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Looks at the way corporations and advertisers target children as a profitable demographic, as well as their methods for getting past parental safeguards to make products of all kinds appeal directly to even the youngest children.
In The Case for Make Believe, Harvard child psychologist Susan Linn tells the alarming story of childhood under siege in a commercialized and technology-saturated world. Although play is essential to human development and children are born with an innate capacity for make believe, Linn argues that, in modern-day America, nurturing creative play is not only countercultural—it threatens corporate profits. A book with immediate relevance for parents and educators alike, The Case for Make Believe helps readers understand how crucial child's play is—and what parents and educators can do to protect it. At the heart of the book are stories of children at home, in school, and at a therapist's office playing about real-life issues from entering kindergarten to a sibling's death, expressing feelings they can't express directly, and making meaning of an often confusing world. In an era when toys come from television and media companies sell videos as brain-builders for babies, Linn lays out the inextricable links between play, creativity, and health, showing us how and why to preserve the space for make believe that children need to lead fulfilling and meaningful lives.
"This is an academic look at the contribution of popular culture to the loss if innocence in today's children."--Publisher.
"Offers a vivid portrait of a global economy that overproduces goods and targets children as consumers ... where the primary goal is no longer to manufacture goods but needs." - cover.
In Kids Rule! Sarah Banet-Weiser examines the cable network Nickelodeon in order to rethink the relationship between children, media, citizenship, and consumerism. Nickelodeon is arguably the most commercially successful cable network ever. Broadcasting original programs such as Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Rugrats (and producing related movies, Web sites, and merchandise), Nickelodeon has worked aggressively to claim and maintain its position as the preeminent creator and distributor of television programs for America’s young children, tweens, and teens. Banet-Weiser argues that a key to its success is its construction of children as citizens within a commercial context. The network’s self-conscious engagement with kids—its creation of a “Nickelodeon Nation” offering choices and empowerment within a world structured by rigid adult rules—combines an appeal to kids’ formidable purchasing power with assertions of their political and cultural power. Banet-Weiser draws on interviews with nearly fifty children as well as with network professionals; coverage of Nickelodeon in both trade and mass media publications; and analysis of the network’s programs. She provides an overview of the media industry within which Nickelodeon emerged in the early 1980s as well as a detailed investigation of its brand-development strategies. She also explores Nickelodeon’s commitment to “girl power,” its ambivalent stance on multiculturalism and diversity, and its oft-remarked appeal to adult viewers. Banet-Weiser does not condemn commercial culture nor dismiss the opportunities for community and belonging it can facilitate. Rather she contends that in the contemporary media environment, the discourses of political citizenship and commercial citizenship so thoroughly inform one another that they must be analyzed in tandem. Together they play a fundamental role in structuring children’s interactions with television.
A critique of marketing to children
"Even as they see their wages go down and their buying power decrease, many parents are still putting their kids' material desires first. These parents struggle with how to handle children's consumer wants, which continue unabated despite the economic downturn. And, indeed, parents and other adults continue to spend billions of dollars on children every year. Why do children seem to desire so much, so often, so soon, and why do parents capitulate so readily? To determine what forces lie behind the onslaught of Nintendo Wiis and Bratz dolls, Allison J. Pugh spent three years observing and interviewing children and their families. In Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture, Pugh teases out the complex factors that contribute to how we buy, from lunchroom conversations about Game Boys to the stark inequalities facing American children. Pugh finds that children's desires stem less from striving for status or falling victim to advertising than from their yearning to join the conversation at school or in the neighborhood. Most parents respond to children's need to belong by buying the particular goods and experiences that act as passports in children's social worlds, because they sympathize with their children's fear of being different from their peers. Even under financial constraints, families prioritize children "feeling normal". Pugh masterfully illuminates the surprising similarities in the fears and hopes of parents and children from vastly different social contexts, showing that while corporate marketing and materialism play a part in the commodification of childhood, at the heart of the matter is the desire to belong."--pub. desc.
This gripping book considers the history, techniques, and goals of child-targeted consumer campaigns and examines children's changing perceptions of what commodities they "need" to be valued and value themselves. In this critique of America's consumption-based society, author Jennifer Hill chronicles the impact of consumer culture on children—from the evolution of childhood play to a child's self-perception as a consumer to the consequences of this generation's repeated media exposure to violence. Hill proposes that corporations, eager to tap into a multibillion-dollar market, use the power of advertising and the media to mold children's thoughts and behaviors. The book features vignettes with teenagers explaining, in their own words, how advertising determines their needs, wants, and self-esteem. An in-depth analysis of this research reveals the influence of media on a young person's desire to conform, shows how broadcasted depictions of beauty distort the identities of children and teens, and uncovers corporate agendas for manipulating behavior in the younger generation. The work concludes with the position that corporations are shaping children to be efficient consumers but, in return, are harming their developing young minds and physical well-being.
The buying, selling, and writing of books is a colossal industry in which marketing looms large, yet there are very few books which deal with book marketing (how-to texts excepted) and fewer still on book consumption. This innovative text not only rectifies this, but also argues that far from being detached, the book business in fact epitomises today’s Entertainment Economy (fast moving, hit driven, intense competition, rapid technological change, etc.). Written by an impressive roster of renowned marketing authorities, many with experience of the book trade and all gifted writers in their own right, Consuming Books steps back from the practicalities of book marketing and takes a look at the industry from a broader consumer research perspective. Consisting of sixteen chapters, divided into four loose sections, this key text covers: * a historical overview * the often acrimonious marketing/literature interface * the consumers of books (from book groups to bookcrossing) * a consideration of the tensions that both literary types and marketers feel. With something for everyone, Consuming Books not only complements the ‘how-to’ genre but provides the depth that previous studies of book consumption conspicuously lack.
Kidfluence details the latest research on the demographic and socio-cultural trends of young adults born after 1980--Generation Y. This "what works and what doesn't" book provides marketers and advertisers with sometimes-surprising findings on what information and products these kids really want, and how to reach them most effectively without turning them off completely.