Harmful effects
of advertising can be indirect, delayed, and cumulative.
Harmful effects
of advertising can be indirect, delayed, and cumulative.
When we realize dangers exist, we take precautions. Even extreme risk-takers (firemen, sky-divers, mountain climbers) prepare well to avoid harm while doing dangerous things.
Forewarned is forearmed. "Praemunitas, praemonitas."
Some dangers are very easy to recognize because they are direct, immediate, and obvious. Parents play an important role in teaching children the obvious dangers to avoid.
Other dangers (such as chemical and mechanical) are not easily seen, but, once identified, societies can create laws designed for the common good. For example, when the dangers of DDT, PCBs, lead-based paint, and asbestos were finally understood, these were banned in the United States. When cars or tires are found to have mechanical defects, our consumer laws now require the manufacturers to recall them, to fix them or replace them.
Assume advertisers will intensify the good about their product; but, also assume that they will downplay the bad.
Don't expect advertisers to inform you of the harms involved, unless they are forced to do so, often by a disclosure law or a government regulation. In the United States, most existing disclosure laws about these direct, immediate, and obvious harms went into effect during the consumer reforms of the 1970s or before. Not every nation has such laws, nor do the American laws cover everything, nor are they adequately enforced. But, some protections (especially health and safety) are offered by such restrictions and warnings.
However, unrecognized harmful consequences still exist -- for the individual and for a wider society --because they are often indirect, delayed and not obvious.
Critics of advertising
(although they recognize the useful aspects of advertising) are basically concerned
with the harmful consequences, the disadvantages, the unwanted and unintended
"side-effects."
Most critics focus on the direct and obvious harms to the individual,
often subjective: being annoyed
by too many ads; being offended
by vulgarity, sexism, racism; being deceived,
or misled, being taken advantage of, or losing money.
Other critics deal with the indirect and less obvious harms to the individual: personal problems psychological harm (frustration, envy, discontent), family stress, debt cycle, health and obesity) to the individual and the family. For example, in 2003, there were 1.6 million personal bankruptcies, an increase of 10% over the previous year, due primarily, according to analysts, to the delayed results of the spending spree of the late 1990s and the subsequent economic recession.
Teachers and students need to identify their own opinions and
feelings, to sort out these "harms" by kind
(direct or indirect, immediate or delayed, possible
or probable) and degree (from minor
annoyances to major danger), to recognize overlaps and omissions, and borderline
cases.
Diagnosis of "what's wrong" may help a prognosis of "what to
do."
Many harmful consequences to society can come from seemingly "invisible" causes, unseen, less obvious, less visible because they are gradual, cumulative, slowly developing over the long term. Consider some of the subtle indirect "hidden harms" of ads, such as: Environmental Problems (consumption, waste, destruction of natural resources, pollution); Social Justice (issues about affluence and poverty; "Haves" and "Have-Nots"); and the negative effects of Materialism (both from a religious and secular view).