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Joel Snell, guest columnist

When you watch a 30 minute television show, 22 minutes go the program and eight minutes to commercials.

But even those 22 minutes of programming may be filled with product plugs - signs, discussions, props and small logos at the bottom of the screen designed to entice you with some product or service and encourage you to remain 'loyal” to the same - essentially turning a half-hour of television into 30-minutes of commercials.

Across various social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and others, the commercial media is extremely subtle.

When I received my bachelor and masters degrees in sociology and social psychology at the University of Nebraska-Omaha (then an emerging local and regional school), I was interested in the ways mass media encourage changes in people's attitudes and behavior.

Over the years, I have published research on the topic in Psychology & Education: An Interdisciplinary Journal (psychology & education.net) with Kirkwood Economics Professor Saul Mekies. By the way, Kirkwood Community College is one of the finest of its type in the country.

Carl Sefl, former head of marketing at Kirkwood, and I were published on a similar topic in College Student Journal (projectinnovation.biz) in 2003. In 2007 I wrote another article about the subject in The Gazette - the second largest newspaper in the state and one of the most interesting. I frequently post my thoughts about advertising on my website, socialvibes.net, including thoughts about the commercialization of education and the wider culture.

Now please go back and count how many plugs for products, people and institutions were in the previous three paragraphs. While you are doing that. Let me explain that the above is called an 'advertorial.” It looks like it is an editorial, but basically I am promoting myself.

Besides my obnoxious self promotion in the paragraphs above, there also are 10 product plugs: Twitter, Facebook, University of Nebraska-Omaha, the journal Psychology & Education, Kirkwood Community College, College Student Journal, Saul Mekies, Carl Sefl, The Gazette, my website.

These types of subtle (and not so subtle) commercial messages are pervasive on television, online and in social media. In marketing, you may have a soul, a self and a brand. The more people know you, the greater the brand.

It's common for news sites to try to entice readers with pictures and headlines that seem, at first glance, to lead to other stories but in fact lead to advertisements. Often when reading a factual article online, up pops an advertisement for some related product.

If you have been looking at automobiles, you may move to another website only to find that it's full of car ads that wouldn't appear on someone else's computer, unless they had been shopping for the same thing. Factual information and advertising are woven together in ways that can be difficult to untangle.

So? In the end, you may want to read a print copy or a book. Even if it is an e-book, there are fewer messages. If you don't believe me, go look for yourself.

' Joel C. Snell is professor emeritus of sociology from Kirkwood College. Comments: joelsnell@hotmail.com