Sure. It's the kind of thing I love to do.
Basically, it's about how specific laws and orgs. like the FCC that are supposed to protect children from being gone after by marketers likes ducks on junebugs have been totally sold out by politicians in order to get campaign dollars etc. It's an expose, really. The author runs and founded an org. called Children Now, an advocacy and media company.
(reading from the flap copy) It is a powerful and provacative book about the media's incredible impact on our families and our society.
It includes a lot of disturbing info on how violence does affect small kids, as well as playing computer games too much. About those computer games, I didin't know much about them but Doom and Quake sound awful. The author's worked in media for a long time and it's a real insider view, naming specific names of heads of networks and so on. He ties it directly to campaign cash and politics, 'it' being basically the selling of kids as consumers, a market. That's how they're viewed, nothing more or less. And the thing about teletubbies was that one-year-olds are viewed as an exploitable market. ONE YEAR OLDS!!!!!! I haven't read the whole book, but what was especially disturbing to me, is that these marketers have realized that sex and violence sells--to kids as well as to adults. I realize that this is kind of disjointed, trying to respond as I flip through the book and to my impressions. I do think it is a worthwhile read. It's made me question owning a TV (and I'm addicted to HBO.)
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