This is taken from the FT:

Only here for the beer
By John Lloyd
Published: January 7 2006

There's still a debate about how much power the media have, but it's mostly about news and current affairs. I've argued that news media have a lot of power - to frame politics and public figures, to demand attention for this or that cause, to express approval and disapproval and thus cause politicians to follow suit. This kind of power was first evident in the US in the 1960s: the election of John F Kennedy and the hostility to the Vietnam war were materially encouraged by the media. Today in Britain, these themes still prevail: a telegenic and fluent young politician - whose only extra-political experience has been as director of communications for a TV company - has been elected as leader of the Conservative party: and the media, including supposedly neutral broadcasters, are increasingly obviously hostile to the Iraq war.

But decreasing numbers of people read or watch the news: more watch, and take lessons in living from, entertainment. Soap operas are recognised as important socio-political documents these days. The Archers, the BBC's village-based radio serial of many decades' provenance, has always had an exemplary side to it, and while living in Russia in the chaotic period before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I was struck by the hold which the Mexican soap opera The Rich also Cry had on a people experiencing change in every aspect of their lives. It was at once a release of the envy and contempt that most felt towards the new-rich classes, and an escapist fantasy for those who now saw conspicuous wealth within their own borders, and wanted it, if only virtually.

In the public agenda of news, the ethics and morality of those who feature on it and those who make it are matters for debate. But the ethics, morals and effects of mass entertainment are a largely dead area - with the only life provided by organisations and individuals who object to profanity, sexuality, blasphemy or violence, and these are usually regarded as extremists or cranks, rather than activists in civil society. The decisions about what we see and how we see it are reported - but not with the prominence they deserve.

An example came up at the end of last year, with a directive from the European Commission on the future regulation of audio-visual content. Among much else, the directive permits "product placement" - that is, television companies can make deals to show products on screen, and charge for it, a practice that is presently forbidden. If accepted - which is likely - this directive will become national law quite soon.

This is, actually, exciting. TV companies, apart from the licence- fee-funded BBC, are in constant need of money. TV executives are terrified by the potential of DVRs - the little boxes that allow viewers to record and view programmes when they wish, and above all skip the ads. There's debate about how much this will affect the TV and advertising industries - but not that it will affect it, nor that TV revenue is no longer simply a matter of earning large sums from 30-second TV spots. Sky has pioneered subscription TV; many channels raise money from interactive TV with premium call rates; sponsored programmes are becoming more frequent. Product placement will not be a panacea, but it will help. And it will change what we view, and thus change us.

It comes at a time when the best brains in the advertising industry worldwide are spending much creative time on rethinking what advertisements should be. A recent seminar on the future funding of broadcasting, organised in London by the Westminster Media Forum, saw some of these brains proclaiming that, in the future - in the words of Nick Bampton, MD of Viacom Brand Solutions - "advertising will be commissioned more for its engagement with viewers than for the scale of the audience". Bampton revealed that he had had a group of volunteers' brains scanned to see how much more activity different ads generated. Agreeing with Bampton, Professor Patrick Barwise of the London Business School said that "buying attention is much more valuable than buying reach. It's about emotional engagement".

These are important statements, and product placement is an important innovation, for Europeans who spend some four to five hours in front of their televisions every day. We will soon have products woven into the scripts of most TV drama: however sensitively it is done - and it isn't being done sensitively in America, where it's long been allowed - it is bound to affect the editorial and creative decisions of the writers, directors, editors and camera operators. We will get another message - if we don't, the advertisers will want their money back - which is to buy, rather than to think, or be moved.

And if, as Barwise puts it, ads become even more about "buying emotional engagement", then that's a matter which is at least as apt for public discussion as the choice of subjects on a TV news bulletin. Emotional engagement had been thought of - is still thought of - as what people feel for other people, or for causes, or for deities. If the best creative brains in the media are setting themselves the task of engaging our emotions through 30- second films, or through the adroit placing of a can of beer or a hatchback, then it merits another kind of placement. That is, a placement in a skein of argument about the effect of media on our lives - our thoughts, decisions, prejudices, judgments and emotions. It is not enough to say "you can switch it off". That's true, and good advice: but we don't. So at least we can hold what we are being given to watch up to the light, and see what it's doing to us.