Breaking Up America

In Joseph Turow’s book, Breaking Up America: Advertisers and the New Media World, Turow takes an historical perspective to uncover the changes that have occurred in our new mediated environment. He explains that since the 1970’s, American advertisers have rejected the methods of mass-media marketing and instead have adopted a new target-market focus. While target marketing may be more effective, Turow posits that this new technique can actually exacerbate the existing divisions already present in American society. Turow states, “The US is experiencing a major shift in balance between society-making media and segment-making media. Segment-making media are those that encourage small slices of society to talk to themselves, while society-making media are those that have the potential to get all those segments to talk to each other. ” Now as advertisers are aggressively seeking to exploit the differences between consumers in order to create idealized targets, society is facing immense fragmentation. As Turow describes, media firms with an interest in target marketing are building “primary media communities” for their consumers.

These communities are build as the consumer is met with a media message that resonates with their personal values and beliefs, allows them to feel like the message is also reaching people similar to them and helps them identify their place in society. Turow gives the analogy of a gated community; in this new media environment, advertisers are literally creating communities of similar interests and lifestyles and gated them off from one another. While this practice may make niche markets feel more secure and comfortable, it is also greatly fragmenting contemporary American culture, affecting the way consumers relate to one another in a new media environment.

Turow, J (1997). Breaking up America: advertisers and the new media world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.