Reader Maggie adds this interesting observation:
This is true also of watching tv, listening to the radio (not quite as much NPR), reading magazines, and going to movies where there are previews and popcorn. The product is not the TV show, radio show, news article, whatever. The product is you and you are being delivered to the "sponsor" at a price per expected consumer.
I am on Facebook, though selectively, and I teach a class on social networking to novice computer users. When I tell them that Facebook isn't a community service, they are genuinely surprised-the concept that people can make money off their information is a very foreign one. There are at least a few people in each class who walk away choosing not to use Facebook. Though they do like social networking sites like Goodreads and the like.
ReplyDeleteMe neither.
ReplyDeleteI love how well the message is delivered there.
ReplyDeleteStory's first held this magic but now the libraries (and dare I say the theaters)are dying while Facebook is booming because folks believe they are staying current and making tangible connections by 'reading their walls', 'surfing the web' to 'visit sites', 'voting' on things, etc. (mostly prodrule content)
Except that this experience is almost entirely a product of the imagination. Just like how my brain somehow believes that I somehow have a friendship with Johnny Carson - because of all the time 'we' spent together.
Do we need to leave a chair to live? Having tried both, I prefer reality but I can rarely afford it.
And that's when you install Google Ad Blocker.
ReplyDeleteThis can be enlightening for most:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com/docs/about.html
It takes a look you in the way any website can...
This is true also of watching tv, listening to the radio (not quite as much NPR), reading magazines, and going to movies where there are previews and popcorn. The product is not the TV show, radio show, news article, whatever. The product is you and you are being delivered to the "sponsor" at a price per expected consumer.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting observation, Maggie. I've added your comment to the post.
ReplyDelete:.)
@Maggie
ReplyDeleteInteresting indeed. Your comment brings to mind Marshal McLuhan's observation about the medium BEING the message.
Have you ever read Jerry Mander's "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television"? It's interesting, especially seeing Mander's lifelong career in advertising. I've often wondered if it's his mea culpa or a rejection of that career. Anyone know anything else about Mander?
I don't know anything about Mander, but I do know that I read the book when it came out and was so impressed that I bought a second copy.
ReplyDeleteYou're the first person in decades I've encountered who has mentioned that book.
It was a great read at the time. I should read it again.
Yes, Mander's "Four Arguments" is definitely worth a second read - especially in our now even more media-saturated age than when Mander wrote. We got rid of our TV years ago; not for any great moral reason or anything - we were just so busy with other things (my wife) or prefer reading or radio (me) that we found we weren't watching it enough to justify the cost of monthly satellite service. Even our daughter just downloads and watches whatever she wants, with NO COMMERCIALS!
ReplyDeleteOf course, we knew this in the beginning, back in the days of broadcast television. We discussed it to death in radio, trying to sell an audience to an advertiser. But now we pay money to get cable TV signals and have to sit through more ads than ever. Magazines still charge a cover price, then are found to be full of ads. They get us coming and going.
ReplyDeleteThere is an important difference between watching a movie and Facebook. Say I'm watching a movie on free network TV. I walk away at the end of the movie and nobody knows anything more about me than they did before it started. I watch a movie on cable and the only one who gets any knowledge about me is the cable company, since I pay my bill and they deliver the service to my house. I watch a movie at the theater and the theater has a credit card receipt - or, if I paid cash, they know nothing. I'm not giving the movie theater a picture of me with my best friend on Mt. Hood, or telling the movie theater that I "Like" Chipotle, or any number of personal, small, yet important details about myself. They don't just want your eyes, like a TV commercial. If they did, they would just sell ads. They want YOU, your information, your willingness to publicly declare loyalty to a product/brand.
ReplyDeleteI was on Facebook, I'll check back in about 10 years. One of the primary goals of advertising is to make the viewer discontent and sad (in order to offer/sell "the solution"). We don't watch ads in my house.
ReplyDeleteoh, so animal farm wasn't about an animal farm? ...hmh.
ReplyDeleteThis post made my day.
I understand the point being made, but funnily enough I don't see the problem. All they want is to target advertising at me, and thus get revenue from the advertisers. So what?
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