advertising and the mass media
with increased trade and mass production of good it was logical that producers needed persuasive techniques so that people would buy the products of one company rather than those of its competitors.
the popularity of radio and then television provided a new use for the spoken word. one style of advertisements which we still have today focuses on a voice of authority-supposedly an expert like a doctor or a scientist-who tells us what to buy because he know it is good for us.
But with radio and TV. advertisers soon realised that they were speaking to us in our living rooms at home and many advertisement became less formal as sellers adopted a style which spoke directly to the listener or viewer in a friendly way.'
The people in advertisements began to speak and act like we did and we became more likely to buy their products. Although advertisers still chose their words carefully the message was generally simpler. Incidentally US President Franklin D.Roosevelt used this friendly style between 1933 and 1944 when he made a series of radio broadcasts to the nation which were known an fireside chats. Instead of the formal language that politicians used to use Roosevelt spoke to the people as though he was chatting to them. These broadcasts were extremely popular with audiences and had more listeners than the programmer designed for entertrainment