The Persuaders...questions

What in "The Persuaders" surprised you (or not)? Name one new thing you learned about marketing or politics from watching the film. Name one new thing you learned about yourself from watching the film, or one thing that the film reiterated about yourself.
One thing that surprised me from "The Persuaders" was what marketing expert Clotaire Rapaille discussed in that segment of the film. I was surprised that so many executives from Fortune 500 companies flocked to him to hear what he had to say about how to market a product. Although he has a degree in Psychology, how can he be so sure what the average person is thinking when they see an advertisement or what they want to see? I found it surprising that Rapaille is seen like a marketing God becuase he "knows" what people are thinking and what they want to see in an advertisement.
I learned that advertisers go through a lot of effort to put an ad that will capture the public's interest. Much more than just the product being advertised goes into an advertisement. I like to think that I am not persuaded by advertisements and that I don't notice them eventhough they are so prevalent in everyday life. But, the film reiterated the fact that we are constantly bombarded by advertisements and may not notice them all because we see them every single day.

"The Persuaders" begins by questioning the increase in the amount of advertising we typically encounter in our daily lives. How would you assess the amount of advertising you see? Too much? Too little? Just right? In your view, what difference does it make to know that people today see much more advertising in their daily lives than people 20 or 30 years ago?
As stated above, I believe we are constantly bombarded by advertisements but, don't realize it because we are so used to seeing so many ads every day. I see the right amount of advertising, or as much as I notice. There are probably twice as many things that are being advertised than I actually notice. The fact that people are seeing much more advertising in their daily lives than people 20 to 30 years ago seems normal. As times, technology, and people change, advertisements will change with them. Because we live in a high consumer society, advertisers must use any means possible to get us to buy their products. 20-30 years ago, people probably didn't care as much about what or how many things they owned, unlike people today.

Cropped vs Uncropped

This is the original image. As you can see it changes the entire meaning of the picture from the cropped one to original. The cropped photo is of a beautiful sunset but, the original picture is actually of an obtrusive oil rig.
"A photograph is often perceived to be an unmediated copy of the real world, a trace of reality skimmed off the very surface of life, and evidence of the real" (Practices of Looking 17). This statement about photography pertains to my original and cropped photos. Coming from an environmental standpoint, the reality is that oil powers the world and could possibly be used forever as a means of energy. The original photo shows the reality of the world with the giant oil rig in the forefront of the photo.
In my cropped photo, I used the rubber stamp tool to get rid of the oil rig to make the photo seem to be just of a sunset.

Cropped image

Altered image

Medium is the message collage: edited

Edited McLuhan collage...I used the magic wand and eraser tools to get rid of the background behind McLuhan's head and also space around the people's chairs.

This photoshop collage represents Marshall McLuhan's idea of "The medium is the message". The two figures next to the Brazillian and Chinese flags represent the content while using the Telepresence system from Cisco. The message, however, is represented by the background of the collage which is of the world. Becuase of the invention of the telepresence system, people from around the world are now able to talk live from the comfort of their office or home.

Photoshop is the message

McLuhan's famous statement, "The medium is the message", relates to Photoshop and how the content of it is not as important as the medium of Photoshop is. In Photoshop, people are able to create, alter, or do anything possible to a picture. Because of this opportunity for anyone to produce a different image, we should always think twice about a picture we are looking at because who knows if it is even real. The medium of Photoshop also allows practically anyone to become an artist and produce any image they can think of.

Photoshop question

In my collage, I put a picture of McLuhan in the upper left-hand corner and I made the edges softer. But, I wanted to get rid of everything from his picture except his head and body. I know there is a magic wand tool but forget where it is or how to use it.

McLuhan Project 1

This photoshop collage represents Marshall McLuhan's idea of "The medium is the message". The two figures next to the Brazillian and Chinese flags represent the content while using the Telepresence system from Cisco. The message, however, is represented by the background of the collage which is of the world. Becuase of the invention of the telepresence system, people from around the world are now able to talk live from the comfort of their office or home.

Medium Assignment

The Cisco Teleprecence program allows people from around the world to talk "face to face" with one another without being in the same room, even country. This innovation takes the place of people having to travel around the world for business meetings that are now able to be conducted using the program.


Cell Phones/Texting gives people the ability to communicate back and forth without talking to one another. Texting allows friends, family members, etc to stay in touch whenever they want and allows them to get back to the person they are texting whenever they like. A down-side of texting is that it eliminates face to face contact and removes us from human interaction.


The Amazon Kindle is an innovation that allows people to buy books online and upload them onto the device and read just like a regular bound book. The Kindle holds up to 200 books and gives readers the freedom to take the thin device wherever they want without having to carry 2 or 3 regular books which can take up space.