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d) Moral and Religious Harms of
Advertising
13.
Advertising can be tasteful and in
conformity with high moral standards, and occasionally even morally uplifting,
but it also can be vulgar and morally degrading. Frequently it deliberately
appeals to such motives as envy, status seeking and lust. Today, too, some
advertisers consciously seek to shock and titillate by exploiting content of a
morbid, perverse, pornographic nature.
What this Pontifical Council said several
years ago about pornography and violence in the media is no less true of
certain forms of advertising:
"As reflections of the dark side of
human nature marred by sin, pornography and the exaltation of violence are
age-old realities of the human condition. In the past quarter century, however,
they have taken on new dimensions and have become serious social problems. At a
time of widespread and unfortunate confusion about moral norms, the
communications media have made pornography and violence accessible to a vastly
expanded audience, including young people and even children, and a problem
which at one time was confined mainly to wealthy countries has now begun, via
the communications media, to corrupt moral values in developing
nations."20
We note, too, certain special problems
relating to advertising that treats of religion or pertains to specific issues
with a moral dimension.
In cases of the first sort, commercial
advertisers sometimes include religious themes or use religious images or
personages to sell products. It is possible to do this in tasteful, acceptable
ways, but the practice is obnoxious and offensive when it involves exploiting
religion or treating it flippantly.
In cases of the second sort, advertising
sometimes is used to promote products and inculcate attitudes and forms of
behavior contrary to moral norms. That is the case, for instance, with the
advertising of contraceptives, abortifacients and products harmful to health,
and with government-sponsored advertising campaigns for artificial birth
control, so-called "safe sex", and similar practices.
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