Synopses & Reviews
In recent years, children have become an increasingly important consumer market, and there is growing concern about the 'commercialisation' of childhood. This book, now in paperback, sheds fresh light on these debates, offering new empirical data and challenging critical perspectives on children's engagement with consumer culture from a wide range of international settings. The contributions are written both by well-known scholars and emerging researchers, and include studies of the history of children's consumption in the USA and in Europe; discussions of new theoretical and methodological approaches to studying children's consumer culture; critical analyses of the practices and strategies of contemporary marketers; sociological accounts of the contexts of children's consumption in the family and the peer group; and culturally-informed analyses of the role of consumption in children's identity formation. Taken together, these studies outline a productive new agenda for research in this field, and provide ways of moving beyond established theories and approaches.
Synopsis
In recent years children have become an increasingly important consumer market, and there is growing concern about the commercialisation of childhood. This book sheds light on these debates, offering new empirical data and challenging critical perspectives on childrens engagement with consumer culture from a wide range of international settings.
About the Author
DAVID BUCKINGHAM is Professor of Education, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media at the Institute of Education, London University, UK; and a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Child Research, NTNU Trondheim, Norway. His research focuses on children and young people's interactions with electronic media, and on media education. Among his most recent publications are
Beyond Technology: Children's Learning in the Age of Digital Culture and
Youth, Identity and Digital Media.VEBJRG TINGSTAD is Associate Professor and Deputy Director at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. Her research focuses on childrens online networking, and on childhood and child culture in contemporary societies.
Table of Contents
Introduction; D.Buckingham and V.Tingstad
PART I: HISTORY OF CHILDREN'S CONSUMPTION
1. Valves of Adult Desire: The Regulation and Incitement of Children's Consumption; G.Cross
2. Proper Toys for Proper Children: A Case Study of the Norwegian Company A/S Riktige leker (Proper Toys); T.Korsvold
3. The Books That Sing: The Marketing of Children's Phonograph Records, 1890-1930; J.Smith
PART II: THEORY AND METHOD IN RESEARCH ON CHILDREN'S CONSUMPTION
4. Commercial Enculturation: Moving Beyond Consumer Socialization; D.T.Cook
5. Subjectivities of the Child Consumer: Beings and Becomings; B.Johansson
6. Researching Things, Objects and Gendered Consumption in Childhood Studies; C.Mitchell
PART III: PRACTICES OF CONTEMPORARY MARKETERS
7. Children's Virtual Worlds: The Latest Commercialization of Children's Culture; J.Wasko
8. Creating Long-lasting Brand Loyalty - or a Passing 'Craze'? Lessons from a 'Child Classic' in Norway; I.Hagen and Ø.Nakken
9. The Cute, the Spectacle and the Practical: Narratives of New Parents and Babies at The Baby Show; L.Martens
PART IV: SOCIAL CONTEXTS OF CHILDREN'S CONSUMPTION
10. The Stuff at Mom's House and the Stuff at Dad's House: The Material Consumption of Divorce for Adolescents; C.Collins and M.Janning
11. The Dao of Consumer Socialization: Raising Children in the Chinese Consumer Revolution; R.Wærdahl
12. 'Those Who Have Less Want More. But Does it Make Them Feel Bad?' Deprivation, Materialism and Self-Esteem in Childhood; A.Nairn, P.Bottomley and J.Ormrod
PART V: CHILDHOOD IDENTITIES AND CONSUMPTION
13. Branded Selves: How Children Relate to Marketing on a Social Network Site; H.Skaar
14. 'Hello - We're only in the Fifth Grade!!': Children's Rights, Intergenerationality and Constructions of Gender in Public Discourses about Childhood; M.Rysst
15. 'One Meets Through Clothing': The Role of Fashion in the Identity Formation of Former Soviet Union Immigrant Youth in Israel; D.Lemish and N.Elias