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For any parent, the power of outside influence upon a
child’s mind is a serious situation. Often, we blame the
media for the growing tide of violence and sexual
promiscuity prevalent in today’s youth, but according to
author Karen Sternheimer, we may be placing blame in all the
wrong places.
In her provocative book It's Not the Media: The Truth About
Pop Culture's Influence on Children, Sternheimer, a
sociology professor at USC, tell us to set our sights on
things other than the usual suspects of TV, movies, pop
music and video games. Her examination digs deeply into the
world of popular culture that our children seem to live in,
and she comes up with plenty of arguments that perhaps the
real problems facing our youth exist elsewhere. Namely, she
feels that a widespread fear of social change, coupled with
economic and political trends that affect society as a
whole, just may have more to do with what’s going on with
our kids than those nasty rap music videos or that bloody
video game.
Using the most current research available on the effects of
media and advertising on children, the author looks at both
sides of the argument and presents compelling new
information that shows that our problems may not at all be
the fault of what we let our kids watch, listen to or play
with. In fact, she is convinced that our “media phobia” may
actually be doing us the dangerous disservice of hiding the
real facts and the real causes of so many of our problems
with today’s kids. Of course, the author does feel that
parents must control their children’s activities, and she
does support quality media in all its forms, but she
cautions us to not be blind to the real root causes of our
society’s problems.
Sternheimer talks about the most famous “media-bashing”
cases; Marilyn Manson and the video game Quake having
motivated the Columbine shooters; an Eminem wanna-be who
beat the crap out of his wife; TV wrestling inspiring kids
to break each other’s bones; a school shooting inspired by a
Pearl Jam song. As we nod our heads and think about how
violent and sexually open our media is, the author always
manages to remind us of the many past cartoons, movies and
musical artists that pushed the edge of the envelope.
Remember the violence of “Looney Tunes” cartoons, and the
scary Wizard of Oz, or the Beatles song "Run For Your Life,”
which features a line that states “I’d rather see you dead
little girl/than to see you with another man.” Talk about
misogyny.
While I as a mother am convinced that the media is not all
that child-friendly, especially when it comes to advertisers
(and there is a whole chapter devoted to the selling machine
that preys on our kids), Sternheimer points out how the
media has always shown us sex, violence, guns, shootings,
war, bloodshed, etc. Yet these fears have really only become
such a big deal now, in this generation. Again, the author
makes some challenging and thoughtful points on why, which
involves evolving sociological forces. After reading this
book, I see the media’s role in my own child’s life as being
far less powerful than I first imagined.
The new dangers of the Internet are also explored, as well
as the over-marketing of products to kids, and I again was
challenged by the author’s idea that it is not the media
that is over-marketing, but simply responding to a culture
that is so much more materialistic than ever before. That I
think we all can agree on. The chapter titles mostly all
feature the word “fear" -- Fear of Cartoons, Fear of the
Internet, Fear of Music, and what makes this book so timely
is the fact that we are living with such pervasive fear in
our lives as perhaps never before. But unless we come to
grips with what we are afraid of, and why, we may be harming
our kids more than helping them by our media-bashing.
In her closing chapter, the author makes some powerful
comments about how the media only reflects and reminds us of
the social problems we face, that it does not create them.
She also states that the biggest harm media power can yield
is not in “creating killers, but in creating complacency.”
She likens the media to a “sheep in wolf’s clothing,” in
that it seems scary, but underneath it is more of a follower
than a leader. This is a very deep book, not to be read
quickly or taken lightly, because in many ways, we owe it to
our kids to try to understand what underlying forces truly
shape their world and their worldview.
It's Not the Media is a real eye-opener and will totally
change the way you look at the role the media plays in not
only molding the beliefs, personalities and ideals of your
own children, but maybe your own as well. In fact, the real
culprit is something far more frightening for many people:
social change. Maybe that’s why we’d rather blame the easy
targets.
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It's Not the Media: The Truth About Pop Culture's Influence on Children by Karen Sternheimer