If you read the articles produced by the Postconsumers team with regularity, then you’ve certainly heard us use the words “Consumer Media Machine” repetitively. (And if you don’t read our articles regularly, here’s a great place to get started!). We thought it might be nice to step back and fully clarify what we mean when we refer to the Consumer Media Machine. It’s a concept that we often, as a society, don’t think about in a larger picture sense.
The Consumer Media Machine Starts in the Media
Of course, the origin of the Consumer Media Machine is the media! Starting with print publications and then developing through radio, television and eventually internet, the world’s media needed to make money. While subscription charges would have been the ideal, it soon became obvious that the reach of any form of media was greater than the number of people who would pay to receive it. The obvious choice of media for a monetizing strategy was to sell advertising. After all, they had the eyeballs that companies needed. And, at first, it wasn’t a problem that media outlets sold advertisements. That was largely due to the fact that the average person spent a limited amount of his or her time viewing mass media.
But Then Media Grew…And Grew and Grew And Grew
We don’t need to tell you that there’s a huge difference between a lifestyle where listening to the radio for an hour an evening with an average of three to five ads is a luxury time versus the reality of 2013. Today, the average person spends more than four hours a day watching TV and up to seven hours per day online. All of that time is spent predominantly on media outlets that present advertisements. One might argue that the time spent is irrelevant because people are more aware of and savvy about advertisements than they used to be. However, advertisers are just as smart and keeping up with an evolving consumer demographic.
The Consumer Media Machine Goes Well Beyond the Media
That’s because media advertisements don’t often look or feel like advertisements any more. That Facebook page you’re reading? What is it really suggesting that you do? (Chances are the motive is related to the goal of an advertiser). When you see a movie, are you reacting to the choice of soft drink or chain coffee shop that the characters go to when you make your next purchasing decision (studies would imply that you are). Advertisements don’t necessarily look like advertisements in today’s media machine, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not operating like advertisements.
Even If Ads Look Like Ads, Saturation is Still Effective
In some ways, it doesn’t even matter if an advertisement looks like an ad or if it’s more subversively done, because the sheer volume of time that most people spend being exposed to mass media means that they’re being incrementally exposed to advertising messages with regularity. Even if you think that you’re not looking at that ad to the right of the news column that you’re reading online, your brain is still seeing it and processing it on some level. The next time that you’re hungry, thirsty or in need of “retail therapy,” there will be a trigger in your brain. It’s called brand awareness, and it’s why advertising and marketing agencies spend so much time making sure that they own media real estate.
Media Drives Societal Standards
Even beyond overt advertisements, however, the media plays an even bigger role in shaping our consumer culture. The images that the media shows, the values it endorses and the lifestyles it glorifies all drive how youth (and adults) view the world, happiness and personal satisfaction. Spending less than fifteen minutes flipping through television channels or visiting the most trafficked internet websites will quickly reveal that these media outlets aren’t rewarding or promoting responsible, thrifty or even middle-class lifestyles. Depictions of large tvs, upper-middle class to wealthy lifestyles and fashion and trend-setting styles is the norm. The idea of “validation through stuff” is the predominant theme of the life portrayed by media outlets.
Of course, this makes sense. Without that lifestyle portrayal, media outlets couldn’t deliver the right consumers to companies. The soap opera phenomenon is an example of this. Advertisers like to advertise products aimed at women during these television hours. The women portrayed on these shows are glamorous and upper-class. Viewers then aspire to meet the standards that they see and therefore respond favorably by association to the ads.
How Can You Stop the Consumer Media Machine?
You can’t stop it – you can only exit it! More importantly, you can help to raise a future generation that doesn’t buy into it. Here are the two most important steps.
Set a Media Diet: In today’s world, it really is nearly impossible (unless you have the option of living entirely off-grid) to completely check out of the media machine. But you can limit yourself by controlling how much media you expose yourself to willingly.
Be Educated: Make sure that you and those around you understand the consumer messages that the media is sending. Once you experience awareness, it’s easier to step away from them.
Photo Credit: Asian Development Bank via Flickr
