The Effects of Advretising and Media on Society

The Effects of Advertising and Media on Society

Advertising is an important social phenomenon. It both stimulates consumption, economic activity models, life-styles and a certain value orientation. Consumers are confronted with extensive daily doses of advertising in multiple media. With the continual attack of marketing media, it is presumable that it will affect our individualism and society as a whole. Consumer minds' can be changed, opinions molded. Images of men influence the gender role attitudes that men express soon after exposure to the images. "Men view magazine advertisements containing images of men that varied in terms of how traditionally masculine versus neutral they were and whether the models were the same age or much older than the viewers. Men who had initially been less traditional espoused more traditional attitudes than any other group after exposure to traditionally masculine models, although they continued to approve relatively nontraditional views after exposure to neutral models." This suggests that nontraditional men's gender role attitudes may be rather unstable and susceptible to momentary influences such as those found in advertising. Commercials are a way that gender roles are displayed in society. When you see a car commercial for a mechanic most of the time the mechanic is a man. But when you see a commercial about cleaning products for the house, normally a woman is the face you see. In other words, the media can help break the barriers on how gender roles are portrayed in society. The more that women represent strength on
TV will also encourage them to build their self-confidence. A person's environment has a big influence on the roles deemed accurately for men and women. Media also plays an important role in the socialization process for young and old people. Gender roles are as apparent in movies and TV sitcoms, as they are in commercials. For example, in the early days of TV, most sitcoms