Effects of New Forms of Advertising

In Joseph Turow’s book, Breaking Up America: Advertisers and the New Media World, Turow takes an historical perspective to uncover the changes that have occurred in our new mediated environment. He explains that since the 1970’s, American advertisers have rejected the methods of mass-media marketing and instead have adopted a new target-market focus. While target marketing may be more effective, Turow posits that this new technique can actually exacerbate the existing divisions already present in American society. Turow states, “The US is experiencing a major shift in balance between society-making media and segment-making media. Segment-making media are those that encourage small slices of society to talk to themselves, while society-making media are those that have the potential to get all those segments to talk to each other. ” Now as advertisers are aggressively seeking to exploit the differences between consumers in order to create idealized targets, society is facing immense fragmentation. As Turow describes, media firms with an interest in target marketing are building “primary media communities” for their consumers.

Turow, J (1997). Breaking up America: advertisers and the new media world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.