There’s no lack of things to fret about these days, including the city’s insulting “20/20” plan to address the Justice Department’s harsh judgment on the Seattle Police Department’s use of excessive force; or, maybe, the prospects of another shipwrecked Mariners season.
Either of those balls, however, takes our eyes off what is truly important and even closer to home: our children.
To that end, we note a free screening of a documentary Friday, May 18 at Magnolia United Church of Christ. Call it a point of light happening this week in Seattle.
The 2008 production from the Media Education Foundation, “Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood,” draws on the perspectives of health care experts, advocates for children and industry insiders, to show how refinements in psychology and neuroscience, teamed with the multi-media universe we live in, penetrate the American home to reach young people and gain the upper hand on parents.
The American child is one of the most profitable consumer demographics in the corporate marketer’s crosshairs. Two yeas ago CBS News figured companies spent $17 billion marketing aimed at children, compared to $100 million in 1983. One estimate identifies $1.1 trillion in terms of buying decisions influenced by kids — quite an attractive number for marketers.
This is not a new concept. Radio fixture Little Orphan Annie and Ovaltine made a powerful marketing match in the 1930s. In the 1950s Walt Disney refined synergistic marketing with Davy Crockett and coonskin caps.
But the CBS figures indicate a sea change on this front. We are in a place, as the phrase goes, of “marketing without borders.” The marketer’s one aim is to figure out how to “monetize” children. Online games, smart phones and social media have created new avenues to that end.
The irony is inescapable: This country, which helped defeat Nazism and Soviet Communism, has allowed the free market to administer the most up-to-date brainwashing techniques on its young.
The American Psychological Association has suggested advertising that targets kids 8 and under be regulated. Fat chance. Regulation is such a dirty word we can’t even muster the will to rein in the banking industry that got us into the current economic hole.
“Consuming Kids” just doesn’t document the appalling reality, though; it shows ways to push back. Additionally, The Center for Media Literacy features a series of online, kid-friendly articles revealing the deceptions behind advertising aimed at youth.
We can fret about the SPD or the Mariners or divert ourselves by other means. But the determination to raise children to be something other than credulous lambs for the insatiable marketplace begins at home.
As battles go, this one really counts.
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