The key to his review is the comment about this not JUST being about turning off the TV. The elements of school advertising are quite worrisome.
And the book, and TSD's review, speak to the (warning: overly used business jargon coming at you) "holistic" view a parent needs to have of their kids. It's not just tv watching, it's not just their friends, it's not just their activities, school work etc. It's all of it, it's who they are becoming as a person.
Sent to you by ckstevenson via Google Reader:
During this series, a lot of people wrote to me and asked why I was covering this book in such detail. One reader's comment: "i get the point don't expose kids to ads." Saying that, though, is a really disturbing oversimplification of what's being said here.
The point of this book is not to merely avoid exposing kids to ads. The point of this book is to show how pervasive marketing is in the lives of children. It's not just television - it's movies, video games, magazines, and so on. It's about marketing to students in schools. It's about even using children as marketers by having kids do the marketing work themselves, convincing their friends to try it and also to demand the product from their parents. Just shutting off the television isn't enough.
Here's a checklist of all of the entries about this book: Introduction
The Changing World of Children's Consumption
Playing Less and Shopping More
From Tony the Tiger to Slime Time Live
Nickelodeon and the Anti-Adult Bias
Pester Power
The Virus Unleashed
The Commercialization of Public Schools
Dissecting the Child Consumer
Inside the Child Brain
Habit Formation
Who's Responsible: Parents or Advertisers?
How Consumer Culture Undermines Children's Well Being
Patterns of Media Use
Consumer Involvement as an Undermining Force
Empowered or Seduced?
Decommercializing Childhood
The Invention of Modern Childhood
Things you can do from here:
- Subscribe to The Simple Dollar using Google Reader
0 comments: