Media vs. Integrity
By: Nevra Azerkan
"Extra! Extra! Read all about it...MTV, you heard
it first", the all familiar sounds of the media influencing the
world of today. If something could be changed about the world I think
many people would agree that the media would be one of the main organizations
to be targeted--and why not? Aside from government, political and economic
issues in the news everything seems to stray from the truth or to promote
some obscenity. From magazines, to television and even to a stores marketing
campaign the media has a huge effect on how people think.
Magazines from music to movies to fashion sell and so do their contents.
If you open up any entertainment magazine you can immediately realize
what they are promoting and for the most part it isn’t very encouraging
for the youth of today. I recently looked through an issue of Cosmopolitan
that my friend had and was shocked and even tainted to see what was
laid out before me. Basically every page had someone semi nude promoting
a sale that didn’t even relate to the product. It’s been said that pornography
was going down the drain and now we know why: you can find it all in
your kid sister’s teen magazines! Is it so necessary to throw out that
sort of “promotion”? I foremost have nothing against the human body,
but there’s a time and place for everything and to throw out advertisements
like these is to degrade ones self. What’s even worse to say is that
this strategy is effective. Sex sells. It may not be appropriate, but
it portrays what the majority of America believes in or better yet what
they strive to be.
It is extremely apparent that production companies have run out of sitcom
ideas for television; just turn on your big screen. With television
shows like “The Bachelor”, “The Bachelorette”, and “Joe Millionaire”
it’s not very difficult to see where our morals or lack there of have
taken us. Young, single adults date a number of potential significant
others in hopes to find “the one.” Yes, it has led us to go on television
and date a selected few to figure out who you will spend the rest of
your life with. If this isn’t better than a Hallmark card I don’t know
what is.
Not only that, but “Joe Millionaire” adds yet another twist to its series:
the manipulation of a person’s feelings. How? Joe isn’t really a millionaire,
try construction worker. Yes, he will either receive a companion at
the end of the show or a smack to his face. No bets here though. If
the show was able to get on air, anything seems to be possible now and
days. I don’t fully blame the companies for producing what they describe
to be an experience of “adventure”, but also the people who encourage
its on going rotation. Ideas can be proposed to everyone; however, it
is up to the individual to figure out if they want to accept it into
their own lives.
Go to a mall and take a good look at each stores marketing campaign
and your guess is as good as mine to how it relates to the actual product.
Billboards, sales ads, catalogs, they all are ways to promote products.
From there it’s up to its advertiser to decide how and to who it is
sold. Abercrombie and Fitch, Victoria’s Secret, and Banana Republic
all have explicit ads and they are all very much popular stores in your
local mall. Abercrombie and Fitch even released a catalog that was so
explicit it had to be packaged up and the forever known “XXX” was written
across it. Now most people who shop at the trendy outlet are young adults
from their late teens to late twenties. Why is the “XXX” campaign targeted
it at them? We have enough corruption in the world and we don’t need
a clothing store to contribute even more. Instead of providing a productive
campaign to aid kids in their daily lives they aim for immoral concepts
and call them “adventurous.” If that’s what they call adventure I guess
the next season of The Crocodile Hunter the guy will be wearing Speedos.
There is no doubt that magazines, television and a stores marketing
campaign all have a huge effect on how people think. Everywhere they
go the young, the middle aged and the elderly will encounter some sort
of advertising that isn’t decent. If this element in the world changed
whether it was lessened or all together gone I think our standards would
rise and our personalities would be broadened. After all, what surrounds
us influences us, and what influences us contributes to who we become.
