| Number 253 | April 23, 2004 |
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This Week:
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| It’s WEEK THREE, WEEK THREE,
WEEK THREE of the
* NYGAARD NOTES PLEDGE DRIVE! * In case you’re wondering, these things usually go on for four weeks. The first week is nothing but Pledge Drive, and each subsequent issue has a little less Pledge Drive and more of the usual stuff. So, in this particular Week Three, you’ll find some assorted quotations from readers that are, I hope, inspiring, and that’s it for Pledge Drive stuff. The bottom line is this: The more pledges I receive, the more time I can spend on the research and writing that makes Nygaard Notes happen. So, please, give what you think is fair. If you know you don’t want to pledge, just skip the inspiring
quotations and go right to the articles and resources that are, after
all, the reason read Nygaard Notes. HOWEVER, if you have not yet done
so, but have been meaning to, How? Either donate electronically, or send in a check. Mail it to:
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Greetings, A heartfelt thanks to all of you who have sent in your pledges of financial support for Nygaard Notes. Omigosh, what would I do without you!?! (I would stop doing Nygaard Notes, that’s what I’d do!) I’ve never seen a time when the mainstream reporting on an event differed so radically from the apparent reality of the event. The “event” I’m thinking of is the U.S. siege of the Iraqi city of Fallujah. I shouldn’t say that I have never seen such a disconnect. What I should say is that I have never seen a disconnect that is so easily revealed. That is, in the days before the internet, even if one was suspicious of news reports, it would still take days, weeks, or months for enterprising reporters to get at the truth, produce a report on it, and get it distributed to an audience sufficiently large to make a difference. Now, it takes only hours, sometimes minutes. No room to do much more than this, but here are five sources for daily reality checks on what is happening in Iraq, all with current internet addresses:
No room for more right now. Until next week, Nygaard |
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The Los Angeles Times of April 21st reported on a 450-page report released this week by the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy. “The first comprehensive analysis of the oceans in 35 years,” the Times called it. Commission Chairman James D. Watkins, a retired Navy admiral, “referring to the 16 panel members, who included oil and shipping executives as well as scientists and government officials,” said:
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In the past couple of issues I have attempted to explain, in my own words, what it is about Nygaard Notes that is worthy of your support. But it’s not just me. Readers of this newsletter send me a lot of mail, and mixed in with all the ideas, challenges, and questions they send, they often manage to find the time to tell me how much they appreciate the week-in, week-out work that we all know as Nygaard Notes. This week I’d like to share some of those comments with you. That way, when you consider sending in a pledge—whether it’s $5.00 or $500.00—you will know that you are not the only one who finds Nygaard Notes inspiring enough, educational enough, or entertaining enough to support with your hard-earned dollars. And, really, that means a lot, because if it were just you and me this wouldn’t mean much. But Nygaard Notes continues to grow, and it is you and me and many, many others who amplify the ideas and values that you find in these pages. Here, then, are a few recent comments from your fellow Nygaardians: At the end of February someone wrote from Duluth Minnesota to say this about Nygaard Notes #244: “Excellent work, Jeff. It's been a while since I've made time
to read the Notes, but I'm glad I did. Thoughtful, informative, and
entertaining (don't cringe when you read ‘entertaining’)...”
** After Bob in Northfield, Minnesota forwarded Nygaard Notes #241, “National Health Insurance: The Nuts and Bolts” to his list of friends, here’s what one of them wrote back to him: “Bob, I want to thank you for the best piece of information to come across (in my opinion) in a long time! I passed it along to everyone in my address book! Jim” [Ed. note: I hope Jim has a big address book!] ** Someone wrote me from somewhere on the West Coast in January, saying: “I always read your newsletters with great interest and find them to be some of the most informational and well-documented articles on the Internet.” ** And this, from a long-time reader in Vermont: “Hi Jeff, Having read and re-read ‘From One Big Lie to Many Little Lies’ [Nygaard Notes #234] and the great application you made to GBush, I have to say you are doing some of the most important work going on in understanding how things work in the world of government culture and society! Whew! But I mean it... I have a file of important Nygaard Notes articles. It's one of the most important resources available, period.” ** Someone else received a forwarded copy of the Notes and wrote to me in early February as follows: “I just read a forwarded copy of one of your newsletters about, ‘Health Care and the Single Payer Options’. WOW! It is really a breath of fresh air to hear/read an understandable explanation... THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. Please include me on your email listing.” *** Earlier this very month, a new reader of the Notes had this to say: “I'd like to thank you for your weekly newsletter. You explain your topics so clearly and concisely and in such a way that even the most naive person could understand what you are talking about. Your positions have helped me more clearly stand my ground - especially at those family dinners that take on the heavy topics each election time. (laugh)” |
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Commercializing Democracy, Part 1: “Potential Voters Are Also Potential Customers” |
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Three weeks ago my “Quote” of the Week was what I called an “ominous” headline from the Advertising column in the New York Times (“All The News That’s Fit To Print”) of March 22nd. That headline was “Marketers Discover Election Day, Embracing Get-Out-The-Vote Efforts for Young People as a Way to Reach Potential Consumers.” I headed that QOTW with the words “Oh, No!” and said that I would have more to say on this later. So, here goes. After starting out with a flippant comment about how many of our cultural occasions and events have already been co-opted for advertising purposes (they mention Presidents’ Day auto sales as an example), the Times warns us that “Now marketers are exploring ways to capitalize on one of the few occasions that have remained relatively uncommercialized: election season.” It’s an odd thing to say that election season is not already “commercialized,” since the packaging and marketing of the symbolic icons that we call “candidates” is, in itself, a commercialization of what could and should be a democratic hallmark. After all, the “major” candidates for president this year are projected to spend roughly $300 million dollars on their campaigns, with much of that phenomenal sum being spent on, yes, commercials. But we’ll leave that aside for the moment. The Times goes on: “Keenly aware that young potential voters are also potential customers, brands including Motorola, Ben & Jerry's and 7-Up have signed up to support Rock the Vote this year.” (Rock the Vote is a youth-oriented get-out-the-vote campaign.) A professor of communication at American University in Washington says, “the strategy [of supporting get-out-the-vote efforts] poses risks for the marketers and the nonprofit groups. Genuine political impulses or political activities can get trivialized or get translated into a marketing opportunity. You need to be careful about drawing the line.” Who, one might ask, needs to be careful? She doesn’t say. The president of Rock the Vote is quoted as saying “Looking at this election, there has definitely been an increased level of corporate partners supporting the mission of engaging voters. One of the realities that we face post-9/11 is an increased awareness of public service, patriotism and participation.” Voting Promotion? Or...? So, why would “corporate partners” want people to vote? And what kind of voters do these “corporate partners” want to “engage,” anyway? The article doesn’t directly address this, but we can figure it out. Consider this comment from the article: “At least once a week, Motorola will send election news and information to the cellphones of consumers who sign up online.” Or, how about this comment: “Another Rock the Vote partner, Ben & Jerry's, recently began selling an ice cream flavor called Primary Berry Graham. On Free Scoop Day, an annual promotion scheduled for April 27, Ben & Jerry's stores will set up voter registration tables.” While it is true that the percentage of the voting-age population who were registered to vote in the 2000 election was at an all-time low of 64 percent—making the need for get-out-the-vote efforts evident—it’s worth looking at who is voting and who is not. According to the Census Bureau, 38 percent of high-school graduates voted in the 2000 election in the United States, while 75 percent of college graduates did (that went up to 82 percent for those with advanced degrees). 72 percent of people earning more than $50,000 per year voted, while only 38 percent of those earning less than $10,000 did. And 44 percent of renters voted, compared to 65 percent of homeowners. It might seem, from looking at the above figures, that get-out-the-vote efforts ought to be targeted not at cell-phone users, but at those who don’t even have telephones, or at least those who can’t sign up online, since they’re the ones who are not voting. Maybe we should be talking to those who buy the cheap gallon pails of ice cream instead of the Ben & Jerry’s pints. In other words, if we want our elections to reflect the will of the diverse population of the United States, then perhaps we should rely less on the whims of the advertising industry and their “corporate partners,” and more on non-profit, community-based organizations that are composed of and serve the people whom we know vote at lower rates, but who may not be the “market” that our “corporate partners” want to reach. There is a clear, if unintentional, class bias in the corporate campaign
to get out the vote. And why would anyone expect otherwise, given the
natural desire of corporations to reach out primarily to “potential
customers” with this as with any advertising campaign? And, make
no mistake, the “get-out-the-vote” campaign is an advertising
campaign. As a spokesman for one of the “corporate partners”
frankly puts it: “Any company that's honest about it is saying,
‘Look, we want to do good, but we also want our name to be associated
with doing good.’” Next week: A closer look at Ben & Jerry’s, the difference between “doing good” and appearing to do good, and how modern marketing works. |