Essay - Winaya
From Mod Mania
This page is a further continuation page of the previous page, " a rough abstraction of winayas essay". I still havent finished editing, made some changes and the conclusion of my essay. But, roughly, it will be probably 70% of my essay will looks like. Comments are welcome :P, thx
Advertising generates strong feelings to the societies, especially consumers and producers. Recently, there is a major debate about how advertising does not only influence consumer’s preferences in positive or negative manner, but also distort the competition among producers. These forced customers to return to the concept of production to have a better life. This concept of production can be differentiated into modification or copying. In order to distinguish between modification and copying, there is a law, called copyright. This essay will examine how advertising, modification and copyright relate each other.
Advertising is paid and/or sometimes free communication through a medium which the sponsor is identified and the message is controlled (Wikipedia, 2007). It is a communication which has always openly acknowledging that its purpose was to have big effects on the real world, publicly and individually. The influence of advertising on the society is practically impossible to be calculated, it has been deep rooted.
First of all, the advertising industry, which are big and fast-growing companies, have serious impacts to the global situation. It generates most of the nation’s income and supports employment. It can be seen as one of the most important factor of economic growth. TNS Media Intelligence reported, in the United States alone in 2005, spending on advertising reached $144.32 billion (Wikipedia, 2007). Also, according to a report titled Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2006- 2010, worldwide advertising spending was $385 billion. In addition, directly and indirectly, 90 percent of the American labour works for business which are producing consumer goods and services. Consumer products and services; and also how they manipulates consumer preferences through advertising, (are believed) make up what we are (Rosenblat, R 1999).
Afterwards, advertising is directly affecting the “consumerism culture”. The culture can be defined as the way how people think about consuming. People are now more likely to believe that the good life can be obtained from material goods.
The efforts of producers, advertisers, and marketers to create an alluring, even irresistible, spending environment have become ever more pervasive and sophisticated. (Schor, J 1999)
Firstly, advertising creates a world view that consuming is a nature. Most people feel that advertising is not something to take seriously. Other aspects of media are serious- films, talk shows, news. But not advertising. The power of advertising lies in the principle of consumers that they will not be affected by the advertising. However, “this is the secret of propaganda: those who are to be persuaded by it should be completely immersed in the idea of the propaganda, without ever noticing that they are being immersed in it” said Goebbels, J in Kilbourne, J 2006 report. A prosperous, out of reach lifestyle to consume will increasingly seem normal and therefore necessary to be reached.
What is the long-term effect of the new “religion” of consumerism that emerged nearly a hundred years ago, in which spending, and spending without limit, was extolled as something positive, therapeutic and of benefit to the economy? (Schor, J 1999)
Since people think that advertising has no effect on their consuming behaviours, people pay less attention and become less critical than they should be. For example, around 10 years ago, people think that mobile phone was a luxury item, nevertheless, nowadays; the mobile phone has become a basic need with the help of a massive advertising campaign. Moreover, only businessmen were using a mobile phone in 10 years ago, but now even 8 years old children have already used a mobile phone. These examples prove that advertising has changed the nature of consumerism, where luxuries have become necessities.
Secondly, advertising stimulates consuming desires and exploits very real human desires, which are desires to always have more, to be happy and to find satisfaction through consuming material objects. Advertising gives the possibility to dream.
In the history of the world there has never been a propaganda effort to match that of advertising in the past 50 years. More thought, more effort, more money goes into advertising than has gone into any other campaign to change social consciousness. (Kilbourne, J 2006)
In Dickens’s Oliver Twist, “more” means merely an adequate amount. (Rosenblatt, R 1999)
Nowadays, people have grown up in a culture, which is so devoted to consumption. People also have already had a solid understanding and defined theirselves through the certain patterns of consuming. The advertising yokes consumers with the needs of products and promises them that things will deliver similarly to what they want to be but in fact they never able to reach it. For example, when I did a research about advertising, I saw one of the Pantene shampoo advertisement, stated: “always smooth”. It builds consumers desires to have smoother and nicer hair, thus they would buy the products. However, in the reality, all of consumers will not have a smooth hair when they use the shampoo, because the smoothness of their hair also depends on their hair type. The lies story that advertising tells is that consumers can get happiness from the market, which is mostly impossible.
Advertising only shows the hidden, but real needs of the consumers and that they are the only deciders who freely sanction the success or failure of the firms’ proposals. (Rausell,C 2002)
Many consumers are “trapped” by the ideas of propaganda in advertising. The problem of the satisfied or unsatisfied appetite seems to be peculiarly ours, and it is getting worse. Therefore, in the modern consumer society, the idea of “new consumerism” is built, in which “competitive consumption” feeds a system of widening class distinctions wherein people aspire to the level of consumption that others have achieved. It is encourage us not only to consume more but also to find the identity and fulfilment through consuming, to express the individuality through the “choices” of products. The system focuses on visible, or identifiable as “conspicuous consumption”, brand name goods rather than more beneficial alternatives, such as leisure or savings. In the consumer society, personal identity and social position is not only predetermined by the importance of brand-name status goods, but also by clothes, houses, vehicles, etc. They are all accessible to public view and their use is easily verifiable.
“More and more, what you wear and what you don’t wear define who you are located in the social map” (Rosenblat, R 1999)
For instance, because advertisements in the television, and other popular media such as films and lifestyle magazines gives a heavily skewed picture of spending pattern, portraying almost exclusively the upper middle class and the rich; it leads to an inflation of nearly everyone’s perceptions of their lifestyles. Nowadays, the standards are set by the upper middle class and the rich.
Finally, advertising leads some people to a certain point where they realise that they will never be satisfied by consuming, advertisements can not make them happy or loved or less alone or safe or whatever to fulfil their “real human desires”. They realised that advertising is just a pervasive medium of influence and persuasion. Rosenblatt, R (1999) noted; “even though people understand that they are in the perpetual state of yearning, for a simplification of existence that allows the poor to rise, the rich to level off, the other species to survive, and the world to go on. But we lack of the knowledge or the all to achieve all that, and so we want and do not want, and weep without knowing it.” People understand their condition; and they want to have a better life. But they do not know what to do. So what people can do for this condition?
Consumption is driven by yearning and desire, and that what prevent us from keeping our consumptive impulse. (Rosenblat, R 1999)
So people prevent their consumption to have a better life. Is that all they can do, after limiting their consumption behaviour? No… As Benhabib, J (2002) explains in his essay called: Advertising, Mass Consumption and Capitalism, he summarized his report by stating:
“ As a consequence profits increase and consumer spending rises, to the point where consumer enter a “work and spend cycle,” where they reduce the time devoted to leisure activities, or at least they curtail the increase in leisure that would have accompanied productivity and wage increases” (Benhabib, J 2002)
So, what people can do is to return to the basic of production, which they will start to produce the goods that can fulfil their desires.
To illustrate, in one of the websites called “Greenhouse Challenge Plus” (2007), which are talking about green house solutions, it can be concluded that there is a huge believe that advertising is an effective way to take your green message to the mass market or target a specific group. It is also an ideal way to inform potential customers of your environmental activities and to educate them about greenhouse issues. Starts from that believe, the institution keeps running advertisements to announce reaching milestones in the Greenhouse Challenge Plus process, or tell customers about what they are doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and how much they have achieved. For example the advertisement could say "We've just saved XXXX tones of CO2 – that’s the equivalent of turning off the lights in your whole suburb for XX years". As the result, consumers are increasingly aware of climate change issues and the demand for environmentally friendly products and services is growing.
Research suggests many customers are now looking for ‘green’ products and services with reduced greenhouse impact. (GCP’s website, 2007)
Indeed, more people produce sustainable products, such as stove, washing machine, cooker, hairdryer, fridge, heater, and so on. More people modifying the basic system of their electronic stuffs. Clearly, the idea of production, which is differentiated by modification and copying, is arise. Now, we will investigate deeper about modification and copying.
First of all, I will discuss about modification. Modification is an act of renewing or changing or making something different based on something that has been released. It is also the term of creating something new from the basic by enlarging public creativity. According to Cambridge Dictionary (2007), modify means to change something such as a plan, opinion, law or way of behaviour slightly, usually to improve it or make it more acceptable. From the research, there are others reasons to modify rather than just to improve or make the product acceptable. Yes, as I have stated before, the first reason deals with advertising, but other reasons are: desires to make something unique or special, a wish to be different, socially acceptable condition, dissatisfaction, excitement, boredom with what has been released, and so on. In “Mod Mania” classes, on 12th and 19th May 2007, students were discussing about some other main reasons besides advertising, which stimulates people to modify a product. The reasons are:
1. Modification helps people reach their self satisfaction. Everyone has different satisfaction frontier. Some people feel satisfied with the “standard” products, which they have, but others are not. To penetrate their satisfaction frontier, people even have to get out of the recent “standard system”. For example, I may be satisfied with the standard engine and appearance of my car. However, there are people who modify or change main components or engines of their car because they want to have more from their cars, have faster and “better” cars. They want to get off from the standard system which limiting the car’s speed.
2. In the society, people want to be different by being unique and special. They do not want to have a common product. Similarly, Scott Huskinson, president and CEO of iFrogz, one of the companies that are producing iPod cases, said, “There’s absolutely no reason why the look of their iPods shouldn’t be as unique and customizable as their menu. Most case makers only produce some basic colours to choose from. iFrogz sees things differently.” (Jurrien, I 2006). All of these reach me till an understanding that every one want to be different, although it is not a complete different. If everyone is all the same, so what is the meaning of different? And where is special or unique? Isn’t it all the same? That is why everyone expresses themselves differently.
“Mods are a permanent expression of individualism.” (Gnomemafia, 2007)
3. In the extreme way, modification is caused by a motivation to show a rebellion. One of the simple examples is body modification, such as, tongue splitting, piercing and tattoo. According to Wikipedia (2007), tongue splitting is a provocative statement by the rebellious.
Others get tattoos and piercings to be rebellious and spontaneous. Rob Bray, 27, got a tattoo in the spur of the moment with a group of friends. Bray got his tattoo of a cartoon character (Hobbes) three years ago and said he does not regret it. He is considering adding Calvin to the picture. (Babbs, D 1997)
Moreover, Kupelian, D (2004) explained : the strangest of all is the fact that any behaviours, any belief s– about any body modifications – is rebellious and full of rage – that had been set up by cruelty or hypocrisy (or both) to rebel against everything "good".
On the other hand, the destructive of modification called copying, which also one of production acts. Copying is the duplication of information, or an artifact, based only on an instance of that information or artifact, and not using the process that originally generated it (Wikipedia, 2007). The concept of copying has a particular significance in certain areas of law, especially copy right law. It is what distinguishes between mod and copying. Copyright is the legal right to control the production and selling of a book, play, film, photograph or piece of music (Cambridge Dictionary, 2007). Copyright prohibit people do a manipulation in stimulating production. Copyright law covers only the form or manner in which ideas or information have been manifested, the "form of material expression". It is not designed or intended to cover the actual idea, concepts, facts, styles, or techniques which may be embodied in or represented by the copyright work. It supports and protects creators and innovators.
