Big Brother Is Advertising

Mornings on radio in the United States are filled with advertising. From the time we wake up until the time we fall asleep, it seems the advertising never ends. The jingles, catchy and appealing, sometimes want you to adopt a child or to pony up for National Parks. Sometimes they pressure you to wear a seat belt or to use a booster seat (4.9 is the magic age for using a booster seat -- according to the ad brought to us by the Department of Transportation). For its part, the Department of Health and Human Services wants us to adopt a teen. And so on, and so on…

Of course, they are all good ads with clever jingles and cute lines. At least they seem that way the first few times you hear them. And, obviously, listening to such ads is the price we pay for hearing the news or the music, or whatever the radio is offering. What is surprising, though, is the reversal that has taken place in radio sponsorship. Once the domain of private enterprise, it is now increasingly becoming the voice of government. Our own tax money is put to work to convince us of something politicians and bureaucrats think we ought to do.

But are these indeed public service ads, or are they vehicles designed to enhance government power and control? Are our governments -- state and national -- essentially trying to create a market for their products?

Perhaps it is time to re-read George Orwell’s 1984. What is Big Brother trying to accomplish? Probably we do need government to coax us into some behaviours rather than simply providing negative ads like the ones against smoking. (Oh, that they would crack down on lewd dress codes in schools, TV violence, or loud, pulsing car radios!)

In these economic hard times, "Mad Men" and the real advertising world must be deliriously happy to have the work. The US Ad Council co-sponsors many such ads. Judging from its website, the Ad Council seems to have good social goals and presumably gets paid with our tax dollars for their projects. However, government sponsorship for these ads leaves a different taste. This is not a criticism of the messages. Rather, it is a reflection on the huge, and growing, government presence in our lives -- something that is certainly not confined to the United States. Do we really want, or need, our elected officials using our money to persuade us to achieve their agenda?

The situation with television ads is similar. Ads, for instance, about "taking time to be a dad". Brought to you by -- once again -- the Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Then there are the ads with Morgan Freeman getting a screening for colon cancer…

Once again, the messages do promote good causes. We all agree that people can eat too much or guzzle too much gas. And it is certainly a good thing to adopt a teen. But, what are the ads really selling? Why should citizens be urged to use more services which make them more dependent on Uber government? What is the real goal? To have us grateful for all the hovering government? Is this an effort to have federal and state governments dispense all goodies to a grateful populace? To me, that type of government has an overreaching, imperial ring, like the rule of the Caesars or Louis XVI or Czarist Russia.

In George Orwell's novel, 1984, Big Brother controlled all human endeavours through television surveillance in all rooms. Will we soon have monitors in all homes to calculate our habits and energy use?

It is our natural human desire to want to be taken care of, especially with family withering. But who will take care of us? A recent billboard offers the answer: "You have a friend in government." Big Brother is everywhere.

Maybe it’s time to send a memo to ad folks: "If you hadn’t already noticed, the client is us." Again, surely it is time to be asking: "Are these truly public service ads?" It would appear that since last year’s US election there is a different sponsor. Is it time to ask: "Is this line of advertising a sign of the shift from private-run to government-run employment?" The growing mix of private sales vehicles with public agencies suggests to me the emergence of a new hybrid of big, intrusive government.

In some cases government has created the problem that it wants to fix. It closes an automobile plant, and then it dispenses unemployment insurance. It overbuilds national parks, shifts spending priorities to bail out banks and then badgers us with ads to pony up for crumbling park buildings. If you wonder where the stimulus money is going, some of it is certainly going to people who make up clever lines so you will buy, adopt and donate. But this is a new merger of public service and private expenditure.

What is puzzling about governments’ increasing use of advertisements that push, chide and entice action is how little regard there is for the intelligence of ordinary citizens. Following the economic downturn, we ordinary Americans have quickly responded to our financial situation. We are saving more, spending less and making do. Who knows -- sock darning may return! We are an adaptable people.

Those who appear to be losing faith in the ability of ordinary people to manage their own affairs would do well to take note of research (which won a Nobel Prize) on how people act in their own economic interests. Gary Becker won the prize in economics in 1992 for his work on how individual agents, whether households, firms or organisations, behave rationally as they maximise an objective such as utility or wealth. Borrowing from George Bernard Shaw, Becker said: "Economy is the art of making the most of life."

Should the balance of advertising in the electronic media lean towards private business or towards governments’ attempts to persuade us, the taxpayers, to use their services. Allowing for Becker's view of rationality, can Americans not decide for themselves whether to save a highway, to adopt a child or to drink anything in plastic bottles?

Think it over. Authority given up is not easily recovered.

Marilyn Ryan is a writer and author. Her published work includes the book Why I'm Still a Catholic, which she wrote with husband Kevin. A co-columnist for the Boston Catholic Archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot, she lives in Chestnust Hill, MA, and is a mother of three and grandmother to 9.