MEDIA: Promoter of Consumerism

Human beings are always in search for more and are never satisfied at any moment with what they have. This is where consumerism comes into the picture. Consumerism has the root word “consume” or “consumer” which would refer to “acquisition”, “accumulation”, “possession”, etc. This is the weakness of human beings, we are never contented with what we have and this becomes the “light at the end of the tunnel” for those people involved in the media and businessmen. They use media to amplify this “craving” and problems start to come in.

The more people are exposed to media the more needs are created in them. Commercials and advertisements are very good at convincing people to buy their products because they are capable of making people look at the external aspect of the person as the most important: beauty, health, contentment because of material things, etc. They are somehow indoctrinated by what media tells them and most of the times they never think that not all that the media presents to them are true and they buy their products because they feel something is lacking in their life if they do not have them. For these people indoctrinated by commercials and advertisements regard happiness and contentment as having material possessions, money, beauty, accessories, etc. and this is what drives companies and businessmen to produce new products for people to acquire. In short, luxury is presented initially by media in commercials and advertisements as a “desire” or a “craving” or a “fancy” for the people and eventually becomes a “need” or a “necessity” for them. And all these things are done for the sake of money.

But after all these “created needs” people crave for some more because media tells them to do so. Confronted by these situations, we must develop a healthy attitude face to face with what media presents as values. This means that each individual must have the personal conviction that material things or accessories do not create the personality of individuals. These may add something to the personality but it does not say all about a person; thus, we should not judge a person by his or her external appearance. We should know when things are really important to us. We can actually live normally even without these things. We should be aware therefore that not all we see on commercials and advertisements are true. Even if media tells us that we need a certain product but if we know that we do not actually need it then nobody should be compelled or forced to acquire it. ®