Consumer Psychology - Deception by Perception

This week's topic was an opportunity for timely analysis of the way media is manipulated, sieved, filtered, retouched, and presented to the general public on a digital platter for selective consumption. The timing couldn't have been better after seeing the media coverage last week concerning the controversial retouching of the photo of President Obama bare chested, wearing red swim shorts on the cover of a recent issue of Washingtonian magazine. Not sure if the retouching of the photo to change the color of the shorts from black to red was more controversial than a bare-chested president (the color selection itself sends so many messages which the magazine apparently wanted to convey). And I say selective because interpretation of the message varies based on individual perception, which of course is influenced by so many factors (culture, ethnicity, age, sex, and gender).

Ironically, Washingtonian magazine's retouched photoshoped cover photo may be more common place than the "untouched" photo of Sarah Palin which appeared on the cover of Newsweek in October which was both celebrated and denounced for showing the one-eyed, uber-close up of Palin (Newsweek 2008). Coverage of the media flap over the less-than-flattering picture included a segment on the Colbert Report, which introduced comic irony about reporting on the "untouched" photo as well as political satire on the upcoming election.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/188444/october-14-2008/tip-wag---palin-s-newsweek-cover

Other magazines, too, have used photoshoping unabashedly with an air of expectancy, as seen in the photos of fab glam black couples in the February 2009 issue of Ebony. This issue includes photos of a fully-clothed President Obama in a loving, black and white cameo pose with Michelle whose dress has been retouched to fire engine red (that color red is consistently being used here to relay the message "hot"). So, do we expect publicists, publishers, and photographers to add their "finishing touches" to the photos we see, or do we consciously believe the photos we see are real representations of the people in them? Diet.com phrased this question within the context of whether people believe the images they see in magazines and advertisements are actually real, and more importantly, are we trying to emulate the bodies and images we see? (YouTube video: The Photoshop Effect, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP31r70_QNM&feature=related) Specifically, could these images of airbrushed, retouched perfection actually be creating disordered eating (Sarah, The Photoshop Effect). Alexis Beck, a Nutritionist consulted in the video, believes that the cumulative effect of ads with photoshopped images has a direct effect like a time-bomb in the mind of the viewer leading to more and more serious psychological issues among young women obsessed with exercising, dieting, and maintaining a size "zero" (Beck, The Photoshop Effect).

Aside from the apparent psychological damage this is causing by distorting what is real while creating unattainable physical expectations for both men and women, is photoshoping just plain dishonest, and as a result, unethical, leading to Diet.com's question as to whether it should be banned. Tim Lynch, retoucher/photographer featured in the video views photoshoping as a service that all his clients demand noting that "they won't release any pictures that have not been retouched". So the consumer (and not just the celebrity consumer) is creating the demand for these images of perfection at the expense of our self-image and perceptions of what is real.

Daniel Cohen-Or and Tommer Leyvand of Tel Aviv University have found a way to further drive the pursuit of perfection by creating The Beauty Function, software that beautifies the face through a series of progressions similiar to what a plastic surgeon might use. The underlying questions begging to be asked here is why? Why are we so unhappy with ourselves the way we are? Alexis Beck may be onto something. Maybe this is truly a ticking time bomb. Where does it stop? Can it be stopped? What realistic goal can we hope to achieve?

Sarah of Diet.com suggests that perhaps we should include a disclaimer, a warning like you would find on a cigarette package to let the viewer know that the image is not a true representation of the way that person looks. Would it really make a difference? I doubt it, since the impact of the image, presented as "real", has already entered the viewers mind and the process of imitation and emulation may already have begun. It would probably be more practical in my opinon to address this issue through consumer training, and education made part of school curriculums using popular teen magazines to expose young minds to the deception. The Dove Project for Real Beauty is a really good example of consumer education that steps through the process to deconstruct photoshopped images. Another really good example of deconstructing photoshoped images to educate the consumer is the Girl Power magazine cover which also points out step-by-step just how many things were "wrong" and undesirabled in the untouched version of the model on the magazine cover (retouched to reveal fuller boobs, blonder hair, waspier waist, perfect teeth, creaseless lips... ya da ya da ya da... was there anything "right" with her?)

The Dove Project and Girl Power examples were quite an eye opener. These types of strategies, in my opinion, present viable solutions that help consumers decode the images they are seeing rather than perceive them as real. I worry, though, that ultimately, we may not want to see our true selves and may not at all be satisfied with decoded realities.

Perceptions notwithstanding, the public cannot know what it doesn't know if all media is being selectively broadcast and manipulated by media gatekeepers. Though some level of censorship in the media may be inevitable (painstakingly evident in the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated), the idea that information is being selectively chosen to disseminate to the public by gatekeeper organizations is disturbing at best. I would insist, however, that some common-sense rating system must exist to help the consumer, though this in itself leads to less artistic freedom. That being said, one man's art is another man's trash. It's just all too subjective for us to ever hope to have a perfect and fair rating system.

The argument was put forward in the University Twente, Netherlands, article on media, culture, and society that gatekeeping is an unavoidable, necessary evil inherent to the process of reporting news to the public (http://www.cw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Media,%20Culture%20and%20Society/gatekeeping.doc/). McCombs and Shaw evolved Kurt Lewin's 1940 theory of gatekeeping to apply to journalism and the current, leading caution.. that gatekeeping is a precursor to agenda setting (McCombs and Shaw, et al, 1970) a process that influences how much importance is attached to a news item from the emphasis placed on it by the media (UT, Theory Clusters, "Media, Culture, and Society" October 2006).

White's 1964 process model cited in the article adds a visual rubric that seems to suggest a process similar to a conveyor belt rejecting defective products. The real process, however, is probably a lot more complex, a lot less clinical, and a lot more suggestive within gatekeeper organizations. News items that finally do past muster and make it to the general public must surely get filtered along the way, and the subjective nature of this process ensures only those stories which that particular organization sees fit to publish will actually be viewed. But what happens when all news organizations seem to be in lock step with each other.. when no matter what channel you chose, the news is pretty much all the same.. all the time? We can all be thankful that we have the internet now, opening a vast array of alternative news and information sources from which we can expand our views and perceptions (that, too, is a selective and suggestive process because we tend to seek out information based on what we already believe and may not be receptive to information that doesn't agree with our prevailing beliefs and perceptions).

Should we be concerned that gatekeeping could be abused to deliberately mislead the public? Should we rethink that equation and minimally set up sufficient safeguards, as would be the case for other consumer-related issues? I think the growth of alternative media presents the most promise for finding reasonable answers to these questions. The consumer will go where they can find honest media, even if the sources are non-traditional. That may be a wake-up call for the major networks and the gatekeepers who serve them.

Links:

"Shirtless Obama Makes Washingtonian Cover", Huffington Post
"Newsweek Under Fire for Sarah Palin Photo", AccessHollywood
"October 2008 Tip/Wag - Palin's Newsweek Cover", The Colbert Report
"Ebony Looks At Obamas' Real Love" USA Today, February 2009

Consumer Psychology - Are We "Wired" To Follow The Crowd?

Scene: An attractive white female newscaster on a prominent syndicated news channel head bobs and chants "blame it on the a-a-a- a-a alcohol" when the Jamie Foxx/T. Paine hit is cued in the background. The most astonishing thing about this is that she didn't consider how that may have been perceived by her peer group, the other three news casters sharing the dias with her. Which crowd was she following at that very moment when the impulse hit her to "get in the groove" to a top-charting R&B song about clubbing and casual sex? Was her conditioning and associated responses to the song so strong that they were able to override her ability to stay "in character" with her fellow news caster peers?

This might all have seemed relatively benign had it occurred within the context of a popular entertainment news-zine or on one of the popular music video channels. The fact that it didn't raises interesting questions about media and group mentality. David Robson addresses group think in his article, "How To Control A Herd of Humans". The title itself conjures up images of people as cattle or "sheep-ple" as some would say, being shepperded around mindlessly. Robson frames his discussion within the context of the rise of social nationalism in nazi Germany (an interesting aside here is that the word nazi is actually an anagram for the german word zian, an interesting segway into the role religiosity plays in forming group mentality). Robeson presents scholarly evidence of how group activity and ritual form group loyality (chanting, dancing, etc.) based on the research of Scott Wilmuth (Stanford U). and Jonathan Haidt (U of Va), but he does not discuss the role of charismatic preaching as a key element in cult formation. In other words, there are many angles influencing herd mentality, and all influence the behavior of the target group. Robson also did not discuss the draconian, authoritative tactics imployed by these groups to maintain group loyality. The worst example of this I can think of in recent times is the horrific Jonestown cult mass suicide, where group members were threatened or killed for trying to leave the group and those who did not escape were forced to drink cyanide-laced cool aide.

I do agree, however, that the impact of priming, the subject of Seger's research (Indiania U.), should be considered, particularly when we look at group behaviors in adolescents, children, and teens. Most significant is the way prolonged exposure to violent media may be priming anti-social behaviors in young audiences, and audiences in general for that matter. Minimally, the audience is being numbed and conditioned to habituate violence in media as normative with repeated exposure to violent material. But what does all that have to do with "herd mentality"? Specifically, all of these factors combined influence and control the behavior of the group.

Using our opening scene as a good example of the priming effect, we are left to still wonder which group our newscaster was in mentality when she chanted along with the song in the middle of a news cast? We can assume it was a pleasurable experience which was triggered by impulse and positive associations, hence why she "got in the groove", though totally out of character for that place in time.

"Cool Hunting" and Consumer Psychology

Generally, my take-away from The Persuaders and The Merchants of Cool is that advertisers view consumers as cultural commodities, with each consumer seeking membership in artificial cultures, illusions created by advertisers to sell their product. This concept of consumers as commodities is suggested initially when Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, compares consumers to "roaches.. you spray them and spray them and pretty soon it doesn't work anymore". The better, faster, stronger competition between brands, in other words, is only as effective as our belief in what the advertisers are trying to tell us, which may have more to do with brand loyalty than anything else. So, what is creating this brand loyalty, if there really is no best brand? Is it really all just an illusion?

Framed within the context of Trout's belief that the consumer mind is inherently limitated and unfocused, advertisers search for creature comforts and hidden needs that might give their product a competitive edge (i.e. cup holders in a SUV might appeal more to women than men). But with these kinds of disparate interests, how do any products get sold as obviously you can't cater to the whims of every niche group? Clotaire Rapaille develops this idea further by suggesting consumers are impulse shoppers who apply no real rationale for the products they buy, but rather buy to fill some hidden, unconscious need. From this point, advertising becomes more about creating culture rather than selling, and I think that is a very compelling point to consider. Are we experiencing such a cultural void that we must form these pseudo relationships based on the brand cults?

Rapaille sums it up well by describing his experience decoding the behavior of autistic children. By learning to communicate without words, the behavior of the autistic children became its own language. And so, too, I guess is the behavior of the consumer. But this by no means suggests the power of words should be underestimated. Frank Luntz believes we are more emotional than intellectual, and that getting the message across to a particular audience is all about choosing the right words (i.e. global climate change v. global warming). But it is this very kind of word-smithing double speak that caused the general public to distrust politicians as dishonest, self-serving, and disingenuous. This is not to say contextual speech doesn't work.. it does, but let the word-smith beware. There may be a huge backlash at the expense of public trust.

The teen demographic is not so easily caste because what's hip and trendy is constantly changing, creating a real dilemma for advertisers trying to reach this large consumer market. "Cool hunting" described in The Merchants of Cool then becomes the strategy used to engage teen-aged buying power based on input from peer focus groups on what's in and what's not. But shouldn't we be concerned about the ethics of advertising cool to such a young and impressionable audience? Should we care that advertising may be creating the need to possess every new gadget and products that don't really enrich us or connect us to each other, save through the brand itself? (ipods, iphones, I just can't keep up). Is it any wonder our young people have one of the highest rates of depression in the developed world? Could all this consumerism targeting such a youthful audience be sublimating real needs for traditional social interaction between families and groups?

Wrapping up, my consensus is that we are placing more value on the artificial needs that are largely created for us by advertising culture at the expense of meaningful social relationships, ethics, and values. I believe this leads to shallow mindsets which lack a sense of social responsibility, constantly seeking self-gratification. This makes it ever more important to educate the consumer to read public spaces and become more aware of the impact of advertising media. At best, this will definitely create a more level playing field of informed consumers. Critical social media has an important role to play in offsetting the effects of consumer psychology, which I'm sure we'll explore further in our studies.

Greetings, netizens :-) This is the place where my personal reflections and introspections will be revealed on media psychology, what it means, and how it can be used to change the world around us. Stay tuned as I transition and transform. Check back often for updates :-)

B. 'Aqila Mujahid