Always selling.

I was a Broadcasting/Journalism major before I became interested in film. Studying about communications made me realize the kind of effort that is made to convey information that is eventually used to convince the public of a particular idea. All of these learning have made me to always look at what I see wondering what they want to sell, or to be more specific, what they want me to buy. That is the kind of close reading and analysis that I do in my everyday life. Advertising can be defined as the promotion of a product. It goes beyond that for me. I have had the chance to create campaigns, logos and signs for different types of institutions. I did not feel that I was just promoting a product. I was studying and understanding human behavior. From that point on, no matter what I see, I wonder what they are trying to sell. This can be specifically applied to television and movies. I recently watch a video by The All American Rejects in which the logo Motorola popped out of the screen every time one of the guys hold up his cell phone. Did the song have to do anything with the phone? No. Did the message in the video try to sell me a phone? No. However, for future reference, I know that Motorola did not die after Razor. They’re still around.
I feel that the same applies to other forms of art. Our textbook made reference to paintings, photographs, short stories, etc. All of them with their own perspectives and ideals. In my opinion, all of them trying to sell something. It may be that it is an idea, simple entertainment or a philosophy. I don’t know if that is wrong for me to think that way, but that is the first tool that I use to analyze the media texts, among other things, I encounter everyday. I ask myself, “What are they trying to sell?” Sometimes, followed by: “Who are they trying to sell it to?” I recently watch an infomercial about a work out program. Everyone in the infomercial was African-American. I did not feel incline to buy it, even when it looked very effective. The infomercial actually made me feel out of place.
At this point I want to mention that when I use the term sell I do not limit it to a monetary-exchange type of definition. I also refer to idea of someone persuading to gain merits. A lot of the media text I encounter comes from Facebook for example. All that Facebook statuses do is to sell people. People sell themselves through them. I find so interesting all the different approaches we use to do it.