This is the last entry you can comment on for the first half of April.
This writer makes the interesting claim that the airwaves are something that citizens all own and that when advertisers use them, they have some civic responsibilities to fulfill in return. Who should be in charge of the airwaves? Businesses? The government? Some other independent body? What can we do about the enormous influence that money has on the democratic process? Is it possible to rein in the sometimes negative influence of political advertisements? Would knowing who is buying them help?
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This article seemed to have a really strong point about the issue. It is strongly against the media making a lot of money out of political campaign. I agree with the article, but I think that the author went a little bit too far when he suggested that teachers should make their students participate in the campaign against this. However, I do not see any other solution to this problem.
ReplyDeleteI do not remember political campaigns in the TV when I was little, I think that this elections were the first one where politicians had a massive campaign in the media. Everybody is used to the advertisement on the sides of the roads, I have become so numb that I do not see it anymore. Advertisements are therefore a much stronger weapon in a campaign.
I agree with the article that television owners should post the names of the people paying for the advertisement, it would definitely discourage some people from buying advertisement. However, since this would damage the profit television has from the advertisements, I think that this will not happen.
I agree with Janka that this article is against the media to make a lot of money of the political campaign. I totally agree that the writer made it really a bit too strong when he suggested that the students should participate in the campaign, persuaded by their teachers. Persuading the young and forcing them to do something is easier to persuade the adults because young people tend to be more likely to get influenced by foreign issues. Who should be responsible? Well that is a good question, because I wouldn’t vote for business because it is more than obvious that they would only want to make out money. The government would “behave the same” I guess. So I think that it should be in charge of some other independent body. Though, it is not sure that they wouldn’t also want the money. I completely agree with Janka that the “advertisements are a strong weapon in a campaign.” Simply, the world wide businesses know what they are doing to achieve what they want.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Sabina and Jana writing that, it’s a bad thing to make the students do a research on who is buying the political advertises. It may seem harsh to force students to do something, but it’s basically, what we do all the time in school. We research information and collect the data. The only difference is that it’s against the plutocrats, who are described in the article as people, who run Big Media and Congress.
ReplyDeleteIn the article it is mentioned, that the airwaves are owned by the citizens. When, for example, a political side uses the airwaves to advertise themselves, they have civic responsibilities to accomplish in return. I personally think that this is a fair way of trading with the airwaves, something for something. Additionally, It would help to have an independent body to be in charge of the airwaves. I share my opinion with Sabina and Jana, stating that it’s a great idea to give citizens online access to find out, who is buying our elections.
At the end, every attempt to try to do something about the enormous influence of money on the democratic progress would be either, totally destroyed by the plutocrats or only little would change. However, I would definitely, establish laws which would create a limit on the amount of money a political side can use for advertisement. Moreover, I think knowing who is buying the advertisement would definitely help people to choose which political side they want to elect since for me it seems suspicious that how badly the plutocrats don’t want people to know.