The first paper to get a grade for this semester! There are four from this semester still floating around in a professor's computer waiting to be slapped with a grade.
Finally, the boost of confidence needed - just in time to tackle an 18 page behemoth...and with just 16 days to go...
Let's not forget the three other papers left to write.
Um, sure...no stress.
This is the first time this many papers have been put off this close to deadline. Good thing graduation is just a mere few weeks away...(but wait, what's that about getting a second degree?! More on that later...)
Here is it, as requested by one Mr Charles Bivona (of Facebook, Twitter and Blogging fame), in all of its 98% glory. The instructor for the class (Advertising and Society) is a tough cookie, and the topic chosen turned out to be logistically difficult in stringing together concepts to create a coherent argument, so the grade was a surprise. Of course now that it's done it looks ridiculously easy.
[as an aside, The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life by Kenneth J Gergen is a good read]
Access PDF via GoogleDocs: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0L6-YMPxtu7cjM0eEphSklNbDQ/view?usp=sharing
or read it here...
Information Glut as a Catalyst
of the Fragmentation of Self: Implications of Advertising
of the Fragmentation of Self: Implications of Advertising
In The Saturated Self Kenneth Gergen
focuses on social saturation caused by technologies themselves as the
forerunners to increasingly fragmented self identity. However apt Gergen’s
argument may seem, there are byproducts of the relationship between people and
technologies that may be the real perpetrators. One such byproduct of
technology and human relation is the increased abundance and dissemination of
information and knowledge through information technologies. As much as there is
an abundance of information, so is there a wide range of types. This critique
will focus on a particular kind of information, which is that created by
advertising. The position is that it is information itself that impacts
identity control, not necessarily technologies. Rather, it is the ways in which
information is created, distributed and processed through technologies that
proliferates ostensible fragmentation of self identity.
Each stage
of the technological revolutions - from printed words, to radio and film - has
changed the shape of information and society[1],
including how we understand and manage self identity. Focusing on information
technologies, a connection can be created between advertising and the
fragmentation of self identity in the post modern world. There are also strong
implications for its nurturing of the “[...]populating of the self, [as well
as] the acquisition of multiple and disparate potentials for being”[2]
as it fosters dissonance and anxiety in identity control.
As cable
television meant the end of shared cultural experience through nightly news[3],
so does information technology further contribute to the loss of cohesive
shared experiences, facilitating the fragmenting of self. New advertising
strategies attributed to the rise of information technologies and
computer-mediated environments may extend this further, not only propagating
it, but catering to a fragmented identities in society.
Advertising as Information and Culture
Advertising
is a form of marketing communication and a medium of information. Advertising
provides information about a product’s capabilities and characteristics, but it
also informs culture through the use of symbols, creating “cultural materials”,
cultivating and confirming stereotypes, influencing how we understand ourselves
in the social world, as well as impacting the perceptions of the world in which
we live.[4]
The primary way in which we receive these information messages is through
technologies, which have progressed from print to today’s information
technologies. Whether we acknowledge it or not, advertising information affects
the subconscious, which guides our cognition in our self-identification
construction.[5]
Reflecting
on the writing of Karl Marx, Neil Postman, in Technolopy, proposed that technologies influence people’s
perception of social and mental life[6],
which in effect influences culture. As Gergen further illustrates,“emerging
technologies saturate us with the voices of humankind”[7]
and these voices, whether they be in the form of entertainment, advertising, or
social interaction, carry information messages. The exposure to these vast
range of messages can lead to loss of coherent identity and to the
fragmentation of self identity, “increasing sensitivity to the social
construction of reality”[8],
thereby increasing anxiety as we struggle with information that does not
conform to our concept of self in a process called cognitive conservatism.[9]
The messages
and information of advertising continues to change, mirroring the evolution of
society.[10]
With the growth of information technology, advertising messages continue to
become more about the consumer of the product than the product itself,
pandering to the insecurities of the target audience.[11]
Advertising uses “cultural cues to communicate fairly complex messages [...]
exploiting stereotypes and cultural references”[12]
further capitalizing on anxieties of fragmented self-identity.
Evolving
Advertising as Catalyst
There is a
sweeping shift in our exposure to advertising information, as well as
advertising’s exposure to our information. As marketing moves away from a
traditional approach[13],
developing new strategies like niche or target advertsing, taking advantage of
innovations like cookies, tracking pixels, and developing emotional analysis
software[14],
the ability to cater to aspects of the fragmented self identity increases and
persists. As technologist David Weinberger asserts, “by pulling together
implicit data from multiple sources, marketers can avoid being fooled by our
lopsided self-presentations on any one site”.[15]
This not only validates the fragmentation of identity but facilitates the
maintenance.
However, it
is not perfect validation just yet. As Nikhil Seith wrote in an article for
AdWeek, while meaningful messages cannot be crafted if identity is not
understood - which is achieved through data - so far marketing isn’t doing an
adequate job. Cookies aren’t really enough. The answer, according to Seith, is
The Internet of Things - wiring your physical world to your digital world in
order, which will combine increasing amounts of fragments and craft a more
cohesive identity.[16]
Therein lies the holy grail of advertising in its quest to profit from the
satisfaction and validation of every theoretical fragment of self.
Social
Influence of Advertising Information
A technology
focused and saturated society is a condition of ”culture [and] a state of
mind”.[17]
Gergen asserts that saturation by technology is contributing to the reformation
of society, and that this has implications on knowledge and information.[18]
As the shape of knowledge and information becomes an increasingly social
construction, involving networks of people, so does the dissemination of
cultural information inform an even greater population.[19]
Cultural
information provided by advertising is further distributed by the ever growing
population of social networks, through visible relationships constructed with
products and services by following the accounts, and by activities such as
“likes” and “retweets” and “thumbs up”. These types of valuable “peer
recommendations”[20]
also reinforce the messages, giving new authority to the cultural claims of
advertising and its information
Through the
new network of knowledge not only do previous authorities on information lose
the “singular” power of their voice[21],
contributing to “the erosion of authority”[22],
but the amount of information is expanded.
The revitalized authority of advertising messages in the hands of the
masses, incorporated with the vast networks afforded by information
technologies, leads to “dynamic” cultural influences and “multiple cultural
knowledge systems” which individuals employ to “understand, interpret, and
behave” in any given situation.[23]
Given the multiple contexts of the world and information that information
technology provides, “no transcendent voice remains to fix the reality of
selves [into place]”.[24]
The Influence of Information from Advertising Relationships
In the
information fueled world of the technology focused society, the definitions of
reality become redefined,[25]
including definitions of self and identity, creating platforms through
which “a barrage of new criteria for self-evaluation”
are realized.[26] Further, expectations are redefined due to
increased information which “may also disrupt the social and psychological
processes underlying identification through which individuals come to
understand who they are as persons”.[27]
As Gergen
states, “the technological achievements of the past century have produced a
radical shift in our exposure to each other” pushing people closer, subjecting
them to growing numbers of populations,
which propagates unimagined relationships.[28]
There is an endless juxtaposition of information messages from diverse social
groups competing with those of companies and products through advertising. This
increases the amount of cultural information, cluttering media and culture[29]
with complex arrays of cultural messages about who a person is or should be,
which increase identity control anxieties.
Interaction
with products and brands through the aforementioned social networking fosters
the “manifestations of relatedness” in which “face-to-face encounter[s]” and
“reciprocal interchange” become irrelevant in fostering and maintenance of
valid relationship paradigms.[30]
Gergen warns that “[...] one must be prepared for the possibility that media
figures do enter significantly into people’s personal lives”.[31]
This effectively plays out in celebrity endorsements and ‘celebrity as brand’
where personalities essentially become the brand or product.[32] There is an undeniable allure and power of
celebrities as a persuasive power.[33]
By using celebrity to forge “genuine, long-term relationships” brands create
“meaningful ways to engage customers” by infusing “genuine personality in their
brand” or product and cultivating a bond.[34]
This creates an environment in which a consumer can have a perceived
relationship with entertainment personalities, particularly through social
networking. The cumulative effect of this advertising strategy creates a
significant informant of a branded personality whose messages can have a
powerful impact on the fragmented construction of self identity, “allow[ing]
customers to makes a statement about who they are”[35]
through their relationship with the brands.
All social
situations, whether it be “non-digital” or information technology-mediated, are
environments where “we make ourselves intelligible to each other” while
gathering “[information of] others’ patterns of being”.[36] Brands strive to create relationships with
consumers[37]
through advertising strategies such as branded personalities, creating a
plethora of identity information, and therefore become a further catalyst to
the construction of self identity.
Understanding ourselves through interpersonal
relationships, group affiliations, and advertising messages[38] -
sometimes presented by a figure who is influential on an interpersonal level -
continually adds to, influences, and changes the information we have available
for identity control. While all of these social relationships may be seen as a
catalyst to the “multiphrenic condition [...] in which one swims in
ever-shifting, concatenating, and contentious currents of being”,[39]
it is still the information
provided that is used to guide, shape, and instruct self identity.
The Rational
In Gergen’s
postmodernism sphere, we are doubtful about who we are, “dismantled” and
lacking any “real and identifiable characteristics – such as rationality,
emotion [...] exist[ing] in a state of continuous construction and
reconstruction”. Accordingly, this postmodern dystopian perspective encourages
the “[...] populating of the self, reflecting the infusion of partial identities”[40]
creating environments in which Gergen claims there is no essence of self to
remain true to.[41] Gergen attributes this phenomenon to social
saturation, but it may be something more; it may be the seemingly disordered
heap of information that technology
encourages, and it may be a reasonable response to the circumstance.
The
fragmentation of self may be a completely rational and natural outcome in the
domain of an advanced technological world experiencing a glut of cultural
information. Drawing from a modernist perspective of self, where “knowledge of
the world is built up through observation [and] it is not by virtue of heredity
that we are who are, but by observation of the environment”,[42]
we can infer that our environment influences and shapes our identity. We are
what we see, hear and learn. We are what we are exposed to, and if we are
exposed to scads of mixed information messages over time, then we become
fragmented. Therefore, varying cultural messages, which influence us subconsciously[43]
will shape identity and corresponding gradients of self. To put it plainly, rather than understanding
identity as being an innate inherited construct, we can recognize it as
flexible. Just as we have learned to “juggle multiple principles of [information]
organization [in the networked world] without even thinking about it”[44],
over time so have we learned to monitor and implement aspects of identity, while in some instances, becoming overwrought
with the violation of our sense of identity.[45]
Gergen’s assertion
is that “the fully saturated self becomes no self at all”[46]
and that technology which leads to social saturation is to blame. This smacks
of “technodeterminism”, attributing the fragmentation of self to new
technologies gives technology authority and power.[47]
We are not being “made” by technology, even though its influence can certainly
be seen as a factor. It is not
technology, nor simply the social aspects perpetuated by it; it is the
propagation of and exposure to its information, the glut of it, that fragments
our sense of self.
To better
clarify, if it was purely a social issue, and one was exposed to one hundred
people in an echo chamber, fragmentation would be unlikely compared to being
exposed to one hundred people with twenty different polarizing viewpoints.
Ergo, social saturation does not guarantee a fragmented self identity.
Conclusion
In a
rejection of Gergen’s usage of the term ”multiphrenic condition” and “unlimited
multiplicity”, what he sees as “multiplicity” can be defined as “adjusted self”
and is just one coping mechanism used when presented with a challenge to
identity, like incompatible demands, in which an outcome can be a redefined
identity.[48]
People have always had to maintain separate “selves” - i.e. work self, family
self, social self - “performing a variety of roles” throughout any given day in
a process called identity management.[49]
It is true that information
technologies, such as social medias, intermixes these places or states of
identity - for instance causing your “work identity” and “social identity” to
collide - causing friction in maintaining all of the so-called “selves” a
person must sustain as they move not only through the tangible world, but the
digital as well. The condition of which he speaks is not that of separate
identities, but gradients of a single identity that society encourages the
individual to compartmentalize in order to be accepted.
Gergen
asserted that “[Information] technologies of social saturation are central to
the contemporary erasure of individual self”.[50]
However, they may not actually be an erasure. These technologies, and more
aptly the information produced through these technologies, may add, or simply
alter “an individual’s sense of self”[51],
encouraging self realization and reinforcing self perception while influencing
all aspects of their identity.[52]
Additionally, information technologies create opportunities, “enriching our
potential for seeing connections and understanding things in contexts we have
never considered” before.[53]
In this way these technologies are an enhancer, not an erasure. Perhaps the
answer lies in a more sophisticated understanding of the impacts of advertising
information on self identity, the opportunities new technologies afford, and
the recognition of the consequences of errant acceptance of vast array of
messages that society is bombarded with every day through information
technologies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes
[1] Postman,
Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of
Culture to Technology. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. 67.
[2] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 69.
[3] Weinberger,
David. Everything Is Miscellaneous: The
Power of the New Digital Disorder. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2007. 130.
[4] Bartholomew,
Mark. "Advertising and Social Identity." Buffalo Law Review 58 (2010): 931-76.
[5] Bartholomew,
Mark. "Advertising and Social Identity." Buffalo Law Review 58 (2010): 938
[6] Postman,
Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of
Culture to Technology. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. 21.
[7] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 6.
[8] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 16.
[9] Adler,
Ronald B., and Russell F. Proctor. 14th ed. Australia: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2014.
45.
[10] Reilly,
Terry Edward, and Mike Tennant. The Age
of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture. Berkeley, Calif.:
Counterpoint :, 2009. 162.
[11] Postman,
Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of
Culture to Technology. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. 170
[12] McChesney,
Robert Waterman. "Does Capitalism Equal Democracy: Advertising." In Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is
Turning the Internet against Democracy, 41-46. New York, New York: New
Press, 2013.
[13] Weinberger,
David. Everything Is Miscellaneous: The
Power of the New Digital Disorder. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2007. 118
[14] McChesney,
Robert Waterman. "Does Capitalism Equal Democracy: Advertising." In Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is
Turning the Internet against Democracy, 41-46. New York, New York: New
Press, 2013. 157.
[15] Weinberger,
David. Everything Is Miscellaneous: The
Power of the New Digital Disorder. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2007. 163.
[16] Sethi,
Nikhil. "The Future of Advertising Hinges on Understanding Identity."
AdWeek. December 9, 2013.
[17] Postman,
Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of
Culture to Technology. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.71
[18] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 119.
[19] Weinberger,
David. Everything Is Miscellaneous: The
Power of the New Digital Disorder. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2007.
[20] McChesney,
Robert Waterman. "Does Capitalism Equal Democracy: Advertising." In Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is
Turning the Internet against Democracy, 41-46. New York, New York: New
Press, 2013. 157.
[21] Weinberger,
David. Too Big to Know: Rethinking
Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the
Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room. New York: Basic Books, 2011.
[22] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 16,
[23] Hong, Ying-yi, and Desiree YeeLing Phua. "In Search of
Culture’s Role in Influencing Individual Social Behaviour." Asian Journal of Social Psychology 16
(2013): 26-29.
[24] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 138.
[25] Postman,
Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of
Culture to Technology. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. 48, 60.
[26] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. Xix, 76.
[27] Nach,
Hamid, and Albert Lejeune. "Coping with Information Technology Challenges
to Identity: A Theoretical Framework." Computers
in Human Behavior, 200, 618. *citation of Burke, 2000
[28] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 41, xi,
53.
[29] McChesney,
Robert Waterman. "Does Capitalism Equal Democracy: Advertising." In Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is
Turning the Internet against Democracy, 41-46. New York, New York: New
Press, 2013.
[30] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 170,
155-156.
[31] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 56.
[32] Reilly, Terry Edward, and Mike Tennant. The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our
Culture. Berkeley, Calif.: Counterpoint. 2009. 221.
[33] Reilly, Terry Edward, and Mike Tennant. The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our
Culture. Berkeley, Calif.: Counterpoint :, 2009. 227.
[34] Reilly, Terry Edward, and Mike Tennant. The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our
Culture. Berkeley, Calif.: Counterpoint. 2009. 268, 221.
[35] Reilly, Terry Edward, and Mike Tennant. The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our
Culture. Berkeley, Calif.: Counterpoint. 2009. 221. 196.
[36] Gergen, Kenneth J. The
Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY:
Basic Books, 2000.4, 69
[37] Reilly, Terry Edward, and Mike Tennant. The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our
Culture. Berkeley, Calif.: Counterpoint. 2009. 242, 268.
[38] Bartholomew,
Mark. "Advertising and Social Identity." Buffalo Law Review 58 (2010): 931-76.
[39] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 80.
[40] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 7, 49.
[41] Gergen, Kenneth
J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of
Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 4, 138.
[42] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 41.
[43] Bartholomew,
Mark. "Advertising and Social Identity." Buffalo Law Review 58 (2010): 931-76.
[44] Weinberger,
David. Everything Is Miscellaneous: The
Power of the New Digital Disorder. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2007. 11,40
[45] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 17.
[46] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 7.
[47] Weinberger,
David. Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge
Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest
Person in the Room Is the Room. New York: Basic Books, 2011. 173-174
[48] Nach,
Hamid, and Albert Lejeune. "Coping with Information Technology Challenges
to Identity: A Theoretical Framework." Computers
in Human Behavior, 200, 618-29.
[49] Adler, Ronald B., and Russell F. Proctor.
"Communication and Identity: Creating and Presenting Self." In Looking Out/looking in, 51-58. 14th ed.
Australia: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2014.
[50] Gergen,
Kenneth J. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas
of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 49.
[51] Nach,
Hamid, and Albert Lejeune. "Coping with Information Technology Challenges
to Identity: A Theoretical Framework." Computers
in Human Behavior, 200, 618.
[52] Gonzales, Amy, and Jeffrey Hancock.
"Identity Shift In Computer-Mediated Environments."Media Psychology
11, no. 2 (2014): 167-85.
[53] Weinberger,
David. Everything Is Miscellaneous: The
Power of the New Digital Disorder. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2007. 124.
Bibliography
Adler, Ronald B., and Russell F. Proctor. 14th ed. Australia: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2014.
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Hong, Ying-yi, and Desiree YeeLing Phua. "In Search of Culture’s Role in Influencing Individual Social Behaviour." Asian Journal of Social Psychology 16 (2013): 26-29.
McChesney, Robert Waterman. "Does Capitalism Equal Democracy: Advertising." In Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet against Democracy, 41-46. New York, New York: New Press, 2013.
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