Blog #9b: Critical Concepts Dictionary

Artist and guest speaker Darren Martin, advocates that “consumers are the controlled products of television.” Unlike other theorists, Martin blames television as the main culprit of advertising corruption as opposed to big corporations. Consumers use television as a means of entertainment without realizing that “popular entertainment is propaganda for the masses.”( Martin) Viewers absorb the products and trends within the entertainment world and attempt to imitate them. This act of imitation is orchestrated in order to keep up with the entertainment world’s version of the status quo. Whether this imitation is done consciously or unconsciously, it is apparent that multiple aspects of consumer life are being determined by television. In other words, media events are only something that happen because consumers make them happen. The media softens events and trends that may have previously appeared as unreasonable, and encourage consumers to experience them firsthand. By continuing to thrive off the media’s messages consumers fund the continuation of their own brainwashing.