Children getting older younger: Adultification.

Consuming Kids is Susan Linn’s compilation of the problem regarding our media, marketing and children. She interweaves real-life experiences and stories, research, and even consults those marketers. There is a problem, and she explores what can be done to solve it. Similar to Kinderculture, I am going to share some of my thoughts..

Next is, Chapter 8 “From Barbie and Ken to Britney, The Bratz, and Beyond: Sex As Commodity”. Here, Linn introduces the ideas of sexualization and adultification as they pertain to young children and what it means for our culture. This is a topic I have researched in-depth, and I will definitely post more thoroughly on it.

Growing up, I played with Barbie dolls. As I got older, I stopped playing with them and wanted to pass them on to my sister – 6 years her senior, I thought that was a real nice gesture. However, she never wanted my Barbie dolls. Instead, she wanted – and had—the Bratz. I always used to tell my mom they were “Barbie wannabes” and I never understood why she like them so much—after all, they wore way too much makeup, dressed in belly shirts and mini-skirts, and didn’t have any accessories to play house with.

My sister turned 17 this year and I find myself constantly going to her for advice on how to wear makeup or style my hair. Does this have anything to do with the fact that as a kid she was raised playing with toys like the Bratz and I wasn’t? After all, I wasn’t allowed to own make-up until I was in high school – and trust me, that was a fight; my mom was not into the idea of her daughter wearing eyeliner to school. On the other hand, my sister was doing herself up, “for fun,” in elementary school to “look like her dolls.”

In this chapter, Linn discusses the increasing amount of sexual messages being directed towards “tweens.” “Tweens,” she says, is the term marketers use to refer to kids who wanted to grow up faster.

“According to marketing wisdom, teens are ‘twentysomething wannabes’ and twelve-year-olds want to be seventeen” (131).

This idea is a dream come true to marketers; however, not so much for parents. This means that channels such as Nickelodeon, which were previously “kid friendly,” are now being bombarded with messages which are not so kid friendly anymore. In one anecdote, Linn tells the story of a mother mentioning that her daughter was exposed to a condom ad on a kid friendly TV station recently. That wasn’t the problem though, she said, the problem was it wasn’t one advertising condoms but instead one that advertised the sexual pleasure which came from a type of condom. Her daughter was just 12.

I think that while it speaks great volumes that parents are able to recognize the negatives in the media their children view, it isn’t enough since most parents aren’t doing anything about it. There are not enough resources for them to go to, and how can they fight off the media giants such as Viacom, the company that owns Nickelodeon. After all, the CEO of the channel said himself that it hasn’t changed since he started, now a feeding tube for MTV network, a not so kid friendly station.

If kids want to look more like their older siblings or celebrities, it makes sense that the clothing and accessory market for girls is targeting older pieces for younger girls.  Linn discusses the website, Alloy.com, a site that sells apparel for girls and is also a website with articles and links to ‘kid friendly’ content. However, she points out, after viewing the site, it isn’t the case. I myself took a look after going on the website. I’d never heard of it so I was curious. On the homepage I was greeted with an image of a little girl who looked about 17 but was in actuality 12. She’s the latest Nickelodeon star – what happened to the Rugrats I loved growing up? The next article I could read was about the “fame, secrets and drama” behind “Teen Mom 2” – complete with exclusive interviews!

Glossing over the fact that running shows such as this on our networks gives the rest of the world quite the image of American teenagers, think about the image this gives young girls watching, or in this case reading about. This is a show that normalizes pregnancy as a teenager, and it rarely has consequences aside from the boyfriend getting mad or an angry parent or two. In more episodes than not the parents are actually helping the kid anyway. This is the content Nickelodeon feeds kids to MTV with, this is the content a website designed for young girls is publishing.

Overall, I think Linn’s point in this chapter is beyond the idea of sexualizing and adultifying kids – most people know that’s going on. The point is that parents have no idea what to do about it. The media is being overtaken by marketing and advertising that is far from age appropriate and changing the whole landscape of being a young girl. It really drove the idea of media literacy education for parents home for me. Kids are going to be exposed to this stuff no matter what, parents, on the other hand, are not exposed to ways to deal with it – and they should be. 

After all, this is what we’re faced with now when it comes to being a “kid”…

The death of imagination.

Consuming Kids is Susan Linn’s compilation of the problem regarding our media, marketing and children. She interweaves real-life experiences and stories, research, and even consults those marketers. There is a problem, and she explores what can be done to solve it. Similar to Kinderculture, I am going to share some of my thoughts..

Whenever I read a book I like to imagine what the characters look like and what their mannerisms are like as I flip through the pages. When I recently finished The Hunger Games Trilogy, I was upset to watch the movie and find that the characters were not as I had imagined they’d be.

In this chapter, Linn points out the absence of the imagination I just mentioned in children as a result of the intense marketing and advertising that goes on. She calls upon the Harry Potter Series as her reference point as she mentions how captivated young readers were by the series when it first came out – and how now, as a result of mass marketing and consumerism, children who read the series for the first time can never have that same imagination as they read as children had before.

At a young age, children use play for many reasons. Developing cognitively as well as physically, including their motor and social skills are just a few of the ways play enhances childhood. Children play, Linn points out, “[…] to express themselves and to gain a sense of control over their world” (62). Through play, children learn to express their feelings and imagine a fantasy world that is in their control- exercising their minds and allowing for creativity.

Now, Linn fears, imagination is dead because play is endangered. Marketing campaigns are built on licensed products and they send a message to kids: what you imagine is not good enough; you need what we can give you, you need to buy these products to have fun. I can think back to my own childhood, my best friend and I created our own “fortress” out of her attic in her house. We used household oddities to furnish our fortress and came up with wild and vivid stories about our lives in that place. Is it any wonder children can’t come up with their own creative stories, or struggle to read through a page in a book? Growing up they don’t have to anymore so as they get older, they don’t have the same skill set children used to have.

“Conformity, impulse buying, defining self-worth by what you own, and seeking happiness through the acquisition of material goods are traits that marketing inculcates in consumers” (66).

Instead of being creative, using your imagination, and becoming your own person, children are now defined by products and brands. Children use play to understand the world and since play is now dominated by products and brands, children understand the world, and themselves, in those terms. Linn points out that it is actually in the best interest of marketers for children not to understand or ask questions about these things – in other words, for them not to be media literate is important. This once again brings up the points made in other readings so far – corporate society wants money and if money is generated by a generation of media illiterate children, then why would any aspect of the government or corporate society push for media literacy?

If children define themselves by products and brands, that means more sales of those products and brands. With that said, Linn also points out that if children are no longer challenged to create their own world with their Legos, or make up their own fantasy world for their Barbie dolls, they will also never challenge themselves enough to make up their own personality and not fit into the predetermined mold that is “in.’

It sort of makes me sad to realize that because of conglomerates taking over and preaching the same ideologies with no differentiation, and synergy resulting in consumerism in kids, they’ll never be able to experience things the way I did as a kid. They’ll be lucky if they have parents who encourage them to go and spend the whole day in an empty attic creating a fortress. They’ll probably be too busy playing a video game based off a movie which is based off a book they’ll never read. 

Branding: It starts at conception.

Consuming Kids is Susan Linn’s compilation of the problem regarding our media, marketing and children. She interweaves real-life experiences and stories, research, and even consults those marketers. There is a problem, and she explores what can be done to solve it. Similar to Kinderculture, I am going to share some of my thoughts..

Next is the idea of branding – not just branding products, but the way those brands are put onto us from the cradle – and the impact that has on us, and children especially. “Branded Babies: From Cradle to Consumer”.

Teletubbies entered the world of children under 1 in September of 1998, but it wasn’t on the television screen that babies were introduced to these characters; Susan Linn opens this chapter pointing out. Apparently, babies born on September 1, 1998 were given a special care package upon arriving into the world – “Teletubby Gift Packs.” While I am not surprised by the fact that marketers are targeting children from the moment they are born, what I was surprised to learn about was the backstory Linn tells regarding PBS and the acquisition of, and promotion of, the Teletubby franchise.

Efforts to promote brand recognition before kids can even talk is not a new concept –

“[…] a lifetime consumer could be worth $100,000 to an individual retailer” (42).

However, PBS promotes itself as public broadcasting which is safe for children – safe for children mostly, because it is “commercial free.” It’s all about a struggle for funding when it comes down to it. The government has been cutting funds from PBS specifically since its inception, according to Linn. This is what has been the driving factor in PBS becoming increasingly vulnerable to commercialization. Looking at it from a media literacy stand-point, this makes an incredible amount of sense. The government wants money and money is raised through commercials, advertisements, and eventually, product purchases, if television programming is commercial free, or even educational in the sense that it prevents kids from becoming mini consumers, money can’t be made. Why would the government want to fund media literacy education or even television programming that is safe for children who are not yet media literate when they will lose money in the long run?

What I found most interesting though, was the way the people inside of PBS discussed their various corporate sponsorships and commercialization: “[…] it’s [the partnership with General Mills brand] about reaching the viewers, about keeping us relevant and having more points of impact,” said the CEO (45). In that situation, PBS entered into a partnership with General Mills and created the “PBS Kids Pavilion.” In short, this was a hyper commercialized “play area” for children and parents to enjoy.  “Kids will learn to play with characters they watch every day at a place where families already spend time” (46).

Two things: one being that “place” is the mall and two being that, as Linn pointed out in chapter 4 of this same book, children who are playing with characters pre-created for them, are not “playing” in the sense of the word as it should mean: they are being deprived of imagination, and ultimately, self-concept and identity. This makes me think of Naomi Klein and her presentation of No Logo—essentially, she feared about the loss of public space to commercial space. Linn points the same idea out. “A shopping mall is not a playground,” she says, “Playgrounds exist solely for the purpose of providing space for children to play. A commercial mall is not a nursery school, a public library, or a museum, all of which share the purpose of enriching and educating” (47). This is exactly the problem. Parents are led to believe this is educational media and enriching to their children, so they buy into it and as a result, children are fed brands and products and inevitably become little consumers before they can even verbalize their wants and needs.

Linn goes on to discuss the amount of time children spend in front of the television according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, but that isn’t a new reality. What was interesting though was her point about marketers –

“Advertising works best if it can evoke from its target audience a strong and positive emotional response. Advertisers have the best chance of evoking an emotional response strong enough to viewers when people don’t know they are being influenced, or have limited capacity for critical judgment” (51).

If kids don’t have critical judgment, and marketing works best on that type of audience, and we know this, why is there not more protection for children against marketing tactics such as these?  Who can really blame the parents completely when they are learning that they’re not doing enough thanks to ideas such as Baby Einstein and the Teletubbies. No one is media literate in this situation, and the government sure isn’t complaining. 

Nagging: the beginning of the child consumer.

Consuming Kids is another one of my favorites when it comes to the topic of media literacy. First, I read it for research purposes my freshmen year in college. Four years later, I explored it again in my advanced media literacy course – it’s funny how differently you can read the same thing when you factor in knowledge and experience.

Consuming Kids is Susan Linn’s compilation of the problem regarding our media, marketing and children. She interweaves real-life experiences and stories, research, and even consults those marketers. There is a problem, and she explores what can be done to solve it. Similar to Kinderculture, I am going to share some of my thoughts..

Starting with Chapter 2, a discussion of pester power and the “nag factor”: “A Consumer in the Family: The Nag Factor and Other Nightmares”.

There is an interesting and recurring dilemma being faced by parents nowadays thanks to marketers and it is what the industry calls “pester power.” In this chapter, Susan Linn points out the fact that marketers target children because they control most of the spending in the house. Parents not only want to make children happy, but they also want to keep their sanity. If you’re in the store being embarrassed by your child harassing you to buy the Disney themed fruit snacks that tie in with the latest box office hit Tangled, chances are the child is going to win and the parent will be forced to buy the product. Marketers love this- this is what they aim for with their advertising campaigns, which is why they target kids.

After interviewing parents, Linn says,“I’ve come to the conclusion that telling parents to ‘just say no’ to every marketing related request that they feel is unsafe, unaffordable, unreasonable or contrary to family values is about as simplistic as telling a drug addict to ‘just say no’ to drugs” (32).Marketers make it impossible for parents to raise their children on their terms, as the constant advertising to children makes them well aware of brands and products before they can even speak or understand them. Forget media literacy here, these kids are not even literate in the sense that they can speak. A perfect example Linn makes is the common practice of parents teaching their children not to play with their food, while at the same time, marketers advertise food products high in sugar and fat that they should play with.

“These days, the village raising our children has been transformed by electronic media […] what this means is that children are bombarded from morning to night by messages designed not to make their lives better, but to sell them something” (32).

The marketing industry intentionally comes between the parents and the children because that helps them sell their products.

Next, Linn goes into the two variations of “nagging”: persistence nagging, which is repeated requests for a product; and, importance nagging, where a child nags with a purpose, as in, why they need the product. Interestingly enough, naggings peaks in early adolescence. This brings up an interesting point. If children are being marketed to at such an early age, an age before they can even understand the messages being directed at them, who is really to blame for their consumerism? Is it the parents who allow them to have the products? Based on what Linn is saying I want to say no. Parents seem to be fighting an uphill battle with the marketers on how to raise their children. However, I also want to say yes to some extent because parents are responsible for their children at the end of the day. It can’t be all the marketers to blame because they are only doing what they do with “pester power” because they are getting away with it. It’s making them a profit so they keep doing it.

The part that worries me the most though is that as a result of their nagging, and eventually, getting the products and brands they desire, children are identifying themselves with those brands. Linn points out in another chapter that kids know to point and make sounds at products they desire before they can even speak. Once they can speak, they nag, and once they win the nagging war and get the products they want, it seems these products and brands overtake their lives. If children have no idea why they even wanted the product to begin with, but keep purchasing it, they identify with it for what reason? It’s a cycle, too. My mom always loved to play with her Barbie doll as a kid and in turn, she purchased a Barbie doll for me. How was she supposed to think that Barbie might give me unrealistic expectations of the female body or turn me into a mini consumer?

However, if you’re going to purchase a product for a child — be it due to the nag factor or their general interest in the product — it is important to educate children on what these products mean. It is important to always encourage children to be who they want to be, to ask questions, and to understand the products they consume. It is important to be media literate parents, just as it is important to be media literate children.

Kinderculture: Meet your new babysitter- the media.

I make no secret that I have a passion for media literacy and its educational practices. I’ve recently read Steinberg’s Kinderculture. The book is a collection of the impact marketing and media have on our children and what it means to be a child. I highly suggest you read it, but I’ve been posting some of my thoughts on various chapters.

Next is Chapter 13, “Home Alone and Bad to the Bone: The Advent of a Postmodern Childhood” by Joe L. Kincheloe.

“When parents intensify their anxiety about the threat of postmodern kinderculture and strike out against it, they simply widen the chasm between themselves and their children” (271).

Today’s culture is one in which parents and children spend significantly less time together than ever before. This chapter points out that in the post-WWII era, the role of parents in the lives of their children changed forever. Divorced and two-income families meant children were spending less time at home with their families, and more time being exposed to the realities of their culture at a younger age. The sacredness of mom and dad knowing everything left with the advent of the television as a “babysitter” and the longing for a parent to help you with the “tough stuff” in life disappeared when kids were raised in a consumer driven culture – absent of parental guidance.

In this chapter, Kincheloe uses postmodern films about family and childhood to display the effects of this new culture on childhood and parent-child relationships in a consumer-drive culture. Parents, he says, have lost their control over childhood and shaping the identities of their children – they are simply not home enough to have that power. As a result of this, the social role of children has changed dramatically over the past several decades in our culture. Unfortunately, parents don’t fully understand this change, and have yet to adjust their child-rearing tactics as a result. Children are saturated with electronic media and their daily routines have changed.

As a result of both parents being in the workplace all day, tasks such as child care, shopping and cooking have been placed on the “kid.” Children are aware of and take part in a culture that used to be sacred for adults.

“New studies show they often experience the same pressures as single working mothers, as they strive to manage school attendance, work at home, and interpersonal family dynamics” (281).

Not only are children expected to take on this role, but our media enforces it. Television is supposed to represent “reality,” or something like it, and through an explanation of popular culture movies, Kincheloe demonstrates that this new culture for children is only reinforced in the media as acceptable and normal.

Parents used to know more than children, now, it seems, the children know more than the adults. Kids’ have generational experience that undermines adult authority and then add that to them being left home alone surrounded by it all and there is a recipe for success in the eyes of corporate culture. Kinderculture looks to provide kids with access to knowledge that will inevitably turn them into consumers. Being left home alone with the television and other media outlets, and adult responsibilities, makes it easy to see why children are being adultified at younger and younger ages. Self-identity is being shaped by the lifestyle children are forced to lead as a result of this new culture, and this identity is only reinforced by media.

The sad reality of all of this is that corporate marketers are more aware of what’s going on in the minds and lives of our children than we are. Parents are absent from the home and absent from the physical and emotional growth of their children, and in their place, are the marketers looking to sell products and shape identities. On top of that, parents are uneducated in this new generation of media and have no way to utilize childrearing tactics which at least help children gain a wall of defense against all of the forces looking to strip them of imagination and shape their identity while they idly take on adult responsibilities and grow up too fast.

If nothing else, this is a cry for help from the youth of our culture – parents need a better grasp on the changing media culture in order to better advise and raise their children. Otherwise, all that is left is a generation of kids shaped entirely by media and corporate society’s ideals of what their identity should be.

The Internet: how we spend our time here.

Social media and the Internet have taken over our world. This technology is a huge part of why media literacy education is so important. So what do we do exactly when we spend our time on the web…

Check out the infographic and learn a little more.

 

Beauty: real or not real?

Whether you think about it consciously or not, the media you take in have a huge impact on your self-identity. You might think to yourself, okay, well I’m an adult, I know how to judge real versus not real.

Can you really though?

First, what was wrong with Britney’s body on the right, anyway? Second, let us think for a second about what this means for how we perceive our own self-identities. If it is this difficult for an adult to distinguish the difference between a digitized image and a real photograph, how are young children expected to do so?

Our media feeds what it means to be male or female to our children and as a result, they are forming their self-identities and perceptions of how they should look, feel and act on a flawed image.

What does that mean to you? Do you think we can fight back?

Kinderculture: Media & shaping youth identity.

I make no secret that I have a passion for media literacy and its educational practices. I’ve recently read Steinberg’s Kinderculture. The book is a collection of the impact marketing and media have on our children and what it means to be a child. I highly suggest you read it, but I’ve been posting some of my thoughts on various chapters.

Next is chapter 3, “Is Disney Good for Your Kids? How Corporate Media Shape Youth Identity in the Digital Age”, by Henry A. Giroux and Grace Pollock:

Let me preface this by saying I read this chapter because I love Disney. That probably makes me “Disneyfied” in the mind of the authors, but I don’t really care. I like to think I’m beyond the age where it matters anymore – I’m an adult. However, reading this article put the parents into perspective for me – the adults – the moment I read the line about Miley Cyrus being a “good role model,” according to parents, “for young girls trying to figure out themselves.” All I could think of was the fact that first, Hannah Montana lives her life lying to everyone she cares about, changes her personality and image via makeup and hair extensions, and at the end of the day, has zero consequences for all of her deception. And don’t even start me on Miley Cyrus and her pole dancing episode…

I think what was important about this chapter was the point the authors bring up about our culture changing. 68% of all children under two use screen media, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Media are our culture and they are an unavoidable aspect of our everyday lives. The ways we think of media, and the rules that govern media, are stuck in the past. The American Academy of Pediatrics says children under two should not be anywhere near a television screen – but if that is so unavoidable in our technological and media driven culture, why are we not coming up with new norms and educational practices?

From birth, Disney is undermining children and parents alike. “The happiest place on earth” is using their perceived innocence and nostalgia factor to allow parents to buy right into their values and allow kids to be consumed by their marketing at an age where their identity is so fragile. This chapter says right out that the company works with child psychologists to figure out how to get kids interested in their values (shame on those psychiatrists). If that’s the case, why aren’t we doing something about it? Instead, our culture is becoming more and more commercialized and the values children look to in shaping their identity become consumer values and their personal choices become limited in that sense. The imagination is a thing of the past with this type of take-over.

Young girls are not figuring out how they feel about themselves but instead, attempting to remake the images they see on television – images of “wholesome role models” such as Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana.

“… [this is] a generation of young women who are sadly being encouraged to view their bodies as objects, their identities as things to be bought and sold, and their emotional and psychological health as best nurtured through ‘retail therapy’” (87).

I cringe reading that line because I can think of countless times I have said “Gosh, I need to go to the mall for some retail therapy, today has been so stressful!”

Despite all of this, I don’t think this is a problem that we need to blame only Disney for – we need to blame ourselves, too. We need to look at the parents who think of this company as something essential to childhood, and its construction of childhood as a positive thing, and understand why they feel this way.

Ultimately, this article brings to light the fact that since media are a way of life, and we can’t escape media, we should stop sending messages from prominent organizations such as the American Pediatrics Association about when not to let your child watch television, but instead, teach parents and children how to watch television. It’s honestly a matter of education. With a world as saturated by media as ours is, people need to be more aware of better ways to understand and analyze that media – and stop letting the surface seep in as okay, ignoring what’s going on underneath.

Kinderculture: Barbie has it all.

I make no secret that I have a passion for media literacy and its educational practices. I’ve recently read Steinberg’s Kinderculture. The book is a collection of the impact marketing and media have on our children and what it means to be a child. I highly suggest you read it, but I’ve been posting some of my thoughts on various chapters.

Next is Chapter 12,“The Book of Barbie: After Half a Century, the Bitch Continues to Have Everything”:

When I was a little girl I owned over fifty Barbies. I had a chest full of clothes and accessories for her, and the highlight of Christmas when I was 6 was when my grandma and pop showed up with a huge wrapped up present: the Barbie DreamHouse. I can still remember every year receiving the latest Holiday Barbie, my cousin, just 10 months younger, would always get one as well, and we would talk about how pretty she was and how perfect her outfit was that year. I can bet I still have many Barbies in my closet at home and I can still remember her SUV, her swimming pool, and every other thing that went with her lifestyle that I needed to have. I’ve been taking courses in this sort of thing for the entirety of my college career, and I’ve been researching the topic of media literacy extensively for the better half of that same career. How have I never realized some of the things Steinberg points out so succinctly in this chapter?

For many young girls, myself included, Barbie was a role model. She is the epitome of all that a girl wants to be: she has (many) successful careers, more clothes and shoes than she knows what to do with, and a perfect body. Why wouldn’t all little girls want to be like her? When thinking about this from a media literacy stand point, that is exactly the problem. The behaviors and identities of young girls are being shaped by a toy. But it isn’t just the toy, Steinberg points out, Barbie is rewriting history with her themed dolls about American Society, and reinforcing cultural stereotypes with her “Barbies of the World” collection. Mattel has created a conglomerate that will not be brought down easily either, there are countless research articles available about Barbie as a feminist – a truly perfect example of what women should aspire to be because Barbie never gives up on her dreams.

However, when Steinberg asks about her addiction to shopping, “Did Barbie construct this behavior, or do I just love clothes?” I couldn’t help but think of the stereotypical female: retail therapy is the way to solve your problems and your shoes always need to match your outfit, don’t they? Little girls grow up in a culture where consumerism is encouraged. The latest trends in beauty are always within their reach as long as they will go out and shop for it, and they’re always sure of what those trends are because they are meticulously advertised to them from a young age – an age, as this chapter points out, as young as playing with your Barbies in the living room.

There are countless articles on Barbie’s unrealistic portrayal of the female body image, and no one contests that – I even think many young girls understand that – but Steinberg points out so much more in this chapter. Not only is Barbie shaping young girls’ identities with her lifestyle, but she is teaching them about history – with a catch of course, Barbie always saves the day, usually, by giving something up for the greater good.

“Little girls are taught at an early age that it is more important to give up one’s own goal than to disappoint someone else” (261).

But parents don’t see it this way, they see Mattel being thoughtful of the fact that reading and education is important, and if buying another Barbie teaches about the colonies, then so be it.

Unfortunately though, that is not the case. Barbie is just another example of kinderculture. Young girls are emulating a Barbie, not a pop star, but either way they are emulating someone that is pre-determined for them.  I think she may be the lesser of the evils in the sense that she has a multitude of careers and lifestyles to choose from, but either way, status and importance is being placed on material objects. Young girls need the latest Barbie, and eventually, as they age, the same will hold true for the latest clothing, shoes and products deemed “it.” Barbie has micro and macro level effects, and that is where her power lies. Media literacy would demonstrate to young girls that Barbie is created by a toy company, and her lifestyle should not be emulated, and that you don’t need to own every pair of shoes, but unfortunately, that isn’t taught to young girls and their moms and dads buy them the toys, so what else do they know?

*I’d like to personally put all the blame for the amount of shoes I own on Barbie.

Kinderculture: In the hands of parents.

I make no secret that I have a passion for media literacy and its educational practices. I’ve recently read Steinberg’s Kinderculture. The book is a collection of the impact marketing and media have on our children and what it means to be a child. I highly suggest you read it, but I’ll be posting some of my thoughts on various chapters.

Starting with Chapter 8, “From Miley Merchandising to Pop Princess Peddling: The Hannah Montana Phenomenon”, an article by Ruthann Mayes-Elma:

“It is also no wonder that public schools are not teaching media literacy classes as part of the curriculum. After all, the government, which is funded in part by successful businesses like Disney, funds public schools. The government can’t afford, neither figuratively or literally, for children to actively and critically think about what is being advertised and how they are being bombarded every day by corporations seeking to expand market share” (185).

Although this chapter was about Hannah Montana, and of course, Disney’s world domination for the good of no one, I happen to think that line, placed at the very end of the article, is the most prominent point this author makes. What I took out of it, more than anything, between that line and the points addressed in the article is that parents have so much more of a hand in the adultification and commodification of children than they take credit for.

Mayes-Elma did a case study on the Disney pop sensation, Hannah Montana (aka Miley Cyrus). Though she makes many points about the television series itself – its lack of consequences, Miley’s submission to acting a certain way and the way problems are solved – her point about Disney and its synergy, cross-promotion, and ultimately, world domination – was the most shocking to me. “Toys serving as status symbols are nothing new,” she says. “In order to fit in or be popular, children ‘need’ to have these paraphernalia that have been deemed ‘in’ by their peers” (176). Disney is so fully aware of this it’s scary. Marketers know that what kids think drives the consumer market. Disney markets to kids form before they even enter preschool – nostalgia and family values really mean profit and consumerism to Disney and its shareholders. Caring about kids and creating a happy place for families isn’t the goal really, making money is (but who didn’t know that already?)

Parents feel children may be too materialistic, but what they don’t realize, this article points out, is that they are the reason their children act that way. The kids buy into the materialistic messages put forth by commercials, and as a result, they identify themselves with these products and the lifestyles they see on television. They wish to emulate their favorite pop stars like Miley Cyrus, and in turn, they “need” everything and anything that has to do with her. What’s worse though is that the parents feed into it just as much. In her interviews, Mayes-Elma found that parents said they would let their kids stay home from school to attend a Miley Cyrus concert, throw themed birthday parties where all the girls dressed up like Hannah Montana, and ensure their girls had every possible merchandises they desired.

“Disney understands that kids relate what they own to who they are, and the company furthers this by sending kids subliminal messages throughout various media sources” (182).

Parents never want for their children to feel inadequate or have low self-esteem, so of course they will purchase all of the synergized merchandise out there but what they don’t realize is that they are only furthering the damage. Kids look to emulate their favorite pop stars form the Disney channel, sure, but at a young age, kids also look to their parents to teach them right from wrong and help them identify with life. Instead of having a parent who encourages a child to be themselves and not place value on material possessions, kids have parents who throw them parties where they can all dress like Miley, and then get excited about a newer, bigger house the next day. Disney embraces these things and feeds off of it for their marketing; the company targets young girls because it knows they’re susceptible to the advertising messages. As a result of all of these things, Disney is so incredibly profitable that how can anyone argue with their methods inside of the company.

Which brings me back to my first thought: it’s no wonder media literacy education isn’t a priority. Profit and money drive this culture, media literate kids might not want to buy every single Hannah Montana toy, and could you imagine what that would do for the economy? But really, kids identifying themselves with brands and with toys and pop singers – is that how we should be raising them?

What do you think? Is self-identification with brands something you see to be a huge problem? If so, how can we fight back?