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"Broadcast Culture"
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Noam Chomsky
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Coercion
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Consumerism, Materialism
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Corporatism and "Crony Capitalism"
/By Doc Searls
(The original version of this piece appeared in the January 1992 issue of Upside)
"... PR has the biggest PR problem of all: people use it as a synonym for BS."
"Computer simulations can take on such a sense of reality that spectators are unable to convince themselves they aren’t real. ...
The technique is designed to attack the human subconscious directly, bypassing all the information filters with which evolution has provided us. Orson Wells and the Mercury Theater proved on Halloween, in 1939, when they presented a fictional "War of the Worlds" and terrified half the United States that there are no disclaimers big enough when the sense of reality and potential harm grow large. "War of the Worlds" was peppered with disclaimers, but nobody heard them."
First Things First
"We imagine that we engage directly with the "content" of the magazine, the TV commercial, the pasta sauce, or perfume, but the content is always mediated by design and it's design that helps direct how we perceive it and how it makes us feel. The brand-meisters and marketing gurus understand this only too well. The product may be little different in real terms from its rivals. What seduces us is its "image." This image reaches us first as a visual entity-shape, color, picture, type. But if it's to work its effect on us it must become an idea: NIKE! This is the tremendous power of design. ...
To some, it seemed that the awards with which their colleagues liked to flatter themselves attracted and celebrated only the shallowest and most ephemeral forms of design. For Garland and the other concerned signatories of First Things First, design was in danger of forgetting its responsibility to struggle for a better life for all. ...
In its wording, the manifesto did not acknowledge the extent to which this might, in reality, be a political issue, and Garland himself made a point of explaining that the underlying political and economic system was not being called into question. "We do not advocate the abolition of high-pressure consumer advertising," he wrote. "This is not feasible."
But the decision to concentrate one's efforts as a designer on corporate projects, or advertising, or any other kind of design, is a political choice. "Design is not a neutral value-free process," argues the American design educator Katherine McCoy, who contends that corporate work of even the most innocuous content is never devoid of political bias. Today, the imbalance identified by First Things First is greater than ever. The vast majority of design projects-and certainly the most lavishly funded and widely disseminated-address corporate needs, a massive over-emphasis on the commercial sector of society, which consumes most of graphic designers' time, skills, and creativity. As McCoy points out, this is a decisive vote for economic considerations over other potential concerns, including society's social, educational, cultural, spiritual, and political needs. In other words, it's a political statement in support of the status quo. ...
Meanwhile, in the sensation-hungry design press, in the judging of design competitions, in policy statements from design organizations, in the words of design's senior figures and spokespeople (on the few occasions they have a chance to address the public) and even in large sections of design education, we learn about very little these days other than the commercial uses of design. It's rare to hear any strong point of view expressed, by most of these sources, beyond the unremarkable news that design really can help to make your business more competitive. When the possibility is tentatively raised that design might have broader purposes, potential and meanings, designers who have grown up in a commercial climate often find this hard to believe. "We have trained a profession," says McCoy, "that feels political or social concerns are either extraneous to our work or inappropriate." ...
At root, it's about democracy. The escalating commercial takeover of everyday life makes democratic resistance more vital than ever. "
"The campaign is called "BP on the street" for a simple reason - BP took to the streets and asked people to share their opinions about oil companies and issues like pollution, solar power and global warming. The result is an uncensored account of individual comments and opinions, representative of the entire group."
Believe It Or Not!
BP Launches New Ad Campaign to Engage Public in Energy Issues
5 SEP 2001
"... I surfed through the zillion channels on our satellite system and lost count of all the "security experts" and other middle aged current and former bureaucrats, each running play-by-play scenarios for our inevitable "war" against terrorism, rogue states, Osama Bin Laden and other enemies real and imagined. I only saw two interviews with non-Israeli Middle Eastern talking heads, both of whom urged caution and sanity. (Rather in line with this piece in Salon.) [ " Some Arabs Rejoice, Others Reflect" by Donna Bryson. Salon 12 SEP 2001.]
It's interesting: when the networks stick to covering actual breaking events they can do some amazing work. But when it comes to shedding light on a subject no less important than going to war, they come off as propaganda instruments.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the disconnect between high-level talk about how "America is angry," while on the ground in New York all the talk is about how America is helpful."
"Yahoo is now putting ad banners as news stories. ... No doubt it is a sign of things to come:
the news is the ad. The ad is the news. ... basically they have a list of news stories, and one of them links simply to a page advertising (not surprisingly) X-10. (The people responsible for those incredibly annoying "security"/voyeur camera ads that appear everywhere.) (Have you installed a popup killer on your browser yet? Makes using the Web the enjoyable experience it should be.) The link isn't marked as an ad -- its simply one of the headlines in the news list. It's one thing to have more ads... it's another to simply disguise the ad as actual news."
-- my emphasis -- ed.
![[xcam parody ad from valleyofthegeeks.com]](http://members.tripod.com/~doggo/xcam.gif)
by Mark Corner
Published on Saturday, March 2, 2002 in the Guardian of London
Ouch
by Hadji Williams
AdWeek, 16 January 2002
"...as a going-away present, I leave you with five ways to improve the ad game.
- 1. Ditch the CYA
- 2. End the whitewash
- 3. Quit acting like clients
- 4. Quit looking for formulas
- 5. Grow up
"News flash: Marketing is manipulation for profit. Cigarettes, liquor, cars, fashion, toys — it's all dirty money. We do it 'cuz manual labor sucks. I grew up with drug dealers and pimps — they were honest about their trades. They had to be."
"FUD stands for Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.
It is a marketing technique used when a competitor launches a product that is both better than yours and costs less, i.e. your product is no longer competitive. Unable to respond with hard facts, scare-mongering is used via 'gossip channels' to cast a shadow of doubt over the competitors offerings and make people think twice before using it."
"But what really moved my cheese was his casual assumption that if Nike needs to make more money, of course it should stimulate demand for swooshed shoes among those who could find a better use for their $10. Demand stimulation is one of the things wrong with capitalism although in an affluent society it is merely wasteful and psychologically debilitating. In an impoverished society, it is manipulative, selfish, and pornographic. ...
[Note: The author wishes to acknowledge that the preceding remarks on Nike show a remarkable naivete about the world economy and the nature of capitalism. Thank you.]"
Published on Friday, February 22, 2002 in the Toronto Globe & Mail