Public Relations in Higher Education

Advertising in NU Focus 

 

Advertising constructs the audience in certain ways: one of which is by targeting the 

audience it wants to reach, which can be narrowly or widely defined. Where 

advertising is concerned, the publics have a double articulation: the target publics 

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are `sold' to the advertisers by the magazine, at the same time the magazine is 

`sold' to the publics.

 

The process becomes self-reinforcing because the magazine `sells' the publics they 

wish to reach to the advertisers; the advertisers pay to advertise in it; advertisers 

then become interested in maintaining those publics and the editors of the magazine 

make sure that they continue writing for those publics to ensure that the advertisers 

stay with the magazine. This process creates a media identity, which becomes very 

difficult to break out of. This identity may or may not square with the different 

publics targeted.