{"id":828,"date":"2018-12-17T14:04:52","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T19:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/?p=828"},"modified":"2018-12-18T11:41:25","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T16:41:25","slug":"why-socialism-was-able-to-not-fail-in-advertising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/herweyer\/why-socialism-was-able-to-not-fail-in-advertising\/","title":{"rendered":"Why socialism was able to not fail in advertising"},"content":{"rendered":"

I sincerely encourage PhD candidates to try to understand and sincerely answer this question of how using socialism fared in a predominantly capitalist society for articulating change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The reason the socialist message was effectively communicated through a periodical such as <\/span>Quest, a feminist\u00a0<\/span><\/i>periodical,<\/i>\u00a0was due to the reader base of the periodical. What does that mean, a reader base? Well when I consider what a typical Playboy<\/span><\/i> reader looks like I imagine a white man who works some white collar job. \u00a0<\/strong>The advertisements in <\/span>Playboy<\/span><\/i> would make sense for this type of reader base: golf clubs, liquor, cigarettes, naked women scattered through all of the pages- that seems reasonable for white men. When I consider what a <\/span>Quest<\/span><\/i> reader looks like I imagine a woman (not necessarily white!, and it could be a man who identifies as an ally!) who is trying to further their role for social change and consciousness. Once again, these advertisements in <\/span>Quest<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Conditions<\/span><\/i> make sense: the advertisements they used were on poetry about women, writings on black women in the south, writings on women in prison, writings on socialism, etc.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The fundamental difference in these advertisements is based in their materialistic value. For a <\/span>Playboy<\/span><\/i> reader a golf club that is being advertised might be worth every penny and some poetry might be worth nothing to them. For a <\/span>Conditions<\/span><\/i> reader a book of poems may be worth every penny to them and the golf clubs nothing. While both of these objects may be bought for their advertised price, I argue that because the feminist base is supporting a movement bigger than themselves, they are willing to buy goods and services even if they can\u2019t maximize their utility as consumers. Simply put, if a man didn\u2019t think they would enjoy a round of golf, they probably wouldn\u2019t buy the golf clubs. However, I believe that the feminist base is more likely to buy publications that they aren\u2019t necessarily excited about because they know that their financial contribution makes a lasting impact for a movement they want to see succeed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More simply, this means\u00a0<\/strong>that if golf clubs are being sold for $50 and you are willing to pay $50 because you value them at that price- you buy them. If they cost more than your willingness to pay then you forgo buying them. However, if you\u2019re a feminist and you see that a book of poems that are being sold for $3.50, your willingness to pay may be higher than normal because you are investing into something that has social impact and is aligned with your values.<\/p>\n

So how did socialist advertisement effectively communicate their message and not go bankrupt in a capitalist environment? They had readers like Jan Clausen who wanted to make a social impact and pay more than what might be considered normal when compared to <\/span>Playboy<\/span><\/i> consumers.\u00a0?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I sincerely encourage PhD candidates to try to understand and sincerely answer this question of how using socialism fared in a predominantly capitalist society for articulating change.\u00a0 The reason the socialist message was effectively communicated through a periodical such as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2050,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-herweyer"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2050"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828\/revisions\/846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}