"Advertising is legalized lying." - H.G. Wells
I confess that I do not understand the motivation of my colleagues in higher education who instruct young, impressionable minds in the art of advertising. To me, it flies in the face of the critical thinking skills that we should be imparting to our students. As some scholars have noted, advertsing is viewed as "an enemy of the classroom" because of the conflicting ethics and goals of teaching when compared to advertising (Funes, 2008, p. 159). Education seeks to engage people for the purpose of enlightening and improving their knowledge base, whereas advertising is trying to engage consumers for the sole sake of selling products that are consuming our finite resources and polluting our world.
Of course, the principles of advertising by which people are targeted to desire a product or service can be used for good. As the BBC series Century of the Self (2002) points out, pushing the emotional buttons of large populations can be used to advocate for change that can benefit humanity or at least keep order, though it seems that news media is more often responsible for that than any clever series of public service announcements. I'm thinking specifically of iconic imagery such as the 1972 photo of nine-year-old Kim Phuc Phan Thi fleeing a napalm attack during the Vietnam War. Still, advertising can also be used to deter people from destructive behaviour, such as distracted driving, or to draw attention to the importance of de-stigmatizing mental health issues. And if higher education is being honest with itself most post-secondary institutions spend a lot of money of advertising to attract students by playing on emotional connections around prosperity, job security and community.
Funes, V. (2008). Mirror images: Popular culture and education, Counterpoints, p. 159-177
I confess that I do not understand the motivation of my colleagues in higher education who instruct young, impressionable minds in the art of advertising. To me, it flies in the face of the critical thinking skills that we should be imparting to our students. As some scholars have noted, advertsing is viewed as "an enemy of the classroom" because of the conflicting ethics and goals of teaching when compared to advertising (Funes, 2008, p. 159). Education seeks to engage people for the purpose of enlightening and improving their knowledge base, whereas advertising is trying to engage consumers for the sole sake of selling products that are consuming our finite resources and polluting our world.
Of course, the principles of advertising by which people are targeted to desire a product or service can be used for good. As the BBC series Century of the Self (2002) points out, pushing the emotional buttons of large populations can be used to advocate for change that can benefit humanity or at least keep order, though it seems that news media is more often responsible for that than any clever series of public service announcements. I'm thinking specifically of iconic imagery such as the 1972 photo of nine-year-old Kim Phuc Phan Thi fleeing a napalm attack during the Vietnam War. Still, advertising can also be used to deter people from destructive behaviour, such as distracted driving, or to draw attention to the importance of de-stigmatizing mental health issues. And if higher education is being honest with itself most post-secondary institutions spend a lot of money of advertising to attract students by playing on emotional connections around prosperity, job security and community.
Funes, V. (2008). Mirror images: Popular culture and education, Counterpoints, p. 159-177