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Monday 5 December 2011

Is Advertising Harmful?





Is advertising harmful? Medical experts in the north east of England have called for tighter controls on the advertising of alcohol. They have seen a 400% increase in the number of people in their early 30s admitted to hospital with liver disease caused by alcohol abuse. Research shows that advertising encourages children to start drinking earlier and to drink more. Year 12 General Studies students can use this example to help with the ‘Market’ section of their unit on Conflict. Read the news article and post your thoughts:
• Is advertising harmful?
• Should we blame advertising for issues such as alcohol abuse?
• Can advertising be said to benefit consumers? How?

20 comments:

Aneta Nowak said...

I think that it is harmful. People see adverts as examples of a perfect life they should have and it leads to situation like alcohol abuse. People start drinking alcohol at the age they might not understand the consequences of it, and advers are partly responsible for this as they show alcohol as a good thing and persuade people to buy it.

Alex Cotton said...

I think that advertising is as harmful as we, as the public, are willing to make it. You could argue that advertising alcohol promotes people to buy alcohol, but isn't that exactly what it is intended to do?
I believe the best way to combat drinking problems in young people is for the parents to be more responsible when teaching their children about alcohol at a very young age.
What we need to take into account that, no matter how many adverts you see for beer, a minor cannot purchase it. This must mean that somebody is buying it for them and they must be to blame right?

aamir mir said...

i think tyhat advertising is harmful as when people see them they want that product and advert for things that cause harm such as alcohol can be harmful as it makes the consumer want that product making them cause harm to themselves. adverts make out that the product is a bad thing when actually it is a bad thing

Ussi Sheikh said...

I believe advertising is harmful to a certain extent. People who watch adverts are easily mislead into making the wrong decisions.
Alcohol is a good example of this, we see way too many underage drinkers these days due to the way it's advertised on TV. Cigarettes are never seen advertised on TV, the same should apply to Alcoholic drinks.

Anonymous said...

I believe that some adverts can be harmful to certain groups of people or maybe even society in general.But I believe that we should not blame advertising for issues such as alcohol abuse. I believe that advertising does play its part but there are other factors.I don't believe you should blame one party for everything. Advertising can be said to benefit consumers as it is the consumers choice on what they buy.

Amanpreet Kaur said...

I think that advertising can be harmful however it can also be useful. This is because, due to advertising people can find out about deals and offers that businesses have and therefore save money.
However, some advertising can be harmful. These are the adverts that promote under-age drinking and are a harm to individuals and the society.

Kieran Beautiman said...

I think advertising is harmful as people look at adverts and try to see themselves in the advert as like a fantasy.
the best way to combat drinking problems in young people is for the parents to take responsability in their childs actions.
Alcohol is promoted by adverts so it is harmfukl as they are promoting to us as the audience to buy beer and have a good time because of it sometimes not mentioning the down sides of it.

Anonymous said...

People believe that all advertisements are harmful to society and younger generations. The reason is that because of how products are portrayed in adverts, people want more than they can afford causing financial problems like debt which can quickly become a spiral of debt that is hard to climb out of. It makes them feel inadequate if they don't have that object. Children begin to fall under the impression that they can have everything they want. It is only after personal experience with money that they learn differently so until then they are are become increasingly affected by these advertisements.
Kane Steel

Katherine Olive said...

I think that advertising can be harmful in that it promotes greed, materialism and misleads viewers with the belief that purchasing a certain product can in some way improve their life. This is apparent in advertisements for alcohol, cosmetics and fashion especially.
It provides false aspirations, alcohol adverts now only show the social aspect of the product, which can lead many people into associating drinking with being to only way to have fun and never shows the consequences due to the effect that may have on sales.

football team said...

i dont think its harmful because its not really promoting alcohol as it is showing the audience what they can buy. if people dont want to drink it then they shouldnt buy it. Also if people are starting to drink at the age of 10, then its not the childs fault as the parents are encouraging the children to drink so therefore its the parnets fault and not the advertising!

Lee Maran said...

i think that advertising is not harmful. As you the viewer get the choice to what you buy. The adverts are just informing you about the products on the market. plus adverts bring a huge income and a huge tax. therefore if we dont have adverts would we as viewers have to pay more Tv Licenses?.

Sidrah Ansari said...

I think advertising, in this cases is harmful because, it is promoting alcohol, in a positive light and people are more likely to buy bad thing is drinking from an early age.

lisa pieniazek said...

I think advertising is harmful as it makes you want items that you can't necessarily have/ need e.g if you don't have enough money to buy the latest gadgets. Some of the advertisments for alcohol are showing it in a more positve way than negative making people think that it is alright to consume rather than showing the side effects.

Aariffa Ijaz said...

I think that advertising is harmful because it promotes greed. Adverting can be misleading and in this case alcohol is only represented in a positive way. Only the beneficial aspects are shown, so the viewer is made to belief that there are no negatives. The consequences aren’t portrayed as advertising is all about promoting the product so the viewer is attracted to buy it.

Andrew Buckingham said...

I think advertising can be harmful, people will see an advert and think that is how people should live, that is what people should be like, therefore they go buy the product to be like that.
To combat drinking problems in young people i believe the parents should take responsibility and teach your child about it when they are at a young age.

Jake Askham said...

I think it is harmful. When the public view an advert we are affected more than we know. Most adverts try to show perfection and therefore we try an emmulate that perfection. But because nothing is perfect it means we are trying to get something that doesn't exist and therefore end up disappointed. Adverts such as cigarrettes and alcholol are the most harmful ones because these products have a negative effect on your life, and if you take these to the extremes they can end up killing you.

Curtis Hammond said...

Yes I do think that it CAN be harmful, but only if we allow to be. An example of what I am trying to say would be seeing how women are 'supposed' to look in their 'perfect' image, one person would be Victoria Beckham; she is a huge role model among Europe and America and when she went through that phase of fitting into size 0 clothes a lot of the female population tried to emulate this figure and when they came to realise that they couldn't (or found it difficult to) get to this stage, they resorted to bad ways of losing weight; ultimately this leads to illnesses such as bulemia and anorexia, therefore this aspect of advertising is harmful.

emma b said...

I believe that advertisimg is harmful to some but not all as it all depends on the way in which the publive percieve it, such as an alcohol advert promotes it it a positive light unintentionally.
However in most other cases is seen a a major benefit for the public as it reduces licemce fees and gives companies an easy way to expand their buisness.

Anonymous said...

Advertising is harmful because it makes people want to buy things such as alcohol or cigs even though they damage our bodies. Adverts tempt us into buying things like that.

Sohail :p

Anonymous said...

Advertising is harmful because it makes people want to buy things such as alcohol or cigs even though they damage our bodies. Adverts tempt us into buying things like that.

Sohail :p