Childhood Consumerism And Consumption Media Essay

Childhood Consumerism And Consumption Media EssayDuring the rise of consumer culture in the nine puerileth century, children and childhood were c all told in alled on to fulfill a range of great roles. In addition to being consumers themselves, the young functioned as both goods to be used and consumed by adults and as proof that middle-class materialist ventures were assisting in the institution of a more ethical society. Children also provided necessary labor and lovesome material for industry. However, in todays corporate world, young culture is largely the psychiatric hospital of marketers, corporations and those inte abatemented in getting rich off young person finished popular culture. The young people select been targeted by the big bloodline and the advertizing industry to bolster their revenue. Although primarily discussing the American situation, the sphericalization of youth culture means the findings be relevant to most of the world. Indeed, given the global re ach of such icons of American popular culture as MTV, McDonalds and Coke, close no culture is immune from its effect.Un resembling in the past centuries, instantly children and teens are growing up in a world do up of advertisers, marketers and corporate giants who are doing all they can to drain both last dollar out of the lucrative youth market. And they are succeeding. Douglas Rushkoff media amateur saidFor todays teens, a walk in the street may as well be a stroll finished the mall. Anywhere they rest their eyes theyll be exposed to a marketing message. A natural American teenager will process over 3,000 discrete advertisements in a single day, and 10 million by the time theyre 18. Kids are also consuming massive quantities of entertainment media. Its a blizzard of brands, all competing for the same kids. To win teens loyalty, marketers believe, they have to speak their language the shell. So they schooling them carefully, as an anthropologist would an exotic native cul ture, (Mooks and Midriffs, 2006).They spend their days browsing through reams of market research data. They conduct endless surveys and focus groups. They comb the streets, the schools, and the malls, risque on the trail of the next big thing, which will attract the forethought of their prey, a market segment worth an estimated $150 gazillion a year. Businesses are creating and sell popular culture which has made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic in America. They plainly non reflecting teendesires, rather they are manufacturing those desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market.Not only are they selling the goods but they are also dictating the market and consumer behavior. Like Mark Crispin moth miller said, advertising has endlessly sold anxiety, and it certainly sells anxiety to the young people. Its always telling them theyre losers unless theyre cool (Merchants of cool, 2000). Corporations invest a lot of money average to research what is cool and what is not. The enigma is, cool keeps changing, simply because kids keep changing. And the corporations trial to keep up with the rapid changes in cool. The corporate world deals with this problem not by just mapping cool, but to create cool. This in fact has become much of the strategy of the creasees to create cool, while claiming to simply be reflecting cool. Thus they are no longer selling a product, they are selling a lifestyle. This process is done in fraction by doing market research into what teens like, then repackaging and re-selling it back to them. Marketers extensively discourse young people to see what they wear, what they eat, what they buy, what they listen to, and so on, then repackage the results into a sellable commodity. Robert McChesney explainedThe entertainment companies, which are a handful of massive conglomerates that experience four of the five euphony companies that sell 90 percent of the music in the United States-those same companies also own all the c all for studios, all the major TV networks, all the TV stations passably much in the 10 largest markets. They own all or articulation of every single commercial cable channel. They look at the teen market as part of this massive empire that theyre colonizing. . . . Teens are like Africa . . . that theyre discharge to take over, and their weaponry are films, music, books, CDs, Internet access, clothing, amusement parks, sports teams. Thats all this weaponry they have to make money off of this market.Everything on MTV is a commercial. . . . sometimes its an explicit advertisement paid for by a connection to sell a product. Sometimes its going to be a word picture for a music company there to sell music. Sometimes its going to be the set thats filled with trendy clothes and stuff there to sell a look that will include products on that set. Sometimes it will be a show about an upcoming icon paid for by the studio, though you dont know it, to hype a painting thats coming out from Hollywood. But everythings an infomercial. in that paying attention is no non-commercial part of MTV, (Cultural Manipulation, 2004). boyish peoples incomes continue to grow, as does their influence over their food and drink divine guidance and personal care use. The youths market is evolving, making stereotypical views of children outdated. According to orbicular IssuesOn average children watch 25,000 to 40,000 television commercials annually. Businesses spend about $15-17 billion advertising to children in the US. $160 billion is spent annually by teens. Children (under 12) spend almost $18 billion a year. 8-12 year olds this class has more influence on the market spend more than $30 billion a year. The young people influence parental spend over $130-670 billion a year, (Anup Shah, 2008)Mark Crispin Miller said Teenagers obtain from acute self-consciousness to begin with. Their bodies are changing and they feel unskilful and they often are awkward. So thats already a kind o f psychological problem, a burden for most kids. This system comes along and heightens that anxiety by constantly confronting every kid with a kind of mirror in which youre supposed to look at yourself and like what you see or not like what you see, depending on whether youve bought the stuff that theyre selling, (interview Mark Crispin Miller). This is due mainly to the companys advertising strategies suggesting sexuality beauty for girls and for boys there is an emphasis to portray them as tough. see that this has become a huge world problem some countries have taken an initiative to control commercials targeting young people. For example in Sweden banned commercials during childrens prime time. The European Union is deliberating issues related to advertising targeting the young people, whether they should be a European wide ban or a regulation. There is an international biannual conference that is organized with aim of dealing with topics such as childhood consumption practices, childrens roles in the consumer decision-making process, media, consumption and youth culture, unexclusive policy and media regulation. Contrary to what is happening Europe in the US business is business. Since the constitution recognizes children to have their rights it is hard for parents to fully deal with the situation without governments support.The best way to deal with this is for the concerned parties, especially the government, teachers and parents join hands into educating the disclose ways on spending and how these so called corporate friends are manipulating them into spending. And since consumerism among the youth has become a culture it is better to approach the subject with respect if the message is to be effective.