"The historians and architects will someday discover that the ads of our time are the richest and most faithful daily reflections that any society ever made of its entire range of activities."

I think Marshall McLuhan's book Understanding Media: Extensions of Man is the bible of media studies. I'm biased, but McLuhan ("the medium is the message") struck upon a methodology of media studies that brings a more scientific approach to social studies. Rather than a discourse dominated by discussion of the content, McLuhan encouraged us to look at the mediums involved in expressing communication.

Advertising is a medium of communication present alongside almost any other form of mass-communication--whether print, radio, television, film, internet, or public performance. While one might assume the ads are but filler or an aside allowed space by the feature program or article, McLuhan ascribes much greater import to the advertisement.

Ad dollars spent on television versus other mediums speak to TV's import in reaching the public eye. Whether the reach is on a national or global level depends on the budget and scope of the ad campaign. The highest-viewed events receive the greatest ad revenue. No television event has a greater profile than the Super Bowl.

For weeks leading up to the game, "MEDIAcorp" dedicates major coverage to the Super Bowl--from the game itself, to the halftime spectacle, to even the ads billed as not-to-miss television. If only Jean Baudrillard was still around. I'd love to hear his commentary on the simulacra of a MEDIAcorp broadcast or magazine selling ad space based on a readership of articles commenting on ads.

Forty-five years after McLuhan's quote on the effect of TV ads, common media discourse no longer considers TV a recent phenomenon. The television has grown as a module for providing people with electrical extensions of their central nervous systems. Plug in and recreate on a Wii. Use your PlayStation to kill invading enemy forces, or to rob cars and go buck-wild on the streets of LA-Miami-Gotham City. Screen phone calls through your television monitor. Plasma screens, high definition, and other technical advances have led to even greater detail in presenting a two dimensional alternative reality.

Like the alternative realities presented, at great cost to the sponsors, during the Super Bowl this year.

(Bikini-clad football cheerleader drinking a slurpie in a 7-Eleven):"Oh thank Heaven!"

(Man plotting a pick-up move with his wing-men): "I'm a plastic surgeon that only does pro-bono burn work. And Josh, there's only three girls so just be yourself. (Beautiful woman in a bar):"Ooah Doctor." (Narrator):"Captain Morgan; calling all captains, drink responsibly."

"You're still gonna make me ambassador to the Bahamas, right?" (Jack in the Box on a private line to the President)

McLuhan: "Ads seem to work on the very advanced principle that a small pellet or pattern in a noisy, redundant barrage of repetition will gradually assert itself. Ads push the principle of noise all the way to the plateau of persuasion. They are quite in accord with the procedures of brain-washing."

"Bud Light: The difference is drinkability."

"Coke: The real thing."

"Chevy: An American revolution."

"Visa: Everywhere you want to be." (Unless you are from the Global South hoping to travel to North America or Europe.)

McLuhan: "The steady trend in advertising is to manifest the product as an integral part of the large social purposes and processes."

"AT&T: your world delivered."

"Visa on game day. It's the only way to go."

"Cialis for daily use. Be ready anytime. 36 hour Cialis or Cialis for daily use. For when the moment is right, you can be readyOe. Ask your healthcare provider if it is safe for you to have sexual activityOe. Seek medical treatment immediately if you have an erection that lasted more than four hours."

Whether your preference leans one gender, sexual orientation, religion, cultural group, political affiliation, or another, one constant reaches potentially every facet of our lives: advertising. With an intent and investment unparalleled by organized humanistic discourse, corporate messaging dominates the mental environment. I agree with McLuhan that no medium is a more powerful reflection of society than ads. Unfortunately, the ads aired by MEDIAcorp today do not bode well for civil society.

"You're all talk and no meat." (Pizza Hut)--(c) Damian Bradley