The Hidden Persuaders Summary

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The concept of consumerism is considered to be a topical issue nowadays. There is a tendency to buy more and have the latest goods in order to fit the social vision. A Second World War became a significant facilitator of the consumer boom. The problem of consumerism and materialism are claimed to be the central ideas of the works of Vance Packard. He was a well-known American journalist. In his works, he raised serious public problems such as social stratification, an adverse influence of new technologies on privacy, and planned obsolescence. However, his book “The Hidden Persuaders” is admitted being the most popular and highly criticized. The book is based on the fact that “individuals do not always have access to their conscious thoughts and …show more content…

Advertisers skillfully use this peculiarity of human consciousness in order to produce an impact on them. To be more precise, they make people buy their goods without rational considerations concerning the necessity of the product. Packard tended to disclose all these psychological techniques and methods in order to show the society a controversial influence of mass media. On the one hand, advertisements provide people with an overview of the goods giving them the whole vision of the situation, while, on the other hand, they program citizens to buy unnecessary products developing a materialistic vision of life (Packard & Miller, 2007). The author longed to wake people up from the manipulating effect of the advertising campaigns for them to become more conscious during shopping.

It is obvious that people were exhausted by the war realities and sought to stability and confidence in the next day. Scarcity,

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