The power of media on consumerist behaviour Essay

The power of media on consumerist behaviour - Essay Example In our daily lives, individuals are continually bombarded with advertisements encouraging them to buy things. These advertisements promote specific products and give an impression of a good life and what it means to be happy in the modern times (Crocker and Lehmann 45). Most people find shopping to be an exhilarating leisure activity. There are those that go deeply into debt trying to buy products that are beyond their means. Manufacturers mainly concentrate on profits and this means that they concentrate on capital gain over environmental sustainability. This means that most companies in the contemporary world are more concerned about capital gain as it is more profitable to them. On the other hand, environmental sustainability is seen as an expense to the company (Johan and Anthony 11). Some companies do not even have an environmental sustainability policy in place and instead devote all their time and resources towards capital gain which unlike environmental sustainability has immense gains for the company. Entities that fail to take issues of environmental sustainability into consideration are likely to have a reduction in the number of consumers. There has been an increase in the corporate outsourcing of the manufacture of products to developing countries. These lack appropriate safeguards against worker exploitation which is referred to as sweatshop labor. This helps companies to minimize on their labor expenses and maximize on profits (Johan and Anthony 11). However, it results to a rise in employee exploitation in developing economies since they are forced to do a lot of manual labor with minimal pay and under poor working conditions. Companies that are associated with sweatshop labor are likely to experience a decline in popularity among consumers. The media is a powerful tool that has contributed to the shape of consumerist behavior in society and this can