"The Corporation" vs. "The Ad and the Ego"

“The Ad and the Ego goes beyond deconstructing individual advertisements to reveal the economic and political dimensions of living in an advertising infused environment. In our “new world order” of diminishing resources and devastating pollution, this film makes the critical connections between the rise of consumerism, environmental degradation and our blind commitment to economic growth at any cost. It forcefully demonstrates the link between our debased public discourse and a media culture that defines freedom as consumer choice rather than democratic participation.” – The Ad and the Ego web site

Question: What do you think is the impact of consumerism on our /your media environment and the public’s ability (or lack thereof) to remain informed?

After watching two influential films, the documentary titled “The Corporation” and “The Ad and the Ego”, I was opened to a wide range of shocking information. It led me to spot the impact of consumerism on our media environment. To start with, consumerism is an important ideology used by most corporations and businesses. Whether we realize it or not, almost all media is owned by some corporation, who misuse this media to the benefit of their marketing. Its as if we are consuming, not what we want, but rather what we are given. After watching the Corporation documentary, it made it much easier to understand how Corporations are greedy, who seek extra benefits and profits for themselves. Furthermore, “the Ad and the Ego” was another appalling video, which helped me understand that we absorb information through some advertisements and less to others; most of the time, this information is absolutely useless.

To start with, “the Corporation” documentary was a powerful way of showing us that most corporations are only interested about the extent of profits and money that are made. Most corporations disguise themselves to look friendly and family-like, however most people fail to understand the gloomy side of these major corporations. Some of these corporations have increased in size and power to such an extent that they even disobey the law and governments. In addition, most of these companies are extremely careless for their surroundings, and are extremely harmful, especially poor countries. People from such nations usually consider these corporations ‘god-like’ and many corporations take advantage of these poor countries. For example, Nike is a company that forces people to make shirts in a small and certain time frame. The workers usually end up getting less than 1% of the total income of that shirt. Lastly, this documentary addressed the fact to how many corporations only present information that is positive and good for them. Most people do not realize this, however this is when the public looses the ability to remain informed on everything.

Moreover, “the Ad and the Ego” was another breathtaking documentary showing us the true meaning of advertisements. The main part of this film that caught my attention was when, they pinpointed how we usually find most advertisements stupid and boring, however, there is a huge industry analyzing and researching for these advertisements. Above all, these corporations are pretty much satisfied when consumers and/or the public have accessed the information. Also, this film emphasized on the revolution of advertisements. Starting in the 17^th century, advertisements were only used to give information about the product. Over a gradual process, this began to change, as there was a mismatch between the consumers and the quantity and variability of the products. Lastly, in order to convince consumers and the public into buying the products of these companies/corporations, they produce many eye-catching, interesting, and humorous commercials. These commercials usually help make people believe that only if they acquired this product, their life will be ‘perfect’. Most of the time, the product fails to do so, as most human beings are greedy, it forces them to buy more products.

In conclusion, after watching both these documentaries, “The Corporations” and “The Ad and the Ego”, I’ve managed to learn a lot about these major corporations and companies and how they are ‘fooling’ their public. There is a wide impact of consumerism on our media environment as it is mainly owned and regulated by these massive corporations. Due to this, the public looses its ability to remain informed about the ‘actual’ information. With the help of both these documentaries we can see that corporations aren’t really what they seem, take advantages of many different weak nations, people, etc., are extremely greedy, and only look for their profits, market ads and commercials ‘forcing’ customers to buy their products, and how they are in a serious competition with one another. This leads to the idea of social Darwinism, and how the fittest and most adaptable will be the one to survive.