integrating theory--dialogue
15 years ago
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Truth and Corporations
In chapter 20 Stan Deetz' little story on page 229 really opened my eyes. He makes a great point about truth. He talks about the cereal boxes of his children's favorite cereals, on the box Kellog's put information and illustrations of happy children and all the health benefits of the cereals. They chose only to put the good aspects of the cereal and ignored the bad. I love that Deetz made his own labels for the cereals with the whole truth on it. It made me think about one of my guilty pleasures, taco bell. I know that fast food is horrible for me and I have heard that they use the lowest grade of meat allowable, but I still go. They leave out all of the negatives from their advertising and leave only the positive to suck people in. This chapter really opened up my eyes about corporations and teh impact they have on everyones life.
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2 comments:
That story about the cereal interested me also. It made me think about my responsibility as a parent to pass these concepts on to my son. With great knowledge (the knowledge of thinking critically and going beyond face value) comes great responsibility.
It's interesting to realize that most all advertising is based upon the psycology of buying rather than the benefit of the product. Take your Taco Bell story for example - we all know that the nutritional value is nada, and it may even be harming us more than helping us, but do the commercials tell us that? Absolutely not.
I wonder what would happen if companies worried less about the psychology of buying than they did making the best product possible. I think is would be great.
It's interesting how many times we know we're being persuaded, but still allow ourselves to give in. Like ceezee said, most advertising is based upon the psychology of buying no matter how great or how useless the product is. I find myself falling for a ton of these traps--magazines at the checkout counters (I swear they put them there for me!). The other day I went to Bed Bath and Beyond, and there were sooo many useless gadgets that were advertised to be these great time savers--I was so tempted! And because we know better, we should be obligated to act upon that knowledge, not ignore it... but we're only human. =)
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