I’ve been on a kick about the communicative role of prices lately. Prices in the market serve as signals between buyers and sellers about the quality, quantity, and type of goods that should produced and distributed throughout the economy. In this sense the product outputs of a market economy are representative of social preferences, values, and beliefs.
When on a road trip recently, my roommate popped in an old VHS of a movie that he had recorded off TV in the mid 1980s. While listening to the now retro commercial jingles and slogans, I thought about how advertising is also an explicit signal in the market process. I think the old commercials for toys, movies, and other stuff, when interpreted in the correct light could give a richer description of society in that time than could a typical piece of art (novel, painting, music, movie). Even though we often attribute value and quality to art that represents its time and context, on average it seems that commercials are more representative of what society was actually like.
Commercials are specifically trying to appeal to the tastes and preferences of defined customer groups who are most likely to be watching a certain type of program. Something about this made me want to tell Naomi Klein to shove it.