Controversial Televison Advertisiong

Controversial Television Advertising

It's a Saturday afternoon and you are sitting in your living room where you just finished watching your favorite episode of Seinfeld. Shortly after the credits a commercial comes on, while watching you noticed it's the Chrysler advertisement that everybody at work has been talking about. The advertisement shows a small fairy flying around waving her wand and magically changing anything she is pointing it at into something nice. As the fairy is flying the new Dodge Magnum is driving by and the fairy starts after the vehicle trying to use her powers on it. The fairy's powers backfires and throws the fairy against a brick wall and then to the ground. A young punk hoodlum walks up with his pit-bull on a chain, pointing and laughing at her while saying, stupid fairy. The fairy looks up and waves her wand at him and poof, the young guy's baggy clothes was changed into, plaid shorts with a polo shirt and a pink sweeter tied around his neck. After the guy looks down at himself he says, "Awa" in a very high pitch voice. A few months later you see the commercial again and you noticed that it has been edited by removing the part of the ad were the young guy says stupid fairy. The next day everybody at work has noticed the change to the ad also. This ad shows that there is censorship on TV. I feel that censorship of controversial television advertisements is an unjust practice, which violates the first amendment in the Constitution.

The 1st amendment of the Constitution, states; "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceable to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress or grievances" (The Constitution of the United States of America, 1st Amendment). In the United States of America we have rights that have been put in place to help protect the people and our government from ourselves. One of the most important rights that was put in place was by our founding fathers to help make our nation stronger by speaking our minds without fearing persecution is the freedom of speech. The freedom of speech is the 1st amendment to the Constitution of the United States. As to our rights airing television ads that are controversial, is our one of our rights for being a citizen of the United States of America. We have the right also protest the television ads that are controversial or upsetting to us. We as a nations exercise this write on a daily basis as you see in the media. The media is also protected by the 1st amendment were it says freedom of press. This has given the media the power to air controversial television ads without legal actions against them. In the same way the 1st amendment that has given the media the power to air controversial television ads, it has given them the power to protest against controversial ads as well without ramifications. Despite our rights in the 1st amendment the government has put in place agencies to regulate and control the ads that the media airs.

Government control on controversial television advertisements violates the 1st amendment of the United States Constitution. Television is the main source of advertisement for companies that would like the maximum amount of exposer. Controversial television ads products that companies are trying to sale more memorable to the consumers. The Government has set in place agencies to censor ads that might have offensive or controversial content for any viewers. Governmental control protects the consumer form advertisements that markets products and or services that are misleading or, down write untrue from airing. White, interactive account manager at channel 4 (2005) stated, "We want our iTV clients to have the freedom of expression they don't have in the conventional 30-second spot. If you take that away you make the medium less appealing to advertisers" (New Media Age, ¶ 10). Due to television being the main source of exposer for business and products, if unable to make advertisements stand out to viewers, profits can be affected. Government control on censorship television advertisements is a violation of the 1st amendment. Even with governmental control there has not been any changes in our crime rates to show censorship is working.

There is a nonexistent correlation with TV ads and violence shows no relation to controversial ads effecting social behaviors. European TV and their crime rates show that there is no relation to the airing of controversial television ads. Studies have shown countries that do not regulate controversial of offensive advertisements have lower crime rates per capita than the United States of America. Governmental agencies that in force censorship believe that violent and offensive ads cause increased crime rates among viewers. Studies have not related controversial television ads to increased crime rates in America or other countries. Our crime rates w/censorship in the United States are one of the highest in the world. Stricter censorship regulations will not solve our counties crime rates. Some countries that have the strictest censorship regulations also have on of the highest violent crime rates. Controversial ads stick with the viewers and help with sales profits.

A good source of exposer for businesses comes from television advertisements. With rising cost of a movie ticket at your local theater and also soaring fuel prices helps to keep families at home watching local television stations while increasing esposer for TV ads. " The vast majority of television commercials today consist of brief advertising spots, ranging in length from a few seconds to several minutes (as well as program-length infomercials). Commercials of this sort have been used to sell every product imaginable over the years, from household products to goods and services, to political campaigns. The effect of television commercials upon the viewing public has been so successful and so pervasive that tit is considered impossible for a politician to wage a successful election campaign, in the United States, without airing a good television commercial (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2006)." The amount of exposer to television ads has increased over the years. In the 1960's an hour-long show would run for fifty-one minutes excluding commercials.

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