Anfernee Raine,
Lora Strey,
Composition 101-12,
November
24th 2014
Speaker to the Voices in
Your Head
Have you ever noticed that there is something quite
peculiar about the media. Its not them or the information that they are putting
out there but it is how the people are responding to it. It seems like no
matter what is said on the air or written in news articles, people do not find
it appropriate to question any of the messages being sent. In the article “The
Braindead Megaphone” the writers speaks about social situations that are
dominated by people with a larger voice and how this affects the people
listening. He uses the metaphor of a party to talk about a person who is
forcing his ideas on other subconsciously through the use of a megaphone. (Saunders
1958) The megaphone is the metaphor for a larger voice like newspapers or blog
posts. His representation shows how ideas can be spread in a much more
aggressive manner. In this way people can push their suggestions and opinions
on others. The scary part about this method is that the ideas are fed to them
in such a way that the people affected believe that they are their own. This is
the effect of the brain-dead megaphone.
From the information in “The Brand-dead Megaphone”
article we can see that it is fairly easy to plant ideas in to people’s minds
and get them talking about what you want. This is fairly true in real life when
you get down to it. Just think of how many commercials you’ve probably seen
advertising some kind of product that no one for any reason would ever really
need. These commercials are clever though! They make sure to show how much
everyone in the commercial is excited about the product and it makes it click
in your mind as “Wow, it must be great if they all like it so much!” This is
how companies make their profit. Making it seem like they are already a hot commodity.
Companies have been making lots of profits through the
subliminal messages that have become so popular. Since the 80s people have
always been looking to the media for the latest in dieting fads and crazes. Fitness
has become a craze in America and it is growing larger as the media continues
to press it’s ideals of a perfect body
weight and what foods should or should not be eaten. “With the obesity epidemic
that is currently going on in the United States, fitness and weight loss has
been growing in popularity, if not becoming an obsession, for Americans.”(
Fitness 2014) Lately gluten has been the main thing to avoid in a “perfect”
diet. “Gluten is to this decade what carbohydrates were to the last one and fat
was to the ’80s and ’90s: the bête noir, the bad boy, the cause of all that
ails you—and the elimination of which can heal you.” (Kluger 2014) Companies
are using this fad as a way to market themselves towards health enthusiasts who
get all their information about dieting and healthcare from celebrity magazines.
They even market items that never contained gluten to begin with as “gluten-free.”
Somehow this manages to make it more appealing to people because well, “it has
to be good for me if its already that healthy.” This is a prime example of how
the media controls how people think.
Works Cited
"Eat More Gluten: This Fad
Must Die!" Time. Time. Web. 26 Nov. 2014.
<http://time.com/2912311/eat-more-gluten-the-diet-fad-must-die/>.
"Fitness Industry Analysis
2014 - Cost & Trends." Fitness Industry Analysis 2014 - Cost &
Trends. Web. 26 Nov. 2014.
<https://www.franchisehelp.com/industry-reports/fitness-industry-report/>.
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