I would disagree with Douglas Rushkoff's contention that youth is so media savvy as to be natives in this media space. Aimlessly flipping from channel to channel can hardly be equated with creatng a better sense of reality and zoning out listlessly in front of a television screen equated with anything but cultural apathy.
Kids today may be more technologically literate than their parents, but are just as vulnerable to the manipulations of advertisers and programmers. In some ways, they are more vulnerable, because the advertisers and programmers work extra hard to "play up" to this idea of kids being savvy and hip.
Children are most vunerable to the media's "Subliminal messages" [ex. the simpsons] the media stations can easily manipulate children into thinking in the way the media wants them to.
In regards to Mr. Anonymous,
I have seen kids react in a very sophistcated, media savvy way to what's onscreen, but they were doing it via articulate conversation, not with a remote control.
By Keith on Tuesday, September 15, 1998 - 03:56 am:
Certainly kids today are actually being taught "media literacy" in schools, so in that sense they may be more "savvy" than their parents, who had no formal training in this area. And perhaps, too, kids today, having benefitted from their parents' experience with TV are more cynical when it comes to advertising and the hard-sell or the message.
However, companies such as MTV, Nickelodeon and even PBS take advantage of the self-perceived "savviness" in order to make their pitches and send their messages. All the while they are attracting viewers and selling product.
By Anonymous on Tuesday, April 3, 2001 - 08:24 am:
By Bart Simpson on Tuesday, April 17, 2001 - 02:19 pm:
Don't be talking about my show or i'll get Homer on you. And eat my shorts man!!