Impact
12 years ago
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Lit. blog for 1/29--Culture Jam
In the book Culture Jam, the author states: "In the former Soviet Union you weren't allowed to speak out against the government. In North America today you cannot speak out against the sponsors." Now this obviously isn't a good thing, but I feel it is true. We don't always really have true freedom of speech. For example, in the book, the author tries to get his commercials on tv, however no station will play them. Now you'd think if someone was willing to pay they would gladly show it. The authors commercials spoke out against commercials they were already airing(ex.the logging industry commercial). They spoke out against what the stations had been promoting. The tv stations didn't like that, so they refused to play the commercials. They didn't want to be fair and show both sides. We do not have freedom of speech when it comes to the commercials. There is a middle man deciding whats worth showing and whats not.
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It was interesting to me, as well, to see how decisions are made in the media regarding what can air, and what cannot. It seems that if a commercial or television show goes against the mainstream (or in some way threatens the profits of big business) that it is banned. You're right. This is not freedom of speech at all. It's plain censorship.
ReplyDeleteAs Americans we are granted the freedom of speech. It is odd to me, also, that tv stations were unwilling to take in the ideas of a paying customer. Maybe this is because they were afraid viewers would turn against a business or some other organization because of conflicting views. In most situations people do not like to be challenged so they were most likely a threat to the network because they had a voice and an opinion that challenged their own. No matter the reason, it is not freedom of speech.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and I think it is wrong that certain ads can be denied because they go about the beliefs of other big companies. People are going to believe what they want and I think it is only fair that people know both sides of everything.
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