The Center for Public Integrity is Watching the Watch Dog...

Dunbar explains theories in his article, Who's Watching the Watchdog about how the industry and government are essentially working together to build big business and industry in the Multi-media and entertainment industries. The Center for Public Integrity is an organization that is in place to watch over policies made by the FCC and wants to make sure that they are making fair policies that the public is informed about.

The "Spinning Door" theory refers to people in government positions for the FCC moving jobs and being hired directly within the industry and vice-verse. The example used in the book refers to Dorothy Attwood who began as chief of local telephone regulation at FCC and then moved to SBC as the senior vice president for federal regulatory strategy. Dunbar summarized the problems by stating that moving between government and industry jobs is not illegal, it causes issues because proprietary information that is confidential may be compromised and used in this new position. There are policies in place that are suppose to prevent such issues from happening, however in the FCC, because Attwood did not work a high enough position, she was overlooked and was able to work immediately.

"Frequent Flying" refers to members of the FCC that accepted travel and entertainment gifts from big media telecommunication and broadcast organizations. These gifts included anything from tickets to games to "frequent flier" miles, which is where this theory gets its name. This article/theory highlighted examples of FCC members taking over $8.2 million dollars in these gifts. The problem comes when one considers how FCC officials can make unbiased and objective decisions that will benefit all, when they are constantly being courted and bought by industry executives. For example, "FCC officials took 330 such trips to Las Vegas during the period, 173 to New Orleans, 102 to New York and 98 to London"(136). Dunbar states it best when he states that "the trips are unseemly and represent and improper coziness between FCC officials and the businesses they regulate" (137). In simple terms, FCC members were using organizations to pay for trips, which create and uneasy relationship that would not necessarily allow members to do their jobs effectively. The practice was viewed as wrong, rightfully so. Essentially, "frequent flying" is bribery.

When some one speaks about things done "Behind Closed Doors", they are usually refering to things done privately, out of the public eye. The same applies for FCC officials and industry executives. These meetings allow FCC officials and broadcast industry executives to discuss policy reform in private. This does not contribute to the idea of democracy. Called "ex parte" meetings, they are allowed by the FCC and are not recorded. They are closed door meetings that FCC outsiders must put in notice to attend. Essentially, meetings and issues are covered out of the public eye so that there are no interferences between the industry and manipulating the issue.

Posted in an article by Cnet news on December 2, 2008, Free Press is another organization that is pushing for Obama to persuade the FCC to prioritize an Open-Net policy and to make news channels and radio stations more local again. The most I see concerning reforms within the FCC currently are articles appealing to Obama, highlighting the fact that change does need to occur. The immense media coverage shows me that people are beginning to be more concerned with the policies that pass and affect us all.

Is it or is it not cool?

Media and marketers understand that the demographic of young people, teens in particular between the ages of 13-17 are impressionable and spend the most money in our economy. Young people in the United States spend billions and billions of dollars each year. With media, advertisers, and marketers constantly competing for the attention of the public and the youth in particular, people have become immune in a sense to advertisements and marketing efforts. These days, products and brands just become lost in the "sea of messages" American society drowns in everyday. Although traditional advertising and marketing tactics are failing, professionals are adapting and creating new tactics that penetrate the minds and inner beings of the consumers. With the new neuro-marketing that has entered the scene, consumers are being persuaded more than ever to make unnecessary purchases and to be loyal to particular brands based on the campaigns they put out.

In keeping with the theme, the teen demographic is the most profitable of them all. Marketers have realized that if a brand can identify with or as something that is cool, The brand will be promoted, the company will make a profit, and people will seek to purchase the product and/or service. Marketers have done much research and studies to try and figure out what is cool and what makes things cool, and how things become cool. The media has generally been successful in this endeavor and many times have determined what is cool based on what they feel mirrors teen culture and teen ideas. The question then forms as to whether media and marketers have mirrored teen desires, lifestyles, and actions, or if they have begun to manufacture teen desires. Personally, I feel as if the media and marketers have begun to manufacture teen desires. Media marketers have used nuero- marketing techniques to identify with consumers and to create a culture that will persuade them to purchase and act according to a product, a brand, and/0r a lifestyle.

Branding has become ever so important in our society. People associate brands with better products concerning food, drinks, clothes, shoes, and accessories. Although this is an issue concerning everyone, it seems especially common for young people and teens. I remember when I was was in middle and high school, and I remember asking my mom to only buy my Tommy Hilfiger, or U.S. Polo, or DKNY, or other name brands that essentially make the same clothes as the no name brands. Young people felt at that time and more than likely still do to identify with branding as being a part of a particular culture. I do still like name brands and designer clothes, but I have since grown out of this stage. However, the obsession with Nike seems to be an excellent example to highlight as brands become a culture and promote a lifestyle, so much as so that people almost ignore the product. When speaking with my friends about Nike, they agreed with me also in saying that even though you aren't an athlete, the Nike commercials make you want to exercise, make you want to push hard, and make you want to pursue a sport. Nike has created a culture of determination and unity among athletes as far as promoting that you give it all you got, all the time, and that Nike can help you do that.


Even though this commercial depicts pain, it unifies all athletes with the idea that sometimes your all isn't good enough. It shows that glory and achievement is painful. One must push past the hurt!


This video is an example of the competitive athletic culture Nike promotes. It makes you want to be an athlete and work hard.


An example highlighted in the advertising/marketing video we watched was Sprite. They noted that Sprite built a culture around it's brand, having direct correlation with hip-hop, which at the time was cool and steered the cool factor among teens.

Branding and creating a brand culture is not the only tactic used by marketers to claim this money filled demographic. A tactic that was not very influential to me but what penetrated many youth was the idea of a Cultural Character. An example of this would be characters on the show Jack*ss. By appealing to young, teenage boys, marketers are able to promote a "cool" lifestyle that ultimately works to sell products and lifestyles.

Narrow-casting is word choice. This is when marketers or public relations practitioners work to choose words that a target demographic or audience is most receptive to. The most notable example I can thing to use was the entire political campaign during this election. Politicians catered their messages specifically for select audiences, changing the language so that people could more thoroughly identify and understand the messages they were sending out. I will not highlight one over the other, because narrow-casting can be found acted upon in both parties. This is definitely an effective way to penetrate consumers and to get them to understand and to do things in the desired way.

To conclude, all the tactics I mentioned were used in my era, and are still being used today. For future marketing, narrow-casting would be ideal. Using word choice to reach specific audiences is effective because once marketers know how their audience thinks, they can put out messages and promote products that will "solve" their problems. The question then is, are marketers "solving" problems or making more? I also am considering what can happen beyond narrow-casting and using word choice, and how it can change to being specific to change messages per groups of people. For example, a tide commercial would have a commercial catered to parents, another to students, another for men, for women, etc. The future of marketing seems to be more and more direct.

Marketers continue to pick the brains of the public and to invade any personal space, creativity, and thoughts left in our culture. The media and marketers claim to promote diversity and to contribute to culture, but in some ways, I think it is taking away.