#social media comapnies in Las Vegas

[inforoyalinkdesign]

Social media las vegas in Nevada

[hobdya]

Billboards and Other Outdoor Ads: How to be Visually Trapped and Uncomfortable When You Step Outside.

Even in the beginning of economic growth and consumerism, the fight between taking up open space with billboards to promote products to consumers and keeping the open space clear of such distractions in order for people to enjoy their natural space free from the annoyances of capitalism has been ongoing.

 In her article “When Separate Spheres Collide,” Catherine Gudis explains that the fight against billboard has been upheld specifically by women of the upper and middle class (2004) who have had the time, resources and privilege of being housewives in order to keep their suburban and exclusive neighborhoods clear of advertisements. Gudis also explains that these upper-class women would join community clubs and “Members of groups like these were determined to create cities that were ‘an education in beauty’ and that bred ‘moral order’ in children and new Americans” (2004). In other words, women who were left home to rear children felt that their nice living environments were ways in which they taught  their children to have a sense of respect for nature and to be good and thoughtful citizens, and the onset of the natural space being overrun with advertising made them feel as though people’s morals would start to be less focused on keeping their spaces beautiful and more focused on negative consumerism and following the negative messages that were included on billboards.

On the other hand, women and families from working and lower class stature had no choice but to watch their communities’ nature become overrun with billboards and ads that included all kinds of problematic messaging and imagery. Gudis also explains that “the content of the ads was not the problem…their size and form were equally troublesome” (2004). In today’s culture, ads are everywhere, especially in large cities such as Los Angeles, Hollywood, Las Vegas (Hence the picture above), New York City(Times Square) and Miami for example. Many of these ads are digital billboards and other large flamboyant ads that take up the public space. They can be found on buildings, on buses and trains and inside them, up above people’s head, within stores, on the radio, on television. Also within the digital social media age, there are countless ads on social media, websites and on various apps. They are prominent and distracting and they take people’s attention from the nature of the space they are in and turn it towards the ad and it’s message and promoted product/idea. 

Also, because there are so many ads, each advertiser must outdo the next competitor for not only outdoor ad space but for the passerby’s attention. This has caused ads to both spring up in all kinds of places at an increased rate and become more flashier and distracting than the next.

In her chapter “Advertising and Public Space ,” Lauren Rosewarne states that because people cannot avoid ads within the outdoor space and because  the competition between advertisers to stand out from all the others and because sex sells, “the contribution that sexist advertising may have on the social inclusion of men and the social exclusion of women in public space” (2017). Women are constantly objectified by male-dominated comapnies for their own personal gain and attention through the male dominated gaze in order for their products to sell and their billboards to be noticed among the sea of others. This is not a new concept; “Despite over forty years of feminist awareness, not only does sexist advertising still exist, but… the situation has worsened” (Rosewarne, 2017). Advertisers have become bolder than ever with how they portrayed women and feminine sexuality in order to sell their products or garner attention on their ads in the public space, especially before the #metoo movement that has begun to challenge how male-dominated industries interact with and treat women in regards to their feminine sexuality. Also, “…advertisers are routinely treading a very fine line between what advertisers would call ‘sexual appeals’ and what feminist consider pornography” (Rosewarne, 2017). For example, the champagne billboard below illicit ideas of women in sexual poses attached to the feelings that drinking champagne brings. Combining sex, women’s bodies and alcohol in a male-dominated gaze on the corner of a street where thousands of people pass by daily is problematic. 

When women are subjected to having to move around open public spaces with multiple highly overly-sexualized advertisements, it reminds “women of their inequality and sexual vulnerability which may make them fearful for their safety” (Rosewarne, 2017). These pornographic like images constantly put women’s vulnerability and sexuality in the forefront of people’s minds, ensuring that women are seen as sexual objects that have no say in who has access to their sexuality. This proves dangerous at the very least for women to feel comfortable being themselves in open spaces that are meant for everyone.

At the end of the day, companies and their advertisers need to be held accountable for how they affect the public spaces that people have to occupy daily. The underlying questions remain; is it not enough that advertisers have a monopoly on the personal space of entertainment media that they have to take over the public space in ways that make prevent people from enjoying nature and makes women feel highly uncomfortable as if sexual assaults and sexual harassment by regular circumstances are not enough?