Jane's Communications Mix

The Josh Wolf Debate: Ethical Reasoning

2008-06-06T05:52:00.000+12:00

Complex situations of applied ethics may often arise for those who work in the media field. The nature of their involvement with issues of social concern requires a good understanding of normative ethical theories and an ability to analyse meta-ethics. A case study of Josh Wolf provides us with an opportunity to discuss the moral consequences that can arise.

In July 2006, Wolf was jailed in terms of civil contempt for failing to comply with a subpoena to testify before a Federal Grand Jury in the USA. Josh Wolf is a freelance journalist. In July 2005, Wolf attended a protest against the G-8 Summit in San Francisco, where he videotaped demonstrators. He later sold some of his footage to a local television station and posted some of the contents, entitled "All empires must fall" (2005), to his internet blog.

The Federal Prosecution were of the opinion that unreleased footage of his out-takes would assist in identifying demonstrators who vandalised a police car and injured a police officer. Wolf refused to hand this footage over to the Federal Grand Jury

During the process of the appeals that followed, Wolf offered to allow the Judge to view the footage, in order to demonstrate that there was nothing to hide. This offer was refused and the Appeals court procedures continued for almost two years.

Finally, during mediation with the magistrate judge, Wolf agreed to hand over the footage and he was released. Although the Federal Jury had the tapes they required Wolf was not required in terms of the mediated outcome to personally testify before them.

This case study presents a number of ethical and legal issues that need to be considered. These include the following:

Was Josh Wolf unbiased and balanced in his reporting?
Were his actions true to the principle of altruism?
Was he actually a journalist, and entitled to protection from being compelled to give evidence?
Should the Federal Grand Jury be able to compel citizens to give evidence?
If he had not been jailed, would the resulting precedent have given blanket protection to everybody who writes and publishes on the internet?
Was the final mediation granted by the Court of Appeals, which led to the resolution of the case, a fair outcome?

It can be argued from the perspective of ethical theorists, that Wolf's actions are not justifiable. Wolf either had a duty to provide evidence and to comply with the subpoena to testify before the Federal Grand Jury, or needed to justify his refusal on sound principles of ethics during the Court of Appeals process.

Josh Wolf's motivation for failing to comply is obscure; apparently based on self-interest and violates the values of utilitarianism. From the standpoint of John Mill (1968), the claims of the protesters Wolf supports have to be subordinated to the greatest number of people. The greater number of people in the USA prefer to live in peaceful society where police cars are not burned and officers of the law are not subjected to assault.

Bowie's "fundamental moral principle" (1985)...or respect for other persons was violated when the police officer was attacked. As the federal laws of the USA are in place to protect the greater number of people, the Grand Jury was legally and ethically correct in requiring that evidence be provided for examination.

Kant's principle of categorical imperative is universally found within the rule of law, which is in place for the common good. Individual lack of compliance with the law is a direct challenge to the norms of any society. The Court of Appeals exists so that these challenges can have a fair hearing.

The Court of Appeals were correct in their decision to incarcerate Wolf during the appeals process. They are also required to be obedient to the rules of action. One important factor is that Wolf's association with the suspected perpetrators of the crime could have compromised the outcome of the case. As Abelson et al pointed out in the History of ethics, (1967), obedience to a rule of action "expresses the golden rule to be found in all great religions and has been incorporated in....modern systems of ethical theory."

Wolf might argue that the USA is not a Christian nation and that Judeo-Christian ethics do not therefore apply to him as an American citizen. Thomas Jefferson's interpretation of the 1st Amendment in a letter to the Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, was that it is a "wall of separation between church and State" (January 1st, 1802). Nevertheless, the criminal and federal law of the USA pertains to conduct specifically mentioned in the Christian Bible and are based on the Christian ethic of "loving thy neighbour as thyself". The Appeals Court, the Federal Police and the Federal Grand Jury are all agents of the public and it is their duty to uphold the ethics of the greater society.

When arguing moral consequences, I propose that Wolf was not balanced and unbiased in his reporting. The methodology of objectivity involves the journalist having the capacity to report a set of facts "without their own perceptions and opinions colouring the report' (Morrison, 2002). In an interview with Frontline News (2007), Josh Wolf said "Transparent journalism has a lot more ability to gain true trust with its viewers than those striving for objective journalism." In the same interview, he would not go so far as to state he is an "anarchist", but did admit to being anti-capitalist. His objection to releasing the footage cannot therefore support any claim he has that his actions are altruistic. His political beliefs and his empathy for the protesters nullify his credibility.

The ethics of egalitarianism would initially seem to apply to Wolf, in that he was reporting about a minority group of protesters. His refusal to hand over evidence that may have incriminated members of this minority group indicates that Wolf had "entered into a social contract to minimise harm" to them and their ideals. (Rawls 1971). However, Wolf failed to follow through his ethical reasoning in that he did not step "behind the hypothetical veil of ignorance" and therefore, Wolf, as a self-interested moral agent was unable to act impartially and without regard to his own cultural bias. (Day, 2000)

There has been debate on whether Josh Wolf was a legitimate journalist as he was not accredited to any professional media organisation. Given that there is no federal protection that applies to journalists being exempt from giving evidence, the question as to whether he was or was not a journalist should not impact on this case.

It would be hard for Wolf to claim confidentiality as a reason for not releasing the footage, as the video was filmed in a public demonstration. Without the defence of confidentiality, Josh Wolf is just an ordinary citizen and he therefore had a moral duty to provide evidence to the courts when called upon to do so. Whilst this viewpoint may seem to counter Aristotle's Golden Mean, in that it appears to an extreme in itself, the very existence of the Appeal Court Process allowed the ethical decisions to "take the shape of the twists and runs of this" case. (Leslie, 2004). The mediated outcome of the case and the release of Wolf from prison provide an excellent example of how the Court of Appeal applied the practical wisdom of Aristotle in reaching a mean relative in this instance.

Josh Wolf left the court with no option but to jail him for contempt when he refused to comply with the subpoena. The Federal Grand Jury is not in a position to assess each individual situation ethic. Relativism has no place in a justice system. It would be impossible to administer the courts if each person had the self-determination to declare that what is right for the majority of society need not apply to them. This would foster anarchy and in this instance there are far-reaching implications in setting any legal precedent that grants protection to citizens who publish independently on the internet.

Mark Doremus and Karen Slattery point out in We need to talk (2006), that "a distinction must be made between a professional journalist and ... anyone else with access to an audience. If all citizens can have a claim to free speech under the law... then no one would be obligated to give evidence in a wide range of situations. When everyone counts as a journalist, no one really counts – because the granting of privilege would become impractical".

The practical application of the law is not always easy to balance against the philosophies of ethics. The human race has debated the issues of ethics and order for centuries. Whilst the law tends to take a pedantic stand, ethics are debatable philosophies that lend themselves to grey areas. That they are inextricably linked together reinforces the need for professional ethical codes in order for journalists to be better able to assess their own objectivity

References
Abelson, R., & Nielsen, K. (1967). History of ethics. In P. Edwards (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Vol. 3, pp. 81-117). New York: The Macmillan Company and The Free Press

Bowie, N. (1985) Making ethical decisions. New York: McGraw-Hill

Day, L. (2000). Ethics in media communications: Cases and controversies (3rd ed. PP 53-74). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Frontline. (2007). Interview Josh Wolf. In Frontline news war. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from WGBH Educational Foundation website:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/interviews/wolf.html

Leslie, L. (2004) Mass communication ethics: Decision making in post modern culture (2nd ed., pp 85-87). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin

Mill, J. S. (1968). Selected writings of John Stuart Mill (M. Cowling, Ed.). New York: New American Library.

Morrison, A. (2002). Objectivity. In J. McGregor & M. Comrie (Eds), What's news: Reclaiming journalism in New Zealand (pp.56-71). Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press.

Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. (pp 30-31). Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

Slattery, K., & Doremus, M. (2006, October). Ethics: We need to talk. In The digital journalist. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0610/ethics.html

Wolf, J. (Producer). (2005). All empires must fall [Motion picture]. United States. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from http://joshwolf.net/freejosh/

The Merits of Power: Post structuralist Derrida vs Foucalt

2008-04-28T18:55:00.000+12:00

In considering the merits of power in the applied theories by post-structuralists Jaques Derrida and Michel Foucault, I would argue that Derrida's deconstruction is the more superior in relation to power in communication.

Derrida's deconstruction has been described as a "difficult process"(The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, 2007,p 60) or theory to define.

My perspective on an exact meaning of deconstruction is that it is all but impossible to describe deconstruction in a satisfactory way. The whole idea of deconstruction is that words are signs and have different contextual meanings. If a word or "sign is defined by it's absence or what is not said", and "there is always an element that can never be filled" (The Open Polytechnic, 2007,p 61), then it must be almost impossible to give an exact definition.

The fact that a definition is hard to supply , I would propose could therefore be deconstruction's proof of its own hypothesis. In the film "Derrida, the father of deconstruction" (Kofman,2004), Derrida himself said, "the very condition of deconstruction may be at work, in the work, within the system to be deconstructed. It may already be located there, already at work.

Those who are able to apply deconstruction are able to gain maximum power by influencing, for example the ideology of Gramsci's proletariate who are ruled by consent. Consider the ruling elite of a society who wish to close the gap between male and female roles. If one removes man, then there is no woman and we are left with "people", which has no power ethic or symbol associated with the term. Therefore it is possible to state that all people are equal.

Because "writing is crucial to generating meaning in speech" (Barker, 2002, p. 19), deconstruction can be used to create many /any meaning. This is because deconstruction can be used to present an argument or ideology through omission or binary inclusion of its opposite. If the same ruling elite wished the proletariate to adehere to the ideology that women are better employees than men, they could state:

"Women can multi-task, therefore they achieve more than men." The opposite would be : "Men cannot multi-task therefore they achieve less than women." This highlights what is not being said . If I say "women are more efficient because they can multi-task", what I am not saying, but is implied, is that "men are inefficient because they cannot multi-task".

Another example of putting across a message by contextual opposites is as follows: Take the statement : "A SUV was involved in a fatal accident with a saloon car".
Remove the distinction of SUV and its opposite, Saloon and all you have is CAR. This will read as "There was a fatal car accident".

To stop SUVs being driven , one could , though gentle persuasion belabour the opposites in the context of the above example . I submit that the eventual cultural norm would probably read something like this: "SUVs cause deaths therefore the proletariate agree with the ruling elite that driving saloons is more acceptable."

Basically deconstruction can be used to present an arguement or idea/ideology through the use of signs and omission or inclusion of its opposite, which can change the context.

Deconstruction is not simply a "technique". It is a recognition that meaning cannot be fixed. Through the use of decontruction I believe text can be made to mean anything one could wish for. Therein lies great power in communcating in this way.

In comparison, Foucault in his later years, held that power was a technique that could be learned and applied. Faucault's discourse ,which was supposed to "regulate" (Barker, 2002, p. 20), who has the power to speak and what could be spoken of, was based on historical studies. However, there have been questions asked about the validitiy and the principles of honesty that Faucoult used to base his theory upon.

One of the most scathing examples of this is found in the article "The fictions of Foucault's scholarship", where Scull says " the ease with which history can be distorted, facts ignored, the claims of human reason disparaged and dismissed, by someone (Foucault) sufficiently cynical and shameless, andwilling to trust in the ignorance and the credulity of his customers (Scull, 2007).

Yet another recent critic states "factual errors and textual misreadings pose a real problem for Foucault if he intends his works to have any credibility or claims to be offering better interpretations of modernity than other accounts" (Best, 1995).

Given that there have been many accusations of inaccuracies over the years, I believe I cannot argue for the strength of anything Foucault may present, when comparing his theories to those of Derrida.

References:
Barker, C. (2002). Foundations of cultural studies. In Cultural studies: Theory and practice (pp. 18-22). London: Sage Publications.
Best, S. (1995). The politics of historical vision: Marx, Foucault, Habermas. New York: Guilford Press.
Kofman, A. Z. (Producer), & Dick, K. (Director). (2002). Derrida. The father ofdeconstruction [Motion picture]. United States: Zeitgeist flims. Retrieved January 16, 2008, from http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7347615341871798222&q=Derrida&total=307&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0 Scull, A. (2007, March 21). The fictions of Foucault's scholarship [Review ofthe book History of madness]. The times literary supplement, para 20.Retrieved January 18, 2008, from http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25347-2626687,00.html
The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand. (2008). Module 1:Beyond Structuralism. In 72145 Introduction to human communication. Lower Hutt, New Zealand.
Bibliography:
Reference section. (n.d.). Marxist internet archive. Retrieved January 19, 2008,from http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/ foucaul2.htm
Michel Foucault. (n.d.). Theory. Org. Retrieved January 18, 2008, fromhttp://theory.org.uk/ctr-fou1.htm

Antonio Gramsci. The theory of hegemony and practical application in winning consent.

2008-04-28T18:52:00.001+12:00

Gramsci borrowed his concept of hegemony from Lenin, using it to theorize that a "ruling group" ...must "govern through a balance of force and persuasion" (McGowan & McGowan, 2004, p. 12).

In discussing intellectuals,Antonio Gramsci gives a clear definition of hegemony in a note to his sister in law, Tatiana. He said it is "a balance between the political Society and civil Society or hegemony of a social group over the entire national society, exercised through the so-called private organizations, such as the Church, the unions, the schools" (Gramsci 1994c. ). Hegemony is thus an ideological dominance of society, in which the subordinate levels of society allow the ruling class to exercise social and economic dominance, with the consent of the subordinate classes in the support of the common good.

That the concept of hegemony works is evident in that marxism has been able to flourish in the Western Capitalist world and Gramsci's theory of hegemony has been explored further by Althuser, Laclau and Chomsky .

Issues with hegemony appear to revolve around the term consent, or how " one defines consent" (McGowan et al, 2004). This is a fascinating subject. Given the all consuming day to day issues of life, are the subordinate classes even aware they have given their consent?
In Gramsci's view, political forces aiming at social change can only gain the upper hand if they are able to mobilize and take charge in society on their own premises (Englestad, 2003).

An example of consent via gentle persuasion and enforcement (force) of a national cultural perspective, could be found in the New Zealand anti-smoking stance, or "Smoke Free New Zealand." Via the media, government departments and places of learning, smoking has been labelled so socially evil, that the idea of smoking in public has become shameful and socially unacceptable. The prohibitive cost of tobacco is punitive and laws have been passed to enforce where people may smoke. (Force). I would argue that the cultural ideology of a smoke free society in New Zealand has been introduced in a hegemonistic way.

References
Englestad, F. (Ed.). (2003). Introductory chapter. In Power,culture,hegemony. Introduction to comparative social research (Vol. 21) . Oxford: Elsevier science. Retrieved January 15, 2008, from Institute for social research Web site http://www.samfunnsforskning.no/page/Publications//7982/20307-8255.html
Gramsci, A. (1994). 1994c. In F. Rosengarten (Ed.), R. Rosenthal (Trans.),Letters from prison (Vol. 2,p.67).New York: Columbia University Press.
McGowan, A., & Mcgowan, K. (2004). Ideology. In A critical and cultural theory reader (2nd ed., p. 35). Maidenhead, England: Open University Press.

Mass Communication and Audience Responses

2008-04-28T18:44:00.001+12:00

How is communication with the masses mediated and how does the audience respond to the information it receives?

The key aspects that should be examined are :1 the historical concept that mass audiences were incapable to applying alternative meanings to texts,2 social scripting through media, and3 audience feedback.

It can be argued that audiences are not passive receivers of mediated mass communication, and are capable of influencing popular culture through active participation.

Mass communication is mediated, which means that the contents are remotely sourced, edited and presented in context with a view to present a dominant meaning for public consumption . However, the denotation of text and the actual connotation may differ widely.

Early communication theorists believed that the Effects Model was all that was needed to sway audience opinion. Much like a "hypodermic injection", thoughts were presented in media form and the recipients accepted them without question.

There are many 1st world war posters, originally published by the US Food Administration, we can use as excellent examples of the type of advertising that gave out a direct message for the audience consumption. These were in plain and simple language and were direct commands or demands to eat less, save more, grow more and work harder. The explanation as to why the commands should have been followed were apparently inconsequential - almost footnotes.

This presumed that the meaning was within the text and the audience had no part in the determination of the meaning. It was even presumed the audience was unlikely be able to interpret meaning, and Lippman, as cited in Chomsky's Mind control: the spectacular achievements of propaganda (1991), even went so far as to describe the audience as a "bewildered herd."

Lippman's incredibly arrogant viewpoint was nullified in the 1940s when it was discovered that a surprising number of voters in the USA had been swayed in their vote choice by the opinions of other voters. The personal influence of opinion leaders in communities meant that audiences had to be "viewed within a larger social setting" (Lazarsfeld, Berelsen, & Gaudet (1968), as cited by Tubbs & Moss, 1994) and this is one of the fundamental reasons the Effects Model failed. There is a social and cultural factor within the audience that influences media reception and this cannot be ignored.

There is a two-step flow model of mass communication because within any society, there are always opinion holders who influence those around them. Recognising this gave credence to the statement in 1928 made by Edward Bernays, that..."the public is not an amorphous mass which can be molded at will, or dictated to."(Bernays & Miller, 1928/2004).

Despite the realization that people did not blindly react to media, there is a lingering debate on the effects of mass media, with particular emphasis on the way media can influence violence in children.This has been extensively studied by the U.S department of Health and despite ongoing debate, they claim their results indicate that children learn aggressive behaviour by watching violence on television.

It can be argued that if children can learn negative behaviour through the medium of television, then so can other behaviours be learnt. Social learning through the media is being currently used quite extensively in New Zealand. For example, there are many short dramatized adverts on television about the dangers of smoking and drink driving. Whether social behaviour can be modified for socio-political purposes, or to the advantage of the mega- infotainment industry via the media is not certain and the effectiveness of such social scripting would be hard to measure in qualitative or quantitative terms.

In the 1970s and 80's, the Reception Theory was introduced. Stuart Hall, in particular, presented the idea that there are audience responses that include "opposition' or "negotiation" There will always be a dominant meaning of text, but these texts have a polysemic nature, and will be decoded by the audience. (Hall,S. 1974).

All audiences have their own opinions and these are based on cultural backgrounds and the ability of humans to select, compare and discuss opinions with others. In support of this hypothesis, are Scramm and Roberts (1971) who state that an audience is "intensively" active and "accepts" or "rejects" the media content it receives.

An excellent example of selection and comparison of dominant, negotiated and oppositional stances is to be found in an a New Zealand televised advertisement (2007).

The advertisement shows a young ballerina and a strong young man. The music and the ethnicity of the characters indicate that this advert is about smoking in New Zealand. The two young peope have their own dreams and ambitions and they wish for a smoke free country for themselves and their nation. When the video cuts to an empty ashtray, it becomes obvious that wishes do not come true. The dominant meaning therefore, is that smoking impacts negatively on our society and no amount of wishful thinking will make people stop. The message is that we need to take action against smoking.

This video is particularly insightful, as the comments posted on the Internet in response to it, clearly demonstrate the dominant , negotiated and oppositional reactions from the audience. (Mellontona Tauta, Stevowoly, & Skirtwalk, 2007).

Mellonta Tauta takes an oppositional stance to the effectiveness of the advertisement . In her post (2007), she asks "How does this ad encourage anyone to stop smoking? It's visually interesting, but conveys no real, concrete stop-smoking message, other than perhaps the banal "Wouldn't it be great if we lived in a smoke-free world?"

The dominant viewpoint is found in the a post by skirtwalk (2008), who concurs "this by far is the most elegant anti-smoking ad I have seen. Pretty cool, I just hope that it is as effective (with the audiences) as well."

A negotiated comment on the effectivness of the advert was contributed by Stevowoly (2007), where he said "I completely agree that smoking is a bad idea, but I think advertisements over do it." This post indicates he is not against the dominant meaning and merely disagrees with the content of the media.

Quick feedback from audience is a new phenomenon which has been aided by technology. This is something that Television stations and print media historically did not have.

It is not suprizing that there is some debate as to whether mass audiences can be be effectively manipulated in view of the influence of audience opinion. With the advent of the internet, I believe that the free-flow of information has helped to break the effects of any deliberate manipulation of mass audeinces. Prior to the internet, the bulk of communication flowed in one direction, or swirled around a little before flowing onward, but the internet allows for a flow of communication from two directions.

Audiences are not limited to media available on the internet. Text in all formats, from magazines, books, radio and television have become such a large part of life in the modern epoch many people could not imagine life without it. However, the feedback is always fast. Printed text can be reviewed online by anyone with an opinon and text messaging has provided a new outlet for opinion sharing in real time.

The communication we are receiving is mediated, but the audience now choose which media they want to use. Media is basically a product. No product will sell if there is not a willing buyer. The media may be a powerful tool, but it is the audience demand and audience feedback that shapes the message and presentation of mediated content.
References
Bernays, E. L., & Miller, M. C. (2004). Propoganda (New ed.). New York: Ig publishing. (Original work published 1928)
Chomsky, N. (1997). Mind control the spectacular achivements of propaganda (G.Ruggiero & S. Sahulka, Eds.) [Brochure]. USA: Seven Stories Press in association with open media.
Hall,S. (1974) "The television discourse - encoding and decoding", Education and culture no 25 (UNESCO), reprinted in Gray, A,. & McGuigan, J. (eds) (1997), Studying culture, London: Arnold.
Lazarsfeld, Berelsen & Gaudet (1944) "The people's choice", in Tubbs, S., & Moss, S. (1994). Mass communication. In Human communication (7th ed., p. 393). New York: McGraw-Hill Inc. (Original work published 1974)
Mellontona Tauta, Stevowoly, & Skirtwalk. (2007, March/April). Anti-smoking tv ad from New Zealand. Message posted to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiuxMiwvhZY
Schramm,W.,& Roberts, D. (Eds) (1971) The process and effects of mass communications (rev ed.)USA: University of Illinois Press.
US Food Administration. (1917). Eat more eat less [Poster]. New York: Heywood Strasser & Voigt Litho Co. Retrieved January 26, 2008, from Military category Website: http://www.vintageposterworks.com/cgi-bin/quikstore.cgi?search=yes&page=search.html&category=Military&keywords=&search2=Go
World anti-smoking day [Television advertisement]. (2007). New Zealand. Retrieved April 23, 2008, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiuxMiwvhZY

IA Richards and the meaning of meaning

2008-04-28T18:41:00.001+12:00

I.A. Richards Semantic theory of "The Meaning of Meaning" was a product of his work on rhetoric in the 1920's . He believed that rhetoric used as persuasion, allowed for misunderstandings. He stated : "Rhetoric, I shall urge, should be a study of misunderstanding and its remedies " (Richards, 1936, p. 3).

Richards points out that meanings do not reside in words, but in people (Ogden, 1923, p. 12). He termed this "proper meaning superstition". This means that words have differing meanings between people depending on the situation.

Richards argued words were symbols, which have do not have a natural connection to that which they describe (Griffin, 1997, p. 58).

To illustrate the concept that words (symbols) have an" indirect relationship" with their referents, Richards developed his Semantic Triangle (Griffen, 1997,p. 60).
For example, I was invited to tea. (Symbol). The mental image ( referent) I associate with "tea" is a hot drink and biscuits. It is served at three o'clock (my reference) in my culture. My host was a New Zealander. His concept of tea was an early evening meal.

Whilst Richards was excellent at identifying the problems of language, his attempts to offer solutions were not very practical (Griffen, 1997,p. 66). For example, he felt definitions could be used to clarify meaning, as could metaphores. Neither can be easily applied in daily conversation.
A further shortcoming is that Richards does not explore non-verbal forms of communication.
An innovative idea, was that communicators could plan ahead and adjust words according to how one feels the audience might react. Richards believed "feedforward was his most important insight" (Griffen, 1997). I have found this to be a useful tool in business.

Richards attempted to select "850 words that new speakers may quickly learn" (Griffen, 1997,p. 65).This idea to develop a basic form of English has potential , given that the global workforce presents inherent communication difficulties.

"Present day post-modernists critics" also contend that "interpretation is the only reality we can communicate (Griffen, 1997,p. 66). Although these ideas originated with Richards, few communicators discuss or credit him his work.

References:

Griffin, E. (1997). A first look at communication theory (3rd ed., p. 66). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Good Content Equals F-Reading & Simplicity

2008-02-25T18:29:00.002+13:00

Hot spot analysis and the F that readers of your website skim are vital when creating content for your websites.

Out goes the old hackneyed "emotional" words. The internet readers and surfers of the 21 st Century are not going to get all hyped up by the the old use of positive, pleasure words such as FREE, SEX, OBJECTIVE etc. They have been spammed and scammed too often to swallow this technique.

They want short, simple words. They want a headline and a short summary they can absord at a glance. They want short, simple sentences. They want good use of white space. They want information and they want it directed at them. They want control. They like to click. They want to interact.

Keep it short. Get rid of the extra words. Give them meaningful links. Give them alternative text on images. Lose the flash and the banners. Speak directly to your client or customer.

Clean, simple, orderly.

It works.

How to Self Publish your Book On Cafepress

2006-11-19T18:22:00.000+13:00

POD, or publish on demand is sustaining many small press companies. This is great news for writers and authors, who might otherwise never break into the book market. There is a huge demand for good non-fiction, but the fiction market is busting at the seams with established authors. Breaking in, is very difficult, and statistically, almost impossible.

There are many authors out there who owe their being published to the POD Press. Even, then, as the years go by, the POD publishers find themselves flooded with too many authors to publish.

The only road for many excellent writers to travel, is to self publish. This is an expensive undertaking, and even then, most self published authors have to fork out more money for the advertising packages. Most of them just don't make it out of the family bookshelf.

This all sounds very depressing. Ebooks is a cheaper alternative, but they have not really caught fire yet, even with palm readers.

SO - what is the aspiring author to do?

There is an answer...and it lies with CafePress. CafePress is usually associated with posters, Tee shirts, mouse pads and gimmicky buttons...none of which are of spectacular quality.

A few years ago they started offering a self publishing service. It was terribly difficult back then, to understand their upload instructions and the book quality was not very good at all. They were very limited in what they could publish and larger books had to be divided into two or more volumes.

Time has moved on, and the publishing section of CafePress has moved, along with most things on the internet.They can now allow the author to publish one volume of just short of 600 pages in trade paperback form, and have ring bound options and really neat booklets format for books up to 50m pages long.

It can be a hassle and an irritation to get all the page sizes and covers just right, but the experience has been character building for me. After many hours of frustration, I have decided to share the basic construction of a Trade Paper Back book with you all.

Firstly, you will need Microsoft word, or similar. As long as it can be written to pdf format, any word processor program will do.
1- Set up your page settings as follows:
Custom page size 12.7 width x 20.32cm in height.
Margins - Top 1.3cm
Bottom 1.3cm
Inside 3.2cm
Outside 1.5cm
Gutter 0
Header and Footer 1.2cm
Click Mirror Margins.

Once you have set up your pages, the first thing you need to do is allow two blank pages before entering any text.These blank pages are to be part of your book. they are called fly sheets.Then you can enter your text. Text is best in gourmand or New Times Roman. Bear in mind, the bigger the book, the more your base price is going to be...so avoid fonts like Arial. You will want to keep your text at no less than size 9. Preferably , bigger is best. Text should be spaced at 1.5 lines, but if you really are pushed for space, keep your line spacing single and make the font a bit bigger.

Chapter headings should be larger than the body text and either Bold or underlined. Bold and Underlining went out with Mary Queen of Scots! Make sure each Chapter starts on a new page, preferably on the right hand side. This holds true for all your important beginnings.

Front Matter:
The front matter, or those boring bits you normally skip reading , like the copy right page come first.

After your two blank pages, you put in a single page that has only the Title of your book on it.

The next page has the authors name and lists any other titles by this author.

The third page with text on it is your main title page. This has the Book Title at the top, the authors name on it and at the bottom, the name of your company and the date.

The fourth page is the copyright page. This page contains the rights of others to distribute, copy,use the book etc. It will contain your ISBN number if you have one. In some countries this is easy and free, in others, you will have to pay a small fee to get one. Ask at your library if you are not sure where to obtain one. Your copyright page must have Printed by CafePress.com at the bottom.This is also where you should put in your address, just in case some higher flying marketer wants to sign you up to write some more books!

The dedication page comes next. You may want to dedicate the book to someone in your family.

Following the dedication page, you can insert your Content page or Index.

After the Index or content page, the next one will be a page that has an introduction to the book, editorial notes, an about the author note...anything that you like really.

The main content of your book will follow on after this page. If the last page of the front matter ends up on the right...it will be fine to add a blank page to get your first chapter on the right hand side of the book.

Main Content Matter:
This is the longest part to prepare, as you have to write it...but the easiest bit to configure. You only have to worry about making certain the next chapter starts on a new page and that you have spell checked for errors.

Back Matter:
This is the back end of the book. These pages are for references, acknowledgements, glossaries and the like. You could add a page here telling people where to buy your book, or even include a tear out mail order form in these back matter pages.

At this point you should have a fairly size-able document. you will need to read it over...and over...and over...and over. Shall I say it again? Over and over. Make sure it all looks good and do another spelling and grammar check before saving it as a final draft.

Make certain you save your final draft in print view, in plain .doc format. Do not save as a web page or in any other special format. You still need to write this to pdf format, and if you don't want to go crazy getting the page settings right for printing, it needs to be in a simple format.

If you do not have an acrobat pdf writer/printer you have just come to a halt. Go and get one online. They are affordable, cheap, and if you are a pro writer you need one.

You convert your book by "printing" it. Instead of printing it to your BJC Canon, you print it to your new pdf software. (Some pdf converters work differently, but I am sure if you can write a book, you can read a help program!) You print it to your pdf program. Then you save it as a pdf file on your hard drive. You do not print it on paper. This pdf file is the book you wrote. It will be uploaded to the CafePress server, so make a few copies as backup.

Covers:
You will need a photo editing program. There are many out there, but my preferences are Photo-Shop, which is very expensive, or Photo-Suite, which is not. I use both of them together. In reality though, you can still put together a great cover with some thought and imagination and bit of photo editing on any program that allows the adding of text and borders.

Your cover needs to be saved as a jpeg file.The size of your picture needs to be bigger than the actual book. The book you are making is a standard 5 x 8 inches. The cover needs to be 5.5 x 8.5 inches. This is to allow a bleed of the image off the edge of the cover, so there is no white line on your book cover. because of this bleed area, do NOT put any text or other things you want seen, too close to the edge of your picture.

You make your back and front covers and save them. The spine cover will come last. You can only make it when you have uploaded your pdf file. Cafepress will not know how thick your book will be until you have started putting it all together. However, it will be 8.5cm in height and you could work on about one inch thick for a 300 page book.

Right...you have a pdf book in it's entirety. You have a front cover and a back cover. Now you need to sign up and become a member of cafepress. Join up here for free : http://www.cafepress.com . It is free for one of each product. If you decide you want to publish more than one book they will ask you to pay an upgrade fee that is totally do-able!

Once you have set up your shop the way you want it, you can begin adding products. The Cafepress page is easy to work with. Click add product, book, and select the Trade Paper Back option.

The next page takes you to an upload document form. Upload your pdf file and select it. This then takes you to your cover pages. You will be given an opportunity to upload and insert your covers. The next step is to add search tags. DO THIS...no search tags, no views of your product! After you have added your covers, you can set the price. return to your product page, view your book and buy one for yourself!!!

All you have to then is promote it.

It is the best feeling in the world to write, publish and print your own book, so go and get started today!

Test Driving Some Free Web Sites

2006-10-29T07:35:00.000+13:00

Carry out a search for free websites , and there are many options to access. I took a number of them for a test drive. Having tested them, it became evident that free sites are never ideal, but for the purposes of non-commercial home sites, they do serve a purpose.

If you want some web space to upload a few photos, place some info about your family to assist with keeping in touch with family and friends, it really is irrespective which one you choose.

For those of you wanting to use free web sites to earn some money from the internet, it is important to be a little bit more discerning. Most free websites come ad supported, so it is important to take some time deciding which one to use.

If, for example, you want to run Google AdSense scripts, it would not be prudent to choose a free site that displays Google AdSense in the template. Your own Google ads are likely to disappear in the clutter.

Pop-up ads can be very intrusive, and most traffic exchanges will not allow more than one pop-up. As you will probably not be aware of how many pop-ups will appear once you have your free site done, it would be a good idea to place a little bit of text on your new free website and then view it in a new window after publishing. If there are too many pop-ups , you can stop using it and you have not wasted a lot of work on a site you will not be able use.

Other sites will not provide html editors. This is a problem for most marketers who would like to display banners, scripts and text links.

So, within all these options, here are some of the ones tested for splash, squeeze and site pages.

Google Page Creator

This is free to obtain by signing up for a Google account and accessing the Labs section under more tools. I found it handy for splash pages, and squeeze pages. There is an html editor and you can create almost unlimited pages. It saves automatically as you work, so your content cannot be lost. The page layouts and themes are limited in selection, but functional. The text displays live in a bit of a fuzzy manner, so you will need to place all text in bold. The site is slow to work with in the editor mode and if you are running windows XP, seems to gobble up any spare ram, so you will have to be patient with these pages. The one huge advantage is that the pages are totally ad free.

Free Webs

The freewebs sites are not too bad at all. The editor is user friendly and the display is good. Major drawback is that most traffic exchanges will not accept freeweb websites.

50megs

This site is wonderful because you have a wide selection of excellent templates, can add and edit html and upload your own pages. There are lots of pages you can add. However, you cannot alter the html in the html manager,if you have built your site with their templates.After save, the templates revert to their original script.Another draw-back is the fact that these free sites are heavily ad supported with pop-ups and more....and are unsuitable for traffic exchanges. In addition to this, whilst you can upload files, the free version file size is quite small and zipped uploads are often rejected because of this limitation.

Brave Host

Maybe it is just me, but I have never yet been able to figure out how to use this site. I cannot seem to get anything up and running and support did not reply to my queries.

Zoomshare

Quite a nice site. They used to be totally ad free, but lately I see they will display their own Google ads across the top of the pages.They supply html editing. I found this site best to work with in tables, so you will need to be able to work like this if you want multiple columns and rows. The site is quite slow to work with when editing as they keep loading ads onto the workspace, but the final product is presentable. You are allowed 4 pages as a free user and can choose from a blog, links, photo album and home page formats.

All4webs

You can get a free page (single). They have small, unobtrusive banner ads that do not really detract from the page. The editor is easy to use, but I found some difficulty in lining up images and text within the tables. You can also become an affiliate of this site and get paid when free users who claim a page when referred by you upgrade to the paid version. Not a bad site for splash pages.

wet-paint

Very nice templates indeed. However, I could not locate any html editor, which is limiting. The pages are largely Google ad supported and you will be unable to add your own script. The owner of these sites must be making a packet from AdSense, which possibly explains why they are free to use.

Own-Free-Website

Displays the published version as a .tl rather than a .com but this has not been an issue with search engines or traffic exchanges. There is a text ad across the top of the page advertising own free websites, but this is the least unobtrusive I have found yet. This site has excellent facilities for managing add-ons, pages and sub-pages. This has to rate as the best freebie around. You can add unlimited pages and sub-pages. The templates are various and very professional looking. Add your own scripts, upload images and more. This was my most highly rated site. I would recommend you grab one today.

websites. ws

Free to trial for 7 days and then US$10 per month. I cancelled after my first 7 days, and not without some difficulty. There was no way to tell them I did not want the site when the trial period ended, other than calling them by telephone. Calling long-distance at some unearthly hour of the day , was not amusing, and having to answer a whole lot of questions as to why I was cancelling was irritating and costing me money. I had a problem with the site in that they are unclear as to how to use the editor facility and when I saved and exited, I lost all my data (twice). I am not a total idiot on the internet, and obviously missed something when I tried to use this site. Newbies will not want to go there! No doubt all the GDI loyalists will be after me in full baying cry - but so sorry..I did not enjoy the experience.

All in all, an interesting experience and hopefully I have been able to assist you with supplying some information to help you access what you need.

Simplifying the Niche Market Mystery

2006-10-22T07:55:00.000+13:00

If you have been around the internet for a while,this may be startling. The results of a recent poll I carried out, indicate that boat-loads of people neither understand the words niche market, nor have the vaguest concept of how to make a niche website.

To many of them, the words "Niche Market", is a phrase dropped by professional party-going net-workers. Internet - speak is sometimes confusing. Much like those ghastly adverts for jobs in our modern-day environment, it very often means nothing at all. Copywriting has intruded into the job-market, and of course, onto the internet and flooded the world with high-flying jargon.

The problem with copywriters is that they can understand phrases like "Niche market" and "persons applying for this key position must be able to facilitate an environment conducive to productivity". Very few normal people have the vaguest idea what they are on about.

And there are millions of normal people trying to make the internet work for them. Knowing that "niche market" is a little understood term, internet marketers offer courses, reports, software, articles and conferences about the subject. They are marketing to a huge and hungry audience, who are perplexed and afraid of all the terminology.

The perplexity can be put aside, because it really is quite simple. Here is a simple definition of a niche website. It is a website that is aimed at a specific interest. For example, a website about golf, is really nothing more than a website targeted to the niche market, golf (Those people interested in golf)

To make certain you understand that, let me assist your with some more examples. A website with a niche market in militaria will target an audience interested in wars and ribbons, medals and weapons. A website about writing is a place people interested in writing will visit.

You will read and hear about how niche market websites need to be content rich. This really puts off new-comers. Do a search on the web and the keyword "content" takes you to free traffic counters, free buttons, plug ins and animations. This is not really relevant. By content rich, what is really needed is not often explained.

Here it is, the great definition every newbie has been waiting for with bated breath...Content is the words on the website, related to the niche market. Simplify it again and you have this. A website about golf, is full of things that interest people who play golf. The things they want to see are articles about golf.

Very often you will see articles and e-courses stressing that you need to identify your niche market and focus on that niche market.Well, really, only a lunatic would build a website about golf and write all over it about cake-baking and crochet. It really is obvious and simple. Content in a niche market website must be about the niche market.

The next thing that confuses the new-comer is that awe-inspiring problem of back links that are SO search engine friendly. Back links are nothing more than links to your own niche market website. You get these by having your website address on other websites. The best way to get these is to write articles about your niche market and have a link to your website in the author profile section. There are thousands of websites that let you sign up for free and submit your articles. These websites also allow you to download articles by other people which you can use on your website. That does away with the content problem for your own website.

Presuming you are more than just a golf fanatic, and did not make your niche market website just for the fun of it, you will want to generate some money from it. HOW?

Left, right, centre, you are being bashed for being a loser. You are being told that only 95% of people ever make anything on the internet. You are a newbie and before you even start you have got the message : LOSER! This is too hard for you!

Well, it is not too hard for you. If you are a newbie, it will be easier for you to make your website in a page-builder that is hosted by your website provider. In the page builder you can insert your text content, your links and your Google AdWords.

This is where the scary word AdSense comes in to spoil your day. Many of the people polled said that the word AdSense was just plain frightening and confusing. They felt that everyone banging on about the secrets of AdSense meant there must be something terribly difficult about it all.

To be honest, even the Google FAQ pages about AdSense read in a complicated way.You should not be amazed by this. Google employs copywriters too! The best way to get around AdSense is to sign up for free at Google. Grab the AdSense code for the advert type you want to display and shove it into the html editor on your page builder. It will not show up until you publish your page. Google has some magical way of determining what the content is on your website and will show relevant ads.

You really don't need to know how they do it...not at this stage, when you are a beginner. It just happens, the same way lots of things happen, like faxes and broadband. Accept it with grace and be ye not troubled by the HOWS. You get money from Google when visitors to your website click on the AdSense ads.

So - here you have it. You have a niche market website about golf. You have written your own content or borrowed it from free article sites. The text is about golf. Google AdSense will very kindly display adverts for golf products on your site. What is missing? SOMETHING TO SELL.

"Oh my gosh! What do I sell? Do I need to rush out start knitting golf scarves and beanies?" Do I need to quickly learn how to build golf carts? Even if I can do these things, do I have the skills and know-how to set up a shopping cart and accept credit cards and go into the deep dark recesses of Paypal to receive payment?"

The short and simple answer, is : NO. Just sign up and become a member of Clickbank.

They will give you an id. Your id will link to any one of the thousands of products you can sell and you will get the commission. There are three pages of golf products on Clickbank alone.

Choose the one you like the most that fits with your content, add an image from the product page and link it to your clickbank affiliate link for the product which you get from Clickbank. If you have a problem with images, just link it to some text about the product. You do not need to have a checkout , a product you personally make nor any html knowledge other than copying and pasting.

List your new niche market website on the SearchBigDaddy portal, submit it for free to search engines and tell your friends about your site.

Congratulations! You have a mini-niche market website and (in tis example),golfing people who access it will find something to interest or assist them .

So, what are you waiting for? Go and build your mini niche market website without fear and next time you are at a party and some-one says the words "Niche Market", you can tell them that internet cyber-speak is a niche market that is old hat and already over-subscribed.

Bursting The Video Bubble

2006-10-01T09:17:00.000+13:00

The gurus keep telling us to get real and drive traffic to our websites via search engines, articles, blogs and a multitude of automated avenues that place cash in their bank accounts . Very few of them will recommend traffic exchanges (unless they happen to own one).But the truth is, many hundreds of thousands of people DO use traffic exchanges.

Those hundreds of thousands of people represent millions of dollars. Another truth, is that whilst the gurus may not recommend traffic exchanges, they use them all the time to grab business from the millions of surfers looking for internet success.

For these sufers, multiple pop-ups, pop-unders and time sucking image loading has been an issue they have had to live with in exchange for a bit of web traffic. Now they have something much worse to contend with. THE DREADED NEW VIDEO STREAMING CRAZE!

Traffic exchanges are backing up to the first off-ramp with video streaming splash pages. The gurus tell us this is the next best thing since the solar system was invented. Perhaps, from their point of view, this is correct. Long-suffering exchange surfers have to sit jammed up on their websites for an eternal age whilst the video loads. Of course, this extends the time the viewer sits on the page, which extends the time she has to decide to click in and become a capture.

However, I declare with joy in my heart, that a recent niche market poll that I conducted revealed I am not the only surfer in the world who hates video streaming. There is a lot of frustration out there in the surfers world. Possibly there are smashed computors,mangled modems and exploding blood vessels too.

Being hung up on some hard-sell splash page whilst a video nobody wants to watch is loading, is rage inducing to the point of not just clicking away, but also closing down the browser and taking taking the dog for a walk on a tranquil beach.

Video streaming is being marketed as the Marketing tool of the century, but if it is enraging potential customers, I fail to see the point in it. After all, it is the year 2006. TV and video was not invented last week. Animated footage is so old hat, we yawn through the Breaking news, so how to they expect us to grow breathless with excitement when we are forced to watch a video of a bank balance growing? Especially when it is not even MY bank balance!

If you really feel you do have to use viseo streaming, despite this very negative poll feedback, take this into consideration :

Not everyone in the world has broadband.
There is still a relatively large consumer base out there still running on dial-up.
Even if only 5 percent of surfers were still on dial up, that adds up to a huge loss of potential profits for the simple fact is, video streaming on dial up is a special kind of hell that only mass murderers deserve!
Not one dial up customer in my poll had ever waited for the program to load. 100 percent of them shut down their browsers rather than die of old age whilst the streaming loaded.
That is 100% of 5 percent of the internet market you just lost!

If you have been using a lot of video streaming in your marketing , stick your head out the window for moment. What is that sound in the distance? I hope you can hear it. I think it is the sound of a giant congregation of angry surfers praying that your business busts!

Basic Errors That Are Losing You Sales

2006-07-16T09:43:00.000+12:00

Sometimes you just have to laugh! Here's one of the best
marketing blunders I have seen for a long time.

Online Ad text : "LOOKING FOR JESUS ? - CLICK HERE!"

Well, I was not actually looking for Jesus, but I clicked
through anyway. Let's face it, selling jesus in the year 2006 is
not all that easy, so I was interested in their sales approach.

With great anticipation I hit the CLICK HERE link and the
browser opened a new window. This is what I got :

URL NOT FOUND 404 error.

Call me a skeptic if you will, and perhaps I have a trace of
warped humour, but the idea of millions of desperately seeking
Jesus people being told he could not be found tickled me hugely!

Here's another marketing link that made me laugh.

"BUILD A DOWNLINE AT BLINDING SPEED" Well, a click through at T3
speed took 50 seconds to open their main page which was
cluttered with banners from external sites that took an age to
load.

Not exactly blinding speed , and certainly did nothing to
enforce their claims.I doubt they ever built their own downline
- all their potential customers probably died of boredom.

The internet is cluttered with network marketing adverts, and I
doubt many of them were intended to be funny. Marketing is a
serious business after all...and funny should only be funny if
it gets the prospect to sign up.

One of the worst blunders a network marketer can do is fail to
check their links actually work, and the product or program they
are marketing actually delivers.

Here's an example of a traffic exchange downline builder that I
doubt will ever deliver sign-ups :

"IF YOU HAVE THE COURAGE TO KEEP CLICKING YOU CAN WIN AMAZING
REWARDS AND THOUSANDS OF VISITORS TO YOUR SITE".

Yet another giggle escapes me...I click...I wait...I see the
following message "THIS FEATURE HAS BEEN DISABLED - SORRY".

Well, excuse me! "SORRY!" Sorry for who? Sorry for thousands of
keen marketers who zipped off to join the opposition?
Sorry....sorry for you Mr Website owner. If you cannot be
bothered to update your website links, only you are the loser.

Updating and maintaining your website is vital. In fact, not
doing so really does boggle my mind. You surf for hours on end
to market your web site. Like millions of other people, you
probably paid cash at some stage to advertise, or host your
account. Hours and cash ... it all adds up as expenditure versus
income.

Nobody is going to get an income from this familiar message on
traffic exchange page hits :

SITE ID Incorrect(This result on an ad suggesting the Sky is The
Limit!)

OR, even better, this beauty that I stumbled over on TS25
recently :

THIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY TERMINATED DUE TO NON-PAYMENT
OF ACCOUNT.

Heh heh hee...hee hee hee - This person was advertising a site
that promised to earn you in excess of $5000.00 in less than
four months! It obviously did not work all that well. The poor
fellow could not even afford to pay his account on time!

You may giggle at these examples, but you will laugh out loud at
this final tragic marketing error.....

A website is selling instant business web page templates....you
are all familiar with them. Called turnkey sites, the customer
opens the page, sees instant business websites for sale that
they can purchase, get hosted, advertise and make a zillion
dollars. Hey presto - instant business..no html knowlege
requried.

Here's the stunner - THIS SCRIPT DEVELOPER AND WEBSITE TEMPLATE
DESIGNER has.....wait for it..................

Script errors all over their main sales page...script bulging
out of frames, html visible where text should be, overlapping
text..illegible content.

This is so sad, it is almost not funny....but you gotta laugh
anyway!

I'm not going to lecture any of you. I'm really not going to
explain the obvious..you read this and if ,like me, you have a
streak of wierd humour, I am sure you got the message.

Please, check your links, use a spell check, keep your accounts
current. Don't throw your earnings away on the basics.

Marketing Pain Avoidance Sells Well

2006-07-15T11:36:00.000+12:00

It was Stephen King, I think, who said words to the effect that Life Should Be More Than Merely Pain Avoidance. At least, I think it was Stephen King...and my apologies if I have misquoted him.

Anyway, who-ever said this was a noble soul indeed and kudos are due for even thinking up the concept. This statement really is the mark of a one in a billion human - one who thinks outside of our basic survival instincts.

We all know and practice the basics of survival every day of our lives. They are shelter, food and water. These are all basically pain avoidance.

Shelter stops the elements hurting us. Food stops hunger and near death hurting us and water stops microbes from hurting and destroying us, apart from maintaining a few other minor necessities including kidney function.

The bottom line is; the basics are pain associated and anything that grows out of that is also pain associated. We spend our entire lives avoiding pain.

Want to sell something? Easy...just target the brain centre and emotions that deal with pain avoidance.

Even if the product is bad for you...you will buy it, if it suggests the easing of pain.

Junk food sellers have mastered the art to perfection. These days they even have a nice sounding name for donuts, cream-filled sponge cake, heart-stopping deep fried chicken and hamburgers. They call it COMFORT Food.

Comfort evokes nice thoughts. Eating comfort food therefore soothes the emotions and makes us feel good. How comforting this will be when you are over-weight and diabetic is something to worry about later....and by then someone will have some product to sell to ease the pain of over-induging in pain avoidance.

Here's another grand example of selling that targets pain avoidance. This is the nice term that has become popular for shopping: RETAIL THERAPY.

Once upon a time, if you needed something, you went to the shop and bought it. If you did not have ready cash, you saved for it and one day brought home the prize.

How boring! These modern marketing days have taken the bore out of shopping. They call it therapy. Therapy must be good for you - right? Therapy is something you do to make yourself feel better about about yourself.

Therefore retail therapy is shopping to feel good about ourselves. I feel pain - therefore I shop. I feel pain so I spend money. Later I will feel pain because I am broke and I cannot feed the children. BUT that's OK. By then someone will have come up with a pain avoidance product that will ease this pain too.

Indugling feelings and emotions are all in reality, selling to the anthithesis of pain. Take nostaligia, for example. This is a huge player in the consumer market. As Patricia Winters Lauro recently pointed out in The New York Times , where she discussed the use of old characters in the Planters Mr. peanuts campaign - "Reinventing old ad characters allows brands to get some publicity while capitalizing on nostalgia."

We have all experienced nostalgia. Even the Bad Times seem Good when we look back over the years of our lives. Nostalgia is an escape from the present. The present hurts. The present is a time when feelings of pain are raw, so we escape in nostalgia. We indluge in pain avoidance, see good ol' Mr peanuts, buy it, eat it and digest some more comfort food.

So - here it is. Pain sells. Target your product or service to meet a basic psychological need to avoid pain and you have a hot product. I suppose any marketer could just as well try this tactic.....

Buy these hot pain avoidance products. They will sooth your life and ease the pain of x y z
GET PAIN RELIEF NOW - FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF!