2 Responses to “Terebimetsu”

1. e Says:
   April 27th, 2006 at 6:18 am

   Thank you for the reminder.

   I haven’t watched TV for years and haven’t really missed it, so it’s hard to relate to those who feel that TV Turnoff week (or even day) is asking too much–like Lent, or something.

   It’s a good thing to be reminded by adbusters that we are all a target market. But don’t they want subscribers? How do they get those subscribers? Certainly there’s advertising involved, if only to find out how to market themselves. So do you think the Adbusters folks think there ever a good reason to support advertising?

2. Ray Grieselhuber Says:
   April 27th, 2006 at 6:34 am

   Perhaps for us, it should be “computer turnoff week” — hmm?

   You brought up an interesting question. It looks like they accept advertising from non-profits only.

   But you’re not alone in your criticism:

   From Wikipedia:

   Adbusters has been criticized for having a style and form that are similar to the media and commercial product which it attacks.[13] This is particularly true in the case of its Blackspot Shoe campaign, about which it has been said that their existence proves that “no rational person could possibly believe that there is any tension between ‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’ culture.”[14]

   Heath and Potter’s The Rebel Sell claims that the more alternative or subversive Adbusters feels, the more appealing it will become to the mainstream market. Consumers seek exclusivity and social distinction, which is in contrast to Adbusters’ description of the mainstream consumer as a mindless conformist. It is argued that the mainstream market seeks the very same brand of individuality that Adbusters promotes; repression is not a target of the market, thus the Adbusters doctrine is “the true spirit of capitalism.”[15]

   It has also been heavily criticized for running an article [1] that identified many of the leading neoconservatives as Jewish and questioned why this fact and its potential implications for US Middle East policy was not open to discussion.[16] This topic was also recently brought up by political scientistics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt to great controversy — see AIPAC: Mearsheimer & Walt paper.

   Adbusters often prints critical mail that it receives from its readers in each issue.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website