Educational psychology Essay Example for Free

Instructive brain science Essay Acquaintance Welcome with the investigation of another significant subject in the Bachelor of Education Curriculum. Before the finish of this course the understudy will have the option to: 1. Characterize, human science and sociological establishments in instruction. 2. Recognize any five significant focuses about the importance of Sociological establishments in training. 3. Analyze indigenous Ghanaian Education System and its impact on Western Formal Education. 4. Draw a qualification between instructive human science and human science of training. 5. Investigate the polarity among rustic and urban instruction conveyance. 6. Examine the elements and import of culture. 7. Characterize socialization and its significance to Western Formal Education. Meaning of Sociology and Sociological Foundations in Education 1. Vander Zanden considers Sociology to be the logical investigation of human association. 2. Agyeman (1992, p. 47), sees â€Å"Sociology† as â€Å" an order which examines the nature and elements of human social orders and the progressions that happen inside them. † He accepts that human science is to a great extent worried about understanding the connections that exist between individuals which eventually administer their conduct inside the general public. 3. Metta Spencer thinks about Sociology as the investigation of human gathering life. The inquiry is, what is human gathering life? Human gathering life alludes to the life of individuals in an organization. Such individuals are administered by shows (unwritten constitution, or unwritten standards and guidelines), with points and purposes for sticking them together inside a specific area. 4. Humanism as an order is keen on what makes human gathering life, conceivable, inside a given society. 5. What is society? The term society alludes to the whole mind boggling system of the social world. It might allude to public activity in the theoretical, without reference to a particular spot, however more frequently, it alludes to a nation, a country or a state like Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia, and so forth. What is Educational Sociology? Bhattacharya (2003, 2006, p. 1. , in Brown 1947), characterized Educational Sociology as the utilization of Sociology to instructive issues. Instructive Sociology is especially keen on discovering how to control the instructive procedure to accomplish better social and character advancement. Instructive Sociology poses the inquiry what issues or impact does society bring to the school. What is Sociology of Education? Social science of Education then again underlines on the idea of human relations inside the school and the social structure inside which the school works in the Community. At the end of the day, Sociology of Education is worried about what issues or impact the school brings to or/has on the general public. End product: Educational Sociologyâ€the impact of society on instruction. Human science of educationâ€the impact of instruction on society. Sociological establishments in instruction Now that we comprehend human science of training and instructive social science, we can apply the ideas to recognize what the course, sociological establishments in instruction tries to accomplish. This course resembles a bisexual. Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary characterizes bisexual as an individual, a creature or a blossom that has both male and female sexual organs and attributes. The Course thinks about the impact of society on instruction, and furthermore that of training on society. These two topics run however the course like a string that holds various dots together. Section Two How social orders flourish Societies keep going long, in light of the fact that they meet the accompanying attributes: Each general public has an a. land area, b. culture and populace. c. Explicit necessities. d. In â€built systems to accomplish these necessities. Ghana as a nation for example, needs to imitate to renew her populace; she does this by †¢educating her residents, †¢producing merchandise and enterprises to meet the public activity and status of her populace, †¢governing her kin that so there could be peace, her kin turning out to be productive members of society, †¢ meeting their enthusiastic desires, for example, the journey for religion, and †¢assisting her residents to meet their recreational and physical needs through wellbeing administrations. From the previous signs about how families flourish, it might be expressed that cultural needs are given by social foundations inside a nation. Peil (1977, p.17) characterizes a social foundation as â€Å"an suffering complex of standards, jobs, qualities and assents which grasp a particular portion of between human life. † As per Peil, Social Institutions are uncommonly sorted out and masterminded interpersonal organizations of the individuals who comprise the general public. People are in this way noted to be able to interface with one another in their day by day experience; and by so doing accomplish their requirements and their coherence across ages (Agyeman 1992, p. 47). Society along these lines, flourishes in four significant establishments: 1. Marriage and the family 2. Financial foundations 3. Political associations 4. Strict gatherings/Religious foundations. 1. Marriage and the Family When a youngster is conceived, it is raised in a family, through a procedure called socialization. Specialists have characterized socialization. A couple of such definitions are as per the following, however quite a bit of it would be analyzed in exercise ten. Socialization is a procedure of figuring out how to identify with, and cooperate with others; a procedure of embracing the personal conduct standards of the encompassing society; a demonstration of building up oneself as per the standards of communism; the demonstration of meeting for social purposes, and taking an interest in social exercises. .(http://www. babylon. com/definition/socialization/Latvian, recovered January 31 2012). Socialization is additionally a term utilized by sociologists, social therapists, anthropologists, lawmakers and educationists to allude to the way toward acquiring standards, customs and belief systems. It might give the individual the abilities and propensities essential for partaking in exercises inside their own general public. A general public itself is framed through a majority of shared standards, customs, values, conventions, social jobs, images and dialects. Socialization is in this manner ‘the implies by which social and social coherence are accomplished. ’ (http://www. babylon. com/definition/socialization/Latvian January 31 2012). Hence the procedures of socialization decide the primary plan of marriage as an organization; a couple of elements of marriage are as per the following: a. Reproducing: carrying kids into being to assume different jobs in the public eye. b. Meeting the physical needs of one another: the Lord God had expressed; â€Å"it isn't acceptable that the man should live alone, I will make him an assistance meet for him† Genesis 2:18 KJV). As it were, God Himself saw that man required an ally to assist him with adapting to life’s works, for he (Adam, the first to be made), had been relegated to dress and keep the nursery of Eden, an errand that required some assistance. Much could anyway be said about gathering the physical needs of mankind through the marriage organizations, yet it might be summarized in this famous adage: â€Å"two heads are superior to one. † After all, when the couple team up, they can accomplish their life objectives, better. c. Another huge job the marriage foundation plays in helping social orders to flourish, and inside the setting of socialization is found in one of the most significant elements of the wedded couplesâ€raising up kids in the dread of the Lord. We are to prepare our kids the correct way with the goal that they can turn out to be productive members of society when they develop (Proverbs 22:6). Today is a well established reality in each general public that solitary child rearing isn't the most ideal approach to bring up kids. Genuine Christians consequently accept that God underscored the significance of kid sustain through the collaboration of couples when He questioned couples in the prescience of Jeremiah, â€Å"Lift up your eyes and see them that originate from the north, where is the herd that was given thee, thy excellent group? † (Jeremiah 13:20 KJV). My preferred creator had noticed: The explanation there are such a large number of remorseless people in our reality is that genuine fondness has been viewed as shortcoming and has been disheartened and quelled. The better piece of the idea of people of this class was debased and overshadowed in youth, and except if beams of celestial light liquefy away their frigidity and cruel narrow-mindedness, the satisfaction of such is covered always (E. G. White, Adventist Home, p. 108, accentuation mine). In her book Child Guidance, a similar writer mentioned the accompanying objective fact. â€Å"To the mother and father the correct preparing of their kids is the most significant work of their life† (E. G White, Child Guidance, p. 556). To summarize the job marriage plays during the time spent socialization, and how it encourages social orders to flourish, one may understand that marriage is a truly key organization with regards to life on earth. It takes couples synergistic endeavors in union with multiply, or deliver posterity. What's more, when couple bear youngsters, these children should be sustained to assume different jobs in social orders. It has been distinguished that as these couples collaborate to meet each other’s physical, enthusiastic and mental necessities, they can likewise help train kids in the dread of the Lord to assist society. 2. Financial Institutions: Many physical and material needs of society are given by monetary foundations. Ventures, banks, organizations, all team up to address the issues of individuals in a general public. Anyway arrangement of necessities by these monetary establishments could be disturbed by confusion of some sort. Harmony is in this manner required in each general public. To get harmony in social orders, we need political establishments. 3. Political Institutions: These exist to keep up harmony and soundness inside a nation or society, to be specific; chieftaincy, national administration, the police administration, the military, and so forth. Without thes

How to Write a Persuasive Research Paper

How to Write a Persuasive Research PaperWriting an effective research paper is essential in achieving your academic goals. It will help you reach your objectives. In order to attain this goal, it is important to know how to write a persuasive research paper.Firstly, when writing a research paper, there are a number of factors that can affect the outcome of the paper. Some of these factors include how the research is performed, the analysis used and the conclusions drawn. All these factors will have an impact on the way the paper is written.The approach to be taken towards writing a persuasive research paper is very important. A good example of a good approach is the use of anecdotes. It helps in providing more weight to the conclusion you are drawing as well as make the presentation appear more realistic.It is important to remember that it is a personal experience, which comes from observation rather than a statistical analysis. It is also important to include anecdotes throughout th e paper. Be sure that they are relevant and true. Try not to use too many as this will reduce the impact of the report.It is best to have several points that can be related to each other to form a persuasive research paper. Start by listing the main ideas or theories, then go on to develop your research plan, your sample selection and the quantitative approach. It is important to take into account each of these elements when writing a persuasive research paper. You should also consider the perspective you are presenting the information in.One of the major areas of the research that determines how well you can write a persuasive research paper is the analysis. This is something that will help determine how well you can relate your conclusion to the topic. Forexample, if you are writing about the process of recruiting, you will need to analyze the recruitment process in order to provide an insight into the process. It is also important to research the most successful companies that re cruit the most people.Next, you need to include all the data used in the project. To provide the most effect, try to ensure that the data collection process is uniform. This will help to improve the consistency in the presentation of the report.Finally, use key words throughout the paper. Key words are what make the paper popular. It is also best to use them to introduce each section of the paper.

Can We Have an Honest Conversation About Advertisements

Can We Have an Honest Conversation About Advertisements If the following screed were a peer-reviewed journal article, its abstract would be brief: advertisements suck. Well, at least most of them do. That’s not to say that all advertising is inherently evil, or even bad, because not all advertisements are created equalâ€"they run the gamut from informative to downright destructive. To understand the inherent problems with advertisements, it’s important to first point out that advertising isnt the same thing as marketing. Though these two terms are often used interchangeably, they are different in practice. Advertisements Advertisements are paid announcements via a public mediumâ€"mattress commercials, infomercials for the latest exercise fad, and seemingly harmless adverts for harmful prescription drugsâ€"and they are generally not an endorsement by the platform on which they are displayed. In Latin, advertere means to turn toward, and thats the exact aim of todays ad agencies: theyre willing to pay heaps of money to turn your eyes toward their products and services. And if the demand for a product isnt as high as the supply, no problem! Advertising can create a false demand if the budget is high enough. In recent years, worldwide spending on advertising has topped half a trillion dollars a year. Even writing the full numberâ€"500,000,000,000.00, commas and allâ€"doesnt come close to truly understanding its depth. So lets put it into perspective: If you leave your home today and begin spending one dollar every single second, it will take you more than 15,000 years to spend half a trillion dollars. In fact, if youdve spent a million dollars every single day since the fall of Rome, you still wouldn’t’ve spent half a trillion dollars by now. And were spending more than that every year on advertising. Which isnt so bad in and of itself. After all, its just money being spent on informing people about useful stuff, right? Yes, that sort of used to be true. A Brief History of Modern Advertising Before the twentieth century, advertising largely connected the producers of goods with consumers who genuinely needed those goods. But then, as Stuart Ewen describes in his book Captains of Consciousness, Advertising increased dramatically in the United States as industrialization expanded the supply of manufactured products. In order to profit from this higher rate of production, industry needed to recruit workers as consumers of factory products. It did so through the invention of [advertising] designed to influence the populations economic behavior on a larger scale. By the Roaring Twenties, thanks to Edward Bernays, whos sometimes referred to as the founder of modern advertising and public relations, advertisers in the U.S. adopted the doctrine that human instincts could be targeted and harnessed. Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, realized that appealing to the rational minds of customers, which had been the mainstream method advertisers had used to sell products, was far less effective than selling products based on the unconscious desires that he felt were the true motivators of human action. Since then, weve witnessed ten decades of advertising agencies reachingâ€"and overreachingâ€"into the depths of the human psyche. Overreach of Advertisers Fast forward to the present day. One of the most obvious examples of advertisers’ rapacious (over)reach in recent years is the drug Sildenafil, which was created as a treatment for hypertension. When clinical trials revealed the drug wasnt effective, that should have been the end of its life cycle. But then advertisers stepped in. After discovering several male test subjects experienced prolonged erections during clinical trials, the makers of Sildenafil had a solution that desperately needed a problem. So they hired an ad agency who coined the term erectile dysfunction, and Viagra was born. This campaign took a relatively flaccid problem and created a ragging $2-billion-per-year blue pill. Of course, Viagra is a rather anodyne example. There are many pharmaceuticals whose side effects are so expansive that their commercials are forced to use gratuitous green pastures, yearbook smiles, and handholding actors to conceal the terror of rectal bleeding, amnesia, and suicidal ideation. In a sane world, misleadingly selling harmful prescription drugs would be a criminal act. Actually, it is: it’s illegal in every country in the worldâ€"except the United States and New Zealandâ€"to advertise drugs to consumers. But we let the almighty dollar get in the way. In 1976, Henry Gadsden, then CEO of Merck Co., told Fortune magazine that hed rather sell drugs to healthy people because thats where the most money was. Weve been sold new cures ever since. But please dont think this is an anti-boner-pill diatribe. According to the research, Viagra seems to be a relatively benign drug. Thereby, theres little wrong with the pill itself. Its the paid advertisements that are troublesome. Many ad agencies employ writers, demographers, statisticians, analysts, and even psychologists in an effort to divorce us from the money in our checking accounts. With the help of a fine-tuned agency, even the disclaimer is part of the sales pitch: Consult your doctor if your erection lasts longer than four hours. I dont know about you, but Id rather consult my partner with my everlasting hard-on. Viagra isnt the only product pushed beyond its initial conception. Did you know Listerine was previously used as a floor cleaner, Coca-Cola was invented as an alternative to morphine, and the graham cracker was created to stop you from masturbating? Hmm. If at first your product doesnt succeed, hire an ad agency! Selling Insecurity Making men believe their erections arent firm enough isnt the first time corporations have capitalized on human insecurity. For decades, women have been sold an inferiority complex. Our glowing screens would have the average female believe her waist isnt skinny enough, her breasts arent big enough, and her eyelashes arent lush enough. Dont worry, though, whatever your ailment, consumerism has the cure. In Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk prophesied of a dystopia in which a cunning con man could sell our own fat back to us after extracting it from our bodies. He was only half right, however. In the book, the fat is repackaged as soapâ€"a metaphor for cleansing ourselves by way of consumerismâ€"but in the real world were sold our fat in the form of autologous-fat transfer (butt injections) so we can look like our favorite reality-television stars. In a Kafkaesque bait-and-switch, advertisers sell us the food that makes us obese because we deserve a treat, and then they sell us the diet plans and exercise equipment to combat our gluttony. The sleight of hand doesnt end with male enhancers and weight-loss remedies. Advertisers go much further, capitalizing on our fear (and greed) with radically overpriced timeshare properties, precious metals, and end-times survival kits. You may notve known the world was ending, but now that you do, theres a product you can purchase to prepare. Selling Scarcity Speaking of the end of the world, why does it seem like the ads we experience are always taking place in a state of perpetual emergency? Act now! Limited time only! While supplies last! These advertiser-induced artificial limits are almost always imaginary. The truth is that if you miss out on a so-called sale, youll be just fine because corporations are always looking for a new opportunity to sell you something today. I mean, whats the alternative? Sorry, Mrs. Customer, youre screwedâ€"you waited an extra day to make your decision, so we no longer want your money! Why, then, does almost every company inject urgency into their ads? Because, as Bernays recognized a century ago, this tactic takes advantage of our primal nature: humans make quickâ€"often rashâ€"decisions in times of perceived scarcity. This made sense when our number one concern was starvation; it makes much less sense when we think well never be able to own that big-screen television, video-game console, or clutch purse unless we get in on this weekends doorbuster bonanza. Selling Nonessentials Advertisers have gotten so skilled that they can even sell us trash and tell us its good for us. Literally. Since American farmers are faced with unprecedented hoards of soybean and corn crops, and thus unprecedented waste products from those crops, advertisers have found a way not to safely dispose of that waste but to repackage it and sell it to you as hydrogenated oil, a supposed alternative to healthier oils from olives, avocados, and almonds. Inferior cooking oils are just the start of the garbage thats sold by the food industry. The amount of junk food that is peddled to us is so immense and so dangerous that there isnt room in this essay to meaningfully explore the sugar and processed foods vended by Americas largest corporations, but it can be summed up in a single stat: in 2018, you are more likely to die from obesity than of a violent crime, terrorism, war, starvation, or a car crash. Junk foods arent the only junk we buy. Unbeknown to us, advertisers have helped turn our homes into mausoleums of trash. To justify our clinging, weve invented cute nicknames for our junkâ€"trinket, knickknack, novelty, doohickey, tchotchke, collectors item, mementoâ€"as if what we call our trash increases its importance. But in the real world, the cheap plastic things we purchase at gift shops arent of importance, which might be fine if they made us happier or improved our lives, but they dont. Instead, we experience a dull high that wears off soon after the cash register dings its quiet victory, and we sit in the aftermath of consumption with an unusable artifact. Then, in time, we feel icky because were too ashamed to let go, so we purchase plastic storage containers to hideâ€"ahem, organizeâ€"our past mistakes. Each year, Americans spend $1.2 trillion on nonessential goods. In contrast, we contribute less than $200 billion to charities every year. In other words, we spend a trillion dollars more on shit we don’t need than on helping people in need. Advertising to Children Advertisers have found perhaps the easiest way to flood our homes with nonessentials: by advertising to our children. Not only do kids lack the critical thinking skills to say no to the foods that are killing us, but if they develop brand loyalty early, then Ronald McDonald has a lifetime customer. According to the American Psychology Association, commercial appeals to children became commonplace with the advent and widespread adoption of television, and they grew exponentially with the proliferation of cable television, which allowed programmers to develop entire channels of child-oriented programming and advertising. It is estimated that advertisers spend more than $12 billion each year to reach the youth, and children view more than 40,000 television commercials each yearâ€"an exponential increase from decades past. The American Academy of Pediatrics believes this targeting occurs because advertising in the U.S. alone is a $250 billion a year industry with 900,000 brands to sell, and children and adolescents are attractive consumers: teenagers spend $155 billion each year, children younger than 12 spend another $25 billion, and both groups influence another $200 billion of their parents spending every year. Perhaps the solution is to follow Sweden, Norway, and Quebec, and completely bar advertising to children under the age of 12. But more than likely its up to us as parents to develop the systems and communities that will better influence our kids viewing habits. The Upside of Advertising When done carefully, however, as rare as that might be, advertising can help fulfill an existing need. In fact, a hundred years ago, many ads did just that: they connected potential customers with a product that would improve their lives. I myself have benefited from informative advertisements. Living in Los Angeles, Im exposed to more billboards than most of the worlds population. Even though theyre a horrendous eyesore, I can honestly say that Im more informed about the available mediaâ€"movies, music, television seriesâ€"than if these advertisements didnt exist. The same is true for the tailored ads of the Internet. Google does a great job matching their content with my perceived needs. If a website is going to clutter their sidebar with banner ads, I would rather be served messages that are geared toward my interests: the bookshelf Ive been considering instead of a cosmetics display, the socks I need instead of an automobile pitch, the concert I want to attend instead of a beer commercial. It would be hard for me to claim that ads dont occasionally provide some quantifiable good to my life. Im simply not sure whether the pros outweigh the cons. True, the ads are better than ever, but maybe Im more likely to spend my money irresponsibly when Im constantly presented ads that match my precise interests. And while L.A.s billboards are more informative than, say, the ambulance chasers who fill the outdoor displays in most American cities, theyre still intrusive, and Id prefer they didnt exist at allâ€"and Im not alone. The Peoples Preference While I was driving from Burlington to Boston last year, something felt off. The rolling emerald landscape was unsullied, not unlike a tranquil screensaver, and I felt an unnameable calm as the mile markers ticked away. Then I crossed the Massachusetts state line, and it became obvious: the trips serenity was produced largely by its lack of billboards, which are illegal in the state of Vermont. Currently, four statesâ€"Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, and Vermontâ€"prohibit billboards. And more than 1,500 cities and towns have banned them throughout the world, including one of the largest cities on Earthâ€"Sao Paulo. When Sao Paulo introduced its Clean City Law in 2007, more than 15,000 billboards were taken down. To boot, an additional 300,000 intrusive signsâ€"pylons, posters, bus and taxi adsâ€"had to go. The strangest result of ridding the worlds third largest city of these advertisements? In a poll done after the removal, a majority of Paulistanos actually preferred the change. What a novel idea: ask people what they like instead of letting profitability dictate the cityview. From Good to Great Profit If all ads were unobtrusive and informative, it would be hard to have anything bad to say about them. But many twenty-first century advertisers have figured out how to manipulate the system for maximum profit. In the era of mass media and Internet spamming, theyve crossed a line: we went from connecting people with products they need; to creating a false desire for objects that add little value to our lives; to selling objects that get in the way of a richer, more fulfilling life. Many of the things advertisements make us think we need are actually the source of our discontent. You see, the easiest way to sell us happiness is to first make us unhappy. Its a painful cycle for us; its big business for them. Unfortunately, we’ve accepted ads as part of our everyday life; we’ve been conditioned to think they are a regular part of content delivery. After all, advertisements are how we get all those TV shows, radio programs, online articles, and podcasts for free, right? Alternatives to Advertisements Theres no free lunch. Every hour of network television is peppered with nearly 20 minutes of interruptions, and the same is true for most other mediums, which one could argue is more costly than the free price tag because we’re giving up our two most precious resourcesâ€"our time and attentionâ€"to receive the product. If we don’t want ads storming our attention (or our childrens attention), then we must be willing to pay for the things we associate as free. Netflix, Apple Music, and similar services are able to sidestep the traditional advertising model by providing a service people value. Other businesses and individualsâ€"Wikipedia and Sam Harris come to mindâ€"follow a variation of this ad-free model, frequently called a freemium model, where creators provide content for free, and a small portion of their audience supports their work monetarily. (By the way, this model is what keeps The Minimalists Podcast advertisement-free.) When asked why he chooses not to run ads on his popular Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris responded, I dont feel I can credibly run ads on my podcast, even for products and services I love and use myself. The one ad I read for a while was for Audible, which I do use, but even in that case, I dont feel entirely comfortable telling you that you should subscribe to Audible. I mean, should you? Perhaps you shouldnt. I have no idea. And that would go down as the worst Audible ad ever. In any case, Ive discovered that I dont feel comfortable selling ads, which is fine because I hate what ads have done to digital media. The advertising model is responsible for almost everything that is wrong online. But not running ads puts me in a position of asking my audience for support. This is something I approached with real trepidation in the beginning. However, having done it, Ive discovered its actually the most straightforward relationship I can have with my audience. No matter your feelings about Netflix, Apple Music, Wikipedia, Sam Harris, or similar companies and individuals, their approach undoubtedly improves their creations by making them interruption-free, and it increases trust since their audience knows these creators aren’t beholden to the desires of advertisers, which allows them to communicate directly with their audience in a way that strengthens the relationship because the customers are in control, not the ad buyers. Moreover, as consumers, our willingness to exchange money for creations forces us to be more deliberate about what we consume. If we’re paying for it, we want to make sure we’re getting our money’s worth. It’s a mystery why we don’t do the same for so-called free programming, where we pay no money, but we rarely get our attention’s worth. Whether your time is worth $10, $100, or $1,000 per hour, you likely spend tens of thousands of dollars every year consuming messages from advertisers. Think about that: in a very real way, youre paying to be advertised to. And there are no refunds on your misspent attention. Marketing The flipside of advertising isnt the absence of communicationâ€"its marketing. In his book, The Mindset of Marketing Your Music, Derek Sivers writes, Don’t confuse the word marketing with advertising, announcing, spamming, or giving away branded crap. Really, marketing just means being considerate. Marketing means making it easy for people to notice you, relate to you, remember you, and tell their friends about you. What Sivers is describing here is the most honest form of marketing: informing people without manipulating or bothering them. At its ethical zenith, marketing considers the needs and points of view of an audience and works hard to meet those needs by connecting the creators with consumers in an authentic way. In neutral terms, marketing is an unpaid endorsement, often by the creator herself, communicated directly to an audience whos eager to learn more about the product or service. When done well, this is what Seth Godin describes as Permission Marketing: the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal, and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them. It is possible to engage in world-class marketing without spending a penny on advertising. True, both advertising and marketing are forms of promotionâ€"both allow creators to present their goods and services to a group of peopleâ€"and when executed poorly, even well-intended marketing can be overkill. Like advertisements, not all marketing messages are created equal. Bastardized Marketing Unfortunately, not every marketer is a paragon of integrity. Just like the advertising world, marketing messages can be laced with misinformation, exaggerations, and propaganda. When creators stray from their audience’s preferencesâ€"when they stop providing value and abuse their permission with over-marketingâ€"they fail; they fall victim to vapid self-promotions, the most egregious examples of which include spam emails, website pop-ups, clickbait headlines, begging for followers, searching for Likes. As The Minimalists, we provide loads of high-quality free creationsâ€"essays, podcasts, and quotesâ€"and we occasionally use our platforms to promote a book, event, or service. And if we’re being forthright, even though we attempt to market with integrity, even we struggle to walk the line between informative and overkill. While Ryan I refuse spam, pop-ups, and salacious titles, and we strive to add value, we, too, have fallen victim to the look at me Internet cultureâ€"occasionally putting our preferences above our audience’s best interests. Whenever we catch ourselves straying, we course correct, and we work diligently to improve. Marketing as Part of the Creation Regardless of how you feel about marketing, it is the final step in the creative process. Marketing helps creators get their creations in front of people, and when approached delicately, it benefits their audience. But when creators focus more on promoting the creation than the act of creating, the product suffers and so does the audience, and trust is eroded. Until recently, the only way a creator could effectively market her product was to plaster her message across television, radio, print, and billboards. Using jargon like GRPs, TRPs, and frequency, advertisers could guarantee their product would reach a particular audience via a robust advertising plan. Even though this shotgun approach was imprecise, it was the only way to get to a mass audience. Today, the opposite is true. As a creator, you are your own marketing department; you can find an enthusiastic audience without the need to advertise. And because our tools are better than ever, your efforts can be more precise than the traditional approach of yesteryear, so you neednt cast a wide net to be effective. In fact, a thousand true fans  are enough. Spending time marketing your creation doesnt need to be tedious, either; it can be creative, artistic, and even fun. Thats why the best marketing doesnt feel like marketing: it feels like a conversation or entertainment or something the audience anticipates. Above all, it feels considerateâ€"not salesy or forced. Unavoidable Advertisements All of this poses an interesting and prickly dilemma for us as The Minimalists. Because we don’t want to add to the noise, we personally don’t allow ads on our website, podcast, or any other medium we directly control. However, we appear regularly on television and radio shows, as well as in newspapers and magazines, in which advertisements appear. And we’re honestly conflicted about this. Even companies we respect and have partnered withâ€"our tour promoter, Live Nation; our primary bookselling platform, Amazon; and the company behind our travel-bag project, Paktâ€"engage in various forms of advertising. We could, of course, choose not to appear anywhere that participates in advertising in any form, but because ads are virtually everywhereâ€"Americans see upwards of 5,000 each dayâ€"that would greatly limit the amount of people our message reaches. So we’ve instead decided to ride the line: no, we won’t incorporate ads into our platforms, and we’ll continue to speak out against the innate problems with advertising, but we won’t hide in a cave to shield ourselves from every billboard. Now maybe you don’t think advertisements are a big deal, but I believe they are one of the worst things to happen to our culture: they are the largest contributing factor toward rampant consumerism in the developed world, and they’re the biggest reason our political climate is where it is today. Advertisements are much like the islands of plastic haunting our oceansâ€"a giant problem people rarely think about. That doesnt mean ads (or plastic) shouldnt exist; I simply dont feel good about producing either unless they contribute to the greater good. Values over Money That said, Im not allergic to money. And this commentary isn’t meant to be a judgment on other people. Many of my close friends incorporate advertisements into their creations, and I don’t necessarily begrudge them for that. It likely wouldn’t do much good anyway because, as Upton Sinclair once wrote, It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. The way I understand it, though, is simple: my values trump my ability to make money. And advertisements dont align with my personal values. Do I want to earn a living? Yes, of course I do. But I want to live a life thats congruent with my values, and thus I dont want money to be the primary driver of my creations. Just because I can advertise, that doesnt mean I should. True, money will always be an important part of the equation (everybody has to pay the bills, right?), but if we put creativity and our values first, then we can determine the role of money further down the line. Conclusion Suffice it to say, this disquisition wouldnt see the light of day in any of todays ad-driven organs. Nor would it find its way into a scholarly journal, because this isnt a peer-reviewed article; its just one guys loosely connected thoughts about advertising. Its my hope that these musings start a conversation about the oft-ignored pernicious aspects of advertisements. And maybeâ€"just maybeâ€"our society can find a way to make advertisements that dont suck. Lets not hold our breath, though. If we want to produce meaningful creations, we must rely on ourselves. Or, as the historian Yuval Noah Harari once wrote, You cannot unite humanity by selling advertisements. This is true even if those ads are for dick pills. Subscribe to The Minimalists via email.