"robert stanton" <industrialrobot@hotmail.com> writes:
quoted 7 lines Supporting any sort of modern advertising scheme is negative in my
> Supporting any sort of modern advertising scheme is negative in my
> opinion. Even if you are "just making money to make more music" you
> are also promoting the system which allows you, as well as many more
> and less talented music-makers, to be bought and sold like commodities
> by corporations who treat other human beings as "consumers" and view
> advertising and profit as more important than future human potential,
> reform, and the environment.
the music makers are not being bought and sold, what is being bought
and sold is a license to use a work of art in a short film or video
that at the very worst misleads people into thinking they need
something that they do not. since last i checked, nobody needs either
prefuse 73, the internet or even television, i don't think any harm is
being done. of *course* corporations treat human beings as
"consumers" ... those "consumers" treat the products that these
corporations spend their lifeblood creating and promoting as
"commodities" which they discard or ignore at their own whim. to
think that the poor unfortunate consumer gives up their free will by
watching an advertisement is to ignore the primary function of the
advertisement itself: to *persuade* other people to *choose* your
product. brand loyalty is a weak force at best, and a complete
fallacy 90% of the time. in today's climate of cynicism and suspicion
of any corporate entity larger than the corner mom-n-pop store, when
we have personal digital video recorders that automatically edit out
advertisements, i don't think the naive view of corporations as
mind-bending propaganda factories really holds up. really, i think
advertisements are in greater danger of becoming irrelevant than the
average television viewer is in danger of being influenced; the viewer
understands that the function of the advertisement is to sell
products, not to inform them. the only exceptions to this rule are
the young and the stupid.
quoted 1 line To be so blatantly supportive of such activities seems rather naive.
> To be so blatantly supportive of such activities seems rather naive.
i think it's naive to simplify the relation between consumer and media
so much. it's a 2 way transaction these days. we're not living in
Marshall Mcluhan's universe anymore. The viewers have woken up to the
realization that they influence the media as much as the media
influences them. Think about how many Nielsen ratings and focus
groups and market profiles go into any decision made by any
corporation. I'm not saying that they are benevolent or even that
they are devoid of harm but if advertising was the worst evil
perpetuated by American corporations, we would be living in a beatiful
world.
I think as long as long as an artist feels morally secure in licensing
a work to a corporation, then they have every right to do so. I would
certainly license a work of my own to many companies. There are also
many that I would not license to. There *is* a danger inherent in
selling ones' artwork to an advertiser, and that is the transfer of
perceived "ownership" of the music from the artist to the
corporation. Nick Drake's song "Pink Moon" will always be associated
with Volkswagen for an enormous number of people. But the flipside of
that transaction is that a significant percentage of the people who
bought a Nick Drake album within the last year did so because that was
the guy from the Volkswagen commercial. This is possibly not the best
example since Nick Drake is long dead and does not get to benefit from
the licensing of his music, but there are many other artists for whom
this dubious transaction is probably paying off nicely. I would guess
Dirty Vegas' cover of "Days Go By" would never have hit the Top 40 if
they hadn't licensed it to Mitsubishi. If they are happy with the
fact that their song invokes Mitsubishi's logo for the millions of
people dropping money on the single, well so am I.
In most situations I think it's a beneficial transaction to all
parties involved. The artist gets a whole fuckload of cash which they
can then use to develop their art further, and the advertiser
purchases a couple of things: A catchy tune that the intended consumer
will associate with their product; and the "hipness" factor if they
choose the right track (Prefuse 73 fans probably have newfound
"respect" for Footlocker, as absurd as that is given that it's the ad
agency not the corporation that chooses the soundtrack).
quoted 3 lines If you are interested in these sorts of things, I would recommend
> If you are interested in these sorts of things, I would recommend
> reading Robert McChesney's "Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication
> Media in Dubious Times" for a much better perspective.
I'll definitely look at this book ... as you can guess by the length
of my reply this is definitely a subject I'm interested in.
Josh>
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