"This is significant when we consider that the most essential product of the advertising industry is hunger. That is, commercials are intended to create a feeling of lack in the viewer, a deep ache that can only be assuaged by purchasing the product. As Dr. Neil Postman, chairman of the Department of Communications Arts at New York University, points out, “What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer.” So we hand our children over to Madison Avenue to be told, hundreds of hours a year, how hungry, bored, ugly, and unpopular they are and will continue to be until they spend (or persuade their parents to spend) a few more dollars. And then we wonder why our children feel so hungry, bored, ugly, and unpopular, and why they are so needy.”
From Simple to Remember - ”Commercialism”“Cable aside, the television industry is not in the business of selling programs to audiences. It is in the business of selling audiences to advertisers. Issues of “quality” and “social responsibility” are entirely peripheral to the issue of maximizing audience size within a competitive market.”
http://www.simpletoremember.com/article ... ercialism/
See also Simple to Remember - ”The Dangers of TV”
http://www.simpletoremember.com/article ... elevision/
See also Simple to Remember - ”Television Addiction is No Mere Metaphor”
http://www.simpletoremember.com/article ... ger_SCIAM/
See also Simple to Remember - ”TV has made nation complacent, Gore says”
http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/tvgoreopin/