How to Unsell a Product

The following is a MediaNote Classic. It was originally presented to MC101 classes in May 2016.

Cigarettes are bad for you. That has been apparent since the Surgeon General's report in 1964 on smoking and lung cancer.

And yet, more than a half century later a sizable percentage of young people continue to take up smoking. It is as though they are in a hurry to get to the sick and helpless years of their lives.

Your federal government has responded with a series of youth-oriented anti-smoking ads. Will they do any good? NPR reports.

Questions...

•These are PSAs, or Public Service Announcements. What other PSAs can you think of?

•Why is there music in ads?

•Fees collected from tobacco companies are put into anti-smoking campaigns. Are these ads a good way to spend that money?

•If you can sell shoes or cars in an ad, can you also sell anti-smoking in an ad? Or is this somehow different?

Gaming While Female

In the early years of online gaming, players were usually young and male and the games were aggressive. In more recent years, both the user base and game content has diversified. Some feminist critics of the gamer culture feel it is time to include gaming in the #metoo Movement. NPR reports.

Questions...

•Is it harder to be identifiably female online? How are female gamers treated differently than male gamers?

•Is harassment of women a particularly big problem in gaming, or is it just as bad in social media and other online places?

•How are online harassers similar to people like Harvey Weinstein? How are they different?

•What can be done to combat harassment in gaming?