I found a documentary called Consuming Kids : The Commercialisation of Children. For sake of brevity I only watched and posted the first part (of seven). This documentary is directly related to the past few articles we have read in class. It includes a brief history of marketing and how kids are marketed too. It is not shocking at all to see that Ronald Reagan and the courts gave power to businesses and marketers rather than the FTC which represents the “people”. This has remained a common trend in politics and issues until this day. The money and influence of individuals is miniscule compared to the lobbying and funds distributed through large corporations. On the same token, parents and families should not be looking to the government for guidance in the media influencing their children. It is not pick and chose for every aspect the government should or should not regulate. If the people want America to be the consumer/capitalistic state that it is, we can not go crying to the government when it has unintended effects.
The amount of money that is pumped into the economy under the influence from children was truly amazing. Informative documentaries such as this one, should serve as a wake up call to parents and families to power they give to their kids and the amount and type of information they are exposed to. Although parents certainly cannot control everything their child sees and hears, they can help educate and influence the way their kids process information. Technology in the form of TV’s, the internet, and phones have had a profound influence on society today, but how the information they convey is interpreted and distributed is up to each person to decide.
