Kids these days are constantly looking to get the next best thing, or act how the “popular” people would act. In the article “Commodifying Kids: The Forgotten Crisis,” Giroux talks about the affects the media market is having on children of today. The media is “brainwashing” kids into buying their products and catching them while they are young. The children of today are measuring their worth by the things they own or the way they act, which is largely due in part to the media market. While I do agree with Giroux on how the media market is to blame for the strong influence of children, I also think that the parents should share some of the blame for giving into their child’s desires and buying and encouraging them to get the top products.
The media influences so much of our society today. They control the trends in clothing and style, and influence they way we act. The people who they are affecting the most are children. Giroux comments “Children now inhabit a cultural landscape in which they can only recognize themselves in terms preferred by the market”(Giroux A136). Kids these days think they need to give in to the market to survive. One of the reasons for this mindset is because of the media corporations that are targeting young children. Companies are making strong marketing pushes toward children who are susceptible to persuasion. They are encouraging kids to buy the new IPhone or the new action figure. While it is not just products, children are also being influenced to act a certain way. TV and movie stars are teaching kids how to act based on characters they portray in movies and TV shows, which often times are not the right ways a child should act. Artists and other celebrities strongly affect the trends in clothing and ...
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...hild conforming to the ways of the media icons, then the kids will be less likely to act that way. The parents are a key part in loosening the grip the media market has on young children.
Not only are the media at fault for influencing children of today, the parents are also at fault for their encouragement of the media market. The market has a strong hold on children and is continually influencing them through many aspects of their lives. Parents need to encourage their children to not conform to whatever the media says. Kids do not need the newest items or hippest clothing in order to be successful. Parents need to slow down on spoiling their children and have them focus less on material things. Overall, we need to crack down on the gripping media market and encourage the children of today to be true to themselves and not rely so much on the media driven society.
Marketers become rich by selling the idea of happiness to children; that life is all about buying and getting, and money is happiness. This ill treatment of children, by marketers, negatively affects social aspects of children. In more recent years, marketers have started to push more expensive, “branded” products to children. As Velmha La.Point states, “There’s a mantra in American society you are what you have, you are what you buy, you are what you own. The corollary of that, is and if you don’t have it, then you are a nobody”(Consuming Kids). This then leads to things such as depression or low self-esteem if ...
This survey was born out of concern that there are few statistics on the effects of marketing industry’s impact on our youth. Just as the article on “Consuming Kids” raises awareness about children being lured into believing they can’t live without things and the problems rising out of it. This survey makes us aware of how this market is willing to sacrifice the sanctity of family life by undermining the parents via their television while children watch mega hours of uninterrupted commercials aimed at them. These surveys were compared with a couple of sparsely completed other ones. The respondents felt that problems such as: aggressiveness, materialism, obesity, lack of creativity, overly sexualized behavior and self-esteem, were detrimentally influenced by the youth marketing industry.
Any agency that uses children for marketing schemes spend hundreds of billions dollars each year world wide persuading and manipulating consumer’s lifestyles that lead to overindulgence and squandering. Three articles uncover a social problem that advertising companies need to report about. In his research piece “Kid Kustomers” Eric Schlosser considers the reasons for the number of parents that allow their children to consume such harmful foods such as ‘McDonalds’. McDonalds is food that is meant to be fast and not meant to be a regular diet. Advertising exploits children’s needs for the wealth of their enterprise, creating false solutions, covering facts about their food and deceiving children’s insecurities. It contains dissatisfaction that leads to over consumption. Children are particularly vulnerable to this sort of manipulation, American Psychological Association article, “Youth Oriented Advertising” reveals the facts upon the statics on consumers in the food industries. The relationship that encourages young children to adapt towards food marketing schemes, make them more vulnerable to other schemes, such as, advertising towards clothing, toys and cars. Article writer of “The relationship between cartoon trade character recognition and attitude toward product category in young children”, Richard Mizerski, discusses a sample that was given to children ages three to six years old, about how advertising incurs young children that are attracted too certain objects or products on the market.
There is no doubt that children are like sponges. They soak up the information shown to them though television and the media on a daily basis, and copy it in the real world. In a matter of seconds, children can mimic a popular character; sing a song used in a beer advertisement, or even strike a “sexy” pose. All children have to do is put a DVD into the player, open a magazine, watch TV, or click on a web site to see these types of messages. The media offers us information on the world such as news, sports, and education; but what about the negative things it offers such as advertisements depicting young teenagers and children in scantily clad outfits, or impossible ideals that can almost never be lived up to such as “Victoria’s Angels” for females or Hollister models for males. Children are exposed to these on a daily basis, and are often unaware that they are being exploited. Television stations such as Disney and Nickelodeon depict children and teenagers in adult situations, and the media projects can lead unhealthy consequences in both males and females.
As a teenager, I have witnessed the effects of media on body image almost everyday. Kids these days are so focused on social media and having the perfect body type that they can hardly even function sometimes. The media has had such a negative impact on so many young people, do we really want our generation of young people to grow up with this kind of pressure to look just right? Although there are many positive things about the media, the negative impacts it has outweigh the good.
Media can influence every home in America. Not only is it capable of influence through television, but it can influence through magazines, newspapers, word of mouth, even clothing! The qualities of a person media tends to influence most, is their self-esteem and personality. Women are especially seen as being influenced, but men are in the bunch as well, although less published. Children are being brought into the influence as well at younger ages each generation. With more media influence in families, we can expect more social problems.
Schor talks about how the street culture has affected marketing to young adults. Rap and hip-hop have become quite popular even in suburban homes. The top charts on any popular radio station have at least four or five rap songs in them. This popularisation of street culture has influenced marketers to subtly include violence, drugs, crime and sex into ads meant for teens, making it just subtle enough not to get called out for it. Edginess in advertising gave it that cool feel that kids were attracted to, the “gangsta” life. Cool being associated with these kind of negative things can influence kids to take part in such activities, wanting to live the cool way. Advertisers also exploit the underlying desire for kids to be more independant, showing rebellion against their parents, who are depicted as lame. When kids see this kind of behaviour on TV, they think that is how it should work for them too. One example Schor gives is a Sprite ad “The parents are in the front seat singing “Polly wolly doodle all the day,”... He is in the back banging his head on the car window in frustration… stuck this these two losers.” (223). The kid is the only one who gets that his parents are lame and he is the only one who is even close to cool in the car. The worst part about the new cool is that it’s not only
The effect of the media on young children is especially salient. Young children often learn how to act and behave from what they observe at home, from the adults and older peers they come in contact with, and from what they see on television.
Influence on Children Media - History of Media for Children, General Considerations, Studies of Media Influence, Domains of Influence, Recommendations http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2212/Media-Influence-on-Children.html#ixzz1PoYlQRnG
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 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 in different forms of media and their behaviours.
Now in days when you want an answer to something, they google and it and do not even think about cracking open a book. Industries have in a way brainwashed kids to believe a certain thing when in reality it is not the way to think. Teare and Schlosser both provide two different views from the way kids are influenced into getting into buying something. Schlosser explains that industries use different gadgets to influence kids to buy that particular product, especially that of nagging to parents. If their child wants it they will most likely get nagged at until they buy the product they want. Teare shows a different problem with it, kids are now not focusing on reading and gaining knowledge through text books, but only play videogames or watch television. Kid consumers are effecting everything and they will continue to as long as companies are getting fed what they can to sell their
Children watch an average of 2 hours and 17 minutes of television each day, 16 hours each week, and are exposed to 25,600 advertisements a year, with 22% of these advertisements being for food (Holt et al. 2007)(Rose, Merchant, Bakir 76). The majority of children aged between five and eight have some understanding of TV advertising, they are capable of differentiating programs and commercials especially if this understanding is measured by non-verbal rather than verbal measurement. Advertisers create ways to invade the minds of people everyday. Products and services surround our everyday lives and most influence children. Mottos, catchy phrases, and animated figures are just a few of the ways advertisers target the younger generation. Advertisers are influencing their wants and needs, as well as what’s in style and what is not. The industry gets exactly what they want, dedicated customers for life. Advertising is creating issues for children and affecting their lives. They understand TV advertisements at a young age, which can affect their thought and purchasing processes and the fast food industry is a leader in advertising and leading to childhood obesity.
It is widely held view that art imitates life. However, there exists an actual sense in which art is imitated by life. The power and influence of the media ensures that what is seen, heard and experienced in and through the media influence the behavior of teenagers whether they are conscious of it or not. It is clear that media is the one thing that is almost inseparable from the lives most teenagers. Teenagers are naturally curious. Faced with a multitude of choices and challenges, they often look for direction and guidance on how they can live their lives in today's society .As such, they are particularly susceptible to the media messages of behavior as acceptable, unacceptable, or normal. Since large parts of these messages are engrafted
Children can be influenced and impacted in many ways whether it is from their parents, peers, and even strangers. One thing many people don’t realize is that many children, nowadays, are actually being influenced by the media, meaning they are being affected by different media sources, such as television and the internet. The question is whether the sources of media, television and the internet has a positive effect or a negative effect on children, and which source of media has a bigger effect.
...he media are now being reflected in the lives of the newly matured teenage generation, who were in part forced to grow up because of the media’s influence.