Synopses & Reviews
America is a corporatized society defined by a culture of consumerism, and the youth market is one of the groups that corporations target most. By marketing directly to children, through television, movies, radio, video games, toys, books, and fast food, advertisers have produced a kinderculture.” In this eye-opening book, editor Shirley R. Steinberg reveals the profound impact that our purchasing-obsessed culture has on our children and argues that the experience of childhood has been reshaped into something that is prefabricated.
Analyzing the pervasive influence of these corporate productions, top experts in the fields of education, sociology, communications, and cultural studies contribute incisive essays that students, parents, educators, and general readers will find insightful and entertaining. Including seven new chapters, this third edition is thoroughly updated with examinations of the icons that shape the values and consciousness of todays children, including Twilight, True Blood, and vampires, hip hop, Hannah Montana, Disney, and others.
Review
Praise for Previous Editions: Thoughtful and illuminating.”
Contemporary Sociology
An important contribution to the field of education as it is one of the few books that successfully makes the argument as to why (in very concrete terms) educators must pay attention to cultural studies.”
Educational Research
A worthy study by all who work with children.”
Educational Leadership
This is a brilliant book, a critical, interpretive undoing of North America and her children. We have waited too long for this analysis of child rearing, media-made children, and the postmodern family. This is the very best of critical pedagogy and cultural studies.”
Norman K. Denzin, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
We have placed the lives of our children in the hands of media capitalists who are redefining and reshaping childhood. It is about time that cultural critics take this issue seriously. Steinberg and Kincheloes collection opens up the possibility of a rigorous and scholarly debate in what must be one of the most important issues of our time.”
Larry Grossberg, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
A seminal contribution to our understanding of the role media and popular culture play in the socialization of children and youth in America
The picture that emerges from the book is alarming and terrifying, but also one that gives us some reason for optimism: terrifying, because it spells out, in considerable detail, the deleterious effects media culture is having upon our children, but hopeful in that it alerts us to the dangers our media poses for children and suggests ways of countering it.”
Arthur Asa Berger, Author of Blooms Morning
Synopsis
Eye-opening analysis of the pervasive effects of corporate marketing to children and how corporations shape today's youth culture
Synopsis
This book reveals the profound impact that our purchasing-obsessed culture has on our children and argues that corporate marketing to youth has reshaped the experience of childhood into something that is prefabricated. Top scholars in education, sociology, and cultural studies contribute insightful essays that students, parents, and educators will find entertaining and disturbing. This third edition is thoroughly updated with examinations of the icons that shape the values and consciousness of today's children, including Twilight, Barbie, hip-hop, Disney, McDonald's, and many more.
About the Author
Shirley R. Steinberg is the director of The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy at McGill University and has been Research Professor at the University of Barcelona. Her most recent books include:
Boy Culture: An Encyclopedia; 19 Urban Questions: Teaching in the City; Diversity and Multiculturalism: A Reader; Christotainment: Selling Jesus Through Popular Culture (Westview Press); and award-winning
Contemporary Youth Culture Encyclopedia Table of Contents
1 Kinderculture: Mediating, Simulacralizing, and Pathologizing the New Childhood
Shirley R. Steinberg
2 Teens and Vampires: From BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER to TWILIGHTs Vampire Lovers
Douglas Kellner
3 Is Disney Good for Your Kids? How Corporate Media Shape Youth Identity in the Digital Age
Henry A. Giroux and Grace Pollock
4 Selling Subculture: An Examination of Hot Topic
Sarah Hanks
5 Queer Eye for the Straight-Acting Guy: The Performance of Masculinity in Gay Youth
Culture and Popular Culture
Dennis Carlson
6 FLUID: Teen and Youth Identity Construction in Cyberspace
Donyell L. Roseboro
7 Tween-Method and the Politics of Studying Kinderculture
Ingvild Kvale Sørenssen and Claudia Mitchell
8 From Miley Merchandising to Pop Princess Peddling: The Hannah Montana Phenomenon
Ruthann Mayes-Elma
9 Corporatizing Sports: Fantasy Leagues, the Athlete as Commodity, and Fans as Consumers
Daniel E. Chapman and John A. Weaver
10 Hip Hop and Critical Pedagogy: From Tupac to Master P to 50 Cent and Beyond
Greg Dimitriadis
11 McDonalds, Power, and Children: Ronald McDonald/Ray Kroc Does It All for You
Joe L. Kincheloe
12 The Book of Barbie: After Half a Century, the Bitch Continues to Have Everything
Shirley R. Steinberg
13 HOME ALONE and Bad to the Bone: The Advent of a Postmodern Childhood
Joe L. Kincheloe
About the Contributors and Editor
Notes
Index