Article reviews

I really enjoyed the articles this week especially “Children as Consumers.”  I had heard many times that the media targets children differently than it does adults but this article gave me a more in depth view to that. When I was in high school one of my teachers told us about an article she had read that said grocery stores put junk food and toys on the lower shelves so that the children are in direct eye level with them. This would then cause the children to beg their parents to buy them the junk food and the toys and for the most part the parents would cave. So having heard that information I was really interested on what other ways media is targeting children.

In the article it told of different ways that media tries to convince parents to buy more products for their children by explaining that it will allow them to create their own identity. “The [U.S.] federal government played a major role in defining childhood. In 1929, Herbert Hoover sponsored a White House Conference on Child Health and Protection. The conference report, The Home and the Child, concluded that children were independent beings with particular concerns of their own.… The report advised parents to give their children their own [furniture, toys, playrooms etc]. “‘Generally a sleeping room for each person is desirable”‘ it noted.… Take them shopping for their own “‘things and let them pick them out for themselves.Through such experiences personality develops… [These] experiences have the advantage of also creating in the child a sense of personal as well as family pride in ownership, and eventually teaching him that his personality can be expressed through things( Children as Consumers).” While I do believe that this can add to helping a child discover their own individuality, I think that it is mainly convincing them that the definition of who the are as unique individual is solely dependent upon the material objects they possess.  This was the quote from the article that really caught my attention because it definitely makes me realize how prevalent media is not just in my life but in the life of all these children.