CMNS: 320 Children, Media and Culture

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CMNS 320 Children, Media and Culture

• Lectures Thurs.. 230 -520 AQ 3159
• Steve Klines kline_at_sfu.ca
• CC 7327
• 291-4793
• office hours Tues. 11-1
• TA Sara Grimes smgrimes_at_sfu.ca
• CC 6216
• 291-3434
• Office hours Wed. 12-200
• TA Ben Woo bmw3_at_sfu.ca
• Office RCB 6216
• Phone [phone]
• Office hoursWed. 930-1130

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Today

• Review Objectives
• Course Pedagogy?
• Topics
• Assignments
• Grading
• Course perspective/ biases
• Children
• Media
• Culture
• Why Study Childrens Media/ Culture?
• Film Jingle All the Way

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Crisis of PostmodernCulture
Celebrating Affluence vs. Amusing Ourselves to
Death
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Public Discourses on Postmodern Childhood

• Professional and Scientific Discourses
  Psychology, Education, Sociology, Anthropology,
  Law etc.
• Parenting advisories (Books, TV, Advertising)
• Corporate Industry discourses on childrens
  media and marketing
• Public Debates media panics,(violence,
  literacy, addiction) child movements and
  mobilizations (Concerned Childrens Advertisers,
  Media Literacy, Alliance)
• Family Life in mediated entertainment Films,
  Drama and Sitcoms

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Course Objectives

• This course introduces you to
• The debates about the role that communication
  media play in childrens lives.
• The historical perspective on the development of
  childrens cultural industries
• The critical writing on childrens media products
  and cultural practices
• The research literatures on childrens audiences
  and cultural effects
• The policy issues, programs and regulation
  pertaining to childrens media and marketing

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Lecture Topics

• Section I History and Institutional Context of
  the Debates about Childrens Media and Culture
• Jan 13 Week One Introduction-Childhood,
  Socialization, Consumer Culture
• Jan 20 Week Two Historical Perspectives The
  Changing Matrix of Modern Socialization
• Jan 27 Week Three Theoretical Departures A
  Crisis in the Postmodern Family?
• Section 2 Childrens Cultural Industries
• Feb 3 Week Four Story-telling in Transition
  Books, Literacy and Literature
• Feb 10 Week Five Play Toys, Playgrounds, Games,
  Sports
• Feb 17 Week Six Television Modernism in
  Translation
• Feb 24 Week Seven Digital Domesticity and
  technified Spielraum
• Section III Debates and Issues Researching the
  Controversies
• Mar 3 Week Eight Marketing Lifecycles - Whose
  Rocking the Cradle?
• Mar 10 Week Nine The Canute Complex
  Commercialization of Schools
• Mar 17 Week Ten Mediated Girl Culture The
  Barbie Factor and Sexual Object-ions
• Mar 24 Week Eleven Mediated Boy Culture
  Violence , Imagination and Identification

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Pedagogy and Approach

• Expectations workload is considerable, self and
  critical reflection, active engagement (no EXAM)
• Readings familiarity with key writers and
  research traditions
• Lectures provide perspectives, analyze case
  examples, provoke debate and questioning, inform
  research
• Films Series Crisis of Childhood?
• Reading films as critical cultural texts
• Tutorials
• discuss readings, films lectures
• Discuss exercises
• Assignments (Note Changes)
• Log 30
• Cultural Product Review 25
• Research Report 30
• Tutorial Participation 15

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What we expect

• You will engage with childrens culture by
  reading, watching cartoons, playing with
  children, talking to children
• You will draw upon your own childhood
  experiences
• You will read and take an active part in seminar
  discussions.
• You will position yourself within debates about
  childrens culture in academic and public
  literatures
• You will learn to defend your own ideas and
  judgements about childrens media culture and its
  effects on/ appeal to kids

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• Reading Logs Critical Reflections on Readings,
  Lectures, Films (due April 7)
• Grade allocation 30
• The reading log is submitted in lieu of an exam.
  The purpose of the reading log is to provide us
  with evidence of your active intellectual
  engagement with the course texts (which include
  readings, lectures and films). In this regard,
  the films you see and the materials presented in
  lectures are as much a part of the course texts
  as the readings. A good reading log is not simply
  a set of notes showing us that you have read the
  material. It should also provide evidence of the
  mental work you do while reading, listening and
  watching, including your interpretations,
  critical reflections (evaluations) and ideational
  associations that take place as you assimilate
  the theories and evidence encountered on this
  course as you read, watch, listen to and
  discuss the course materials. We expect you to
  demonstrate that you understand and can define
  and paraphrase ideas/ arguments from these texts.
  We also expect you to provide a thoughtful
  commentary including situating these concepts in
  their cultural-historical context, explaining why
  you think they are relevant, providing other
  complex examples of these abstract concepts, as
  well as analyzing and evaluating arguments and
  assumptions. The application of a concept to a
  new example, or a refutation of it based on
  evidence or experience are strong evidence of
  active engagement. Remember your written
  comments and responses to these texts are
  intended to provide us with evidence of your
  critical reflections including your own
  understanding and analysis of these concepts/
  theories.

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• Assignment 1 Assessing Childrens Cultural
  Products. Due Feb. 24 Grade allocation 25
• The purpose of this assignment research and write
  about a particular cultural product. The
  assignment will have two parts
• Part A (15) Un-packing the Product
• The goal of this part of the review process is
  to analytically situate the creation of a
  cultural artefact in the context of current or
  past cultural industries practices (1500 words or
  less). By a childrens cultural product we mean
  any commodity which is designed for and sold to
  children from a My Beauty Box to the animated
  film Polar Express. This critical
  cultural-historical analysis can have a
  biographical or institutional dimension. This
  means situating the product within the corporate
  structures and practices, the genres and forms,
  the design intentionalities and personal
  biographies, as well as the public debates,
  policies, and audience reactions to them. You can
  use other texts and on-line resources in
  developing your background research for this
  cultural-historical review. Trade associations,
  journals and business news reports (CBCA) are
  very useful sources of information about
  childrens cultural industries. Stats Canada and
  other industrial sources are also worth checking
  as well as on-line fan sites and corporate
  sources. As in documentary research, all on-line
  sources must be properly referenced especially
  fansites and news and magazine stories.
• Part B (1) On-line Review for Parents. (1000
  words or less)
• Although childrens books, toys and the latest
  blockbuster films are sometimes reviewed in the
  press, these are frequently part of the
  promotional spin. For this reason, this part of
  the assignment asks you to write an independent
  critical evaluation of the cultural product you
  have just researched which might be useful to
  parents looking to make decisions about the
  merits, subject matter and appropriateness of the
  product. The assignment is first and foremost
  intended to get you thinking about and applying
  your own criteria for evaluating the qualities
  important in various childrens cultural
  industries whether it be toys, TV shows, films
  or comics. But it is also intended to create a
  public domain resource to which parents and
  industry might turn to find independent
  assessment of childrens cultural products. The
  reviews should be submited as PDFs which can be
  posted on the media lab website as an advisory to
  parents.

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Assignment 2 Pilot Research ProjectGrade
allocation 30

• This pilot research project requires you to
  engage in some primary research of your own
  either qualitative or quantitative using
  discourse analysis, surveys, interviews, focus
  groups, or ethnographic approaches. The main
  purpose of this pilot research project is to
  explain how you would now empirically address one
  issue/ debate about commercialized childrens
  culture that has been identified in the course by
  analyzing a corpus of material or a discourse (TV
  show, ads, newspaper stories) or by talking to/
  observing children and / or their families. The
  main point of the research project is to
  involve you in the gathering/ evaluating research
  evidence that informs or contributes to an
  ongoing debate about children's cultural
  industries.

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Research Topics

• How do children under 2 watch teletubbies?
• Is Media Literacy being implemented in BC high
  schools?
• Attitudes of parents to their teens use of video
  games
• the play arratives that girls (6-10) generate
  while socializing with Barbie
• Imaginary Landscapes Do children dream of
  television characters?

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Proposed Group Projects

• A) Advertising Analysis An in-depth analysis of
  food and toy advertising in the pre-Xmas period.
• B) Fast Food Culture family food negotiations
  and discretionary eating of children.
• C) Cyber Kids just how digitally savvy are they?
• D) Consumer Literacy what do kids understand
  about shopping, marketing and advertising
  directed at them?
• E) Growing Diversities cultural differences in
  the age of media saturated leisure.
• F) Defensive Parenting Strategies for raising
  children in the consumer culture?

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• Participation in Seminars (Exercises) Grade
  allocation 15
• The seminars on this course have two purposes.
  The first is to encourage you to discuss the
  ideas presented in the lectures, films and
  readings with the TA and fellow students. Because
  the tutorials are scheduled before the lecture it
  is expected that the readings, questions and
  debates will take place in the week following the
  lecture.
• The other purpose of the seminars is to explore/
  apply in greater depth the key concepts, research
  approaches and arguments that are examined to
  this course. To this end a series of
  mini-research activities are specified and
  students are expected to come to seminars
  prepared to discuss their experiences and
  findings. Each exercise should also be entered in
  the weekly log in note form.
• Exercise for Week 2 Family Oral History
  Families are micro-cultures with their own
  traditions and philosophies but these
  continuities are subject to the forces of social
  change. Interview your parents about their own
  childhood experiences and culture what they
  liked to do, play with, read etc. If you have
  access to grandparents, also ask them about their
  childhood focusing on what they did and
  experienced in their spare time. If you want
  to you might also ask your parent about their
  philosophies of childrearing as applied to
  yourself.
• Exercise for Week 3 Managing Maturity
  Marketers say that children are growing older
  younger. Analyze your family as a system of
  cultural regulation identifying the rules,
  rituals, and restrictions on leisure and
  cultural consumption.
• Exercise for Week 4 Revisiting Literacy Reading
  is often called the doorway to a childs
  imagination. Reread your favorite/ best
  remembered childrens book. Bring to class and
  explain why it influenced you.
• Exercise for Week 5 Game Play Playing games is
  the childs way of socializing him or her self.
  Reflecting back to your favorite game explain the
  rules, social dynamics and quality of fun that
  defined your favorite game.
• Exercise for Week 6 Saturday Morning Déjà vu
  The Saturday morning TV ritual is one of the
  pillars of childrens culture. So spend a few
  hours turning on the TV Saturday morning and see
  what is available for children. Are the shows the
  same as when you were younger? If they are
  different describe how.
• Exerise for Week 7 Digital Delights The
  Internet and Playdium Arcades are two rather
  recent additions to the entertainment options
  available to children. Visit Playdium or search
  three childrens on line sites for the discussion
  in this week.
• Exercise for Week 8 Discretionary Spending
  Reflect back on your own childhood consumer
  behaviour. How much allowance were you given and
  how did you spend it. What were the major
  influences on your choices (friends, advertising,
  parents etc.)
• Exercise for Week 9 Childrens Rights and
  Cultural Research Ethics Reflect on the rights
  that children have according to the UN
  Convention. Discuss the ethical issues
  surrounding childrens research.
• Exercise for Week 10 Pester Power A major
  debate has emerged about marketers influence on
  children under 12 years of age because they are
  vulnerable to advertisings persuasion. But how
  vulnerable are children? Reflect on the
  strategies that you used to influence family
  consumption or to get your parents/ relatives to
  buy you what you wanted.
• Exercise for Week 11 Cool Hunters When do
  children learn to understand and perform class
  relations through managing cultural capital? What
  role did toys and other consumer objects play in
  your own understanding of social and economic
  capital?
• Exercise for Week 12 Border Crossings It is
  sometimes argued that media play an important
  role in a multi-cultural society by exposing
  children to other cultures. Reflect back on your
  own experience of ethnic diversity explaining
  whether you think media are a resource or a
  hindrance to multi-culturalism.

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Biases of this course

• Social -Psychological - appreciation of the
  importance of play, stories and imagination in
  the childs maturation and learning. (not that
  child poverty, education, abuse and neglect,
  health etc. arent important)
• Historical - interest in the social,
  technological and institutional factors that
  contribute to the emergence of postmodern
  childhood
• Consumer Culture - focus on values, attitudes,
  cultural practices, and policy debates
  associated with the commercialization of media
  and commodification of childrens culture
  (marketplace as an agency of socialization)
• Critical - explore issues of power, policy and
  morality associated with childrens development
  within the media saturated environment

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Progress and Tradition in Family Life
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THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE?
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The Visible Hand Voice of Markets

• Tuesday, November 23, 2004
• The Canadian Marketing Association says retailer
  La Senza Girl is making a mistake to phone girls
  as young as nine years old at home and invite
  them for "shopping parties" at the store.
• "You don't try to telemarket to the
  nine-year-old," says John Gustavson, president of
  the Toronto-based CMA, which has 800 members.
  "You go to the parent. It's up to the parent to
  make that decision."
• La Senza Girl, a division of Montreal's La Senza
  Corp., targeted at girls aged 7 to 12, has signed
  up about 50,000 shoppers across Canada to its La
  Senza Girl VIP Club. The colourful 20 VIP card
  gives the girls 10 off all purchases in the
  73-store chain for a year, and 25 off at
  "shopping parties."
• To promote the parties, the company calls those
  who have signed up to the club.
• "We call," says a saleswoman at La Senza Girl in
  Toronto's Eaton Centre. "We call all our VIP
  members to let them know about shopping parties
  coming up. It's not any freaky telemarketing or
  anything like that."
• Two weeks ago the phone rang at a Toronto home.
  Fiona, a mother of two, answered. She says that
  the caller asked, "Is Katie home?""I was pretty
  busy, I probably should have screened it right
  there and then," Fiona said. "I thought it was a
  school thing." Instead, she passed the phone to
  her nine-year-old daughter. "They said, 'This is
  La Senza Girl calling,' " Katie recalls. " 'We're
  going to have a shopping party on Sunday from 5
  to 8 p.m. Because you're a VIP you get a special
  discount along with that. Ask your mom if you
  want to go and she'll probably take you.' " The
  call pushed the boundaries of good taste, says
  the
• mother. "I found it pretty cheeky. I think
  they're pushing it."
• The Canadian Marketing Association code of ethics
  says, "All marketing interactions directed to
  children ... require the express consent of the
  child's parent or guardian.
• Marketing to children shall not exploit
  children's credulity, lack of
• experience or sense of loyalty. Marketers shall
  not pressure a child to urge their parents or
  guardians to purchase a product or service."
  Karine Wascher, vice-president of marketing at La
  Senza Girl, says calling children is not company
  policy.

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Why study Childrens Media Culture?

• Appreciating Creativity For the same reason we
  study literature art forms and culture
• Why Pooh is better than Thomas the Tank?
• Practical Because childrens cultural
  industries/ marketing are expanding rapidly
• For those who want to work in Kid Kult
• Personal As a point of departure for self
  reflection on ones own cultural identity and
  cultural practices (unlearning socialization)
• the child within-looking for the authentic in
  culture, play and life
• Theoretical Childhood is a site of ideological
  struggle in the consumer culture conflicts over
  power, ideology and value in our society are
  transacted in media
• parenting as spiritual and political awakening
• Engaging in the politics of childs culture as a
  political committment

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Are you really going to make me watch
Teletubbies?
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And write about Thomas?
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Yes Some questions we will ask

• What makes a story good to read?
• What kinds of marketing is acceptable?
• What do children children in play?
• What did children do before TV?
• Havent boys always played war games?
• Do Spice Girls empower?

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Issues in Childrens Cultural Analysis
Morality, Taste and Well-being?

• Kulture (civilization) vs popular culture
  (entertainment)
• Eg Should violence be banned from video games?
• Rethinking Texts narratives, images, rituals,
  actions as meaning making
• eg Making sense of war play as narrative
  cultural practice with toys
• Socialization vs Self-expression children making
  meaning but not always in conditions of their own
  making.
• - eg a childs drawing reveals both encoding of
  culture plus decoding (culture made for children
  vs. the culture that children make on their own)

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Expanding Commodified Culture Boom in Childrens
Cultural Industries
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Animation is big business 2.6 billion

• Lion King 504 mill
• Incredibles70 million in one weekend
• Polar Express23 M in opening weekend
• Finding Nemo
• Boxoffice865/ DVD324
• Shrek 2 880 mill box ancillaries
• Lord of the Ring and Harry Potter

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Childrens Culture is an Industry
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Jobs that require you to know about childrens
culture

• Writing (Rowling is richer than the queen?)
• Education teaching, libraries, policing
• Marketing research, advertising, merchandising
• Clinical Psychology and social work (gender
  neutral dolls)
• Leisure industries, travel, sports

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Researching Cultural Workers
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Childrens writers as celebrities
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Pooh Spirituality and Shrek Management?
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The Child Within?
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Postmodern Parenting The personal is the
political

• Parenting is a biological necessity and a
  practical impossibility
• Consumer culture as an alien landscape - the
  lived experience of family leisure and the
  ideologies of childhood are in conflict
• Parenting can be radicalizing
• The irrationality of having children The
  cultural environment in which we raise our
  children has become conflicted
• The value choices of of the media saturated
  lifestyle have become the central issues for
  parents who come to recognize the contradictions
  --Especially at Xmas

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MEGHAN PLAYS BARBIE
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From Out of the Garden to Jingle all the Way

• Nurturing vs self interest
• Sharing vs ownership
• Responsibility vs Pleasure
• Community vs. Individuality
• Public Interest vs. Corporate Interest

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Critical Theories of the Marketplace as a Social
Communication System

• The Ambivalent Meaning of Things The Paradox of
  Affluence (Schorr)
• Crisis in the Family Conflicting Values of
  education and leisure (Postman)
• The Changing Matrix of Socialization Policy
  conflicts over protecting the vulnerable child or
  liberating the competent one in the mediated
  marketplace? (Kline)
• Authenticity and Resistance Is there such a
  thing as childrens own culture?

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A Childs Festival of Greed
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The Santa Clause
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Faustian Christmas
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Film as Text

• What is the thesis of Jingle about the problem of
  postmodern childhood
• How are the ideas expressed
• Through plot
• Through character
• Through dialogue
• Through emotional point of view
• Through resolution