With the development of market economies, advertising has become a dominant feature in television industry. Despite the information brought to us by television, there still exits strong criticism against TV advertising. What's your opinion?
Since the day that television has been invented, the idea of advertising has been embedded into it. For the last decades, television advertising has expanded exponentially. Meanwhile, the debate over the pros and cons of adverting is becoming more and more intensive-from the psychological impact to the anti-propaganda campaign for consumerism. In my opinion, it is necessary to curb the expansion of advertising on TV and implement more rigorous supervision.
First of all, there is numerous amount of evidence to suggest that advertisements on TV can influence consumers involuntarily and the effect is multiplied for children. In the late 1980s, the notorious subliminal advertisement, which is a technique to flash pornographic pictures at a speed that cannot be identified by human eyes in advertisements, became popular. After watching this kind of advertisements, consumers will remember products better without subconsciously. However, children are more vulnerable when they are exposed to inappropriate information. Fortunately, subliminal advertisements have been banned in most of countries, which is a piece of more conclusive evidence to the requirement of stern supervision.
For the television industry, adverting is losing its predominant position with the coming era of digital television. Advertising enjoyed its acme when the market was filled with analogue TVs, because audiences have limited control over the viewing process-audiences cannot skip advertisements by clicking a button-and television industry rely on the profit generated by advertising. However, for digital televisions, users can record any program on their hard drives and control the watching process at discretion. More importantly, most of digital channels are not free and the subscription fee becomes the new profit generator.
All in all, despite all the detrimental influences that TV adverting has, the day that advertising goes to distinction may never come, but it is exactly why we should impose better control over it.
Since the day that television has been invented, the idea of advertising has been embedded into it. For the last decades, television advertising has expanded exponentially. Meanwhile, the debate over the pros and cons of adverting is becoming more and more intensive-from the psychological impact to the anti-propaganda campaign for consumerism. In my opinion, it is necessary to curb the expansion of advertising on TV and implement more rigorous supervision.
First of all, there is numerous amount of evidence to suggest that advertisements on TV can influence consumers involuntarily and the effect is multiplied for children. In the late 1980s, the notorious subliminal advertisement, which is a technique to flash pornographic pictures at a speed that cannot be identified by human eyes in advertisements, became popular. After watching this kind of advertisements, consumers will remember products better without subconsciously. However, children are more vulnerable when they are exposed to inappropriate information. Fortunately, subliminal advertisements have been banned in most of countries, which is a piece of more conclusive evidence to the requirement of stern supervision.
For the television industry, adverting is losing its predominant position with the coming era of digital television. Advertising enjoyed its acme when the market was filled with analogue TVs, because audiences have limited control over the viewing process-audiences cannot skip advertisements by clicking a button-and television industry rely on the profit generated by advertising. However, for digital televisions, users can record any program on their hard drives and control the watching process at discretion. More importantly, most of digital channels are not free and the subscription fee becomes the new profit generator.
All in all, despite all the detrimental influences that TV adverting has, the day that advertising goes to distinction may never come, but it is exactly why we should impose better control over it.