When reading the text "A Family of Readers", I can't help but let my advertising instincts kick in. As an ad major, each time I come across the name of a specific book I can't help but wonder if the author genuinely recommends this book or if they were paid to mention the product in their book. In my advertising and society class we learned that there is almost no such thing as free product publicity. Often times when you think a product is placed in pop culture by accident, it is on purpose. For example the choice of soda or snack chosen on a television show. We also learned about the new trend in authors being offered money to mention specific brands in their books vs. being vague. So, when reading about the author's recommendation for The Stinky Cheese Man and many other popular books, I wonder if they were dodging other offers before finally deciding to mention it "in passing" in the picture book chapter.
I am interested to see what others think, both those in advertising and those who are not. Do you think that the author was paid to mention the product or do you think it is their genuine opinion? Before you jump to answer, think about why they chose that book over the hundreds of other examples they could have chose that fit the same category and would have also been a perfect fit.
Well, specifically The Stinky Cheese Man, may have been chosen because the author, illustrator and designer have an article in the book. I am assuming they chose to talk about it because it is their book and if the book made another reference to it I am almost certain that this is the reason. I wouldn't be surprised but rather disgusted if we had come to the point in our world where people are unable to give a legitimate reference in an informational text and are relying solely on some kind of profit as their motivation. I think it would be a sad world we live in if people stop actually recommending and promoting things based on the merit of the work alone. I like to think and truly hope that our teachers, professors, deans, etc. would not advise us to read a text that they felt may in fact only be promoting things based on their profit margin rather than quality. You make a valid point, but it's kind of like what we talked about in class about finding a multi-cultural book which was authentic. I feel like finding a textbook which is authentic is equally important.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I think (hope) it's authentic, but I've just learned a lot of things in my advertising classes that surprise me as far as what you thought was coincidence but is actually placed somewhere to make an impression on you or try to gain product awareness. I would only hope that an educational book wouldn't take it to this extreme, but you'd be surprised.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to compare our two perspectives because you can see who is coming from an education background and a marketing background. That being said, I'm gonna go against my own major and hope that you're right, because even I think advertisers take it too far sometimes.
I definitely wonder the same thing about how many authors of these books are selling out for advertisement and money. This actually brought up another point that I was thinking about. Todd was talking about how an author can send a book into the publishing company and they will send it back with suggestions for changes in the book. Some of these changes might be major or minor, but if the author doesn’t want to change them, then it will probably not get published. I think this is a major reason for all of the influence, stereotypes, and media pressure that are put on children and everyone in society today. If the big company doesn’t approve of what the author is saying, then it simply does not get published. While I am sure there are some authors that stand up to the companies and say they won’t change it, I am wondering how many out there change their original books so they can get published, get their foot in the door, and inevitably make money?
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