I'm a huge sports fan, so I must admit that I check ESPN sometimes more than political blogs, sorry @overlord. I was on the ESPN website earlier this week and noticed a huge blowup ad of how Obama had success with the economy and was adding jobs month to month. I thought this was a tremendous yet somewhat unrelated example of drawing people into more important stories through the media. Bennett talked about the failure of the media to link people to more socially and politically relevant information that would inform the public about issues that they could directly utilize. While advertising on ESPN certainly cannot be considered one of the areas Bennett highlighted, (personalization, dramatization, etc..) I thought this was an interesting way to get people to pay attention to politics.
Clearly, the ad was brought in as a way to campaign early for an Obama re-election. One could argue the bias or the sin of "omission" of facts in these ads, but nonetheless, what an interesting concept. I know that campaign advertising occurs on a massive scale and branches out pretty far, but to see a political ad on a popular sports website was intriguing. Perhaps encouraging is a better word. Encouraging to see that through advertising on popular entertainment media, consumers may be simultaneously informed about what is happening on the campaign trail or in the world of politics. It seems to be a nice balance that may relate to what Bennett is talking about. Let's utilize people's entertainment interests to simultaneously give news information. This way, were not force feeding people news (they can visit any entertainment site they choose), but were not relying on market pressures to give people important political information. Just some food for thought.
I'll admit that I was playing a game on my phone the other week during the buildup to the Florida Primary, when a Romney ad suddenly popped up on my screen. It took me by complete surprise, as I didn't even know that was at all possible to do. I didn't necessarily think of it as an encouraging sign that people would be informed about politics. Instead, it made me think of the massive amounts of money it takes candidates to pull something like that off, whether on mobile phones or the ESPN website. Due to our marketplace model of media, I'm by no means criticizing this fact. It just brings to mind the fact that in politics today, money might not necessarily equal speech, but it certainly allows access.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this for some reason your idea sounded alot like when in the 40s news reels and speeches would be shown to people before the movie. I think it would be a great idea to have something like this maybe even a news half hour on every channel. I beleive they use to do that I dont know about you guys but I remember Nick News with Linda Everly maybe stuff like that would be helpful I dont know just my thought when I read this. And I think i wouldnt mind watching a short news segment during the commercials while I am watching the Mets play
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I read this I was thinking what a brilliant idea. What better way to reach out to those who care less about the political scheme of things but by advertising on things you know they look at such as sports channels,drama shows, etc. By doing the candidates chance for reaching out to voters they hadnt before could be done. Like this one
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