Thurs.. Lectures: 2:30 -5:20 AQ 3159
CMNS: 320 Children, Media and Culture
Steve Klines [e-mail] CC 7327 291-4793 office hours: Tues.111 TA: Sara Grimes [e-mail] CC 6216 291-3434 Office hours: Wed. 12-2:00 TA: Ben Woo [e-mail] Office: RCB 6216 Phone: [phone] Office hours:Wed. 9:30-11:30
Today
Review Objectives Course Pedagogy?
Topics Assignments Grading
Course perspective/ biases
Children Media Culture
Why Study Childrens Media/ Culture? Film: Jingle All the Way
Crisis of Postmodern Culture
QuickTime and a TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor are needed to see this picture.
Celebrating Affluence vs. Amusing Ourselves to Death
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
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
Lecture Topics
Section I: History and Institutional Context of the Debates about Childrens Media and Culture
Jan13WeekOne:IntroductionChildhood,Socialization,ConsumerCulture Jan20WeekTwo:HistoricalPerspectives:TheChangingMatrixofModernSocialization Jan27WeekThree:TheoreticalDepartures:ACrisisinthePostmodernFamily?
Section 2: Childrens Cultural Industries
Feb3WeekFour:StorytellinginTransition:Books,LiteracyandLiterature Feb10WeekFive:Play:Toys,Playgrounds,Games,Sports Feb17WeekSix:Television:ModernisminTranslation Feb24WeekSeven:DigitalDomesticityandtechnifiedSpielraum
Section III: Debates and Issues: Researching the Controversies
Mar3WeekEight:MarketingLifecyclesWhoseRockingtheCradle? Mar10WeekNine:TheCanuteComplex:CommercializationofSchools Mar17WeekTen:MediatedGirlCulture:TheBarbieFactorandSexualObjections Mar24WeekEleven:MediatedBoyCulture:Violence,ImaginationandIdentification Mar31WeekTwelve:McDisneyfication:Globalization,Immigration,andCulturalDiversity April7WeekThirteen:CulturalPolitics:MediaEducation,FamilyDynamics,andMediaStudiesintheSchools
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 (NoteChanges)
Log30% CulturalProductReview25% ResearchReport30% TutorialParticipation15%
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
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.
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 th 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) ar 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 evaluati 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 thinkin 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 paren and industry might turn to find independent assessment of childrens cultural products. The reviews should be submited a PDFs which can be posted on the media lab website as an advisory to parents.
Assignment # 2: Pilot Research Project Grade 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.
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?
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?
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 these but 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 Dj 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.
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
Progress and Tradition in Family Life
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THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE?
The Visible Hand: Voice of Markets
Tuesday,November23,2004 TheCanadianMarketingAssociationsaysretailerLaSenzaGirlismakingamistaketophonegirlsasyoungasnine yearsoldathomeandinvitethemfor"shoppingparties"atthestore. "Youdon'ttrytotelemarket[to]thenineyearold,"saysJohnGustavson,presidentoftheTorontobasedCMA,whichhas 800members."Yougototheparent.It'suptotheparenttomakethatdecision." LaSenzaGirl,adivisionofMontreal'sLaSenzaCorp.,targetedatgirlsaged7to12,hassignedupabout50,000 shoppersacrossCanadatoitsLaSenzaGirlVIPClub.Thecolourful$20VIPcardgivesthegirls10%offallpurchases inthe73storechainforayear,and25%offat"shoppingparties." Topromotetheparties,thecompanycallsthosewhohavesigneduptotheclub. "Wecall,"saysasaleswomanatLaSenzaGirlinToronto'sEatonCentre."WecallallourVIPmemberstoletthemknow aboutshoppingpartiescomingup.It'snotanyfreakytelemarketingoranythinglikethat." TwoweeksagothephonerangataTorontohome.Fiona,amotheroftwo,answered.Shesaysthatthecallerasked,"Is Katiehome?""Iwasprettybusy,Iprobablyshouldhavescreeneditrightthereandthen,"Fionasaid."Ithoughtitwasa schoolthing."Instead,shepassedthephonetohernineyearolddaughter."Theysaid,'ThisisLaSenzaGirlcalling,'" Katierecalls."'We'regoingtohaveashoppingpartyonSundayfrom5to8p.m.Becauseyou'reaVIPyougetaspecial discountalongwiththat.Askyourmomifyouwanttogoandshe'llprobablytakeyou.'"Thecallpushedtheboundaries ofgoodtaste,saysthe mother."Ifounditprettycheeky.Ithinkthey'repushingit." TheCanadianMarketingAssociationcodeofethicssays,"Allmarketinginteractionsdirectedtochildren...requirethe expressconsentofthechild'sparentorguardian. Marketingtochildrenshallnotexploitchildren'scredulity,lackof experienceorsenseofloyalty.Marketersshallnotpressureachildtourgetheirparentsorguardianstopurchasea productorservice."KarineWascher,vicepresidentofmarketingatLaSenzaGirl,sayscallingchildrenisnotcompany policy.
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
Pe...