Societal
International advertisers, as they bring their brands to the world, are promoting products as commodities that connect cultures. (Smillie, Crowell, 1997) The answer to the question, "What defines culture?" is critical in trying to understand what it is that we now have so that we will know when it is being changed (Dover, 1996; Gerbner, 1995). Michael Mazarr, in his paper that deals with culture as it relates to economic potential for growth, Culture In International Relations, believes that culture is "not a singular thing, but rather a loose collection of characteristics." (p.10). He goes on to cite Huntington, saying that culture in a civilization "is the broadest level of identification with which a person intensely identifies "(p.24). Culture is composed of "inherited ethical habits", binding religion, linguistics, family and politics into a cohesive whole. (Mazarr, 1996). As cultural symbols, brands such as Converse sneakers are portrayed not just as the item they are, but as a symbol of success that one should aspire to. "Conveying 'aspirational values' has become a common strategy among marketers. It's an approach Pepsi took in it's recently announced $500 million global marketing alliance with MTV to promote it's "Generation next" campaign, says Massimo d'Amore, vice-president of international marketing of Pepsi-Cola. Like the "Pepsi Generation" campaign in 1963, this year's message embodies youthful optimism and irreverence, coupled with a search for authenticity, he says." According to Roy Edmondson, director of global marketing for products and programs at Levi's, marketing Levi's overseas is "not about selling, but about symbolizing youth and originality" (Smillie, Crowell, 1997). These marketing philosophies all hidden under the guise of fashion and greater choice to the consumer are in actuality the homogenization of cultures to further the corporate goals of efficiency (Smillie,Crowell, 1997). The ultimate goal is a promotion of lifestyles rooted in consumption and patterned mainly around the United States. She quotes the president of Nabisco Corporation as saying, "One world of homogeneous consumption…[I am] looking forward to the day when Arabs and Americans, Latinos and Scandinavians will be munching Ritz crackers as enthusiastically as they already drink Coke or brush their teeth with Colgate." (Smillie, Crowell, 1997)
Douglas Rushkoff, a professor of media culture at New York University was the correspondent of Public Broadcasting's FRONTLINE episode titled "The Merchants of Cool". The transcripts of the many in-depth interviews that were conducted for this program can be found at www.pbs.com. Here I found a wealth of information concerning the attitudes and goals of the key players of teen-focused marketing. The following statement by Rushkoff pretty much sums up the reality of current marketing:
"It's gotten to the point, I think, where almost anywhere a kid sets his eyes he's gonna be marketed to. Someone's trying to program a decision of one kind or another. Now whether he's looking at a bus or looking at a phone booth or going to a club or looking at his own feet there's marketing going on everywhere. So the only choice for a kid is to close his eyes or to come up with strategies for defending against those messages…We've had a real contraction of public space both mentally and in the media and in the real world, where there's nowhere to go where you're not being marketed to…" Rushkoff, 2001
In the FRONTLINE transcripts were interviews with three top executives of MTV, Brian Graden, President of MTV programming; David Sirulnick, MTV's Executive Vice President for News and Production, and Todd Cunningham, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Planning. The quotes and information from these individuals were extremely relevant to this study.
Brian Graden, when asked to compare the experiences of the teenagers of today with how he remembered to be when he was younger, replied that, in the past, kids actually went outside to play, while now a teen must create and construct their own realities, a whole new social experience. Interaction was more face-to-face and now e-mail is the type of socializing occurring. According to Todd Cunningham, MTV considers themselves an important news source for teens. "Young people are not typically in the habit of reading newspapers. They certainly go online and find out about news. But in terms of television, they don't watch national news shows often." He believes that the most critical principal that they must adhere to is keeping the programming relevant. Their research teams' goal is to get into the mindset of what young people are all about. "We believe that it gets us in the hearts and minds of the viewers. It makes us much more relevant. Of course, the currency that we're exchanging today is ratings, and it gets higher ratings and makes us continue to be the number one rated network for 12-34 year-olds, and certainly for teenagers. (Cunningham, 2001)". When questioned about trust versus skepticism in what MTV is trying to market, Cunningham felt that the more relevant the marketing was to the audience the more often they succeed in "terms of developing a relationship and a bond with them, a great brand relationship…so the next time that we come out with a program, the next time that we come out with a message, anything that we are building in terms of our brand, they're more open to it, because there's an understanding: "This is my brand." They, in fact, talk about MTV as being "their brand" and seeing it as something that is an extension of themselves….they are a TV media-rich society in their own right…for their whole lives, they've seen nothing but customized content made for them (Cunningham, 2001)". David Sirulnick explains the phenomenal draw that MTV has on viewers by the programming awareness to relevance:
"…People, viewers, talk about MTV in a very different way than they talk about other television stations. The norm of most television is that you have favorite shows. 'Oh, I know when 'West Wing' is on. 'I know when 'Buffy' is on. 'But not a lot of people say, 'I watch a channel." Maybe ESPN is like MTV in a way, and maybe HBO. We feel that MTV has done a really good job so that young people grow up with this identification of MTV. And then, within that, they obviously have shows that they like to watch, favorite shows, and whatnot. But it's just a different kind of mindset to say that you want to create an environment where somebody between the ages of, like, 16 and 34, feels really at home. They can put on the channel and they can feel like, 'All right.' 'This is for me.' 'This is good.' 'This is my thing.' Sirulnick 2001".
Media critic Robert McChesney, research professor in the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois, was quoted on the FRONTLINE site as saying, "On MTV its all a commercial. Sometimes it's an advertisement paid for by a company to sell a product. Sometimes a video for a music company to sell music…Sometimes a set filled with trendy clothes to sell a look that include products on the set." He went on to compare the past relationship with commercial factors with how it has now evolved into. He believes that, although there has always been a nebulous relationship between the creative and the editorial side that there had traditionally been a distinction between the two for much of the twentieth century, but that the relationship "has really collapsed in the past ten years. The barrier between them, the notion that there should be an integrity…to the creative product or to the editorial product-distinct from the needs of commercial interests to make as much money as possible to just stand on its own- is corroded (McChesney, 2001)". He feels that the market research is done, not to better serve teens, but to better manipulate teens. When asked how he felt about the chance of MTV having control of teen culture, he stated that since the entertainment companies are a handful of massive conglomerates, owning 4 of the 5 music companies and selling 90% of the music in the United States in addition to owning all the film studios, major TV networks and nearly all the TV stations in the ten largest markets, "they look at the teen market as part of this massive empire that they're colonizing". The parent corporation of MTV is Viacom, which also owns VH1; Black Entertainment Television; CBS; Paramount Pictures; Showtime; Simon & Shuster Book Publishers; Blockbuster video rental and approximately 160 radio stations, is one of the most commercialized of all media companies (Rushkoff, 2001). When discussing whether there is a separation of the show/program and the commercial, the debate is over when it concerns Viacom interests, "it's really a 24-hour infomercial…every second on the air is selling something…it's a global phenomenon…all about commercializing the whole teen experience, making youth culture a commercial entity that's packaged and sold to people (McChesney, 2001)".
In George Orwell's classic fiction, 1984, the central technique of oppression and control of the population was the absolute control of all kinds of information. Orwell wrote, "Who controls the past controls the future: Who controls the present controls the past". With the corporations having such a monopoly on the various forms of media this statement seems extremely poignant. Another writer of fiction who has prophesized the dangers and potential control of society was Aldous Huxley. In his book, Brave New World, Huxley writes:
"A really totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned… " (Huxley, 1946, pp xv)
This could be achieved, Huxley believed, by new technologies offering, "a greatly improved technique of suggestion…by the dissemination of drugs, by mass spectacles to unify experience and feelings…(Huxley, 1946, xvi)". All depends on the confining of experience and awareness to predefined patterns (Eagleton, 1991; Huxley, 1946). With so many younger people receiving their news information from TV and having the political issues presented to them in a filtered and channeled manner (Rushkoff, 2001) it is "a troubling notion…the idea that our references are so commercialized now that all our dissidents, all our autonomous voices, are getting their cues from MTV on how to revolt (McChesney, 2001)". Mander writes that even back in the '70's, on an average evening, more than 80 million people would be watching television, 30 million of these would be watching the same exact program. In special instances, 100 million people may be viewing the same program at the same time…. The confining of experience and awareness to a population that loves it (Mander, 1992).
In a 1958 Congressional Report submitted by Edward Hunter, author and correspondent to the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-Fifth Congress, titles: Communists Psychological Warfare (Brainwashing), they have based their technique of brainwashing primarily on the total abandonment of morality. "No man has ever been brainwashed whose mind has not been first been put into a fog (Hunter, 1958 pp 17)". The report continues in explaining about the necessary components of successful brainwashing, including the feelings of tenseness, violence and hypnotism (Hunter, 1958). Many researchers use these same terms in describing the type of programming available on TV and how the viewing audience is affected (Janas, 2000; Kaufman, 2000; Landay, 1995; Mander, 1978; Mander, 1992;Murray, 2000; Postman, 1985). The Webster's Dictionary definition of the term brainwashing includes this: "persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship (pp 133)".
Copyright 2001