Media is often referred to as mass media, this form of communication has been used by companies to promote their products. This allows innovative ideas and concepts to be shared with other people through mass media such as newspapers, magazines and television. As technology has advanced, so have advertising techniques, attracting, shaping and creating consumerism and needs where luxury becomes a form of necessity. This essay will discuss some issues and concerns related to advertising techniques.The role played by advertising in mass media: as information about consumer products and services ancillary to programmingAdvertising paying for programmingAdvertising is often used to help pay the costs of free media such as television channels which are financed by advertisements, helping to reduce the financial costs of the business. The role that advertising plays in mass media is the promotion of products and ideas that influence our choices and decisions about what we consider important. Media companies depend on advertising because of the revenue they receive. As a result, contemporary mass media are largely influenced by market forces. The Audience as a Product Companies must sell products to their consumers for profit, with the customers being the corporate advertisers who purchase demographic information about that specific audience group of the company (Noam Chomsky - What is what makes mainstream media mainstream). Advertisers in turn use the information product from the media company's audience to generate revenue for them, because advertisers are the market (Chomsky). Therefore, in mass media, companies sell their audiences to other companies for profit. How critical theory views the role of advertising... middle of paper ...... what the media does. This is why we have animated television programs like those developed several years ago, He-Man and She Ra, where the programs were primarily intended to market massive lines of toys for the Christmas season. We subject innocent children to the strategies of a multi-million dollar advertising industry and most parents are incapable of responding to sales campaigns of this magnitude. MTV is another example. Here we have entertainment programming that also serves as ongoing advertising for music CDs, clothing lines, talk shows involving musical personalities, and a variety of other marketing ploys. (Richard Vincent). This is how the market imposes its desires on the media, where there is a power of influence over consumers, which also affects the perspectives and ideologies represented by the mainstream when it comes to international political and economic issues..