Culture as Domination

By Reiko Fukushima

In Sociologies of Food and Nutrition by Wm. Alex McIntosh, he says that culture as domination makes people to buy productions. I agree with this insistence. I think we are sometimes controlled by mass media. When we watch TV, we can find many advertisements. In such advertisements, the productions are introduced by famous actors or some popular people. They must exaggerate even if it is not so nice, but we often believe the advertisement. I also believe such advertisements and go shopping for the product soon. Companies make advertisements to make their production better. Of course, I think this is their effort because selling their production is their business. It is recognized enough now, but it is manipulation of consumption. This situation is very serious for consumers. They cannot stop their desire for products. In the advertisements, everything looks nice. It is much more when favorite person produces a product. This book gives us an example (34) NBC’s logo and the names of the stars are appeared on various Kellogg’s cereal boxes. If you like playing basketball, you must go shopping for the product.

My mother likes something about health. When she finds advertisements about health, she orders the product. This advertisement says their product would be effective for the throat. So when I have cold, my mother says I have to drink this. I tried this, but its taste was bad. Since then, I decided not to try anything which my mother recommends. I think she is one of the people controlled by mass media. Not to be a person like her, we must be conscious of advertisements’ domination.