Speaking of marketing prowess, I just read this article about DeBeers and the history of diamond marketing. Some of the advertising may seem a bit morally questionable, but you can't argue that this kind of stuff doesn't still happen today.
Read more at www.theatlantic.com/doc...
I was also listening to TWiT this morning, and they were discussing the paid use of bloggers to pump up products on the web. One might go as far as saying that it is now even easier to manipulate the media to get your message out to a large audience. There is a need for a course that teaches people how to be critical of media. There was a bit of talk in this episode about how this used to be a part of Home Economics, which has all but disappeared from modern curriculum.
I have not doubt that kids today are much more adept at handling all the messages that are being driven toward them, because of the sheer quantity of media available, but I'm not so sure how easy it is to process. It would be good to at least confront media with kids and open up a dialog that questions it's intent. Ignoring media, or disallowing access to media doesn't really prepare them for the onslaught that will eventually happen. I think kids need to learn to question the messages coming from media at an early age, because companies are marketing to them at ever younger ages.
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