|
|
||||||||
| Advertising is just one agent of socialization that emphasizes the notion of the other. They are a vital part of marketing; an effective ad is essential in order to sell a product. When foreign cultures, particularly Africa, are represented in any type of ad, they are exploited. Assumptions are made by producers that fit their own goals for their own product. As a result of this, a commodity sign, an image that can be associated with a certain place and a certain product, is born. When producers make broad assumptions to fit their own advertising goals, consumers, often without even realizing it, form beliefs and ideologies around those assumptions. These beliefs are based upon empty pictures. The people that are in these empty pictures have a different story. Those that are in the ads are from an array of different cultures. They are placed in situations that are uncommon to their lifestyles, and often receive money for their posing. Their culture is commodified.
Images of Africa can be found in many other agents of socialization. Films, books, news stories, magazines and others show Africa in a certain way. The same signifiers are used over and over again: the sunsets, wildlife, beaded elders. African culture is treated as the 'other.' Times have changed since colonialism and slavery, but it is still an 'us versus them' attitude. Although the language has changed, the attitude remains the same. The other needs help and the westerner sends money to assist them. The other is primitive, underdeveloped and uncivilized; the other lives in a world that the westerner can escape to. There are no cities, no tall buildings, no corporate executives in the land of the other. Westerners travel to these countries expecting to see high populations of wildlife and vast open plains for them to ride through in their sport utility vehicles. It is a land to take pictures of, to make a spectacle out of. This is evident not only in advertising, but in all agents of socialization. There is no foreseeable end to the way in which westerners treat the other. Thought processes and belief systems have been embedded into western culture for hundreds of years and advertisements and other agents of socialization today only enforce and legitimize these beliefs. |
||||||||
|
||||||||