The media influences us as adults in various ways throughout our lives, so it should not come as a surprise that children are influenced and behaviour altered by the messages that surround them; children are far more open to suggestion than adults and lack a healthy scepticism, and so the results of being immersed in popular culture have the potential to be harmful and damaging if left unsupervised and unguided.
Magazines available for ages below 7 are usually more carefully constructed and tend to concentrate on puzzles and popular TV characters; but most of them have a free gift (which boosts the price). These gifts stick rigidly to gender models, e.g. plastic jewellery for girl; and for boys it is almost always a prerequisite that the gift is a shooting toy, which some parents may try to avoid, but find themselves pressurised into buying when there is so little choice. A magazine without a toy may have better stories and activities, but it less likely to be chosen. Girls’ magazines tend to range from princesses and fairies, to cute animals; boys have action figures, nearly all involving fighting or battles (even if it is in a fantasy setting). These images imprint gender roles in a way that is carefully avoided at school. Already the language in these magazines is teaching children to dumb down. An example of this can be found in ‘All About Animals’ 2010
‘Hi girls! We’re all best friends, just like the cuties on page 4. They might be different, but they’re all super cute pals.’
Magazines for older children (up to 10 years) start to become more adult in content for girls; obviously there are no direct sexual stories, but ‘psychological’ quizzes become more male orientated, the language becomes ‘cooler’ and the free gifts on the front evolve into make-up. Boys have ‘Dr Who’, ‘Star Wars’ and ‘the Simpsons’; already magazines reflect adult trends of men buying magazines about music, hobbies and interests, women largely buy beauty and gossip magazines.
The most worrying magazines are those aimed at girls aged 10-14, which tend to sexualize young girls and promote an interest in the opposite sex. Girls in the photographs are scantily clad with lots of make-up; and personality or intelligence are not judged to be as important as physical appearance. The women in the magazines have often been air-brushed, giving an unattainable idea of beauty. The only good thing about these magazines is that they promote reading in reluctant readers in a simplistic way; but if the magazines did not exist girls would hopefully read something more elevating or intellectual.
The internet is a good resource for information and children as young as 6 are directed to use Google to help with homework; it is a great starting point, but it is slightly problematic in that information on the internet (e.g. Wikipedia) is not monitored and so not everything is accurate and should be checked. If children habitually use the internet to get information they will lose (or never develop) the ability to use books to conduct proper research. Another problem with computers that are unprotected are ‘pop ups’ which may be inappropriate or sexually explicit, and search engines like ‘Google’ which can bring up shocking images when prompted by an innocent word. ‘I was searching for images of Disney’s Jasmine on Google and there were a lot of pornographic images instantly on my screen, without any warning’! (Don't try that at home!)
Young children’s TV is usually a good device to innately promote literacy, especially CBeebies and CBBC. These channels are carefully monitored and regulated, so a parent can confidently leave a child unsupervised to watch programs which encourage learning and promote good social skills. (E.g. ‘Horrible Histories’ is a well constructed comedy which brings history to life in an amusing way; it promotes an interest in history which can be developed in future lessons. This program recently won ‘best sketch show’ at the 2011 British comedy awards, the first children’s TV show to ever win this category). The problems occur with other TV stations, which tend to divide into programmes aimed specifically at girls or boys. Most boys’ programmes revolve around a super hero and fighting, or manic cartoons with frenzied activity; boys particularly seem to mimic TV characters, copying speech (usually US ‘cool’ speech and catch phrases), which does not help to promote literacy. Programmes aimed at girls are uniformly about young, glamorous, made-up, irritating girls, winning popularity by their glossy looks and hidden pop-star status. Children will try to emulate these role models, using American ‘lingo’ and becoming sexualized too early. These programmes are style over content and do not promote literacy in any way.
When children watch programmes aimed at adults then the problems can be far more serious; some adults think that it is acceptable for children as young as 5 to watch ‘Glee’, because it seems to appeal to children; but it covers adult issues and will suggest sexual stereotypes which can easily imprint on young children. Peer pressure forces other parents to allow their children to watch it, as they do not want their children to miss out on the latest craze.
Listening to some radio stations (e.g. Radio 4) is a good way of encouraging literacy, but not many children are interested in such channels. They are more likely to listen to Radio One, with more focus on music than news bulletins (which are condensed and aimed at issues which will appeal to the young). This neither helps nor restricts literacy; however, the worrying increase of pop music with swearing is a concern, especially in songs which appear to be aimed at younger listeners. ‘I downloaded ‘Do it like a Dude’ by Jessie J, as Eloise (age 8) said she liked it and would like it on her MP3 player; luckily she did not have time to listen to it, as when I next heard the radio edit I realised the language was extreme, e.g. ‘motherf***er’. I quickly deleted the song which seemed to be aimed at young girls by an artist who had recently won BBC Sound of 2011 and the Critics’ Choice Awards.’
There is arguably a time and a place for swearing and it is not suggested that swearing in songs should be banned; however there should be warnings on downloads. Children’s literacy will not be improved by the addition of swear words.
If age appropriate then most games can encourage literacy to a small degree, e.g. Nintendo DS games have a lot of writing and some children (particularly boys) will want to improve their reading in order to complete the game. But games viewed by young children, which may belong to older siblings, can be damaging and imprint ideas of violence and negative gender roles. A lot of games on popular consoles (e.g. Xbox) are centred around the idea of war; and these ideas glorify and romanticise fighting in a way which is far removed from the grim truth and reality of war. If a child reads a book about war (e.g. ‘All quiet on the Western Front’ by E.M. Remarque) they will see how young soldiers’ ideals and high held belief about fighting for their country is counterbalanced by the reality of the terrible things they experience. In a computer game there is no evaluation, just pursuit of glory. The only positive point may be that it could enhance an interest in reading books about war and an interest in history!
V Yeates
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