In America the mass media provides advertising that fills our heads with images telling us, tempting us, and lying to us. Advertisements are attempts to sell a product or a point of view. Advertisements can take many forms either written, oral, or visual. Many people have the perception that advertisements are informative, creative, and sometimes attractive. However, are advertisements informative? Do they give us all the information on their product or do they only manipulate us? When can we say that an advertisement is more informative or more manipulative? By definition advertisement is “the act or practice of calling public attention to one 's product, service, need, etc., especially by paid announcements in newspapers and magazines, over
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Most Americans believe propaganda only exists in either political or religious advertisements. The Federal Trade Commission is supposed to help protect Americans from these misleading, misrepresenting, or fact omitting advertisements. The FTC calls product advertising that can be proven false as false advertisement not propaganda. We all want to be given the true unaltered facts for the products we buy. When you spend your hard earned cash for a new item you want it to perform as advertised. When you as a consumer have the facts, you can decide on exactly what product you need to buy. You want propaganda to be removed totally from advertising. The secondary effects of propaganda are in the way our children perceive products. Some examples are X-ray glasses that promise to allow you to look through walls or a small kingdom of sea monkeys that look almost human. Products like these clearly don’t live up to the promise of what you see advertised. When advertisers target groups they look for an avenue for a maximum effect of propaganda. The most vulnerable to advertisements are senior citizens and children. Can you recall the commercial that depicts an elderly woman who is home alone and falls down the steps? ("LIFE ALERT Official Website - I 've Fallen and I Can 't Get Up! ®."). Fear propaganda is the easiest motivating type of propaganda and gives the targeted audience the desire to protect themselves from that dangerous or devastating possibility. In the end propaganda is used to distort the view of the general public for gains. Propaganda uses whether for commercial, political, or religious purposes is designed to control public
Most Americans believe propaganda only exists in either political or religious advertisements. The Federal Trade Commission is supposed to help protect Americans from these misleading, misrepresenting, or fact omitting advertisements. The FTC calls product advertising that can be proven false as false advertisement not propaganda. We all want to be given the true unaltered facts for the products we buy. When you spend your hard earned cash for a new item you want it to perform as advertised. When you as a consumer have the facts, you can decide on exactly what product you need to buy. You want propaganda to be removed totally from advertising. The secondary effects of propaganda are in the way our children perceive products. Some examples are X-ray glasses that promise to allow you to look through walls or a small kingdom of sea monkeys that look almost human. Products like these clearly don’t live up to the promise of what you see advertised. When advertisers target groups they look for an avenue for a maximum effect of propaganda. The most vulnerable to advertisements are senior citizens and children. Can you recall the commercial that depicts an elderly woman who is home alone and falls down the steps? ("LIFE ALERT Official Website - I 've Fallen and I Can 't Get Up! ®."). Fear propaganda is the easiest motivating type of propaganda and gives the targeted audience the desire to protect themselves from that dangerous or devastating possibility. In the end propaganda is used to distort the view of the general public for gains. Propaganda uses whether for commercial, political, or religious purposes is designed to control public