Marketing (Blog post #6)

Marketing ploys have always seemed pretty transparent to me. When growing up, I would see a commercial for a product that portrayed it to be extremely fun and make everybody happy, when in reality, I knew it was still just another soda product. However, I was totally wrong. Supermarkets market towards very specific, very different consumer groups on an everyday occurrence. The sheer layout of the store is one big subliminal message that says "Buy me!"
As I walked into my local grocery store Dissmores the first thing I noticed was a display of snack type foods (easy to eat whenever you feel like it). I never stopped to think about that. The first thing I will see when walking into my college town store is a display of chips and dip. I believe this is a tactic used because stores know students are usually in a hurry and don't want to take the time to actually cook food, or that an easy snack like chips is great to munch on while they do their homework or play video games or just watch tv. However, this type of product location is just the start of my supermarket trip. As I continue on my trip, my girlfriend notices something. "Have you ever noticed that all of our aisles and display casings are decked out in Coug stuff?" she asks. Thinking about it, she was right, regular products were dressed up in a cougar display. Then I notice that I usually bought those kinds of products thinking I had some sense of comradery with my fellow Cougs. Literally, buying that product did not display my school spirit in any way. However, the crafty marketers even went as far as to make tortilla chips in the colors of crimson and grey. Continuing on, I see the energy drink display, promising hours of alertness for all nighters and whatnot. Sorry Monster, you're not selling me on that one this time. Finally, the granddaddy of them all. the beer section. Easily one of the largest sections of the store, even more than cereal and bread combined. So many different brands to choose from, all enticing by their "cheap" college prices. As I walk through this section, I find an assortment of ping pong balls and dixie cups. You all know what that means...

As well as having these drinking game supplies by the beer, the snacks are also right across the aisle, making for a one stop shopping experience to throw a party. At this point, college students are so easy to market to. One of the last things I notice through my trip to the store was the Red Bull display cases and magazines at each checkout. Spontaneous buys right as you're almost out of the store! Marketers are good at what they do.

That was just the marketing to college students too. Marketing to children is a little different. The first aisle in the store is candy and toys. A child's dreamland. Display cases are used for children too, the oreo cookies were displayed in a cardboard train, enticing the kids into wanting those particular cookies. Soda is at eye level, where kids are bound to see it and ask their parents to buy it for them. In the bread aisle is also a toy section. This is clever because everyone needs to buy bread, and there is a decent chance they bring their children along to shop with them, meaning those kids see the toys in the bread aisle, and hassle their parents for it. Across the aisle from the bread/toys is the cereal section. The colorful, fun cereals are found on the bottom, like Crunch Berries, Trix, and Cookie Crisp. The bland cereals like Kix, Cheerios, and Total are found at the top of the shelf because those don't appeal to children as much.

As I've said in previous blogs, choice is an illusion. We are given the products that the companies want us to buy as we walk in the door. These products are usually the first thing we see when choosing a brand to buy (That's a completely different story, see my Branding post if you want more on that). It plays into this supply and demand myth about consumers, because they only supply a certain percentage of the products out there, so our demand doesn't affect them when that is the only thing to buy around. When only a couple products are offered, we choose the best from those and go along our merry way.
This relationship between consumer and food chains gives all the power to the food chains. They regulate and control the price and variety of every food group we have in our society. They can raise prices as they see fit, and people will continue buying whatever they see because food is a necessity and we need it to survive. This means that a small portion of people (Those that own food products and sell them to supermarkets) control how we really eat, and can change those habits at any time they feel like it.

The Illusion of Choice (Blog prompt #5)

This video discusses the organization The Center for Consumer Freedom. It talks about how choice in food is becoming a luxury rather than the privilege it should be. Companies are starting to exercise their power in the placement of their product and who it would appeal to. After watching this video, I noticed that it corresponds with what we have talked about in class, how choice is decided by the bottleneck companies in Patel's hourglass model. These companies, who control the price by using their name brand as leverage, are able to buy cheap and sell it to consumers for a large profit. Due to this, they try to place their products in the supermarket in a way that appeals to targeted audience. Candy, cookies and sugary cereals are placed low on the shelves so that children shopping with their parents see them at eye level. Milk is placed at the back of the store so consumers must walk through the aisles to get to it, where they might find something to buy that wasn't on their shopping list.
Consumers don't really have a choice in what they buy anymore. It is an illusion that many don't see through until they are shown something like Patel's hourglass model. I, myself, wouldn't have believed such a concept without seeing what researchers on the subject had to say. For example, we talked about apples in class. There are many types of apples in the world, right? How many of those types do you ever see at the supermarket? Maybe 4 or 5. This is because the companies that buy and sell apples are only going to sell the apples that look enticing to the consumer. Apples that are shiny, well shaped, and big. As such, you are getting the choice between the apples that the company is allowing you to choose from. To reiterate, the company picks the small sample of apples they think will sell well, and then places them in the market under the illusion that you get to pick what apple you still eat, which in turn is really what the company decided you could eat.
Consumer freedom neglects internationalism because it is cheaper for a consumer to buy from a supermarket than to buy locally from a farmer's market. This affects the "choice" that consumers can make, because when they buy from a supermarket, they eliminate the variety they can get from a farmer's market and begin only picking from what the supermarket lets them. What consumers don't realize, is that by eliminating said choices, they are actually making it harder on themselves in the long run. Buying cheaper from corporations and not locally results in those local farmers losing their jobs and competing with others for the same amount of jobs offered in the city or town they live in. In doing so, they also make it so that there is no where else to turn when the corporate prices go up.
The issue of race, class and location play into this subject at the same time I think. In places that are deemed "food deserts" there are no supermarkets around, just fast food restaurants. These areas are generally found in lower income, urban, and dominantly African American communities. Because of this, the choice of food simply doesn't exist in these areas. Residents of a food desert are subject to poor eating habits and over chemically ridden food, because they aren't given any other option.

Hurricane Katrina: Failures to rebuild (Blog post #9)

In 2005, the world saw the harsh, ugly truth about the social standing of individuals in America. Hurricane Katrina hit the eastern coast of North America, especially hard in Louisiana (most greatly New Orleans), Alabama, and Mississippi. In New Orleans, the city became flooded, destroying thousands and thousands of peoples' homes. The rescue and evacuation of the city took far longer than it should have and as a result, conditions went from terrible to post apocalyptic. Resources weren't assigned effectively and politicians seemed to take a "wait and see" approach because they held back on sending in help.
Residents of area (mostly African American) were outraged at the "attempts" to save them. Their tactics to change their situation were appealing to the local politicians. They asked why their city and country had forsaken them, and pleaded for the help that they needed. Many people were unable to fight back because the National Guard and local police were ordered to "maintain order" in the aftermath of the hurricane. When the people tried to help themselves and leave the city via bridge, they were herded back to the side they came from by police and guns. They weren't even allowed to walk out of their city! Without the proper evacuation and bus transport they should have received, they couldn't leave, even if they weren't asking for the help. After days of poor news coverage and inaccurate information, the Mayor Ray Nagin, had had enough. He had heard the pleas of his people, but didn't have the authority to call in the proper resources. His tactic was to appeal to the media with the passion of seeing his city torn and ripped to pieces. He challenged authority and changed his problem by stating his unsettling attitude about the government. He claimed that just because the National Guard and money going to the war weren't being utilized is why the situation was so dire. Immediately after, the President stopped in and they all figured out an evacuation plan, though not a great one, it was a plan more than they had.
Racial discrimination really came into play in this natural disaster. Stories of Caucasian people being picked up and rescued over African American residents.Though the government claimed their was no segregation in the rescuing, the fact that white residents were taken by bus to a hotel for shelter, and that black residents were taken (though less frequently) to the Superdome, an arena stadium filled with cots and sleeping bags. Though mostly African American, their were some white residents there, and the media focused on them because it "showed" how there was no segregation.

On top of that, race played into this issue in how people were perceived in this time of crisis. White people wading through the water were heroes, looking to rescue others, while black people were "looters" and shot at on sight. Katrina has shown the true colors of our society and how they see social justice and what that is. This movement (that I argue is a movement, because of the aftermath of the relief and how class standing and race played into how "urgent" it made these rescues) was a giant leap forward when discussing the topic of segregation around today. Though it proved that there still is, it also brought out into the open. It changed the problem from being invisible to very visible, and a hot topic of racial inequality.
I knew of this movement, but only vaguely. In fact, I only knew of the event. The media coverage was inaccurate and unreliable, and i did not know about the real problems that were underlying in the situation.
Like I said earlier, this situation was a big step for the topic of segregation and it's implications in our society today. Race IS a problem, and it DOES affect how people are treated. Katrina proved that.

Crushing US Youth Resistance (Blog post #2)

In the article "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance" the author talks about how the youth of America used to be the main driving factor behind many of the revolutions our history has experienced, and how the youth now is suppressed and won't fight back against anything. I somewhat agree with this ideology. The author makes many great points including the point about Student Loan Debt. Being in a somewhat large amount of debt myself, it is easy to see how the youth feels this can hold them back. I agree that it is ridiculous for me to be paying Social Security taxes from every paycheck from my job, but should I speak out about it, or try to resist that payment, I would lose my job and ultimately be unable to pay my debt off. With that thought looming over my head, I find myself just keeping quiet, and secretly resenting the whole situation. How can we fight for what is right when our livelihood is on the line?

Now here is where I veer a little bit off from agreeing with the author. Being an Elementary Education major, and planning to teach children in a school setting for the rest of my career, I have a hard time seeing how schooling pays homage to this subduing of resistance. The author, Bruce Levine, makes a solid point, were it not in a school context. He says that:

"The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions."

Out of context, out in this crazy work-a-day world we live in, that would sound like a terrible way to live , obeying orders, and not really learning anything but to follow rules. However, in a classroom setting, this is essential to learning. Imagine this: You are a teacher in a classroom full of 24 eight-year-olds, and you tell them "Hey kids, learn however you want to, I won't tell you what or how to learn and I certainly won't make you follow my rules in this classroom." Do you think the students will sit down and learn how to add and subtract fractions by themselves? Or learn how to read and know what contractions are without them being first taught about it? I have spent enough time with students to confidently say, no, they will not. In order to catch and gain their attention, they must be taught to listen to your rules, and behave in a fashion conducive to learning. This is not to say that some teachers abuse this power and make rules just to make the children comply to them, but I would have to disagree overall that school is actually suppressing America's youth.

Enough of the teacher rant, but that one hit a little close to home. Going on, Levine remarks that their is an increasing amount of children being prescribed drugs to settle them down from their so called "rambunctious actions." I agree with Levine here. I think many teachers/parents make snap decisions about young children when talking about ADD or ODD symptoms. By giving a student Ritalin who doesn't really need it, you are messing with their natural ability to focus on what's important and how they would normally react to information.

Levine goes on to talk about how technology is holding back today's youth. Television is one the main reasons  America is suppressing it's youth Levine writes. American children "average 8 hours a day watching tv, playing video games, listening to iPods, and other various technologies. If you're stuck at home, glued to your tv, how can you possibly be out in the real world tackling real life problems? America is being shut down by our advancing technological world.

While reading this article, I thought of a few other things that suppress an American's ability to come together and fight against what they feel is unjust.

1. Parents holding their kids back. This sounds a little cheesy, but children don't generally want to do anything to anger their parents, or worse (and everyone knows what I'm talking about here) "disappoint" them. As such, if a person was inclined to go publicly protest against something they felt needed to be fought against, and their parents disproved of it, that person is less likely now to go out and do so, for fear of "dishonoring" their family and going against their wishes. 
2. Another reason American Youths are being suppressed is this idea of waiting for someone to follow to fight the cause. There may be many who wish to change what they're seeing in today's world, but until they have their Rosa Parks to spark the fire, these potential revolutionists will sit back and wait. A movement needs an inspirational, charismatic leader to follow, but until it gets that, the movement will lie stagnant.  As John Mayer says, "It's that we don't care, we just know that the fight ain't fair, so we keep on [waiting] on the world to change." I share this mentality, this sense of helplessness. I wish their was a way to fight back, especially against the SS problem, because I think it's completely unfair to take money out of our checks for it, even though we won't be able to use it ourselves, but there isn't anything just one person can do to change things the way they are.
3. People get so caught in their day-to-day that they are often not thinking about anything but getting through their day. Getting so comfortable and complacent with your life leads to a dangerous thing. "It is our routines and our comforts that allow us to ignore social issues. For some of us, it is our privilege to be ignorant," states musician Brett Dennen of his song "Ain't No Reason." In this song, he says "You could spend your whole life working for something, just to have it taken away." It's this mentality that scares people from responding to this world's injustices that we hear about everyday. Furthermore, he says "You don't need a 3 piece suit to argue the truth," which to me epitomizes Fox-Piven's claim that some of the biggest changes in our history were executed by regular people that came together to fight something they knew was wrong.

4. Alongside the debt that many young Americans are accruing during their schooling time, most people don't have the resources to fight against an injustice. Whether it's money, supplies, or even followers, you can't fight for anything without the appropriate resources. Again going back to Fox-Piven, in order to change something, people to come together and fight. There needs to something to unite behind, something to form the group of individuals into a cohesive, singular entity.

These all make me want to believe that by ignoring these factors that I know suppress myself as a youth in America, I can make a difference. However, the reality is that change in this world is unlikely with the way things are. To change, we need plenty of individuals willing to give up everything they know and love for their cause. Until then, I will keep on waiting on the world to change too.