New Book Extract: 'Turning Children into Consumers' by Sharon Beder

[This book report is from Media Lens- "Correcting for the Distorted Vision of the Corporate Media" www.medialens.org, please sign up to their emailed 'media alerts' to receive more info about media-related books like this one]

Introduction

Sharon Beder, visiting professor at the University of Wollongong, Australia, is one of our favourite political analysts. Her book ‘Global Spin’ (Green Books, 1997), is a devastating exposé of corporate, including corporate media, manipulation of politics and culture. Like Mark Curtis’s ‘The Ambiguities of Power,’ it is a book that defies attempts to underline the interesting bits - it’s all interesting! The title of Beder’s new book is self-explanatory: ‘This Little Kiddy Went To Market- The Corporate Capture Of Childhood.’ (Pluto Press, 2009)

Once again, this is a must-read analysis explaining how people and planet are being systematically subordinated to profit. We were so impressed by the second chapter, ‘Turning Children Into Consumers,’ that even before finishing the book we wrote to Beder asking if we could use some of it in a guest media alert. She has very kindly agreed. You can order a copy of ‘This Little Kiddy Went To Market’ at a specially discounted price from Pluto Press here: http://www.plutobooks.com/beder/ Sincere thanks to Sharon Beder and Pluto Press for letting us publish this tremendous material.

We invite you to imagine a world in which Beder’s work was “on every school curriculum”, as John Pilger recommends. Imagine if children were provided with tools of intellectual self-defence to counter the relentless campaigns of corporate manipulation. It is simultaneously depressing and heartening to consider how much happier, healthier, more compassionate our society would be as a result.

David Edwards and David Cromwell
Media Lens
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TURNING CHILDREN INTO CONSUMERS
Sharon Beder

Extracted from “This Little Kiddy Went to Market: The Corporate Capture of Childhood”, Pluto Press, London, 2009.

Children are naïve about advertising and can easily be manipulated and exploited by marketers to want and demand their products. Corporate marketers believe that overtime they can be shaped into lifelong consumers with brand loyalties and that can be profitable for decades to come. What is more, children influence family spending decisions worth hundreds of billions of dollars on household items like furniture, electrical appliances and computers, vacations, and even the family car.

Corporations began targeting their marketing messages directly to children during the 1980s, as affluent adult markets became saturated with consumer goods. Large firms established ‘kids’ departments and smaller firms specialised in marketing to children. A number of advertising industry publications were created such as Selling to Kids and Marketing to Kids Report. The academic literature began to feature studies of children as consumers. In the US the amount corporations spent marketing to children under twelve increased by five times between 1980 and 1990 and ten times more during the 1990s. In 2004 around $15 billion was being spent marketing to children.

Conferences on the best ways to market to children are held all over the world. There are also awards for the best advertisements and marketing campaigns with hundreds of entries. Much marketing to children now consists of sales promotions such as direct coupons, free gifts and samples, contests and sweepstakes, and public relations exercises such as using celebrities and licensed characters to visit shopping centres and schools. These additional forms of marketing have supplemented rather than replaced advertising as the importance of the children’s market has grown. Their aim however is the same as advertising.

The international children’s market is increasingly attractive to transnational corporations who seek to make their brands and products popular in different cultural milieus. The food industry was a pioneer in these efforts. In 1997 Brandweek magazine noted that McDonald’s was the favourite fast food all over the world and Coca-Cola the favourite drink.

To read the rest of this media alert, please go to: http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php

'Fallen Princesses': Anti-Disney Art

Disney.

What images and emotions does this word conjure up for you?

For years now, I've been wanting to create a visual image- a piece of artwork- that sums up how I feel about the sexist, racist, capitalist, (add your own 'ist' here), Nazi-funding empire that is 'Disney'.

Finally the life-long dream was fulfilled when, thanks to a photoshop-savvy friend (view her online news and culture mag here: http://www.labouchemag.com/), the image of TinkeREBEL burning down the pink Disney princess castle appeared within the CRAP! Collective's 'Raise Some Hell!' zine (see PDF in sidebar, or email the Collective for a copy of the zine). The Collective is planning to create a series of these images- probably as more of a cathartic remedy for ourselves, rather than a political statement! (Get in touch with us for collaborative possibilites, or if you know of any great anti-Disney art out there that would satisfy our bloodlust)...

Anyway, when reading the blog 'blue milk' (http://www.bluemilk.wordpress.com/), I saw this series of wickedly stunning photographs entitled 'Fallen Princesses' by Dina Goldstein (See 'Cinderella' photo opposite; more photos from the project here: http://www.jpgmag.com/stories/11918), and they totally hit the spot! Although they're not anti-Disney, and also aren't empowering images of the women, they are certainly thought-provoking, and it's refreshing to see the Disney facade stripped away. As Dina describes them: "These works place Fairy Tale characters in modern day scenarios. In all of the images the Princess is placed in an environment that articulates her conflict. The '...happily ever after' is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues...such as illness, addiction and self-image issues".

Have you created feminist anti-Disney art? Send us a photo here!

URGENT: Lewisham School Eviction Order Tommorrow!

Parents in London have been occupying their children's empty primary school in protest at Lewisham councils plans to demolish the (now grade 2 listed building) school to make way for an exclusive school run by the ancient society of Leathersellers (the society sounds more akin to the Illuminati and their secret handshakes, than those selling tanned hydes...)

An eviction order has been served for tommorrow wednesday 24th june at 10.30am.

They need as much support as possible to resist eviction: please head down there tommorrow in support of the parents, kids and their community campaign.

Lewisham is in South-East London. See this link for more info: http://london.indymedia.org.uk/events/1670

This link is to their blog: http://defendeducationlewisham.wordpress.com/

In support and solidarity.

Home Education after the recent Badman Report

Hi all

I just wanted to let people know about the changes to Home Education after the Graham Badman Report came out this week and how it compromises the rights of all children in the UK.
Ed Ball wants to go ahead and implement changes immediately... this means we have got very little time to stand up against this.
I have put together the website to be user friendly and specially aimed at anyone that has missed the report or thinks that because their child is not home educated this does not effect them, it actually has serious implications for all children in the UK and their right to privacy and their life decisions.

This is the link to the website: Home Education after the Badman Report.


The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Article 16: Children have the right to privacy. The law should protect them from attacks against their way of life, their good name, their families and their homes.

Graham Badman report on Elective Home Education.

Reccommendation 7: that designated Local Authority officers should have the right to access the home and to speak with the child alone without parents present and without their consent...

There has been a lot of bad press lately about home educated children being at risk of abuse, but as there is no evidence or any cases of this Graham Badman has had to state this in his report, however he still went on to change the law as if this was the case.

The NSPCC apologised publically recently about associating abuse with home education, you can find a link to this on the webpage.

Please try and consider Graham Badman's proposals and the wider implications and the loss of rights due to this report, if you feel strongly enough then please do write to your MP's, fill in the survey, write to Ed Ball or reply to the consultation. (links can be found on the website.)

Thank you for taking the time to read this and please do forward this information, so many bills are passed these days without people being aware of the changes in their rights.

Peace and Love
Christine, Jonathan and Cherry.

Carnival of Feminist Parenting

This Sunday 14th June sees the first online blog-carnival of feminist parenting!

The blog hosting this carnival is Mothers for Womens Lib (http://feministmums.wordpress.com/carnival-of-feminist-parenting/ ), so log on this Sunday to read fab posts, and link with other like-minded people, blogging about many different issues related to feminist parenting.

The carnival will take place every month, and anyone is welcome to submit a post related to the topic. See http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_7216.html for more details about this and other carnivals.

URGENT: Early Day Motion to keep Income Support

Dear friends,

John McDonnell MP has put an Early Day Motion (EDM) to keep Income Support, which the Welfare Reform Bill would abolish. Please ask your MP to sign the EDM and circulate this EDM to your friends and colleagues suggesting that they also urge their MPs to sign. You can find out who your MP is here (http://www.upmystreet.com/commons/l/). The more MPs who sign from every party, the more seriously it will be taken. Many in the House of Lords oppose the harsh measures in the Bill which would make many destitute and first of all women and children, and they have put down amendments to change or delete the worst clauses. They are discussing these in Grand Committee, starting today. One amendment is to leave out Clause 7, which would abolish Income Support. See briefing on the amendments.

Kim Sparrow


EDM 1609 INCOME SUPPORT 08.06.2009 McDonnell, John

That this House condemns the proposed abolition of income support which is a crucial lifeline against destitution and poverty for parents, carers, those they care for and other vulnerable people; further condemns the requirement contained in the Welfare Reform Bill that claimants with children over seven years old must find a job or work for their benefits for £1.73 an hour if they are unsuccessful in finding work after two years; notes that unemployment has risen to over two million and that many parents cannot access affordable childcare in their area; deplores this erosion of the principles of the welfare state and the minimum wage, and regrets the hardship that many families will now face; and calls on the Government to maintain income support in recognition of society's collective responsibility for childrearing and the important work of carers and parents for society.

PLEASE PASS ON.

Welfare Reform and Home Education

Campaigners in London have been exposing and protesting against the government's shameful pushing through of their 'welfare reform bill'- otherwise known as their welfare ABOLITION bill. please see www.lcap.org.uk for more info (london coalition against poverty).

The government has been wanting to push through these changes for a long time, and is using the excuse of the economic crises as a cover. The bill will adversely affect those in the most vulnerable groups, and those on benefit eg. single parents on income support, are being scapegoated for cash grabbing, all the while that the government is bailing out the greedy bankers and politicians are claiming tax payers money for moat-cleaning!

The bill will mean eg. single mothers on income support will be forced back to work when their child is still very young.

I’ve been wondering what this bill will mean to those of us home educating/planning to.

Thankfully this issue has not gone unnoticed, and the home ed charity ‘Education Otherwise’ (www.education-otherwise.org) have been looking into this issue also and are lobbying parliament etc. Please see the website below for more info on what this bill will mean for home education in the future: http://www.freedomforchildrentogrow.org/welfarereform.htm

It is really important that we all inform ourselves and keep up-to-date on issues relating to the freedom and autonomy of educating our children, otherwise legislation will be against us before we know it. Even if we have chosen to send our children to school or do not have kids at all, we still must recognize that this is a CHOICE, and Home Ed is legal (despite what some may think), and respect other parents’ decisions to provide independent education for their kids outside out the mainstream system. Obviously the 'choice' to home educate is made more difficult for those with less money, less support, less time etc. But everyone who wants to home educate should be facilitated to do so, and it is discriminatory not to support this. However, the implementation of the Welfare Reform Bill will do exactly that- not only discriminate against the less privileged in this society, but force upon them a system of education that they do not agree with, and will make it even more difficult for them to home educate their kids.

We must also dispel the common myth that Home Educating means keeping your kids at home with no friends for company! There are many Home Ed community groups, so kids have continuous 'class' mates, and an amazingly varied and rich education. It can be really empowering and an educational experience for the parents too, by being involved in their children's 'curriculum'. Children can also opt to take GCSEs, A-Levels, and progress to University if they wish. There are many support groups out there, and even a Home Ed Camp once a year in the UK, to get together and have fun with other like-minded people from all across the UK (see http://www.home-education.org.uk/ and (http://www.hesfes.co.uk/).

And finally.... a brief thought for those who accuse single parents on income support of being daytime-telly-watching money grabbers: if those of us on income support all home educate, just imagine all the money we are saving the government on school fees! Surely then, it is THEM who should be paying US for home educating? Home Educators would like a 30grand salary too cheers!