Racism advertising should be forbidden

According to Chan (1996) one of the many functions of the mass media, aside from informing, entertaining, and influencing is cultural transmission. The television and magazine commercial indirectly transfer a cultural ideology to the viewers. For example, we can see roles of the men, what woman supposed to take, and should be in the society.

These days, many advertisement cases occurred because the advertising company still quite happy to play into racial stereotypes. Recently, Media Prima Bhd forced to pull out their controversial of Ramadan advertising on 8TV channel after they received many public criticism and accusations that the advertisement including racist point to some races. In order to feedback the claims, Media Prima chief operating officer Ahmad Izham Omar, wrote ‘Ok guys. We’re pulling out the ads. ‘Thank you very much for your concern,’ in twitter account.

Furthermore, he explains that Chinese girl eating in public, wearing revealing clothes, and being loud is just a suggestion that non-Muslim must be understand and respect the Ramadan culture (Muslim fasting month). Other case, the 8TV’s Hari Raya advertisement was taken off the air after enthused abundant online protest. Moreover, 8TV was fined RM50, 000 by Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) for airing Danish beer maker Carlsberg advertisement during the Euro 2004 championships.

However, currently racism is the problem that hard to noticed. Yet, they must be dealt with, because actually racism has broken the advertising ethics. Given the pervasive and seemingly intractable nature of racism in the media, is there any hope that we can make a difference? The answer is yes. They need to be awakening public, that racism should not be used in any situation, especially in commercial purpose (Sadiq 1997). Consumers require to more active and sensitive with this problem, and so on advertisers need to take responsibility for their own advertisements.

Example of racist advertisement:

References:

1.Chan, J (ed.)1996, Regional Conference: Rough on Rats: Racism and Advertising in the Late 19th Century, Asian American Studies.

2. Chieh, YH 2011, ‘Media Prima pulls out racist Ramadan ads’, The Malaysia Insider, 2 August, viewed 15 November 2011, <http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/print/malaysia/media-prima-pulls-out-racist-ramadan-ads/>.

3. Hill, M 2009, 8 Ads You Wont Believe Are From the Last Few Years, article, Demand Media,Inc, viewed 15 November 2011, <http://www.cracked.com/article/182_8-racist-ads-you-wont-believe-are-from-last-few-years/>.

4. O’Barr WM 2007, Ethics and Advertising, Advertising and Society Review,The Advertising Educational Foundation,Inc, viewed 15 November 2011, <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/asr/v008/8.3unit13.html>.

5. Sadiq, S 1997, Racism and Sexism in Advertising, A magazine of student essays, San Juaquin Delta College, viewed 15 November 2011, <http://www.deltacollege.edu/org/deltawinds/DWOnline97/racismandsexisminads.html>.

6. Tator, C (ed.) 1995, Racism in the media conference: Taking a Stand Against Racism in the Media, The Toronto Community.