Advertising Today

            The points that Schlosser gives do not give two sides to the argument; it seems as though he is extremely biased in his writings. He talks about all the bad aspects of advertising, but puts it in a way that sounds like he is just giving statistics. Today advertisements that are focused on children are mostly on television and are very influential, but it is not as big of a problem as he makes it out to be. Advertising is just like violence on television, if you do not want your kids to be manipulated by advertisements today then regulate the amount of TV they watch and what they watch. He makes it seem like the advertising companies are the only ones to blame, they are just doing their jobs and trying to make money.  The parents of children today need to try and educate their kids on what is true and what isn’t. He said that many children can’t tell the difference between advertising and programs on television. It still sounds like parents aren’t paying enough attention to their children and educating them on the advertisements today. Parents are just too busy for their children so they just try to buy their affection with toys that are advertised on the TV. The children don’t know any better, they are easily manipulated by the ads and the parents aren’t there when those television shows and programs are there at all times of the day.  Parents nowadays use the TV as a babysitter and rely on it to keep them occupied while they do their work or personal activities. This makes it very difficult to control what their children watch as they are distracted by these other matters.

To say that child advertising isn’t all bad is not the point that I’m trying to get across; there are certainly people that go about it all wrong. Advertising is a right that people have to show off their product, if they don’t do that then how will people even know what they want to buy and why. The only problem is that advertising just needs to be regulated in the sense that children can’t be manipulated into giving out personal information without parental consent on the internet or by phone. When Schlosser talked about the kind of characters that advertisers use like Joe Camel or Ronald McDonald and how children are able to recognize them as easily as Mickey Mouse. Isn’t Mickey Mouse just some character that Walt Disney designed as a way to advertise to children and to get the children to want and buy Disney products and go to Disneyland or Disney World? I can remember back when I was a child and how I used some of those nagging techniques to get my parents to buy Disney movies and take my brother and me to Disneyland. The advertising business has brought about competition to make products better and create new ways to advertise. All in all advertising is an important part of our society and it benefits us as a whole.