Ed Kohler reviews a book on our local retailer Target:

In my opinion, Target’s specialty is their ability run up women’s Target credit cards by convincing them to measure their self-worth based on whether their napkins are in season, or what their can opener says about them as a person, rather than focusing on saving a few bucks on household staples. 

News story on an Atlanta Girls’ School that offers an elective called “I Love Lip Gloss,” which teaches girls about the influence of advertising. via @thelampnyc @tandrusiak

The challenges of teaching media literacy in schools as discussed at the National Education Computing Conference.

“I worry that even if Michelle and I do our best to impart what we think are important values to our children, the media out there will undermine our lessons and teach them something different.”

During his campaign, President Obama acknowledged that he is among the parents struggling against an onslaught of corporate marketing that hurts our children—and makes it harder for parents to parent.

Today, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood sent a Father’s Day appeal to President Obama, signed by over twenty five hundred parents, petitioning him to launch a systematic review of the regulations on marketing to children to determine if they offer sufficient protection for twenty-first century families.  The petition, which was also signed by professionals who work with children and families, urges the President to direct the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission to evaluate current policies to determine whether or not they adequately protect children.

Since the 1980s, when children’s television was deregulated and Congress restricted the Federal Trade Commission’s authority to regulate marketing to children, the amount of advertising and marketing targeting children has exploded in volume and sophistication. The digital revolution and increasingly miniaturized technology allow marketers today to expand their reach far beyond television and to insert their brands in children’s lives in ways that were inconceivable just a few decades ago.  Taking unfair advantage of children’s developmental inability to understand the persuasive intent of advertising messages, unregulated marketing is training children to be consumers rather than healthy, well-rounded citizens. Many parents felt strongly enough about the commercialization of their children’s lives that they added their own personal appeals to the letter. 

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This is our last chance to speak up about embedded advertising is children’s television.

As part of the larger issue of new rules for embedded advertising (or product placement) in television programs, the FCC is considering what to do about children’s programming. (Background here and here.)

The FCC accepted inital public comments and is now accepting reply comments. Reply comments are due this Wednesday, October 22.

Here’s the deal: The Children’s Television Act of 1990 states that during children’s programming, there must a separation between the commercials and the program (important because, as we know, children “below the ages of 4–5 years do not consistently distinguish program from commercial content, even when program/commercial separation devices . . . are used.” And even then, “most children younger than 7–8 years of age do not recognize the persuasive intent of commercial appeals.”)

Therefore embedded advertising by its nature violates the Children’s Television Act.

So all the FCC needs to do is clarify that embedded advertising in children’s programming violates existing laws and then enforce those laws.

Ask the FCC to enforce the Children’s Television Act of 1990 by sending a Reply to Comments. Instructions are at the end of this post.

In the comments submitted by the Campaign for a Commerical-Free Childhood (full, summary), they also recommend:

that the FCC prohibit embedded advertising in primetime broadcast programming during those hours when children are likely to be in the audience.

We’re looking at you, American Idol.

I reviewed the comments — all 166 of them. More than eighty-five percent supported changes to current product placement disclosure rules (for adult programming). Most of those comments (ninety-four percent) came from individuals. Of the comments that supported leaving the rules alone, eight out of the ten came from groups, not individuals, including the American Advertising Federation, CBS, Fox Entertainment, the MPAA, NBC, Viacom, and of course, Disney.

Commenters that supported changes to the rules included the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Children’s Media Policy Coalition, the Writer’s Guild of America-West, the Screen Actors Guild, and N.E. Marsden.

I was especially interested in the comment from Korby Siamis:

. . . I was fortunate to have a career as a writer and producer for over 25 years. I am proud of the shows I worked on, shows that left a significant imprint on American culture. I was one of the original four writers on The Cosby Show. I was a writer and producer for Murphy Brown for eight years, ultimately serving as Executive Producer. . . .

During my career, there was a clear distinction between art and advertising. On occasions that we used a product name, we would receive notices from the network Standards and Practices department. If the reference were necessary for the joke, it would stay. Otherwise we would take it out.

. . . The concept that we would ever have been expected to include product names or usage in our writing would have been beyond ludicrous, and would have been strongly fought as the worst kind of assault on our creative process. There is no quicker way to strip writers of their integrity than to make them answer to the dollar instead of their muse.

Now my television experience is that of a mother, concerned with what her children watch. I can (and do) determine which series are appropriate for my children. But the use of product placement is a more insidious force that challenges my parenting. The distinction between entertainment and endorsement is lost on my children. Short of watching every show they watch and talking to them whenever the unexpected product placement occurs, my ability to monitor this unwanted input is undercut.

How did this change take place? Why is such devolution allowed to occur? I strongly urge the FCC to use its power to reverse this trend.

Hers was one of only a handful of comments that directly addressed the issue of children’s programming. Add your voice.

It’s easy to file a comment. It doesn’t have to be formal or lengthy or especially eloquent. Go to the FCC website, type in Proceeding number 08-90, and select Reply to Comments for number 12, Document Type.

Cross-posted from Tracee Sioux at Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me.

“Kids close your eyes!”

How many times do you find yourself trying to protect your children from harmful and destructive images while watching family television?

Two years ago, while watching television, I was assaulted with an image of a woman wearing a see-through nightgown, nipples protruding and visible, erotic soft lighting, floating in a bathtub. It was intentionally erotic, except that she had been violently and bloodily murdered and this erotic woman was, in fact, dead.

“What the heck is going on?” I thought. “Why are my children and I being subjected to this kind of sexually violent imagery in a commercial?”

So, I wrote the FCC. The Federal Communications Commission used to be the people who governed our airwaves. They used to control when and what was allowed to air during times when children were expected to be viewing television. Remember when they wouldn’t let radio stations play George Michael’s, I Want Your Sex?

Many months later they wrote back.

“Each network or television station has control over what it airs during commercials. You’ll have to write each network to complain about every commercial you feel is inappropriate,” they informed me.

“What? Who made that stupid rule?” I wanted to know.

And now that I’ve read So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids, by Diane Levin, Ph.D, and Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D, I know who made that stupid rule.

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On Mondays I feel like I have all the time in the world to read — not skim — anything and everything.

Even long, complicated articles.

You too? Here’s some recommended reading:

At Sea in a Marketing-Saturated World: The Eleventh Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends: 2007-2008. From the Commercialism in Education Research Unit at Arizona State University. Browse CERU’s other publications.

Monograph 19: The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use. From the National Cancer Institute. Seems that tobacco marketing tactics are mimicked by the food industry.

Consumer Behavior: The Psychology of Marketing. From Dr. Lars Perner at the University of Southern California. This is how it’s done.

News of Scholastic removing Bratz books from their school offerings has hit the big time: Read it from celebrity blogger Perez Hilton.

Reader Vaquera points us to the Heelarious high heels for infants. More on those from Feministing and Hoyden.

And Joe Kelley from Dads & Daughters reports on Parents, Kids, and the Media.

PEM member Rhona alerted me to Parents, Kids, and the Media tonight at the Walker:

Build a better understanding of the role media plays in your family’s life with Daniel Bergin, media educator, independent filmmaker, award-winning television producer for Twin Cities Public television, and father of two. Get a behind-the-scenes look at his work, then connect with other parents in a discussion about effective tools for helping your child interpret the media more critically. Participants will receive a resource packet of useful tips for continuing the discussion at home.

I won’t be able to attend but if you go, drop me a line.

FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, fresh from a terrific speech at the National Conference on Media Reform, criticized the FCC’s inaction to safeguard children and asked for industry cooperation when he addressed the Media Institute on June 11.

While many of the steps Adelstein proposed concerned television programming, the V-chip and other blocking technologies, and ratings, he also addressed advertising directed at children. Two of his proposals:

Launch Embedded Advertising in Children’s Programming Proceeding. The Commission should release a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on sponsorship identification and embedded advertising. Specifically, it needs to solicit public comment on whether our existing rules governing commercials in children’s programming adequately promote the policy goals underlying the Children’s Television Act and the sponsorship ID rules. This is especially important with respect to embedded advertising in children’s programming.

Finalize Interactive Advertisement Targeting Children Proceeding. The Commission should quickly move on the 2004 Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on how to implement sensible restrictions on interactive ads targeting children. The Commission tentatively concluded that interactive ads targeting children should be banned. With the growing convergence of television and the Internet, we need to promulgate rules before interactive advertising becomes an established business model.

Emphasis mine. Adelstein also suggested that the FCC host a Summit on Protecting America’s Children to “encourage all stakeholders to bring their best ideas forward and develop best practices.”

In his speech, Adelstein acknowleged what Parents for Ethical Marketing and other organizations have been trying to get in front of the media-makers: that parents are tired of the fight.

In case you don’t know it already, many parents are feeling inundated by an array of media that are flooding their children’s minds with inappropriate material. Too many parents feel like they are losing control, and they’re frustrated by a seemingly relentless march of coarse material that is too violent, too sexual, too commercial or too unhealthy for their children. Messages or images their children are not ready to hear pop up in too many places for parents to easily control, from insensitively timed commercials during otherwise family-friendly programming to Internet ads and spam coming over the computer.

There is growing concern about unhealthful messages and images as well. . . . Many studies show the damaging effects of advertising on children’s food choices. Some of your companies have taken important steps, but there is far more to be done.

For parents, it’s like a game of whack-a-mole, with an increasing number of moles jumping up faster and faster. Too many parents suffer from a sense of exhaustion or futility. I suspect many of you share these concerns on a personal level, but many of you also work for powerful media companies that are helping this mole population to proliferate. . . .

I believe I speak for millions of parents when I say we’re overwhelmed, fed up and looking for help from the government and the industry alike.  

I would have been skeptical if I hadn’t heard Adelstein speak with such passion and conviction myself. We’ll be contacting his office to see how PEM members can participate in the rulemaking process.

Here’s to a little hopeful optimism!