Is Advertising Good for Society?

Professor Dllas Smythe described commercial media as a system for delivering audiences to advertisers. The creation of a consumer society, materialism, and high expectations conflict with many cultural expectations, histories, and social systems in many countries where advertising is considered a Western, capitalist construct. John Calfee takes the yes side on the issue of whether or not advertising is good for society. He thinks that advertising is very useful to people and that the information that advertising imparts helps consumers make better decisions. He maintains that the benefits of advertising far outweigh the negative criticism. Contrary to his belief, Dinyar Godrej defends the no side to this issue. He believes that advertising doesn't really tell us anything new about products, but instead, it acts upon our emotions to create anxiety if we don't buy products.

John Calfee focuses on how the information in ads benefits consumers, Advertising functions in the public's interest, and that even the controversies about ads can be beneficial because they can result in competitive pricing for consumers. A thorough understanding of how advertising functions in society, and as an industry that is responsible for billions of dollars annually, helps form a person's views on the impact of advertising in their lives, and in the lives of others. It also helps to think about what products are advertised and to whom. It should also be noted that there are many forms of advertising.

Dinyar Godrej does a great job of reminding us that there are many subtle styles of influence that go beyond the initial knee-jerk reaction to advertising as a harmless by-product of industry in the twenty-first century.

To keep the cost of newspapers down, to help deliver "free" TV and radio to the public, ad to help consumers understand what issues were important in society. Many defenses of advertising relied on helping consumers make more informed decisions about how to spend their money. But over the years, the real impact of advertising has been more critically considerate. Since the growth of technologies that are more individually used, like the Internet, the advertising industry has responded with a far more complicated structure to attract attention, and a far more complicated system of appealing to audiences they consider are most easily persuaded.