There are many resources in the world of automobile to stimulate interest in both fellow enthusiasts and newcomers. Without exaggeration, automobile becomes an inseparable part in our life and a certain kind of car culture and lifestyle has been built. But culture is shifting. Media which is given huge power plays an important role in the future development of car culture. Does mass media perpetuate or discourage car culture?
Auto dealerships hosted the events, built the showrooms, created the images and provided the variety of setting that disseminated car culture to the different places of country. With the improvement of mass media, advertising executives of automobile companies tried their best to promote automobile as sexy and desirable commodities via TV, the Internet, fashion magazine and other mainstream press. In the Chapter 2 of Intro to Sustainable Trans, the author Preston L. Schiller also mentioned that most advertising aims at the creation or exploitation of a relationship: an identification and association between product and consumer…… even after learning that they have purchased a product that is defective, dangerous or environmentally harmful<1>. It is a central strategy of automobile advertising to invite viewers or consumers to imagine themselves within the world of advertisements. This is a world that works by presenting audiences with an imagined future, the promise to consumers of things they will have and a lifestyle they can take part in. we can use commodities to construct our identities or convey our personality. For example, owners of luxurious cars are perceived to be trendy and savvy. Images from SUV ads often connote strength, power and individuality. From this perspective, media allures people to the automotive community and construct the culture ideas of lifestyle and self-image.
Moreover, with the help of the internet, anyone can involve themselves with the car culture. We can open the browsers and see the community alive and real. Before the online presence, people must make times more effort to become a part of the car world. Now we not only can easily obtain the variety of information about automobile but also actively participate online activities and find people who share the same interests. There is also media to enhance this growth.
However, the number of Americans saying they saw their cars as “something special”, more than just a means of transportation, had dropped from 43 to 23 percent<2>. In 1978, nearly half of 16-year-olds and three-quarters of 17-year-olds in the U.S. had their driver's licenses, according to Department of Transportation data. By 2008, the most recent year data was available, only 31% of 16-year-olds and 49% of 17-year-olds had licenses, with the decline accelerating rapidly since 1998. It's not just new drivers driving less. The share of automobile miles driven by people aged 21 to 30 in the U.S. fell to 13.7% in 2009 from 18.3% in 2001 and 20.8% in 1995, according to data from the Federal Highway Administration's National Household Travel Survey released earlier this year<3>. The allure of the automobile is diminishing. Although mass media makes us more accessible to the automotive world, environmentalists also can make good use of it to promote their belief. The need to alleviate congestion and air pollution attracts more attention which has inspired more people to conceive creative and visionary strategies for pedestrian-friendly cities and discouraged the car-dependent culture. In south Florida, there are lots of advertisements on the side of transit buses. Other than this reason, people are more into electronic and multimedia gadgets like iPODS, Blackberries and Droids, etc. For the younger generations, digital media are gradually replacing the status, freedom and belonging that automobiles used to best represent.
Figures: http://adage.com/article/digital/digital-revolution-driving-decline-u-s-car-culture/144155/
Through the analysis above, it is not easy to identify mass media as either booster or dissenter of the car culture. Car-dependent culture has been established for a long time which cannot be changed overly due to any external factor in the short period of time. What matter is how we can utilize mass media to obtain the balanced relation between the daily life and our cars.
Word Cited:
<1> Intro to Sustainable Trans (Preston L. Schiller)
<2>Five Media Myths That perpetuate Car culture
http://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/05/23/five-media-myths-that-perpetuate-car-culture/
<3> Is Digital Revolution Driving Decline in U.S. Car Culture?
http://adage.com/article/digital/digital-revolution-driving-decline-u-s-car-culture/144155/
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