Advertising as Capitalist Realism
Advertising, as the early agency Lord and Thomas put it, is "salesmanship in print." It is just that simple, just that complex. Understanding advertising entails understanding the difference between personal and printed or broadcast communication; the differences entailed in the "decontextualization" of thought and feeling that systems of mass communication make possible. With the invention of writing in human history, anthropologist Jack Goody observes, "Speech is no longer tied to an occasion: it becomes timeless. Nor is it attached to a person; on paper, it becomes more abstract, more depersonalized." For Goody, this opens the way to science, to the growth of criticism, and to a more tolerant attitude toward one's own frame of reference. But the same forces that enable people to see themselves as individuals independent of social and traditional contexts make people susceptible to the appeals of mass media, including advertising. This is an openness or susceptibility qualitatively different from the householder's vulnerability to the direct sales pitch. Among other things, it connects the consumer not only to an item for sale and a person selling it but to an invisible, yet present, audience of others attuned to the same item for sale and the same symbols used to promote it. The advertisement, like the sales talk, links a seller to a buyer. Unlike the sales talk, it connects the buyer to an assemblage of buyers through words and pictures available to all of them and tailored to no one of them. Advertising is part of the establishment and reflection of a common symbolic culture.
Children and Commercial Persuasion: An Attribution Theory Analysis
This article studies children's levels of understanding of television commercials and the associated effects upon attitudes and purchase request tendencies. Attribution theory, with its focus on perception of intent , is the research framework. The results suggest that when a child attributes persuasive intent to commercials, he believes them less, likes them less, and is less likely to want the products advertised.
Monitoring and Optimization of Internal Grinding Process
Summary The grinding process is influenced by many factors such as grinding wheel characteristics, dressing conditions and, course, grinding conditions. Therefore, it is difficult to perform the grinding operation in an optimum state. In this study, in-process monitoring methods using power and acoustics emission sensors are proposed to detect malfunctions in the internal grinding process. In addition, a new internal grinding cycle featuring rapid indeed is proposed to minimize the grinding cycle time.