Truth in Advertising

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Truth in Advertising We see them on our televisions, in magazines and newspapers, on billboard signs along the highway and virtually everywhere we look during our daily lives. They are advertisements. The term advertisement stems from the word advert, which means to call attention to something. Advertisements are a form of media with the intent to "attract attention to, stimulate desire for, and in some cases lead to the purchase of a product or service" (Berger 171). In our consumerist culture it is estimated that the average American is exposed to over 3000 advertisements each day (Shenk 12). With all of these advertisements flooding into our brains each day, consumers need to be able to count on the validity of the claims they are being exposed to. While most consumers realize that advertisements are an attempt to sell a product and are likely to embellish the truth, that does not give companies the right to blatantly lie to the public in their advertisements. The federal government regulates deceptiveness in advertising through the Federal Trade Commission, commonly referred to as the FTC. The Federal Trade Commission works to enforce ethical advertising practices by establishing regulations on truth in advertising and holding companies in violation of these regulations accountable. Despite regulation, companies continue to use ethically questionable methods such as ad disclaimers, selected facts, minimal facts and non-facts in order to promote their products to the unwary consumer. In 1938 an amendment, known as the Wheeler-Lea Act, was made to the Federal Trade Commission act that authorized the FTC to restrict unfair acts and protect consumers from false advertising practices (Business Glossary). To see how this protects consumers, we must look at how the FTC determines what is truthful and what is deceptive. The Federal Trade Commission
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