“Likely to be viewed with as much acceptance as Catholic nuns running around in thongs, textbook publisher McGraw-Hill Ryerson plans to sell ads in textbooks used by Canadian college students. So in the middle of college physics when Brad Pitt stares up and asks, “Honey, Want A Heineken,” the professor shouldn’t be all that surprised when all the females in class suddenly start squirming in their seats completely forgetting that E=MC2.”
Read related article.
In my humble opinion it is a questionable matter to place ads in textbooks for the following reasons:
(1) the planners of this ad push say that advertisers are carefully chosen to provide awareness such as drinking, driving or promotion of advocacies.
As what is show as a possible example, seeing Brad Pitt in a Physics book makes me wonder what awareness that portrays? Are students to study the compositionaly elements of a drink? How many oxygen, carbon dioxide, whatchamacallit stuff you could find it there?
(2) Some ads may deliver a different message to students rather than what they are supposed to deliver. How sure are the planners that this may be otherwise? And how sure are they that these ads may not be a source of distraction for students?
(3) Schools are to be a place of learning and must be free of corporate influence.
