C Edwin Baker Advertising And A Democratic Press Analysis

A great eye opener to change the way we look at advertising and the mass media. Never have we really thought to take a diagnostic look into what it takes to write a paper, to be in control of advertisements, or become a victim of advertising slander. As we take a closer look through the book “Advertising and a Democratic Press” by C. Edwin Baker, we’ll see the history of advertising as well as the factors that contribute to the negative aspects on advertising. With Baker’s view on advertising issues violating the First Amendment he shows in his book, step by step diagrams on how they increase competition and can often favor a certain group and increase competition. Not only does he show an increase of competition but also he also develops …show more content…
If we had a clear slate of no rules establishing the right of speech and press then we may be understanding his opinions better. In Baker’s writings, he tells how since advertising has come about it has increased competition between both other companies trying to advertise and other news journals. It may be suggested that evolved through advertising, it has shown a favoritism towards the “right” because the rights can pay for whatever they want and desire more. It is suggested that the news should use advertising subsidy, in other words a way to even the playing fields and would even the playing fields for the poor to utilize advertising along with the rich. To the topic of competition the question is, why has competition declined? This is do not agree with him on. Baker says that new paper competition has declined due to monopoly. A certain new business will make significantly more than another and can spend more money on catering to the “sales-people” and give them their “wants”. For example this could be something like cosmopolitan which caters to women who enjoy just reading this vs. maybe a news journal who doesn’t cater to those details. I honestly think the decline is due to the social world. The new generation who doesn’t read the paper more or less magazines unless they are put right in front of …show more content…
An article may be leaked to the news business and people have been able to pay to keep their stories out of the news. Baker refers this to “non-advertising content”, this theory was said to be manipulating the public policy. The example that baker refers to is tobacco products. Since there has been over 300,000 deaths per year due to tobacco products the advertising of this was banned but the gracious amounts of deaths have not been published either. Is this because tobacco products are paying off the media or simply because publishing such articles decreases its popularity? The “kept mentality” is basically an unannounced contract to keep the consumers