Who To Be and Who I Am

I've spent some time to understand, or kind of clarifying, the relationship between advertising and inner voice. To be clear, Voice Ball is not a social commentary about advertisements' impact on human nature. However, my intention in doing this scope of study is to ensure that commercials are the accurate medium used to reflect or represent the social voices.

• Psychologists think advertising is a source of learning or conditioning;
• sociologists see it as establishing role models and as impacting social behavior;
• anthropologists view it as ritual and symbols, giving meaning to artifacts and other objects;
• educators are concerned with its influence on child development, and
• communication scholars often equate it with propaganda and analyze its role within the mass media and its influence on the media. 

- From the article "The Social and Cultural Effects of Advertising" by Jeremiah O'sullivan R.

What makes our behaviour is our value. What makes our value is the culture that we immersed into. From culture, the system that forms the way of living give birth to some rule and regulations in the community that tells you the do's and don'ts. In another word, they are the voices generated from the social structure. Like it or not, in our life, we are directed to follow this pathway to define the rights and wrongs, the success and failure, what is a relationship, identity, achievement, and the list goes on. They are all different forms of expectations, from family, friends, colleagues, and with most impact, from the society.

The persuasive agent of advertising makes us agree with the product proposition. When the conversation starts, we tend to talk to ourselves - if I were to consume this product, this is who I can be, what I can achieve, who I will attract, where I will stay. As for the less aggressive commercials, they turn around to tell us who we should be. Aren't all these expectations? Before we can even identify what we need and who we are, the consumerism world has already tell us who to be. The shaping process begins quietly without our alert. The question is, how can we get our inner-self expressed?

Reading material: The Social and Cultural Effects of Advertising