Associated
Press
A
sharp-eyed TV show picks apart TV ads
M.S. Mason, Arts and Television writer
of The Christian Science Monitor
MINNEAPOLIS:
The average child may
see 500,000 commercials by adulthood. And while the
content of TV shows may be discussed in a family setting,
how many parents either ignore the hard sell or comment
cursorily - this one is funny, that one is boring?
One man has taken it
upon himself to really discuss what TV ads are telling
us, and he's doing it on TV - albeit on commercial-free
PBS (check local listings). John Forde wants viewers
to think about what and how they are being sold.
Mr. Forde brings on
a panel of experts to his weekly series "Mental
Engineering" - social psychologists, media critics,
sociologists, and others; screens a commercial (four
in each half-hour program); and the panel discusses
the content: Who is the commercial meant to appeal to?
What is it saying about the people it is trying to reach?
What emotion does it play on? Is it successful? What
are the aesthetics behind the image choices? These and
other questions aim at stimulating viewers to ask how
we are manipulated by the barrage of advertising messages.
One thing TV ads tend
to do, he says, is fragment society. "About a third
of all ads are aimed at affiliation needs - what group
are we part of?" In one series of ads, we see a
number of exquisite young people dressed casually in
similar clothes, posed in cool stances, each singing
part of a hip-sounding pop tune. "This is the type
of person you are," the ad says - and so you buy
these clothes.
"The need to be
free and the need to belong are both very powerful drives.
And one result of the affiliation ads," Forde says,
"is the shift to 'narrow casting.' We know people
are more likely to buy from people who look like themselves,
and I think they've become less tolerant because of
it.... We don't see ourselves as part of a larger community."
He says he's always
been fascinated by commercials. It occurred to him as
a child to wonder how commercials could lie and get
away with it. "There is a lesson in every one,"
he says. "They are about how power uses psychology."
Ads never tell bald-faced lies, he says. They're puffery.
In order for them to work, viewers have to participate
in the deception. Power speaks, you listen.
"We have a core
audience of cognoscenti who know that if you don't watch
TV, you don't know what America's all about. We're trying
to ask fresh questions" about what people are seeing
on TV.
Host - johnforde@mentalengineering.com
Producer - Producer@MentalEngineering.com
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