Reading Reading

Made you Look - How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know
Shari Graydon

Another book from Amy's list.

Targeted at kids and teenagers, it's a good grounding in how advertising words. Being an adult and reasonably intelligent, the book didn't really tell me anything I didn't know before. We are constantly being manipulated by advertisers who are quickly running out of new ideas to capture our ever fragmented and fleeting attention. The best thing about this book is the web links to different Canadian and U.S. watchdog groups. Graydon herself is a former president of MediaWatch.

Here are some of the sites I've found interesting.

www.media-awareness.ca
www.mediawatch.ca
www.adbusters.org

It's very troubling to think that things aren't changing but what's worse is that people aren't changing. How many times have I bought into the sterotype that makes me feel inadequate as a woman? How many times have I spent money on something I don't need? Sometimes I feel very vulnerable being in the target age range 18 - 35.