Is advertising good for society

Is advertising good for society?

I feel agree with John Calfee that advertising is generally useful. I do see the point from Dinyar Godrej that advertising can fuel certain consumers to buy what they don't need. For most people, advertising gives them some sort of information which they need to buy a product. People usually don't go out and buy something when they have no idea what it is. Advertisements provide a base of knowledge but often lack specificity and details. Calfee also talks of how there is information that's helpful for health. An example is cereal boxes that say how much fiber is in them. Sometimes they include important facts such as what the daily intake should be. Also mentioned is that advertising for something like cigarettes, will start a battle between other companies to make them safer. They will advertise who has the best filters, and ultimately leading to anti-smoking advertisements. Since then, it started other anti drug advertisements which has caught on. Dinyar Godrej argues that Advertisements are fueling our consumer to want, things we don't need. This is not as big of a problem as some people think because it doesn't apply much to younger generations. In my opinion those the people who complain about buying things they don't need are usually older generations. Have you heard anyone in 20s or even 30s complaining about things they have bought and not needed? Nope. It is the old and elderly who take hold advertising bait and get reeled in. They buy non-needed products due to advertising. I don't know anyone near my age group who has bought a sham wow or a snuggy with the intentions of them working well but as a joke. Neither have I seen anyone around my age send their gold through the mail, or fall for Publishers Clearinghouse mail. Then feel robbed when they don't make a huge cash profit. The people who believe that advertising is bad, are the people can't comprehend advertisements. These people should not criticise the media plastering adds everywhere you look, because it is only the few who are fooled. These people should learn to adapt. If not, they should expect to continue buying snuggies, clappers, sham wows, and sending out their valuables through the mail. 

Reading Analysis #1

Assignment – Reading Analysis #1

Matt Bialick

Andrews/Media, Politics and Society

October 12, 2010

RA#1 Pravda RU

To whom it may concern,

             I am an American college student studying Communications, I am writing this letter inform you on how improve your website. When critiquing your website I am not only writing to point out the negatives, but also the positives.

I would like to start out by telling you about what I liked about the site. Coming from viewing American News sources, your advertisements are minimum.  Each day I have checked there has been less than 10% of the page containing advertisements. Where the adds usually are on American sites, you have more stories, or links to other stories on the website.  The webpage is laid out well and easy to read. The titles are straight to the point, using a low amount of unneeded attention getters. Yet there are some. Searching what your looking for on the site is easy. Using the search function on other news websites gives you a lot of adds and misleads the viewer to look at something off subject.  As a example when searching for news information it will take you to Facebook or Google. I also noticed that at the top of the page there are languages to choose from. This does not only allow readers from all over the world to read it, but specifies the articles given. This gives the reader more valuable news which may apply more directly to the people in that country. 

            As for criticism, I found a few things that could use to be worked on. Some words biased Russia over the United States. Pravda often uses extreme words, which mislead. Biased views are placed in the article to make it look as Russian is better than the United States. In the story “Russia, USA are doomed to remain potential enemies.” The title uses the word doomed, which implicates, that USA and Russia will not potentially be enemies, but doomed sounds like it is for sure. In the same article, it states, “Russia is the only country that is technically capable of annihilating the United States.” Again, the choice of words makes it extreme. Instead of annihilation, something like high damage would be less dramatic.

            Another Article was titled, “ The cost of telling the truth in the United States.” This article talks about what seems to be the perfect US CNN employee, who was fired after saying that Jews dominate the mass media. In your story the view is that an innocent man in America was fired for expressing the truth. Yet his statement cannot really be called truth, to support this man your article stated that one Jewish man bought the third largest newspaper chain in the world. I would not consider this enough information to determine that Jews are dominated Mass Media. How about the owners of the top news media company? And the next few? Are they all Jewish? If there is more information to support that this man statement is the truth, include it.

Other titles are badmouthing America were, "wrecking the American Dream", "What we know for sure that makes aka Obama ineligible", “Neo-Nazism in the United States on the rise."

            I feel that your website is set up well, and information can be found easily. I think that the words used in your articles are often extreme. I think that your websites point of view is definitely favoring Russia. Many topics on the site including America talk about how it is terrible. Most of the subjects and topics about America are negative. It would be nice if you could include more positive articles to give a less biased view. 

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20101011/160913783.html

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/07-10-2010/115256-telling_truth_usa-0/

           

            

Reading Analysis Selection

Matt Bialick
Andrews
October 7th, 2010

News Analysis Selection

For my news analysis I am going to use http://www.en.rian.ru/, a Russian News sight. I find pretty much everything about Russia interesting, there lifestyle and achievements are neat. I feel like my generation including myself lacks knowledge about Russia, which is important power. When they decide to do  something, they get it done by any means possible. They may lack in quality control, but the speed and mass production which Russians can achieve must be respected.

International Press Perspectives

 There was a unmanned United States Aircraft that shot two missiles German militants in Iran. The men were killed while hiding in a mosque. They were supposedly terrorists plotting multiple attacks on different European cities. Possible cities were London, Paris and Berlin. US officials think that the men were connected with Osama bin Laden.

I looked at multiple sources for this story and found that most of the information was vague, but mostly the same. When taking a look at UK news, the story states that five German militants were killed. On a Iran Daily, the article says that eight German militants were killed. On what looks to be a Pakistani website, they say that 9 men were killed in the attack. This is interesting because number of deaths in a incident like this is not open to interpretation, but fact. To look on the bright side, none of these articles said anything about casualties and or innocent lives lost in the missile attack. These different facts from each news site really shows how you can't trust just one news site. In this instance, there is at least two out of three websites  fatality numbers is wrong. It might be 5, 8, 9, or none, but it can't be all.




http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8042774/US-drone-strike-kills-five-German-militants-in-Pakistan.html


http://videos.desishock.net/1288807/9-Dead-in-a-Recent-Drone-Attack-in-Pakistan-Sahar-Urdu-TV-News-October-02-2010-Tehran-Iran

Titled drone strike
http://www.iran-daily.com/#