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Re: [ProgSoc] Drying up, hands or money



Hmm, but why do taxpayers fund Universities?  It's ultimately not because taxpayers are being charitable.  Universities [are meant to] serve a socially useful purpose, as centres of research, discovery and critical thinking.  My problem with advertising on campus is yes, it's a public place, but will the advertising dollars eventually change what is researched, who is critiqued etc?  Yes, I know there's advertising on campus already, but I don't like seeing it increase.

G.
----- Original Message -----
From: Roland Turner <raz@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Monday, August 13, 2007 11:25 pm
Subject: Re: [ProgSoc] Drying up, hands or money
To: The Programmers' Society <progsoc@xxxxxxxxxxx>

> On Mon, 2007-08-13 at 18:24 +1000, Nicholas FitzRoy-Dale wrote:
> 
> > You only experience this improvement "just by 'pissing'" if you 
> don't> buy the product. Obviously if everyone followed your advice 
> there would
> > be no ads. Therefore you are relying on people to subsidise you. 
> Your> quality of life improvement is paid for disproportionately by 
> those that do.
> 
> This ("there would be no ads") is actually not true.
> 
> The "Great Lie" of [untracked] mass-media advertising (that it 
> works, or
> at least that it is a worthwhile investment) can now be so 
> conclusivelydisproven by tracked media (think Google Adwords) that 
> it can be said
> with some confidence that the vast majority of untracked advertising
> continues to be sold for the same reason that it always was:
> 
> - media sales people are good at persuading advertising purchasers 
> thatthey need to buy this unquantifiable thing (a) just in case or (b)
> because their competitors are
> 
> and
> 
> - buying such advertising has become status quo; failure to do so 
> is to
> risk being blamed for other failures.
> 
> That is to say, untracked mass-media advertising occurs for the same
> reason that it is necessary to get a formal risk-assessment performed
> before replacing a washer on a leaky tap in said bathrooms; someone
> somewhere is avoiding getting fired. That's really all. Whether you
> choose to purchase the advertised products, or not, to publically
> advocate them or diss them, or neither, is entirely irrelevant.
> 
> The relevant question is about what level of amenity, and at what 
> cost,the university's administration seeks to provide. When someone 
> says"we'll take over the provision and maintenance costs of your
> hand-dryers, and pay you for the privilege, in return for the right to
> diplay [appropriate, lawful] adertisments only on the surface of said
> hand-dryers (vs., say, on the sides of university buildings)", the
> relevant administrator would be crazy to say no, unless there were an
> aesthetic policy discouraging or prohbiting such deals in the first
> place.
> 
> Is such a policy desirable? Which outcomes that the university pursues
> would justify such a policy? Should taxpayers be compelled to keep
> university toilets advertising-free?
> 
> - Raz
> 
> 
> -
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