‘The media we use and the stories they tell help to make us who we are’.
- Mastronardi (89)
As the formative years of childhood lay the foundational stones of a kid’s future, the transformative energy of children’s literature is something that cannot be ignored. According to Perry Nodelman, literature for children is part of a colonization process that adults play on their own offspring in the same way the Western super powers controlled the Orient. They are spoken for, therefore silenced; their histories are written for them so that they might live accordingly. Didactic to the core, they contain the seeds of domination within, in order to secure the child who is outside the book. “In other words, we show children what we “know” about childhood in hopes that they will take our word for it and become like the fictional children we have invented – and therefore, less threatening to us” (Nodelman 32).
If the Puritans have started writing for children during the sixteenth century to teach them scriptures, so that they will be absolved from the sins they are born with, the focus has shifted now to a class and gender consciousness and giving an awareness of the power structures of the society they are to live. “Perhaps more than any other texts, they reflect society as it wishes to be, as it wishes to be seen, and as it unconsciously reveals itself to be” (Hunt 2). The stories they encounter in their earliest days provide them with caricatures, images and attitudes which in turn become a part of the adult identity they will carry and modify throughout their life.
The sector of children’s films too, like its mother genre, is not yet liberated from the politics of ideology. As entertainment industry is part of the consumerist world and i...
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In Hunt’s argument, he refers to ‘preoccupations of a culture’ by which he means adults and not children as it is they who write, publish and purchase children’s books. This essay discusses Hunt’s statement with reference to Mortal Engines, The Other Side of Truth and Junk. It looks at what assumptions these books challenge and how the authors use their craft to persuade the reader to reassess their assumptions and ideology changing their idioms in the process. What the books reflect about the current theories surrounding the concepts of childhood and a discourse about the reasons why authors opt to challenge cultural preoccupations.
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American author and political activist, Ward Churchill, once said, “The American people are free to do exactly what they are told.” The influence and control mass media and propaganda has on modern society is comparative to the mastery a puppeteer has over his puppets. Due to the technological advancement in mass media over the past several decades, it is now easy, and very common, to tune-in, plug-in, and be in “the know”. Whether the majority of our society realizes it or not, mass media and propaganda controls many because of the broad exposure it has. Besides the numerous issues needed to be discussed, I will focus on the harmful, degrading influence mass media and propaganda has on adolescent girls throughout their teenage years. With Photoshop, television, and social media clouding our world, these young girls are not only adopting unrealistic standards for beauty but also unrealistic lifestyles portrayed on television. When a problem arises, a solution is sought after. Problematic behavior arises from the negativity portrayed through outlets of communication. If media and propaganda can influence negative behavior, it can also promote positive behavior. Television provides us with great plays, operas, music, sporting events, and all kinds of other entertainment. There is nothing in the medium itself that suggests the hyper sexuality and violence found within it. Arthur Asa Berger stated in his book, Manufacturing Desire, that “television is a mass medium and economic and commercial considerations tend to drive the programming decisions, so what we get, all too often, is a cultural ‘wasteland’”. (Berger 3) We can reform our world by our thoughts and harmful propaganda and negative mass media has made me and many ...
It has always been amazing to realize how well the literature I read as a child has stayed with me through the years. It takes an exceptional writer to compose a narrative that maintains a storyline on the same level of a child's understanding; it takes everything short of a miracle to keep a child's interest. However, that undertaking has been accomplished by many skilled authors, and continues to be an area of growth in the literary world. Only this year the New York Times has given the genre of children's literature the credit it deserves by creating a separate best-sellers list just for outstanding children's books. Yet, on another level, children's literature is not only for the young. I believe that the mark of a brilliant children's author is the age range of those who get pleasure from the stories; the wider the range, the better.
Comstock, George A., and Erica Scharrer. Media and the American child. Burlington, MA: Elsevier, 2007. Print.
Clark, C, Ghosh, A, Green, E, Shariff,N. (n.d) Media Portrayal of Young People – impact and influences. [Internet], UK, Young Researcher Network. Available from: [Accessed 2nd January 2012]
Books are the first introduction to many topics for children. In fact, for a child, it is an essential time to start reading, since it is an age where the children’s minds start developing preferences (Moser). Picture books are among the first literature, a child comes into contact with. Yet without a doubt, the majority of those characters are white or anthropomorphic animals with stories full of Eurocentric beliefs. Most children’s books neglect a variety of topics such as religion, race, homosexual, transgender, cultures, disability, and social status. Despite diversity becoming more prominent in television, movies, games, and teen novels, children’s literature still remain very Eurocentric.
... (eds), Children’s Literature Classic Text and Contemporary Trends, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan in association with Open University
A media panic or often referred to as a moral panic, is a term that describes how the media is formulating issues amongst our society. Over time, our culture has shifted and caused for many conclusions regarding media panics and the relationship between youth and the media culture. Based upon previous knowledge and course readings, I have drawn a very disturbing conclusion; this being that no matter what age, children are willing or non willingly now under surveillance to determine what kind of role media is playing in their lives. With what I have gathered from the readings and class lectures, most authors strongly believe that different forms of media directly influence children's thinking or perception. What authors and researchers continue to imply is that there is a direct correlation to what youth today see on different forms of media and their behaviours. However, it is important to remember that children are humans as well and do have a mind of their owns. Our society cannot assume that these media panics ultimately take away their ability to think on their own and develop into mature individuals. The first media panic I will discuses is how video games have developed a relationship with violence amongst our children. The second media panic is the sexual objectification of young women online.
Literature has been part of society since pen met paper. It has recorded history, retold fables, and entertained adults for centuries. Literature intended for children, however, is a recent development. Though children’s literature is young, the texts can be separated into two categories by age. The exact splitting point is debatable, but as technology revolutionized in the mid-twentieth century is the dividing point between classic and contemporary. Today’s children’s literature is extraordinarily different from the classics that it evolved from, but yet as classic was transformed into modern, the literature kept many common features.
..., DF (2010). Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8-18 year olds. Merlo Park CA: Henry J Kaiser Foundation
Children’s literature is, as Peter Hunt argued, a ‘remarkable area of writing: it is one of the roots of western culture, it is enjoyed passionately by adults as well as children, and it has exercised huge talents over hundreds of years’. Children’s literature is good quality books for children from birth to adolescence, coating topics about importance and interests to children of those ages, through prose and poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Children’s literature is probably the most exciting and vibrant of all literary studies, and its wide range of texts, from novels to picture books, and from oral forms to multimedia and the internet, presents a huge challenge. The important theme in children’s literature is the tension between the popular and the prestigious, or in other