There! Did you see it?; Care! They do see you… Subliminal messages in advertisement, movie making and cartoons in a ‘not so-innocent world’. Profit driven or ‘dark’ conspiracy?

Klimov, Blagoy (2003): There! Did you see it?; Care! They do see you… Subliminal messages in advertisement, movie making and cartoons in a ‘not so-innocent world’. Profit driven or ‘dark’ conspiracy?

Abstract

Public space is bombarded by subliminal messages. I argue that subliminal messages are not so innocent and that despite their mass usage, they have not received enough public and scientific attention. Is such dissemination profit-driven or a consequence of some 'dark conspiracy' plot? It would be paranoid to presume that there is some kind of global conspiracy that coordinates their usage and most probably the subliminal messaging is just a tool for increasing profits. However, that is a question for a consequent paper. This paper investigates not so much the 'why'-part, rather the 'if' part: Do global advertising agencies and their clients really employ an intensive usage of subliminal effects in political campaigns, advertisement, movies and even cartoons? It is rather ambitious task to give an ultimate answer to that question, but the paper empirically proves that there are much more subliminal messages in the public space, than we suppose. Unfortunately, they and their creators are much more ‘interested in us’, than we are in them.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Institution: Central European University-Budapest
• Language: English
• Keywords: subliminal messages; mass media; advertisement; cartoon; political campaign; 25th frame
• Subjects: Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z10 - General; M - Business Administration and Business Economics ; Marketing ; Accounting ; Personnel Economics > M3 - Marketing and Advertising > M30 - General

References

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