Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture

Juliet Schor

Simon and Schuster, 2004 - 275 pages

Ads aimed at kids are virtually everywhere -- in classrooms and textbooks, on the Internet, even at slumber parties and the playground. Product placement and other innovations have introduced more subtle advertising to movies and television. Companies are enlisting children as guerrilla marketers, targeting their friends and families. Even trusted social institutions such as the Girl Scouts are teaming up with marketers. Drawing on her own survey research and unprecedented access to the advertising industry, New York Timesbestselling author and leading cultural and economic authority Juliet Schor examines how a marketing effort of vast size, scope, and effectiveness has created "commercialized children."Schor, author of The Overworked Americanand The Overspent American,looks at the broad implications of this strategy. Sophisticated advertising strategies convince kids that products are necessary to their social survival. Ads affect not just what they want to buy, but who they think they are and how they feel about themselves. Based on long-term analysis, Schor reverses the conventional notion of causality: it's not just that problem kids become overly involved in the values of consumerism; it's that kids who are overly involved in the values of consumerism become problem kids. In this revelatory and crucial book, Schor also provides guidelines for parents and teachers. What is at stake is the emotional and social well-being of our children.Like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed,Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia,and Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point,Born to Buyis a major contribution to our understanding of a contemporary trend and its effects on the culture.

Avis des internautes

LibraryThing Review

Avis d'utilisateur  - quantum_flapdoodle - LibraryThing

A solid, well-written book exploring consumerist culture and its impact on our children, who are advertised to nearly everywhere they go, and spend very little of their life advertising free.

LibraryThing Review

Avis d'utilisateur  - Devil_llama - LibraryThing

A solid, well-written book exploring consumerist culture and its impact on our children, who are advertised to nearly everywhere they go, and spend very little of their life advertising free.

Table des matières

• Acknowledgments: 5
• The Changing World of Childrens Consumption: 19
• The Content: 39
• Ads Infiltrate Everyday Life: 69
• The Commercialization of Public Schools: 85
• The New Intrusive Research: 99
• Selling Kids on Junk Food Drugs and Violence: 119
• How Consumer Culture Undermines Childrens WellBeing: 141
• Empowered or Seduced? The Debate About Advertising: 177
• Beyond Big Bird: 189
• Data Appendix: 213
• Notes: 221
• References: 247
• Index: 259

Informations bibliographiques

• Titre: Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture
• Auteur: Juliet Schor
• Édition: illustrée
• Éditeur: Simon and Schuster, 2004
• ISBN: 068487055X, 9780684870557
• Longueur: 275 pages