Anonymous asked this question on 12/6/1999:

Discuss any 3 positive and any 3 negative influences of advertising on Society. Illustrate with example.

Explain the link between education and business.

Those two question is not my homework.I am going to have my Social Envirnment exam soon, the questions are from my past year paper. Hope that you can give me some ideas how can I answer those question.

Thx

Ivanka gave this response on 12/6/1999:

Here is an answer I provided for an exam once:

Through examining advertising messages, it has become obvious that advertisers are really trying to sell more than goods and services. Rather, they are striving to sell messages about how people in society should live their lives. Here is a breakdown of messages I interpreted from a number of different magazines which target a variety of audiences. In Chatelaine, which targets women, I found advertisements selling the following: love, sex, convenience, social status, happiness, youth, freedom, independence, beauty * reoccurring themes of physical attractiveness leading to attention from men and other women

The culmination of my research is that advertisements give an underlying message about how people should live their lives. They show people the “ideal lifestyle” and use this to sell their product. The unattainable is suddenly within consumer reach for the exchange of a few dollars. People are being convinced that their dreams can come true through goods. They can be beautiful and exuberant like the girl wearing Revlon, intelligent like the businessman using Hewlett Packard products, and socially popular like the kid wearing Nike shoes. As human beings are being replaced by “consumers”, they accumulate items they think will improve their quality of life. Confused by their lack of fulfillment, people continually fall into the trap of the media representatives effective in their campaign of “buying happiness”. It is through this crusade that we hear a message of not being good enough the way we are. Our widespread emptiness is attributed to not having enough and this creates a viscous cycle of trying to fill our discontented souls with possessions.

* advertising leads to people developing unatainable dreams which can lead to things such as eating disorders, bankruptcy, low sel-esteem, and crime.

Positive aspects of advertising (although I personally don't believe there are many could be: = increased revenue for companies and the economy = informative/educational = can promote good causes

I'm not sure what you mean by your second question. I'd have to know what you are studying. Instead, I've located a resource for you called "Ask Geeves". You may be able to find your information there. It is a search engine where you ask a question and they give you some links to follow.

http://www.askgeeves.com/

Hope this helps. Ivanka