Moral Responsibility of Advertisers
"Advertising exists primarily to persuade people to buy things—it is not there to educate, it is there to persuade. However, as a form of mass media, with huge reach, advertising has a unignorable real impact on how people think and feel about certain groups in society."
Do you think that advertisers have a moral duty to avoid stereotyping people? Justify your position.
I don't think that advertisers necessarily have a moral duty per se to not promote stereotypes as I do acknowledge that their superficial goal is to make money by appealing to the audience so that they buy their products. Furthermore, it is understandable that advertising firms turn to stereotypes because they have to advertise to such a large demographic that, the effective or quickest may is to resort to stereotypes in order to appeal to the largest part of that aforementioned population. However, that does not go without saying that advertising firms can be careless or ignorant when designing their ads– they need to understand that they are providing to an audience that is constantly consuming advertisements and media and that unconsciously, that constant exposure to stereotypes, sexism, racism, objectification and other detrimental approaches to advertising do have an effect on their audience.
This constant exposure to the aforementioned in advertisements will start to, an extent, manipulate the audience into shaping their self-perception and start to change themselves in order to fulfill the societal expectations that have been shaped by the perpetration of stereotypes. Such consequences can lead to girls changing their physical appearance either to a simple extent like constantly shaving or lead to a physical alteration (for instance, a surgery to create the appearance of a double lid). Although it can be understood that advertisements promote and epitomize beauty chiefly as a Western white woman that is tall and slim with large eyes in order to sell their product, it can't be assumed that all of their audience will identify with said beauty standard. This, on the one hand, creates effective advertising because no one realistically fits that beauty standard and thus, will be persuaded to buy the product in order to look that way. However, such effect is much more detrimental because women will constantly be surveying how they look, judging themselves, altering their appearance to fulfill a certain beauty standard. This can result in a lowered self-esteem.
Given that customers are constantly consuming media, it also can could potentially be assumed that advertisements are dictating public values, which implicates a great responsibility because these values are essentially what shape public modern ethics. Often times, unfortunately, stereotypes are used to create money at the expense of damaging society's moral compass. In my judgement, I once again confirm that firms don't have a responsibility or moral duty to stop using stereotypes but they need to at least be more careful with using stereotypes because they have a greater ethical responsibility. By perpetrating stereotypes, minorities are continuing to be marginalized, simplified and even dehumanized to an extent. This may encourage the absence of exploring an individual's complexity and simply labeling them with a stereotype. Advertising firms need to be aware that they have the power to lead to this detrimental stage in society.
In conclusion, firms do not necessarily have a moral duty to stop using stereotypes because they have the right to make money in order to fulfill their role. Nevertheless, in a society that is constantly consuming media, they need to be aware that they hold great power over the strings that move and shape public opinion, ethics and morals. All of this needs to be taken into consideration when they are advertising, and thus, they should tread with more awareness and care when they are publishing their ads.
I don't think that advertisers necessarily have a moral duty per se to not promote stereotypes as I do acknowledge that their superficial goal is to make money by appealing to the audience so that they buy their products. Furthermore, it is understandable that advertising firms turn to stereotypes because they have to advertise to such a large demographic that, the effective or quickest may is to resort to stereotypes in order to appeal to the largest part of that aforementioned population. However, that does not go without saying that advertising firms can be careless or ignorant when designing their ads– they need to understand that they are providing to an audience that is constantly consuming advertisements and media and that unconsciously, that constant exposure to stereotypes, sexism, racism, objectification and other detrimental approaches to advertising do have an effect on their audience.
This constant exposure to the aforementioned in advertisements will start to, an extent, manipulate the audience into shaping their self-perception and start to change themselves in order to fulfill the societal expectations that have been shaped by the perpetration of stereotypes. Such consequences can lead to girls changing their physical appearance either to a simple extent like constantly shaving or lead to a physical alteration (for instance, a surgery to create the appearance of a double lid). Although it can be understood that advertisements promote and epitomize beauty chiefly as a Western white woman that is tall and slim with large eyes in order to sell their product, it can't be assumed that all of their audience will identify with said beauty standard. This, on the one hand, creates effective advertising because no one realistically fits that beauty standard and thus, will be persuaded to buy the product in order to look that way. However, such effect is much more detrimental because women will constantly be surveying how they look, judging themselves, altering their appearance to fulfill a certain beauty standard. This can result in a lowered self-esteem.
Given that customers are constantly consuming media, it also can could potentially be assumed that advertisements are dictating public values, which implicates a great responsibility because these values are essentially what shape public modern ethics. Often times, unfortunately, stereotypes are used to create money at the expense of damaging society's moral compass. In my judgement, I once again confirm that firms don't have a responsibility or moral duty to stop using stereotypes but they need to at least be more careful with using stereotypes because they have a greater ethical responsibility. By perpetrating stereotypes, minorities are continuing to be marginalized, simplified and even dehumanized to an extent. This may encourage the absence of exploring an individual's complexity and simply labeling them with a stereotype. Advertising firms need to be aware that they have the power to lead to this detrimental stage in society.
In conclusion, firms do not necessarily have a moral duty to stop using stereotypes because they have the right to make money in order to fulfill their role. Nevertheless, in a society that is constantly consuming media, they need to be aware that they hold great power over the strings that move and shape public opinion, ethics and morals. All of this needs to be taken into consideration when they are advertising, and thus, they should tread with more awareness and care when they are publishing their ads.
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