Our family just attended the "Buy Me That" media literacy workshop at the Grabill Branch this afternoon. Based on the PBS Kids Don't Buy It website, the program helped participants to challenge and question advertising, evaluate media, and even create their own. At the end of the program each child became a food-stylist-in-training and smeared peanut butter onto a saltine as artfully as possible to get it ready for a photo shoot.It got me thinking: we teach our children a number of things as absolutes. Fire burns, strangers may mean danger, seatbelts are not optional accessories, etc. Other absolutes vary household by household.
This gets fuzzier for me the further we stray from health and safety, however. I have to admit that I recognized a number of sales pitches from my own time behind a Children's Desk.
- "Oh! Do you like that? You'd really love this... Here, would you like the whole trilogy?"
- "You completed that? Way to go! Take this branded freebie!"
- "This gray tub checks out like any other library item and helps keep lots more library materials organized in your vehicle and in your home."
- "Have it, it's free!"
I read marketing books as a hobby. Part of the allure for me is to know the enemy, so to speak. I think it's vitally important to protect my young children from rampant marketing until they're old enough to begin to decipher the code. It's part of the reason sites like Campaign for a Commerical-Free Childhood and Shaping Youth exist.The other reason, however, is to incorporate marketing strategy into my own profession. I think Why We Buy, Punk Marketing, Brand Hijack, and many others have library applications; yet for me, Consuming Kids was actual bone-knowledge that my kids do not need this stuff. It's grown-up fare being aimed at kids too young to even speak. Talk about cradle-to-grave marketing!
Yet don't we want cradle-to-grave library users? Is it as OK to teach (advocate?) cradle-to-grave library use as it is to teach "fire will hurt you"? I don't have a position here. Soapbox not included. But the more I think about media literacy-- and I think about it a lot-- the more I wonder.
6 comments:
But no matter how well a product is marketed, if it doesn't taste good or if it isn't a fun toy, a kid isn't going to stick with it. The magic of Disney World was pretty well diminished when I discovered that I could only walk through Cinderella's castle, that it was more a bridge than a castle.
Of course, my kid doesn't get to ask for too much stuff that's new because I tend to like to try them out myself. I am a marketer's dream; I still miss the write-on pop-tarts that must have been test-marketed here and failed the test.
I love the library brand and I hope we get the word out to more people. I am more concerned about children's need for general literacy and information literacy than media literacy. Although media and information literacy are closely tied together. Have you read The Internet Playground by Ellen Seiter? I thought it was very interesting and would love to hear your thoughts about it.
No, I haven't read The Internet Playground and am happy for the heads up. Thanks, Teresa. And it's true that it doesn't matter how well something is marketed if it's a poor product from the get-go.
I could feel 100% good about the library brand IF I didn't suddenly see all the eerie similarities to the marketing plans of corporations who do not necessarily have my kids' best interests at heart, but actually their own vested ones. In fact, I DID feel 100% good about it until quite recently. Now I feel kinda weird, frankly. Why did I THINK I was reading marketing books, anyway?
Libraries do have our own best interests at heart. Children who have great library experiences at storytime or during summer reading have a better chance of becoming adults who have fond feelings for or who are regular users of the library. And both those can translate into adults who VOTE FOR and USE their library.
Is that bad? Are safety belt marketing campaigns or antismoking ads bad? I hate wearing my seatbelt!
I feel confident that we are working on the side of good here :)
Remember, Batgirl is a librarian, as shes a superhero!!!
I don't see it as bad in any way to encourage children (or grownups) to be consumers of ideas and experiences. Wanting to gobble up book after book after book is good, any way you look at it.
"Taking the whole trilogy" is not teaching kids to make poor choices when walking down the aisles of Toys R Us, it's teaching them to love the printed word and the rich world of the imagination reading takes one to.
Also, using the library actuall works against consumer culture, because our patrons don't buy, they borrow.
Worry not. We're using our powers for Good.
I don't think I've said for at LEAST the past five minutes how much I value this blogging format! I think it's a great way to continue dialogue.
If I may advocate for the devil, as it were...I wonder if Jen's uneasiness is based on this: We live in a society where nothing is ever "enough." It seems like "Kids can't have too many toys" is a drastically different statement from "Kids can't have too many books," but is it really? Think about the attitude we are fostering, i.e. if it is a good thing, it's impossible to have too much. I question that concept, especially as we move from children to adults and from our nation to other nations. The United States and its citizens (me included) seem to act as if we are entitled to all we want of good things. But where does that leave other, poorer nations? I think these attitudes are the ones we learned as children...which is my point. --Jen's other mom
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