Assignment

This course concludes with a look at advertising and the culture of consumerism. You will have the opportunity to choose a product or service and highlight how you have seen it being advertising. You will also have an opportunity in this assignment to explain your thoughts regarding how media affects culture and how you can continue developing your media literacy.

Choose a product or service from these examples:

•Fast food

•Class of consumer product

•Personal care

•Automobile

Research the Internet to analyze how that product or service has been advertised.

Prepare a 15- to 20-slide Microsoft PowerPoint presentation in which you investigate the role of advertising in a culture of consumerism.

Be sure to discuss the following:

•Who determines ethical standards for advertising?

•In what ways has advertising affected American culture?

•What are the key persuasive techniques used in consumer advertising?

Illustrate with specific examples, explaining how each technique works.

•Discuss some of the critical issues that may arise from the following areas: ?Children and advertising ?Advertising in schools ?Health and advertising ?Political advertising

•Find one example of a commercial that strikes you as particularly creative and appealing: ?What are the elements that are unusual? ?What is the target group of the commercial? ?How does the commercial appeal to consumers? ?Why do you believe this commercial to be effective in brand name recognition? ?How are ethical standards met (or pushed to their limits)?

Include detailed speaker notes and images that support your content. Each slide should have 3 to 4 bullets of text which are a high-level overview of what's included in your speaker notes.

You may write the speaker notes in the notes section of your selected presentation tool or in a separate Word document.

List any references on the last slide.