Assignment 2

Culture Jams: The Role of Television in the Lives of Children

Cathy Lau

200119306

CMNS 428

February 18, 2008

Stuart Poyntz

Introduction

Today, market values and commercial communication dominate public consciousness, pushing important public issues to the margins, unable to compete. Even as marketers use television to talk more directly to children and “through it to assert the market’s right of place within the matrix of socialization … [t]here [i]s little discussion taking place of whether commercial interests should have such a licence, or whether their influence on socialization fits in with the border prospects for social justice and psychological well-being” (Kline, 1993, p. 74). Indeed, “there is little to indicate that parents are deeply troubled by, or even notice, the intensifying efforts of marketers to sell products to their children” (Kline, 1993, p. 69). “Although television is now clearly a significant channel of communication with children, many parents remain confused about why television matters” (Kline, p. 68).

Numerous researchers offer compelling arguments about the negative effects of television on the lives of children. For Kline (2004), who views TV as offering few of the redeeming qualities associated with children’s “productive” pursuits of play and learning, a major problem with TV is its displacement of such activities from children’s lives and replacement of them with its own, largely passive entertainment. The activities that have been displaced by TV viewing become invisible to parents who are merely content that their child is occupied placidly elsewhere (Kline, 1993). Cook (2001) extends TV’s potential for harm to the lessons learned as children watch TV, arguing that the popular characters, images, and stories portrayed in popular media cultural forms “encode premises about ways of acting in the world, about what is good or right, about the appropriate consequences for one’s actions, and so on”, all the while targeting children with the intention of breeding a culture of consumers (p. 83). A further negative implication this holds is that any form of active spectatorship children might display becomes illusionary, “positioned within an ideological context that naturalizes individualism, and a commercial network that is designed to convince young viewers that freedom is best expressed in front of the television screen and in the marketplace” (Kinder, 1999, p.197).

Among the numerous reasons why parents should be concerned about the role of television in their children’s lives then, three are particularly compelling: television’s displacement of more productive, healthier behaviours in children’s lives, its role in socializing children as consumers, and – related to this – television’s restriction of children’s agency to “an imaginary form of empowerment within a consumerist culture” (Kinder, 1999, p. 201).

The role of culture jamming

Culture jamming involves “[introducing] noise into the signal as it passes from transmitter to receiver, encouraging idiosyncratic, unintended interpretations” that “restore a critical dimension to passive reception” (Derry, 1993, http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/MC30120/derry_culture%20jamming.doc). To problematize parents’ general acceptance of TV in their children’s lives, I have employed the strategies of culture jamming to create three images targeted at parents of young children and youth that introduce new, negative meanings to otherwise familiar and accepted images of television-viewing. By giving parents the opportunity to reflect on TV in a different way through their juxtaposition with unexpected taglines, the images are meant to create a sense of dissonance among parents that motivates them to consider and think critically about television’s role and influence in their children’s lives. The three images I have created each correspond to one of the three issues identified previously: television’s displacement of healthier activities, its role in socializing children, and its restriction of children’s agency.

Culture jamming in practice

The first image conveys the unhealthiness and undesirability of the passive, sedentary lifestyle associated with children’s TV-viewing. It does this by highlighting the inactivity and mindlessness inherent in the act of watching TV. It depicts the common scenario of two bored children watching TV, but stresses the unhealthiness of the activity by depicting the children as exhausted-looking and requiring energy drinks to stay awake. The tagline reads “Doesn’t TV conserve enough energy?”, which draws attention to the unproductiveness of watching television, with the goal of motivating parents to think of more productive, healthier activities to which children could devote their energy.

The second image conveys TV’s deleterious role in shaping children’s values and understanding of the world. Juxtaposing a fairly typical scenario – two children watching TV (with the Trix rabbit prominently featured) – with the tagline “Your kids need better role models,” it delivers a message about the socializing effect of TV on children’s lives by communicating the idea that everything featured on TV is a role model, whether or not it thought of as such. By attaching the seemingly absurd and disturbing idea that the Trix rabbit could serve as a role model for children, the image aims to provoke parents to question what their kids might be learning from the rabbit (including greed, deception, striving for what one cannot have) and from their TV viewing in general (the need to acquire goods above all else), thereby interrupting their acceptance of non-violent television programming as banal and non-harmful.

The third image captures the false empowerment of children in their relationship with the TV, and the superficial and passive nature of children’s actual engagement with it. It does so by depicting a typical TV-watching session/critique engaged in by the TV characters Beavis and Butthead, juxtaposed with the tagline, “Sure, TV fosters critical discussion.” In depicting critical engagement as mindless TV commentary and depicting the false empowerment afforded by the ability to change the channel, the image may lead parents to question the effects of TV in limiting their children’s ability to critically engage with information in a meaningful, non-consumer-related manner. It also draws parents’ attention to the very superficial nature of the analysis that can arise in absence of their guidance and attempt to restrict what their children watch.

The weaknesses of culture jamming

The strategies of culture jamming, despite – or perhaps because of – their seeming effectiveness, are fraught with weaknesses. One is the level of sophistication and cultural knowledge necessary for people to appreciate a culture jam’s message and “get it.” Since culture jamming strategies can be used by anyone – from bored pranksters to savvy corporations – it can be increasingly difficult to draw the line between social critique, mindless social deviance, and ads themselves. To the uninitiated, the third image’s tagline could be seen as a mere attempt to poke at fun at TV rather than making a real commentary, could be taken literally as communicating a message of consumer empowerment, or could even be viewed as an ironic ad promoting Beavis and Butthead. As well, as culture jams develop newer ways to shock, they enlarge the amount of expressions that are deemed acceptable by the public, thereby making it even more difficult to get through to public consciousness – my low-key jams would probably barely register. As corporations with more money and resources co-opt the look and feel of culture jams for their own purposes, culture jams may become so commonplace that they lose their effectiveness and distinction. The need to constantly reinvent counterculture to prevent such a scenario from occurring underlies what might be culture jamming’s greatest weakness. As Heath and Potter (2004) argue, the countercultural rebellion that rejects the norms of “mainstream” society has become one of the major forces driving competitive consumption, with the rebel symbolizing endless directionless change, and eternal restlessness with “the establishment” and the stuff it convinced him to buy last year. Culture jammers – in constantly redefining the “alternative” styles individuals must strive for and the objects they must acquire in order to differentiate themselves from other victims of mindless conformity – provide corporations with a potentially infinite number of rebel styles to exploit for their marketing potential, and continue to justify the economy’s “ever-accelerating cycles of obsolescence” (Heath & Potter, 2004, 129). In doing so, culture jamming, contrary to its purported purpose, might arguably be seen as just another force promoting consumerism.

References

Cook, D. T. (2001). Exchange value as pedagogy in children's leisure: Moral panics in

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Derry, M. (1993). Culture jamming: Hacking, slashing and sniping in the empire of

signs. Retrieved November 01, 2004, 2004, from

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/MC30120/derry_culture%20jamming.doc

Heath, J. & Potter, S. (2004). The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can’t be jammed. Toronto,

ON: HarperCollinsPublishersLtd.

Kinder, M. (1999). Ranging with power on the fox kids network: Or, where on earth is

children's educational television? In M. Kinder (Ed.), Kids' media culture (pp. 177-

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Kline, S (1993). Chapter 2 – “The Making of Children’s Culture” in Out of the Garden:

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Kline, S. (1993). Chapter 4: “Thralls of the Screen: The rise of Mass Media for Children” in Out

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Kline, S. (2004). Learners, spectators, or gamers? An investigation of the impact of

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