moral duties

Advertisers don’t have any duty other than to advertise their product. That’s it. Advertisers can do it however they want. Sure, ads can influence the person seeing them and probably change their mindset, but that means its working! That’s what ads are supposed to do. Ads are supposed to be catchy and familiar, because if it isn’t then it isn’t an ad. Ads have only one purpose. Advertisers and advertisements don’t owe it to anyone to be the moral leaders of society. That’s not what they are. If a person believes in the stereotypes they see on TV, just because its on TV means that they were already dumb to begin with. Everyone always says that ads and the media is what influences society, but what makes the ads and the media? The society. If it can be argued that ‘mass media’ solely perpetuates stereotypes, then that just means that people perpetuate stereotypes, and people make stereotypes harmful, and people get effected by them. So really, its not advertisers that have a moral duty to be good and avoid stereotypes it’s the people themselves. That makes this question not even a real question. Of course, people have a moral duty to avoid stereotypes! Just like they have a moral duty to not steal, or litter, or yell at babies. This is basic stuff we are talking about here! Negative stereotypes can be a real bummer, we shouldn’t try to enforce them knowingly.