Consuming Kids

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.

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.

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.

A critique of marketing to children

Tolu Olorunda is a cultural critic whose work has regularly appeared on AlterNet, Black Commentator, CounterPunch, Truthout, and several other publications including ColorLines magazine, The Nation magazine, and Wiretap magazine. His book, The Substance of Truth, takes a frank look into what has become of a society that touts grand and lofty ideals which it often fails to fulfill. With essays addressing issues as broad as the education system, 21st century media culture, Hip-Hop culture, youth culture, neoliberalism, and moral poverty, Olorunda argues the days ahead would darken in promise if rigorous action isn’t soon applied to rectify the way people think, how they respond to their surroundings, and the decisions they take to make the world better than it stands today. This struggle, he insists, could define whether or not a livable future would exist for the most vulnerable of all—children, whose plights are increasingly cast aside and ignored. From the book: “At risk of appearing alarmist, it’s easy to ignore all the warning signs hanging around us that suggest the clock is ticking fast—real fast!—and that time left for due action is short. But if life for the next generation should contain some semblance of sanity—where life itself means more than shopping malls and commodities, where Power stands accountable to the demands of communities—all fear of coming across hyperbolic would have to give way to the realities staring us down. The risk also extends to coming across Pollyannaish, as though all the impurities and iniquities holding hostage society can be cured with essays or lectures. But we cannot afford to let this moment slip by unattended, unengaged. The problems number endless—and so do the possibilities. And at no other moment has a generation been more fortunate, with the ease of technology, to make miracles happen amidst frightening circumstances. At no other moment has the clarion call blared this clearly and loudly.”

Explores the history of play in the U.S. from the point of view of children between six and twelve.