Media Subterfuges

A media subterfuge refers to media content that is created or distributed for reasons other that what an audience believes, or for reasons that differ from what is proclaimed by the producers or promoters of the content. A common example of a media subterfuge is a specific product appearing in a commercial film because the manufacture of the product has paid for its inclusion, an advertising strategy called product placement. In a similar manner, financial newspapers might present positive news about a certain corporation because the publicity may cause an increase in the stock price of that corporation. This book proposes that the general function of all media is the same: to strengthen a particular entity. When a media subterfuge occurs, however, an audience may be completely unaware of which entity is being strengthened through the content of a medium. Media subterfuges are often successful because they fulfill the desires of an intended entity—such as the manufacturers of a specific product—and also the desires of an audience.

Although many people are aware of media subterfuges within commercial media, such as product placement, its use with fine art media may be less obvious. When an art museum exhibits particular artworks, an audience may believe the works are being exhibited because they are good. My interviews with curators disclosed that various reasons might exist for exhibiting specific artworks, including nepotism, exchanging opportunities, enhancing the reputation of the gallery, enhancing the reputation of the museum’s director, or enhancing the reputation of an institution that the artist is associated with.

A strategy for accomplishing a media subterfuge is to encourage audiences to use specific aesthetic criteria that will accomplish the subterfuge. For instance, filmgoers may be encouraged to judge commercial films according to their use of celebrity actors. Another strategy for a media subterfuge is the creation of content that fulfills an audience’s aesthetic criteria while concurrently fulfilling the goals of the producers or distributors of that content. A documentary video about the impoverishment of a particular country may appear to be helping the impoverished country, but the film may have been created to enhance the reputation of the video’s director, to provide financial profit to an organization that is interested in helping the impoverished country, or as a mechanism for attracting a large audience to a certain television network and, subsequently, large advertising revenues.

As more people become aware of advertising strategies, covert forms of persuasion have become increasingly popular, such as product placement and viral advertising, The common feature of these and other forms of stealth advertising is that they do not appear to be persuasion. Examples of viral advertising are certain video files that are shared by friends through email or posted on personal websites. These videos are often macabre, humorous or sexual, and they usually have a reference to a commercial product, though their association with the manufacturer of the product is uncertain.

So the item of the day on advertising blogs everywhere has been this disturbing viral Volkswagen ad. It shows, if you can believe it, a suicide bomber driving up to a café in a VW Polo and trying to detonate a car bomb. But he manages to blow only himself up—the sporty little roadster absorbs the blast, proving that it is “small but tough.” As if we needed it, we have gotten official word that neither VW nor any of its agencies (including DDB, its lead shop in Europe) had anything to do with this. It is indeed a hoax. Move on, please. Nothing to see here. [1]

The strategy of viral advertising is to create a controversy of some sort while the manufacturers of the depicted product deny the authenticity of the advertisement, at least initially, adding to the controversy and consequently popularizing the product even more.[2]

© Don Ritter

1. Tim Nudd. “Viral suicide-bomber viral spot a hoax” Adfreak.com, blog. (January 18, 2005), http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2005/01/vw_suicidebombe.html (accessed February 20, 2007).

2. Stephen Brook. "Spoof suicide bomber ad sparks global row" MediaGuardian.co.uk (January 20, 2005), http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1394517,00.html (accessed February 20, 2007).