It may be true that adverts are not supposed to lie, but really

aren't we supposed to be smart enough and critically astute enough to listen and understand?

I'm sorry, a small rant. I just got off the phone with a grown woman who claimed productX had to be the best because their commercial/advertising says so. I asked her to quote the advert, "nothing is better than productX, not even productY!"

Please tell me most of you catch that it doesn't mean productX is better than productY, right? It means they are even. Right?

Tell me you know that when adverts say, "preferred by 4 out of 5 X-type professional (ie dentists, doctors, etc)", it's generally because the professionals get freebies for themselves and their patients/clients. For example Oral-B products.

Please, Please tell me, that most of us can actually hear what's being said and that we can understand it critically instead of faithfully.

actually it was part of our psychology class but the whole quarter was spent going over advertising and recognizing tactics used to rope people into buying something they didn't need or previously want. It was a very informative class. But to answer your question I would say most do not know how to recognize when they are being 'sold.' Which to me explains the popularity of Fox News.

sleights of words have become. It's down right embarrassing.

integrity and veracity is what keeps the whole machine running as it has and does.

I agree with the French Philosper, Baudrillard, that the impact and scope of modern media and entertainment, and the way Western culture has utilized it to create a virtual reality that has become rather ubiquitous to the point that people have a hard time discerning between the traditional real and the hyperreal.

In this onslaught, over generations, the hyperreality of the Simulation wins hands down since it subsumes everything and, (as it should be becoming obvious at this point) and continuously regurgitates self-serving permutations of history, culture, etc., etc.

How can we expect the average person to resist such a vast, enveloping cloud, (how many movies per year? How many channels?) of aggressive, hypnotic, repetitive manufacture of consent and conception where the masses live in a corporately designed reality and, in lieu of exercising their imagination and critical thinking, live in a trip designed and crafted in someone Else's boardroom or mind? And who are the most richly rewarded and even idolized and worshiped among us in this exchange of labor, (earnings) for media, movies, sports, and various forms of distraction and entertainment?

Oh, but it is not just distraction in the way that it shapes, molds and influences opinion, beliefs and choices, is it?

While I do advocate pulling away from the media-at-large, I am not saying that one has to be a purist about it. Moreover, it is the gaining of a perspective on the alarming infestation and cultural influence the glowing blue rectangle and its related armada have. Without a collective accord on the media factor and a realization of its ulterior motives, I don't see much positive transformation or even survival or freedom surviving this incessant wave of electronic influence and subtle control.

I advocated for a class in responsible media. Never happened though.

Whenever I have time off from work I disconnect entirely. No internet, no TV, no movies. It's liberating.
I send my kids to a Montessori school that specifically does not have computers. I want them to have lots of time to imagine and invent on their own. However, I admit to encouraging them to write stories and make movies. If you're going to live in a dream world better to live in your own dream.

Bleach is chlorine...a frigging element. You can't have good chlorine bleach and inferior bleach...it is molecularly identical! However, for years Purex and Clorox waged advertising wars that made them brand names. When more and more people wised up and generics became available, they started adding scents, experimenting with different bottle styles, and other ways to disguise the fact that any bleach will do exactly the same job.

Before all the new pain medicines were available, you pretty much had the same story with aspirin. Generics were chemically identical, so they advertised the heck out of them, added "tricks" like special coatings of "buffered" them (which may or may not have had any effect).

People can reason these things out, and most do understand. However, just because Clorox isn't better at bleaching whites doesn't mean that there aren't valid reasons to buy it. For some people, evaluating the claims isn't worth the minor savings. For others, it is a quasi-placebo effect, "my clothes are cleaner, I can tell" when they can't--but they are happier for mere pennies a washload.

I think people should be more critical on bigger purchases, but I think the opposite is true--not many generic cars around, even generic PCs seem to have peaked a decade ago. I could go on about the iPad, but it won't change the Padaphiles minds--filling needs you never had is what advertising is all about.