giving something a label makes it more accessible to the public. Plus if its AMERICA’S favorite pastime, Americans of the day should love it, right.) As well as football being established with rules and regulations, driving the competitive nature of the game way up, and boxi...
These connections between brands led to an increase in consumer trust and therefor an increase in overall demand. Advertisers also were looking for more effective methods of information distribution at this time (1870’s) and the newspaper just happened to be gaining major national popularity. According to page 91, the “Lady’s Home Journal” was the first major publication to market goods for housewives/ women in 1883, and in less than two decades by 1900, most major newspapers had completely switched focus to heavy advertising. The availability of a cheap, fixed rate on ad space meant that business owners would buy out multiple pages sometimes, turning the newspaper into a hub of not only national and local information, but also consumer news and countless advertisements. In order to introduce all of these revolutionary goods to the first waves of consumers, marketers of the late 19th century focused on getting mass amounts of information across to consumers rather than trying to gain attention or interest. Strasser highlights that this is why many 19th century ads, compared to their siblings of the 20th century, are much more wordy and descriptive- explaining uses, giving quality assurances, and sometimes included product background and development (illus.
Whether it's Mark McGwire breaking the home run record, Terell Davis breaking the rushing record, or superstars retiring, Americans have always had a fascination with sports. Sports have provided entertainment even before radio or television. Sports provided many things for the fans that watched them. Sports allowed communities to grow stronger and provided great athletes to look up to. With the arrival of television sports took on a whole new meaning. Being able to watch a game together gave the community a new way to bond, giving individuals a visual image of their favorite athletes. The television also opened up the industry of commercialization. Sports, televison, and merchandising on television became a combination that continues even today.The community in the 1950's was like one big family. Children played in the streets, everyone knew everyone else on the block, and sports created unbreakable bonds. Children and their fathers, neighbors, and even complete strangers could always talk about sports. As televison began to fill American homes, neighbors flocked to each others house to watch different events. Even neighbors who loved different sides crowded around the television to watch the event. Whether it was baseball, wrestling, golf, roller derby, or another sport, television allowed the community to grow closer. It is estimated that one sporting event drew an audience of 150,000 viewers. This is remarkable considering there was only about 5,000 television sets in American homes. That is about 30 people per set! Sports and television did more than just bring the community closer together. Sports on television became so popular that merchandising became a booming business. Whether at a game or sitting in the living room, authentic merchandise was a must for any fan. Much like the merchandise in Karal Ann Marlings book As Seen On TV, the merchandising industry exploited the people.
Tom Stoppard parallels the Second Law of Thermodynamics with the human experience in his play Arcadia. The parallelism suggests truths about the evolution of science and human society, love and sexual relationships, and the physical world. The Second Law drives the formation of more complex molecular structures in our universe, the diffusion of energy, such as heat, and is inhibited by the initial energy required to unlock potential energies of compounds. Stoppard takes these concepts and explores human genius and the sexual interactions of people, with an eye towards universal human truth.
In the early 20th century, baseball became the first professional sport to earn nationwide attention in America. Because it was our first national professional team sport, because of its immense popularity, and because of its reputation as being synonymous with America, baseball has been written about more than any other sport, in both fiction and non-fiction alike. As baseball grew popular so did some of the sportswriters who wrote about the game in the daily newspaper. Collectively, the sportswriters of the early 20th century launched a written history of baseball that transformed the game into a “national symbol” of American culture, a “guardian” of America’s traditional values, and as a “gateway” to an idealized past. (Skolnik 3) No American sport has a history as long—or as romanticized—as that of the game referred to as our “national pastime.”
The author of this book Bruce Barton was a partner in a successful advertising firm during the 1920’s. This was a time when the industry of advertising was under going some major changes. These changes had a lot to do with a number of factors the first of which being the post war prosperity this meant people had more money than they ever had before. Another one of these factors had to do with the high number of teens who were now attending high school, this proved to be important because it created a whole other market which hadn’t existed before. One more factor was the advances made in transportation and communication, these advances allowed goods, people, and information to travel long distances relatively quickly intern allowing companies to grow large enough to spread their services nationally. Still another important factor was the invention of financing, this allowed people to pay for durable objects (large objects that would last a couple of years) with affordable installments or payments. But the biggest changes were the actual advertising practices themselves, many of which were pioneered by Barton and his associates, and didn’t become norms in advertising until after the release of Bartons book “The Man Nobody Knows” in 1924. This book served not only as a manual on how to advertise more affectively but also as an example of good advertising itself.
Advertising, whether criticized or celebrated, is undeniably a strong force in American society. Portrayals and images of women have long been used to sell in published advertisements. However, how they have been used has changed enormously over the decades. Women have fought to find a lasting and prominent position in their society. Only in the span of twenty years, between the 1900’s and 1920’s, did the roles of women change dramatically here in the United States.
Advertisements would soon, also, become a major factor in mass media and development in America during the early 1900’s. Advertising became one Americas stepping stones to put the power of media into their control. This provided political parties, ...
It was even before the counter culture took hold in the media that admen were rejecting technical expertise and bureaucracy, feuding with traditional means of advertising that put emphasis on rationality, rules, and statistics (56). Advertising reached a Creative Revolution, in which firms like Doyle Dane Bernbach lead the way in giving creative workers more say, and governed more opposition to traditional orders of power within the industry (57). It was also in advertising’s quest for creativity that it found a new understanding of consumerism. The industry recognized the need for nonconformity as an element of a shifted capitalism, and in turn rethought its ads in order to make similar products stand out and offer consumers the chance to be idolized and admired
Starting in the early to middle of the nineteenth century food advertisements demonstrated a strong sense of food appeals to americans as a way to get them to resturants, fast food establishments or even to the grocery stores and supermarkets. Although there wasnt that many companies who could mass produce and sell their products to Americans. The large department stores in rapidly-growing cities started to become more of a resiliant source of food productiona and areas for food advertising since there was an steady migration to the new industrialized areas in the United States. Since the 1920s, American food advertising has grown emnssly, and the current advertising costs are eighty times more valuable than they were then. Branded consumer products gave way and this the national advertising of branded goods began in this time period in response to the major and noticeable changes in the distribution of food and resturants in america along with this some manufacturers. Other businesses also turned to advertising as a form of getting people to their products. Advertising refrences such as the Newspapers, Magazines and Television when it was firsted came into exsistance and started broadasting becames major components in the advertising era and al...
Goodrum, Charles and Dalrymple, Helen, Advertising in America: The First 200 Years. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1990). 37.
Culture is an aspect of everyone's life. It helps others to understand another person's beliefs and actions. There are multiple cultures in the world which are opposed to their own kind seeking help for a mental illness. There is an infinite number of cultures that are represented in the United States. “Many cultural and religious teachings often influence beliefs about the origins and nature of mental illness, and shape attitudes towards the mentally ill.” (1). One's cultural beliefs can make them think about whether or not they should seek to get help for a mental illness. Among the cultures around the world and particularly in the US, many Asian cultures do not want the community members to be receiving help for their mental illness. In these cultures mental illness is seen as shameful, because these cultures influence the “conformity to norms, emotional self-control, and family recognition through achievement.” (1). There are many cultural factors that play a role in whether or not a person will receive therapy. These factors include: language, level of acculturation, age, gender, occupational issues, family structure, religious beliefs, and traditional beliefs about mental health (2). Language limits the access of therapy. If a person living in the United States does not speak English very well, it could influence them to not seek therapy. There is a large focus on “in-group/out-group” in many Asian cultures, as in everyone who is in the family/community around them are in the “in-group” and everyone else who is not like them are in the “out-group.”
It surrounds us all and provides the people with the entertainment and information there minds crave. The media may appear innocent and harmless, but those controlling what we see on the screens day after day are far more diabolical and clever then we can imagine. The media is a business, and in Dave Barry’s article, titled “Red White and Beer,” Barry talks about how the goal of the media, in terms of the business aspect, is to influence the viewers and turn them into consumers. Barry emphasizes that the media plays an influential role in how we live our lives, and has the power to influence the decisions we make on a daily basis. In Barry’s article he jokes about how the media fools Americans into thinking that drinking an American brewed beer makes you a true patriot. He says the beer companies do this by endorsing patriotic values into their commercials, in order to convince American citizens that drinking their beer makes you patriotic. For instance Barry says, “The airwaves are saturated with pro-American commercials. Especially popular are commercials in which the newly restored Statue of Liberty appears to be endorsing various products, as if she were Mary Lou Retton or somebody” (Barry 453). Barry’s point is that the media is taking advantage by turning symbols of American freedom into endorsements for beers and various American made products. Although Barry is humorous in his article he is quite
During the 19th and 20th century, America –mostly white collar, middle class Americans- saw a great increase in salaries and a huge rise in mass production which paved the way for the modern American consumerism which we know today. The advertising scene saw a dramatic boost during that period and tried to latch on to this growing pool of emerging consumers. Although only limited to print, advertising during this pivotal period showed panache and reflected American society
Sassatelli, R. (2007). Consumer Culture: History, Theory and Politics, London: Sage, Page 30, Page 126, Page 132, Page 133
O’Sullivan, Geremiah. “The Social and Cultural Effects of Advertising.” N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.