{"id":18319,"date":"2009-12-31T10:55:39","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T15:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=18319"},"modified":"2014-01-20T01:48:23","modified_gmt":"2014-01-20T06:48:23","slug":"promotion-trumps-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2009\/12\/31\/promotion-trumps-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Promotion Trumps All"},"content":{"rendered":"

In earlier posts, we’ve highlighted instances in which\u00a0contradictions in U.S. culture become glaringly clear.\u00a0 In one, suggestive advertising accompanies an article critiquing a video game in which the player rapes a woman<\/a>.\u00a0 In another, CNN asks whether Jon and Kate Gosselin are getting too much media coverage, and then tempts you to read more media coverage about Jon and Kate Gosselin<\/a>.\u00a0 In a third, neighbor billboards carry hilariously contradictory messages<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I found another example that left me shaking my head.\u00a0 Via Racialicious<\/a>, I\u00a0found myself reading\u00a0a Time magazine article<\/a> reporting on recent research that shows that, even when black and whites are portrayed as equal on television, viewers come away with subconscious anti-black bias that actually translates into bias in real life.\u00a0\u00a0The findings are pretty dismal.<\/p>\n

Two paragraphs into\u00a0the\u00a0article, there was a promotional link… for<\/em> television<\/em> (see the bolded, red parenthetical sentence):<\/p>\n

\"Capture\"<\/p>\n

So, yeah, television is likely inculcating you with racist views; “the transmission of race bias appears to occur subconsciously, unbeknownst to the viewer”… but don’t let that stop you from enjoying awesome TV!<\/p>\n

The second promotional link, halfway through the article, was just salt in the wound:<\/p>\n

\"Capture2\"<\/p>\n

And, of course, they couldn’t let your thoughts linger on social justice issues when there are great TV series out there to see!<\/p>\n

The final paragraphs:<\/p>\n

\"Capture3\"<\/p>\n

Maybe they are hoping that we’ll watch the top 10 TV ads and episodes more critically?<\/p>\n

These promotional inserts may very well be automatically generated, but the article is dated Dec. 17th, so clearly no one at Time<\/em> has been alerted to, or cares about, the possibility that they may trivialize the message of the article, or even draw people away from it as early as two paragraphs in.\u00a0 What Time<\/em>wants is for you to waste as much time on their website as possible.\u00a0 Apparently any ideological commitment to fighting racism is secondary at best.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In earlier posts, we’ve highlighted instances in which\u00a0contradictions in U.S. culture become glaringly clear.\u00a0 In one, suggestive advertising accompanies an article critiquing a video game in which the player rapes a woman.\u00a0 In another, CNN asks whether Jon and Kate Gosselin are getting too much media coverage, and then tempts you to read more media […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23703,343,283,285],"class_list":["post-18319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-marketing","tag-tvmovies","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18319"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61027,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18319\/revisions\/61027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}