Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section.Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements.For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D.You should decide on the best choice.
Most economists believe that advertising has a positive impact on the economy because it stimulates demand for products and services, strengthening the economy by promoting the sale of goods and services.Manufacturers know that advertising can help sell a new product quickly, enabling them to recover the costs of developing new products.By stimulating the development of new products, advertising helps increase competition.Many economists believe that increased competition leads to lower prices, thereby benefiting consumers and the economy as a whole.These economists also argue that by interesting consumers in purchasing goods, advertising enables manufacturers and others to sell their products in larger quantities.
Other economists, however, believe that advertising is wasteful.They argue that the cost of advertising adds to the cost of goods and that most advertising simply encourages consumers to buy one brand rather than another.According to this view, advertising, simply moves sales from one company to another, rather than increasing sales overall and thereby benefiting the economy as a whole.Advertising
can have wide-ranging repercussions (反响) on a society.Some critics suggest that advertising promotes a materialistic way of life by leading people to believe that happiness is achieved by purchasing products.They argue that advertising creates a consumer culture in which buying exciting new products becomes the foundation of file society's values, pleasures, and goals.
Other critics express concern over the way advertising has affected women and racial minority groups.Ads in the 1950s depicted women primarily as decoration or objects.Although millions of women worked outside the home in the 1960s, ads continued to focus on their role as homemakers.Whether owing to the feminist movement or to women's increasing economic power, after the 1960s it became more common to see women depicted in professional roles.The way advertising has depicted racial minorities has also been harmful.Due to the influence of the civil rights movement, however, advertisers by the 19g0s had begun to depict African Americans as students, professionals, or business people.However, many African American organizations and community activists continue to object to the way that alcohol and tobacco companies have seemingly targeted low-income minority communities with a heavy preponderance (优势) of outdoor advertising for their products.
Which of the following is the best title of the passage?