Few good researchers would argue that deceptive advertising is the leading cause of violence, early child abuse leading to escalating violence and abandoned inner cities are virtually guaranteed to be far more important; however, there should be no doubt that it is a major contributing factor, especially when there have been so many stories about kids getting killed over hyped up sneakers or Black Friday riots during the holiday shopping season.
Some of the research showing that marketing to kids can lead to violence may be complicated, and subject to debate; however, there's little doubt that one of the leading factors of violence is high rates of poverty and income inequality, and it's easy to demonstrate that deceptive advertising controlled by Wall Street corporations is a leading factor increasing these problems therefore they contribute to the violence they cause as well. I've reviewed studies from other sources showing large correlation between poverty, income inequality and violence in the past, along with my own reviews, and will include links to them below.
If there's any doubt about whether or not advertising contributes to poverty or income inequality, just consider what advertising contributes to the quality of merchandise.
Nothing!
Nor does it help improve service for consumers; instead it misrepresents their merchandise so that people expect more than they pay for which routinely angers people! In a for-profit economic system they don't maximize profits by providing honesty in advertising; they maximize profits by studying what the most manipulative ways to fool people are. This inevitably leads to starting the indoctrination process as early as possible; as several good researchers including Susan Linn, Juliet Schor, Roy Fox, and more have demonstrated with their work; in some cases the words from those creating the propaganda like Edward Bernays or Cheryl Idell also confirm this, although they try to spin it to seem otherwise.
If you haven't heard of these good researchers or the advertisers studying how to manipulate people that's no surprise, because the for profit media establishment practically never mentions them, nor do they cover some of the best research about more important causes of violence as I've reported on in numerous articles following mass shootings including Burying Solutions to Prevent Gilroy, Dayton and El Paso Shootings. In our current political and economic system deceptive ads receives overwhelming protection under the first amendment; however the best research to reduce violence is relegated to alternative media the academic world or books in the library that hardly anyone reads. This means policy to address violence is based on propaganda controlled by the mass media and politicians not by academics that are looking out for the best interests of the majority of the public.
Advertising does nothing to improve the quality of merchandise of services yet the rise in advertising spending has consistently been above the average inflation rate, and advertisers are paid much more than most working class workers that provide service or labor that improves the quality of life for consumers. There should be little or no doubt that this will inevitably lead to higher rates of poverty and income inequality, especially with little or no regulation to preserve honesty in advertising or to demand disclosure of psychological manipulation tactics, assuming people actually want to acknowledge that adverting contributes to poverty.
Those in the industry, of course, don't want to acknowledge this, therefore they can come up with an enormous amount of propaganda to confuse the issue and convince people otherwise, if they have to. However, the most effective way to accomplish this goal has always been to simply decline to discuss it at all and refuse to report on research that raises doubts about the adverting industry, which is exactly what mainstream media has been doing for decades.
Since the mainstream media is financed by mainly advertising they have a financial incentive to suppress criticism and the amount of money spent on advertising has been growing faster than the rate of inflation for decades, while manufacturers have been cutting cost often contributing to lower quality merchandise. at the same time the biggest corporations have been consolidating, meaning that far fewer companies are competing against each other.
This means that instead of competing based on the quality of merchandise, corporations are competing based on their ability to create deceptive ads to convince people to obsessively buy stuff, often that they don't need, which leads to increased income inequality and poverty, as well on spending on things that don't improve quality of life or addressing social issues that might contribute to violence.
Naomi Klein described how much faster advertising spending was growing, than the rest of the economy in her book in the following excerpt and there's additional data to show that it's continued since this was published:
No Logo by Naomi Klein 2000 p.8-9
The marketing world is always reaching a new zenith, breaking through last year's world record and planning to do it again next year with increasing numbers of ads and aggressive new formulae for reaching consumers. The advertising industry's astronomical rate of growth is neatly reflected in year-to-year figures measuring total ad spending in the U.S., which have gone up so steadily that by 1998 the figure was set to reach $196.5 billion, while global ad spending is estimated at $435 billion. According to the 1998 United Nations Human Development Report, the growth in global ad spending "now outpaces the growth of the world economy by one-third."
This pattern is a by-product of the firmly held belief that brands need continuous and constantly increasing advertising in order to stay in the same place. According to this law of diminishing returns, the more advertising there is out there (and there always is more, because of this law), the more aggressively brands must market to stand out. And of course, no one is more keenly aware of advertising's ubiquity than the advertisers themselves, who view commercial inundation as a clear and persuasive call for more-and more intrusive-advertising. With so much competition, the agencies argue, clients must spend more than ever to make sure their pitch screeches so loud it can be heard over all the others. David Lubars, a senior ad executive in the Omnicom Group, explains the industry's guiding principle with more candour than most. Consumers, he says, "are like roaches —you spray them and spray them and they get immune after a while." Complete article
The marketing world is always reaching a new zenith, breaking through last year's world record and planning to do it again next year with increasing numbers of ads and aggressive new formulae for reaching consumers. The advertising industry's astronomical rate of growth is neatly reflected in year-to-year figures measuring total ad spending in the U.S., which have gone up so steadily that by 1998 the figure was set to reach $196.5 billion, while global ad spending is estimated at $435 billion. According to the 1998 United Nations Human Development Report, the growth in global ad spending "now outpaces the growth of the world economy by one-third."
This pattern is a by-product of the firmly held belief that brands need continuous and constantly increasing advertising in order to stay in the same place. According to this law of diminishing returns, the more advertising there is out there (and there always is more, because of this law), the more aggressively brands must market to stand out. And of course, no one is more keenly aware of advertising's ubiquity than the advertisers themselves, who view commercial inundation as a clear and persuasive call for more-and more intrusive-advertising. With so much competition, the agencies argue, clients must spend more than ever to make sure their pitch screeches so loud it can be heard over all the others. David Lubars, a senior ad executive in the Omnicom Group, explains the industry's guiding principle with more candour than most. Consumers, he says, "are like roaches —you spray them and spray them and they get immune after a while." Complete article
According to articles about Growth of advertising spending worldwide from 2000 to 2021 (2019-21 are projected as of this writing) the average growth in advertising is usually over 4% from 2000-2018 and according to US Inflation Rate by Year from 1929 to 2020 (2019-21 are projected as of this writing) the average rate of inflation isn't much if any more than 2% from 2000-2018. This means that deceptive ads are taking up a growing percentage of the GDP, and it also means that consumer decisions based on these ads, especially when people don't seek out alternative sources to hold them accountable, are less likely to be well informed, since the people controlling the information have a financial incentive to distort it to increase profits.
Advertising is one of the leading industries that is designed to shift wealth from the working class to the wealthy by controlling the information we use to make decisions. The people that create this deceptive advertising get paid much more than the manufacturing jobs that produce the goods or provide services that help get them to consumers. These are college educated people that are taught how to manipulate the public for the benefit of the wealthy, often paid six figures, while wages are being suppressed for most other workers.
Frederic Bastiat once said "When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." Advertising is a major part of the way this is accomplished in our current economic system.
There's also plenty of research to show that advertising is intentionally designed to create tensions among family members in more ways than one as demonstrated by Susan Linn who reports on Cheryl Idell’s “Nag Factor study” in her book:
Susan Linn Consuming Kids p.33-5
In fact, the marketing industry purposely comes between children and parents in many instances, potentially wreaking all sorts of havoc in family life. One of the most egregious examples of evidence that they do this comes from a 1998 study on nagging. Conducted not to help parents prevent nagging but rather to help retailers exploit nagging to boost sales, the study, called "The Nag Factor," was conducted by Western Media International (now Initiative Media Worldwide) and Lieberman Research Worldwide.
According to a press release from Western Media International headlined "The Fine Art of Whining: Why Nagging Is a Kid's Best Friend," the study identifies which kinds of parents are most likely to give in to nagging. Not surprisingly, divorced parents and those with teenagers or very young children ranked highest. The study identifies some things children often nag for, estimating for each how often nagging was successful: in four out of ten trips to "entertainment establishments like the Discovery Zone and Chuck E. Cheese," in one out of every three trips to a fast-food restaurant, and in three out of every ten home video sales.
Since research conducted by marketing companies is proprietary, which means that researchers' methods are not usually made available to the public, these firms sell their reports for a great deal of money. I don't know how much the Nag Factor study sold for, but in 2003, for instance, a publication called The U.S. Market for Infant, Toddler and Preschool Products: Vols. 1–3, second edition, cost $6,000.
Perhaps because it found that "the impact of children's nagging is assessed as up to 46 percent of sales in key business that target children," the Nag Factor study attracted a great deal of attention in the marketing world, and several publications described the study and how it was conducted in various amounts of detail. In a story headlined "The Old Nagging Game Can Pay Off for Marketers," ......
"Bare Necessities" are parents who seem able to fend off their kids' pleas and ultimately make all of the purchasing decisions on their own.
"Marketers need to understand," the Selling to Kids article reminds them, "that a single marketing or advertising message may not resonate with different kinds of families." (I've added the italics.)
And who are the "Bare Necessities," the parents who cope so well with nagging? According to the people who did the survey, they are the parents whose lives are the least stressed -- they are the most affluent and the least likely to have babies or toddlers in the house.
We might hope that "The Nag Factor" was an aberration. It's alarming to think that people would actually want to wreak havoc in families just to make a buck, but exploiting the nag factor -- or "pester power," as it is also called in the industry -- continues to be a perfectly acceptable tool from the marketers' point of view. Kelly Stitt, senior brands manager for Heinz's catsup division, had this to say in The Wall Street Journal: "All our advertising is targeted to kids. You want that nag factor so that seven-year-old Sarah is nagging Mom in the grocery store to buy Funky Purple. We're not sure Mom would reach out for it on her own." Complete article
In fact, the marketing industry purposely comes between children and parents in many instances, potentially wreaking all sorts of havoc in family life. One of the most egregious examples of evidence that they do this comes from a 1998 study on nagging. Conducted not to help parents prevent nagging but rather to help retailers exploit nagging to boost sales, the study, called "The Nag Factor," was conducted by Western Media International (now Initiative Media Worldwide) and Lieberman Research Worldwide.
According to a press release from Western Media International headlined "The Fine Art of Whining: Why Nagging Is a Kid's Best Friend," the study identifies which kinds of parents are most likely to give in to nagging. Not surprisingly, divorced parents and those with teenagers or very young children ranked highest. The study identifies some things children often nag for, estimating for each how often nagging was successful: in four out of ten trips to "entertainment establishments like the Discovery Zone and Chuck E. Cheese," in one out of every three trips to a fast-food restaurant, and in three out of every ten home video sales.
Since research conducted by marketing companies is proprietary, which means that researchers' methods are not usually made available to the public, these firms sell their reports for a great deal of money. I don't know how much the Nag Factor study sold for, but in 2003, for instance, a publication called The U.S. Market for Infant, Toddler and Preschool Products: Vols. 1–3, second edition, cost $6,000.
Perhaps because it found that "the impact of children's nagging is assessed as up to 46 percent of sales in key business that target children," the Nag Factor study attracted a great deal of attention in the marketing world, and several publications described the study and how it was conducted in various amounts of detail. In a story headlined "The Old Nagging Game Can Pay Off for Marketers," ......
"Bare Necessities" are parents who seem able to fend off their kids' pleas and ultimately make all of the purchasing decisions on their own.
"Marketers need to understand," the Selling to Kids article reminds them, "that a single marketing or advertising message may not resonate with different kinds of families." (I've added the italics.)
And who are the "Bare Necessities," the parents who cope so well with nagging? According to the people who did the survey, they are the parents whose lives are the least stressed -- they are the most affluent and the least likely to have babies or toddlers in the house.
We might hope that "The Nag Factor" was an aberration. It's alarming to think that people would actually want to wreak havoc in families just to make a buck, but exploiting the nag factor -- or "pester power," as it is also called in the industry -- continues to be a perfectly acceptable tool from the marketers' point of view. Kelly Stitt, senior brands manager for Heinz's catsup division, had this to say in The Wall Street Journal: "All our advertising is targeted to kids. You want that nag factor so that seven-year-old Sarah is nagging Mom in the grocery store to buy Funky Purple. We're not sure Mom would reach out for it on her own." Complete article
The "Nag Factor" is clearly far more concerned with increasing profits than maintaining good relationships among family members. they also target lower income or divorced parents more, which may also be a risk factor for other social problems, including violence. Parental guidance is an important factor when it comes to solving social problems, yet this will inevitably make it more difficult. By shrouding their research in secrecy, there's no way if they uncovered additional potential arguments while promoting the "Nag Factor" or other psychological manipulation tactics; although we do know that when kids kill each other over sneakers, they have riots on black Friday, or annual thefts of Christmas decorations, that the advertising and media institutions practically never even consider the possibility that it might be related to their business practices, and if forced to address the issue can be expected to spin it in their favor, which is part of their standard practice when faced with controversies of any kind.
This isn't limited to potentially creating tensions between parents and children as a result of nagging; the marketing industry is also intentionally teaching girls to promote products to each other as part of peer pressure, one of the most outrageous examples is the "Girl’s Intelligence Agency" as describes by Juliet Schor in the following excerpt from her book:
Juliet Schor “Born to Buy” 2004 p.76-8
One of the more intriguing companies in the business is the Girl’s Intelligence Agency. In 2002, its first year of operation, the company had already developed a network of 40,000 girls, aged eight to eighteen, ready to swing into action on the drop of a dime to create buzz for whatever product the company sends their way. GIA was founded by Laura Groppe, an academy award winning film producer. Groppe is the founder of Girl Games, which promoted girl video gaming. But girls' gaming hasn't taken off as she had hoped it would, so she jumped into the far more lucrative and rapidly growing business of peer-to-peer marketing.
Groppe began by using her existing contacts, staging events to draw in girls, and perhaps more interesting, working through organizations that “evangelize” for GIA. She was unwilling to name these organizations, explaining only that they are “regional and national organizations that are pro-girl.” When I named Girl Scouts and church groups, she didn’t demur. Girls as young as six are recruited to become GIA agents, and once they’re accepted, they become part of an active online network. Profiles of agents are posted on GIA’s Web site. Six-year-old “swimmergirl” lives in San Diego and loves swimming, cats and chat rooms. Eleven-year-old “slingalot” loves fashion. The girls report going three or four times a week for style and fashion advice to Agent Kiki, a fictitious older-sister type whose answers are written by GIA staffers. Only GIA agents have access to Agent Kiki, who is described as a big sis to all girls who need one!”
The GIA’s trademark product is the Slumber Party in a Box, which takes place in what the company calls the “inner sanctum” or the “guarded fortress,” that is, girls’ bedrooms. There are marketing and “insight” (that is research) parties, depending on the needs of the client. Parties have featured toys, films, television shows, health and beauty aids, and other products. The host girl (a GIA agent) invites up to eleven of her friends to the party. Their first instruction is to put on pajamas and “eat too much junk food.” Then partygoers are given a product sample that they use during the evening. That’s the only payment for the agent or the guests. The host is required to provide feedback during the event. The party becomes a natural, intimate focus group or sale session. Sometimes parties are videotaped with GIA staff in attendance, but most are run by the agents themselves. When they sign on, hosts are congratulated for winning the “distinguished honor” of becoming an “Official GIA Agent,” described as a “VERY ELITE GROUP” with “EXCLUSIVE” access to products and events. Then they’re asked to “be slick and find out some sly scoop on your friends, like what they’re listening to, what the fashion must-haves for this year are, and what they buy for their bedrooms. The company’s literature explains to agents that they’ve “gotta be sneaky” in promoting GIA.
GIA claims that each of their agents reaches an average of 512 other girls in virtually every area of daily life – in English class, at soccer practice, in carpool, even at equestrian club. With their growing network, the company estimates it can reach 20 million girls nationwide.
One of the most troubling aspects of viral marketing is that it asks kids to use their friends for the purpose of gaining information or selling products. GIA’s network is called BFF, for Best Friends Forever, and its start-up relied on a friend-to-friend transmission mechanism. Many firms are involved in similar friend-based marketing such as the POX plan. Kids are hired to send out ads to their e-mail buddy lists. Others organize kids into “friendship pairs” and then listen to their discussions. Throughout the world of kids’ marketing, using kids to pull in other kids is a rapidly expanding practice. A major reason is that word of mouth from friends is one of the remaining sources of credibility in a world that is oversaturated by commercial messages. These recommendations are assumed to be disinterested, unlike ads, which can carry the taint of deceptiveness or manipulation. However, if the trend toward more paid word-of-mouth advertising continues, its likely that people will learn to be more skeptical of it, recognizing that the purveyor of the advice may be acting instrumentally. In the process, this valuable form of consumer information will be corrupted. An even more serious consequence is the corruption of friendship itself. Marketers are teaching kids to view their friends as a lucrative resource they can exploit to gain products or money. They even council kids to be “slick” with their friends.
But friendship is important because it is insulated from commercial pressures. It is considered one of the last bastions of noninstrumentality, a bulwark against the market values and self-interested behavior that permeate our culture. It’s part of what we cherish most about friendships. And that’s precisely why the marketers are so keenly interested in them. additional excerpts
One of the more intriguing companies in the business is the Girl’s Intelligence Agency. In 2002, its first year of operation, the company had already developed a network of 40,000 girls, aged eight to eighteen, ready to swing into action on the drop of a dime to create buzz for whatever product the company sends their way. GIA was founded by Laura Groppe, an academy award winning film producer. Groppe is the founder of Girl Games, which promoted girl video gaming. But girls' gaming hasn't taken off as she had hoped it would, so she jumped into the far more lucrative and rapidly growing business of peer-to-peer marketing.
Groppe began by using her existing contacts, staging events to draw in girls, and perhaps more interesting, working through organizations that “evangelize” for GIA. She was unwilling to name these organizations, explaining only that they are “regional and national organizations that are pro-girl.” When I named Girl Scouts and church groups, she didn’t demur. Girls as young as six are recruited to become GIA agents, and once they’re accepted, they become part of an active online network. Profiles of agents are posted on GIA’s Web site. Six-year-old “swimmergirl” lives in San Diego and loves swimming, cats and chat rooms. Eleven-year-old “slingalot” loves fashion. The girls report going three or four times a week for style and fashion advice to Agent Kiki, a fictitious older-sister type whose answers are written by GIA staffers. Only GIA agents have access to Agent Kiki, who is described as a big sis to all girls who need one!”
The GIA’s trademark product is the Slumber Party in a Box, which takes place in what the company calls the “inner sanctum” or the “guarded fortress,” that is, girls’ bedrooms. There are marketing and “insight” (that is research) parties, depending on the needs of the client. Parties have featured toys, films, television shows, health and beauty aids, and other products. The host girl (a GIA agent) invites up to eleven of her friends to the party. Their first instruction is to put on pajamas and “eat too much junk food.” Then partygoers are given a product sample that they use during the evening. That’s the only payment for the agent or the guests. The host is required to provide feedback during the event. The party becomes a natural, intimate focus group or sale session. Sometimes parties are videotaped with GIA staff in attendance, but most are run by the agents themselves. When they sign on, hosts are congratulated for winning the “distinguished honor” of becoming an “Official GIA Agent,” described as a “VERY ELITE GROUP” with “EXCLUSIVE” access to products and events. Then they’re asked to “be slick and find out some sly scoop on your friends, like what they’re listening to, what the fashion must-haves for this year are, and what they buy for their bedrooms. The company’s literature explains to agents that they’ve “gotta be sneaky” in promoting GIA.
GIA claims that each of their agents reaches an average of 512 other girls in virtually every area of daily life – in English class, at soccer practice, in carpool, even at equestrian club. With their growing network, the company estimates it can reach 20 million girls nationwide.
One of the most troubling aspects of viral marketing is that it asks kids to use their friends for the purpose of gaining information or selling products. GIA’s network is called BFF, for Best Friends Forever, and its start-up relied on a friend-to-friend transmission mechanism. Many firms are involved in similar friend-based marketing such as the POX plan. Kids are hired to send out ads to their e-mail buddy lists. Others organize kids into “friendship pairs” and then listen to their discussions. Throughout the world of kids’ marketing, using kids to pull in other kids is a rapidly expanding practice. A major reason is that word of mouth from friends is one of the remaining sources of credibility in a world that is oversaturated by commercial messages. These recommendations are assumed to be disinterested, unlike ads, which can carry the taint of deceptiveness or manipulation. However, if the trend toward more paid word-of-mouth advertising continues, its likely that people will learn to be more skeptical of it, recognizing that the purveyor of the advice may be acting instrumentally. In the process, this valuable form of consumer information will be corrupted. An even more serious consequence is the corruption of friendship itself. Marketers are teaching kids to view their friends as a lucrative resource they can exploit to gain products or money. They even council kids to be “slick” with their friends.
But friendship is important because it is insulated from commercial pressures. It is considered one of the last bastions of noninstrumentality, a bulwark against the market values and self-interested behavior that permeate our culture. It’s part of what we cherish most about friendships. And that’s precisely why the marketers are so keenly interested in them. additional excerpts
The potential for this type of marketing practice to cause arguments between child is obvious, and it's virtually guaranteed that they try similar tactics with peer pressure among boys. I'm sure many parents or teacher must be outraged by this and anyone that remembers what it's like to be a kid can imagine how this can cause problems.
Many of them must have already dealt with arguments as a result of peer pressure, although I haven't heard of many that have been directly ties to marketing as a result of GIA or another organization similar to them, but there was one killing this year at a "Sneaker Release Party" which may be related to marketing, (more below) but investigation of it wasn't adequate to determine this. Many kids are reluctant to talk to adults about this so it's virtually guaranteed that there are many more issues that many parents aren't aware of; however there are exceptions including many kids that apparently write to there favorite celebrities including fictional novelists like Judy Blume who published some of these letter thirty years ago and a couple of them seem to apply to this kind of peer pressure including one that describes a clique leader that tells others what to wear or eat and what brands to buy:
Judy Blume "Letters to Judy" 1986
Dear Judy,
I'm going to be ten soon. I'm glad I'm writing to you because I really have nobody to talk to. I just lost my best friend. Her name is Carolyn. we used to share secrets, play together and we even had a club! But then Jennifer came along. Jennifer has a clique with some other girls. Me and Carolyn made a vow never to be part of that clique because Jennifer, the leader of the pack tells you what to wear, what to eat, who to like and what labels to buy. But Carolyn went with her anyway and now Carolyn doesn't like me anymore.
I can't talk to my mom about anything private or personal because I'm too embarrassed.
Bonnie, age 10 (p. 51) Dear Judy,
.....
I've got two people who are supposed to be my friends, Elena and Pam. Pam tries to make me jealous for some reason. Elena is too bossy and she's mean to me when someone popular is nice to her. .....
Geraldine, age 10 (p. 52) Judy Blume "Letter to Judy" 1986
Dear Judy,
I'm going to be ten soon. I'm glad I'm writing to you because I really have nobody to talk to. I just lost my best friend. Her name is Carolyn. we used to share secrets, play together and we even had a club! But then Jennifer came along. Jennifer has a clique with some other girls. Me and Carolyn made a vow never to be part of that clique because Jennifer, the leader of the pack tells you what to wear, what to eat, who to like and what labels to buy. But Carolyn went with her anyway and now Carolyn doesn't like me anymore.
I can't talk to my mom about anything private or personal because I'm too embarrassed.
Bonnie, age 10 (p. 51) Dear Judy,
.....
I've got two people who are supposed to be my friends, Elena and Pam. Pam tries to make me jealous for some reason. Elena is too bossy and she's mean to me when someone popular is nice to her. .....
Geraldine, age 10 (p. 52) Judy Blume "Letter to Judy" 1986
I have no idea how far along the marketing to kids research was in the eighties, especially since it's so secretive, but there's no doubt, thanks to documents leaked or released from the tobacco industry, that they began researching marketing to children at least as far back as the fifties. I'm sure I read somewhere that many of the marketers from the tobacco industry later went to work for other industries including food or sneaker industries, presumably sharing any research they had about peer pressure used to promote products, although I can't remember the source. However, Philip Morris owns Kraft foods and research on interlocking board members or sales from one company to another are readily available and many of these corporations have ties to each other.
There are probably much more arguments as a result of peer pressure related to marketing that doesn't get reported at all, but occasionally it gets so extreme that there should be little doubt that marketing to kids is virtually guaranteed to be a significant contributing factor, like the epidemic of shooting and killing people for overpriced sneakers that goes back to the eighties, and may still be going on today although there's not nearly as much reporting on it any more. But there are at least a few cases this year, including one murder that took place at a "Sneaker Release Party."
Fight At Sneaker Release Party Escalates Into A Deadly Shooting 04/19/2019
(WWJ) The search is on for a suspect following a deadly shooting over sneakers in Detroit.
Police say it happened outside the Villa store near Seven Mile Road and Gratiot Avenue on the city's east side before 10 a.m. Friday.
The victim was apparently attending a release party when he got into an argument of some kind. Police did not indicate what the pair were fighting over except that the argument spilled outside where shots were fired. One man was killed. Complete article
(WWJ) The search is on for a suspect following a deadly shooting over sneakers in Detroit.
Police say it happened outside the Villa store near Seven Mile Road and Gratiot Avenue on the city's east side before 10 a.m. Friday.
The victim was apparently attending a release party when he got into an argument of some kind. Police did not indicate what the pair were fighting over except that the argument spilled outside where shots were fired. One man was killed. Complete article
Since the media consolidated into six corporations controlling over 90% of the national media, there's good reason to doubt the quality of their reporting and a review of the history of media may show that it was never as reliable as many of us used to believe, so it's difficult if not impossible to know if the killing of kids over sneakers is more or less common than it used to be when there were a few national news stories about it. A thorough online search might help narrow this down but without better resources than Google searches it's unlikely to be complete, especially since these incidents are routinely reported as isolated and there's no effort to track them, but there have been at least two or three more sneaker shootings just this year including Dispute over gym shoes leads to shooting in Detroit's Midtown 04/03/2019 14-year-old shot and killed over pair of shoes, family says 09/23/2019 Sneakers, iPhone, $55 Stolen During Coral Springs Firefighter's Killing: Warrant 10/28/2019 and a couple years ago Trial of 16-year-old charged with killing teen over Nike Air Jordan sneakers begins 07/13/2019
This doesn't necessarily mean that the sneakers were the sole contributing factor in these shootings or killings, though. I wrote to several researchers to get their views including James Garbarino who I've cited previously in other articles and said that advertising to kids is part of what he calls a "Socially Toxic Environment" although it isn't the only factor. Most of his research focuses on early child abuse leading to escalating violence later in life, including bullying, domestic violence etc., which I have no doubt is one of the most important contributing factors to long term violence, if not the most important one. Perhaps a close second might be abandoned inner cities where the highest murder rates, including many of these sneaker killings occur, which is another major aspect of what he called a "Socially Toxic Environment" and Jonathan Kozol went in to this much more in several of his books including Savage Inequalities 1991
I don't know whether or not there's less hype about sneakers or people are less likely to fall for it, but there aren't as many killing for sneakers as was reported when Sports Illustrated reported the following article, and another more recent one from seven years ago, although I can't rule out the possibility that the consolidated media is simply not reporting on them adequately when thy do happen:
Senseless: in America's cities kids are killing kids over sneakers and other sports apparel favored by drug dealers; who's to blame? 05/14/1990 by Rick Telander
Chicago police sergeant Michael Chasen, who works in the violent crimes division in Area Four, which covers four of Chicago's 25 police districts, says his districts have about 50 reported incidents involving jackets and about a dozen involving gym shoes each month. “When you really think about the crime itself—taking someone's clothes off their body—you can't get much more basic,” he says.
But, of course, these assailants aren't simply taking clothes from their victims. They're taking status. Something is very wrong with a society that has created an underclass that is slipping into economic and moral oblivion, an underclass in which pieces of rubber and plastic held together by shoelaces are sometimes worth more than a human life. The shoe companies have played a direct role in this. With their million-dollar advertising campaigns, superstar spokesmen and over-designed, high-priced products aimed at impressionable young people, they are creating status from thin air to feed those who are starving for self-esteem. “No one person is responsible for this type of violence,” says Patricia Graham, principal of Chicago's Simeon High, one of the city's perennial basketball powers. “It's a combination of circumstances. It's about values and training. Society's values are out of sync, which is why these things have become important.”
“The classic explanation in sociology is that these people are driven by peer pressure,” says Mervin Daniel, a sociology professor at Morgan State. “What is advertised on TV and whatever your peers are doing, you do it too.” Most assuredly, the shoe industry relies heavily on advertising; it spends more than $200 million annually to promote and advertise its products, churning out a blizzard of images and words that make its shoes seem preternaturally hip, cool and necessary. Nike alone will spend $60 million in 1990 on TV and print ads that have built such slogans as “Bo knows,” and “Just do it,” and “Do you know? Do you know? Do you know?” into mantras of consumerism. Complete article
Chicago police sergeant Michael Chasen, who works in the violent crimes division in Area Four, which covers four of Chicago's 25 police districts, says his districts have about 50 reported incidents involving jackets and about a dozen involving gym shoes each month. “When you really think about the crime itself—taking someone's clothes off their body—you can't get much more basic,” he says.
But, of course, these assailants aren't simply taking clothes from their victims. They're taking status. Something is very wrong with a society that has created an underclass that is slipping into economic and moral oblivion, an underclass in which pieces of rubber and plastic held together by shoelaces are sometimes worth more than a human life. The shoe companies have played a direct role in this. With their million-dollar advertising campaigns, superstar spokesmen and over-designed, high-priced products aimed at impressionable young people, they are creating status from thin air to feed those who are starving for self-esteem. “No one person is responsible for this type of violence,” says Patricia Graham, principal of Chicago's Simeon High, one of the city's perennial basketball powers. “It's a combination of circumstances. It's about values and training. Society's values are out of sync, which is why these things have become important.”
“The classic explanation in sociology is that these people are driven by peer pressure,” says Mervin Daniel, a sociology professor at Morgan State. “What is advertised on TV and whatever your peers are doing, you do it too.” Most assuredly, the shoe industry relies heavily on advertising; it spends more than $200 million annually to promote and advertise its products, churning out a blizzard of images and words that make its shoes seem preternaturally hip, cool and necessary. Nike alone will spend $60 million in 1990 on TV and print ads that have built such slogans as “Bo knows,” and “Just do it,” and “Do you know? Do you know? Do you know?” into mantras of consumerism. Complete article
Even some of those promoting sneakers selling for outrageous prices have expressed concern although they may try to spin it and deny that advertising is much is any of a contributing factor, like the following excerpt from an article seven years ago by someone that seems to be a sneaker enthusiast that partially buys into the absurd hype around petty sneakers:
Why Are Kids Getting Killed For Their Jordans? 08/25/2012
Though the USA is in the midst of an extended recession, it doesn't seem to stop some kids from spending insane amounts of money on sneakers. Reading blogs and hearing stories about how ‘I dropped $1000 on this and that shoe, but I still haven't paid my rent or electric bill' are scary. Why? Because it's actually happening. Sneakers really are addictive like crack, albeit in a different way. A small minority will do whatever it takes to maintain their habit, putting themselves repeatedly in a financially unstable situation. As long as they have the Hot New Shit, it seems the end justifies the means, even if it means resorting to bag snatching and violent crime.
I experienced a glimpse of this craziness firsthand a while back when I did my first camp-out for the New Balance x Staple White Pigeon release. I showed up at around 6pm on the day prior to release, with a small crowd of about 15 campers already present. The guy that was first-in-line was putting names down so we could keep track of everyone arriving. As the hours went past, more people showed up and as daybreak hit, more than 40 campers were waiting patiently. Minutes before release over 100 people showed up suddenly. This is when it started to get rowdy because the person handling the list had some ‘friends' cut in front and behind him. Arguments went back and forth and that's when the line started to curve and get noisy. As it turned out I did get my shoes and no one came close to being killed or maimed, but the intense feeling of that morning is something I will never forget. Complete article
Though the USA is in the midst of an extended recession, it doesn't seem to stop some kids from spending insane amounts of money on sneakers. Reading blogs and hearing stories about how ‘I dropped $1000 on this and that shoe, but I still haven't paid my rent or electric bill' are scary. Why? Because it's actually happening. Sneakers really are addictive like crack, albeit in a different way. A small minority will do whatever it takes to maintain their habit, putting themselves repeatedly in a financially unstable situation. As long as they have the Hot New Shit, it seems the end justifies the means, even if it means resorting to bag snatching and violent crime.
I experienced a glimpse of this craziness firsthand a while back when I did my first camp-out for the New Balance x Staple White Pigeon release. I showed up at around 6pm on the day prior to release, with a small crowd of about 15 campers already present. The guy that was first-in-line was putting names down so we could keep track of everyone arriving. As the hours went past, more people showed up and as daybreak hit, more than 40 campers were waiting patiently. Minutes before release over 100 people showed up suddenly. This is when it started to get rowdy because the person handling the list had some ‘friends' cut in front and behind him. Arguments went back and forth and that's when the line started to curve and get noisy. As it turned out I did get my shoes and no one came close to being killed or maimed, but the intense feeling of that morning is something I will never forget. Complete article
That article came from a web site called "Sneaker Freaker" which appears to be accompanied by a magazine that looks like a sneaker promotion from beginning to end; the people getting so excited about these sneakers are far more familiar with the potential violence surrounding the absurd hype than the vast majority of the public, yet they seem to think it's worthwhile. This is part of the factionalization of America where different segments of society live in their own worlds and don't get information or peer review from other segments of society. This is partly a result of mainstream media that has turned into obsession TV repeating the same propaganda over and over again supported by wealthy elites without covering any of the most effective research to prevent violence or expose their propaganda tactics that are being used to indoctrinate children.
The marketing industry is using tactics that you might expect from drug dealers or pedophile rings to indoctrinate kids not to talk to others about manipulation tactics. No doubt the marketing industry would be outraged by this and claim that they take precautions to ensure that they don't use the same manipulation tactics as drug dealers and pedophiles; and I'm sure they do, since they're well aware that it would be a public relations disaster if their marketing people were caught dealing drugs or molesting children. However, when they're more concerned about people willing to indoctrinate kids to maximize profits they inevitably attract people with limited ethical values and repulse those that are inclined to speak out against these practices. Both Susan Linn and Juliet Schor wrote about some reservations so of the marketers to kids have and some of the justifications that adopted to downplay this which is far more likely when their financial well-being is based on justifying marketing to kids and looking the other way when it comes to ethical problems.
There's already been at least one high profile example where a sex offenders, Jared Fogle, was exposed being in the advertising industry, perhaps there might be many more, although they may not all be reported in a high profile manner if there are. In the business world, Laura Groppe, Cheryl Idell and other experts on marketing to children are often presented as glamorous entrepreneurs, although they don't get much media coverage their work has an enormous impact on the development of marketing to children, yet since the media makes their profits selling these ads they have a financial incentive to minimize the coverage of the critics of these tactics; and researchers exposing them get far less media coverage, and in some cases may even be portrayed as pinko commies, or something like that, although when people check their work it's clear that this is an obvious smear.
There are some articles citing the work of researchers like Susan Linn, Julet Schor and other child rights advocates on the mainstream media but they get very little circulation and are placed in locations that aren't likely to get the attention of the majority of the public, except for those that search for it. I had never heard this subject discussed until after I stumbled on a library book on the subject, which lead me to several other books on the subject. While researching it I found several more mainstream media articles, which were often written years earlier, yet I had never heard of them before. The only exception was one morning about six or seven years ago when I was writing about the subject and up early watching the first hour of Morning Joe they mentioned something very briefly about it before moving on to the next story, and I didn't catch most of it because I wasn't paying much attention at first; however, since Morning Joe routinely plays the same hour over three times in a row I made a point of watching carefully, especially at the same time after the hour when I expected them to play that same segment again. It turns out that they don't always play the same exact hour every time, this was cut in the two following hours yet little or nothing else changed in it which is a common propaganda tactic, to repeat the things they want people to remember over and over again and to minimize coverage for subjects they want to avoid.
There are several examples of this where they wrote articles about new marketing tactics, or old one that weren't previously reported briefly, at a low profile years ago if not decades, then quickly forgot about it without going into any follow up while the tactics continue to be used without any scrutiny, including one article I found that was twelve years old about Laura Groppe where Juliet Schor expressed her outrage, and another one about four years ago where the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood was exposing a new doll called "Hello Barbie" that shared information from children talking to the doll on the cloud which could be analyzed by computers to study new marketing techniques; essentially they're using this doll to spy on children to develop more effective ads to manipulate them. In both cases there was no follow up and the vast majority of parents are almost certainly not aware that these practices aren't regulated or that the media coverage on it was kept to a minimum, and it's difficult if not impossible to know how many more indoctrination tactics that get no media coverage at all.
Professor Garbarino also cites marketing to kids and Cheryl Idell's work as part of a Socially Toxic Environment which could potentially be a contributing factor for violence as described in the following excerpt:
James Garbarino "See Jane Hit: Why Girls Are Growing More Violent and What We Can Do About It" 2007 p.69-71
For example, there is tremendous competition for access to children as consumers, most notably through the medium of television. James McNeal, author of The Kids Market: Myths and Realities, is one of the leading experts on selling to children. Writing in Mothering magazine, Gary Ruskin reports that McNeal sees children “as economic resources to be mined.” To show just how despicable this can be, Ruskin cites the work of Cheryl Idell, a consultant who has written about the advertising strategy for corporate clients seeking to sell to children. According to Ruskin, Idell advocates that corporate clients capitalize upon nagging and whining by children to motivate parents to make purchases. “In other words, Idell’s job is to make your life miserable,” says Ruskin. This is business as usual in much of corporate America and the reason why some psychologists have sought action by the American Psychological Association to declare collaboration with this process a violation of ethical standards.Additional excerpts
For example, there is tremendous competition for access to children as consumers, most notably through the medium of television. James McNeal, author of The Kids Market: Myths and Realities, is one of the leading experts on selling to children. Writing in Mothering magazine, Gary Ruskin reports that McNeal sees children “as economic resources to be mined.” To show just how despicable this can be, Ruskin cites the work of Cheryl Idell, a consultant who has written about the advertising strategy for corporate clients seeking to sell to children. According to Ruskin, Idell advocates that corporate clients capitalize upon nagging and whining by children to motivate parents to make purchases. “In other words, Idell’s job is to make your life miserable,” says Ruskin. This is business as usual in much of corporate America and the reason why some psychologists have sought action by the American Psychological Association to declare collaboration with this process a violation of ethical standards.Additional excerpts
I wrote him about his views on this subject a couple weeks ago and he responded by saying "I do think that the advertising for kids IS a dimension of 'social toxicity.' I dealt with those issues in my 1994 book Raising Children in a Socially Toxic Environment, and will do so again in an updated version on which I am currently working (that will emphasize the relationship of this issue-- among others-- to dealing with climate change in the coming decades). I completely agree with those who have challenged and criticized psychologists who contribute to this dimension of 'the dark side.'" I didn't read this book but found the following article about the subject, which includes some comments about advertising, pollution or disruptions in family life, presumably including the ones that can be caused by the "Nag Factor" which can lead to arguments with parents over petty marketing hype, and the "United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child," which the United States is one of a handful of countries that haven't ratified it, yet the media practically never mentions this:
Educating Children in a Socially Toxic Environment by James Garbarino April 1997
Why do greater numbers of our children display signs of serious problems? I believe that children are most vulnerable to the negative influence of an increasingly socially toxic environment. Unless we do something about it now, the situation for children will only continue to deteriorate.
What Is a Socially Toxic Environment
What I mean by the term socially toxic environment is that the social world of children, the social context in which they grow up, has become poisonous to their development—just as toxic substances in the environment threaten human well-being and survival. The nature of physical toxicity is a matter for public policy and private concern. For example, we now know that the increasing rates of cancer throughout the 20th century result at least in part from the buildup of toxic substances in the air, the water, and the soil. We know that air quality is a major problem in many places, so much so that in some cities, just breathing "normally" is a threat to your health.
What are the social equivalents to lead and smoke in the air, PCBs in the water, and pesticides in the food chain? I think some social equivalents include violence, poverty, and other economic pressures on parents and their children. They include disruption of family relationships and other trauma, despair, depression, paranoia, nastiness, and alienation—all contaminants that demoralize families and communities. These are the forces in the land that contaminate the environment of children and youth. These are the elements of social toxicity. .......
Children's Vulnerability
Beyond the immediate threats to children, many other issues are subtle, yet equally serious. High on the list is the departure of adults from the lives of kids—and some studies report a 50 percent decrease over the past 30 years in the amount of time parents are spending with kids in constructive activities. The lack of adult supervision and time spent doing constructive, cooperative activities compounds the effects of other negative influences in the social environment for kids. Kids "home alone" are more vulnerable to every cultural poison they encounter than are children backed up by adults. ........
Children's Rights
A global consensus about the meaning of childhood is emerging, as seen in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Cohen and Naimark 1991). This document represents an international effort to define what it should mean to be a child, based on what middle-class societies have learned about children and child development. The United States stands among a handful of renegade countries that have not ratified the U.N. Convention.
The Convention proposes that to be a child is to be shielded from the direct demands of adult economic, political, and sexual forces. It proclaims that childhood is a protected niche in the social environment, a special time and place in the human life cycle, having a special claim on the community. Regardless of their economic value, children have a right to receive support from their families and communities. They have a right to be shielded from war and violence, to lead a life free from adult sexuality, and to have a positive identity.
The U.N. Convention tells us that children need not pay their own way and earn their keep. They have a human right to be cared for. Typically, families want to provide this support and, as a rule, will do so if possible. But when families cannot provide for their children, the U.N. Convention says that society should pick up the tab. This deeply held principle gives moral force to ongoing efforts to eliminate exploitive labor and poverty from the lives of children. And specific articles in the document testify to this impetus to offer every child what middle-class families offer to their children. We should bear this in mind in the United States, where we see a high and growing rate of poverty among children.
Children and economics. At present, about one in five of all U.S. children, and two in five among children age 6 and under, live below the officially defined poverty line. By historical and global standards, this may seem a relatively small number—in many countries of the world, the figure is more like 65 percent. But when contrasted with the affluence of our society and the success of other modern societies in protecting children from poverty, the U.S. data represent a telling statistical accusation, particularly if we factor in the finding that among modern societies, the United States has the biggest gap between rich and poor. Whereas in Sweden the top 10 percent of families make two times what the bottom 10 percent earn, for the United States the difference is a factor of six times (and for Canada, four times) (Rainwater and Smeeding 1995).
But the economic foundations of childhood go beyond protection from poverty. The idea of childhood as a protected niche implies that children are not direct participants in the cash economy. Any work they do should be guided by their parents and should serve educational and developmental purposes. We can celebrate the strides that have been made in many countries in protecting children from work-force participation. Dramatically reducing child labor was an important accomplishment in creating childhood in the United States; around the world, it remains a hot issue. But the economic rights of children go beyond being protected from adult work.
The child also has a right to be protected from the excesses of the consumer economy. In this view, the child's consumer purchases are to be kept separate and sheltered from commercial advertising that exploits the cognitive, emotional, and social limitations of children. The fact that children are often not so shielded is a violation of their rights. Turn on a television set during the children's hours before and after school, on weekends, and in the early evening, and you can see for yourself where our society stands on this matter. Children are commercial targets. Walk around any shopping mall, and you can see today's parents trying to cope with the fruits of this commercial exploitation of childhood. You may well be one of these parents. Complete article
Why do greater numbers of our children display signs of serious problems? I believe that children are most vulnerable to the negative influence of an increasingly socially toxic environment. Unless we do something about it now, the situation for children will only continue to deteriorate.
What Is a Socially Toxic Environment
What I mean by the term socially toxic environment is that the social world of children, the social context in which they grow up, has become poisonous to their development—just as toxic substances in the environment threaten human well-being and survival. The nature of physical toxicity is a matter for public policy and private concern. For example, we now know that the increasing rates of cancer throughout the 20th century result at least in part from the buildup of toxic substances in the air, the water, and the soil. We know that air quality is a major problem in many places, so much so that in some cities, just breathing "normally" is a threat to your health.
What are the social equivalents to lead and smoke in the air, PCBs in the water, and pesticides in the food chain? I think some social equivalents include violence, poverty, and other economic pressures on parents and their children. They include disruption of family relationships and other trauma, despair, depression, paranoia, nastiness, and alienation—all contaminants that demoralize families and communities. These are the forces in the land that contaminate the environment of children and youth. These are the elements of social toxicity. .......
Children's Vulnerability
Beyond the immediate threats to children, many other issues are subtle, yet equally serious. High on the list is the departure of adults from the lives of kids—and some studies report a 50 percent decrease over the past 30 years in the amount of time parents are spending with kids in constructive activities. The lack of adult supervision and time spent doing constructive, cooperative activities compounds the effects of other negative influences in the social environment for kids. Kids "home alone" are more vulnerable to every cultural poison they encounter than are children backed up by adults. ........
Children's Rights
A global consensus about the meaning of childhood is emerging, as seen in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Cohen and Naimark 1991). This document represents an international effort to define what it should mean to be a child, based on what middle-class societies have learned about children and child development. The United States stands among a handful of renegade countries that have not ratified the U.N. Convention.
The Convention proposes that to be a child is to be shielded from the direct demands of adult economic, political, and sexual forces. It proclaims that childhood is a protected niche in the social environment, a special time and place in the human life cycle, having a special claim on the community. Regardless of their economic value, children have a right to receive support from their families and communities. They have a right to be shielded from war and violence, to lead a life free from adult sexuality, and to have a positive identity.
The U.N. Convention tells us that children need not pay their own way and earn their keep. They have a human right to be cared for. Typically, families want to provide this support and, as a rule, will do so if possible. But when families cannot provide for their children, the U.N. Convention says that society should pick up the tab. This deeply held principle gives moral force to ongoing efforts to eliminate exploitive labor and poverty from the lives of children. And specific articles in the document testify to this impetus to offer every child what middle-class families offer to their children. We should bear this in mind in the United States, where we see a high and growing rate of poverty among children.
Children and economics. At present, about one in five of all U.S. children, and two in five among children age 6 and under, live below the officially defined poverty line. By historical and global standards, this may seem a relatively small number—in many countries of the world, the figure is more like 65 percent. But when contrasted with the affluence of our society and the success of other modern societies in protecting children from poverty, the U.S. data represent a telling statistical accusation, particularly if we factor in the finding that among modern societies, the United States has the biggest gap between rich and poor. Whereas in Sweden the top 10 percent of families make two times what the bottom 10 percent earn, for the United States the difference is a factor of six times (and for Canada, four times) (Rainwater and Smeeding 1995).
But the economic foundations of childhood go beyond protection from poverty. The idea of childhood as a protected niche implies that children are not direct participants in the cash economy. Any work they do should be guided by their parents and should serve educational and developmental purposes. We can celebrate the strides that have been made in many countries in protecting children from work-force participation. Dramatically reducing child labor was an important accomplishment in creating childhood in the United States; around the world, it remains a hot issue. But the economic rights of children go beyond being protected from adult work.
The child also has a right to be protected from the excesses of the consumer economy. In this view, the child's consumer purchases are to be kept separate and sheltered from commercial advertising that exploits the cognitive, emotional, and social limitations of children. The fact that children are often not so shielded is a violation of their rights. Turn on a television set during the children's hours before and after school, on weekends, and in the early evening, and you can see for yourself where our society stands on this matter. Children are commercial targets. Walk around any shopping mall, and you can see today's parents trying to cope with the fruits of this commercial exploitation of childhood. You may well be one of these parents. Complete article
James Garbarino's primary focus on a lot of his research involves early child abuse leading to escalating violence later in life and this includes his opposition to the use of "'physical assault as discipline' (a term I much prefer to the euphemism of 'corporal punishment,' which only serves to obfuscate)." Statistics back up his opposition to corporal punishment, since it's presumably used most widely in the homes of the same nineteen states that still allow it in the schools; and as I pointed out in Research On Preventing Violence Absent From National Media these nineteen states have had average murder rates for the past ten years that are 22% to 31% higher than in the states that don't allow it in schools. This is one of the activities that the "United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child" is trying to prevent and presumably the reason the United States refuses to ratify it might be that southern states want to continue this practice. Yet not only doesn't the media provide any media coverage bout the United States refusal to ratify this convention; but they also refuse to provide coverage on the research showing how early child abuse leads to escalating violence.
Most conservative pundits would no doubt be outraged by the claim that "when families cannot provide for their children, the U.N. Convention says that society should pick up the tab," however we're already doing that, in a much more inefficient manner through the court system and other social problems that result of abandoned children by abusive parents or in abandoned inner cities! We spend a fortune keeping two million people in jail, far more than any other country in the world and even more on court costs or other expenses resulting from high crime rates in troubled areas. Europe does a far better job addressing the social needs of their people in economic system that our politicians and media pundits demonize as socialist, yet they have far less income inequality, drug addiction, murder rates, and other social problems. Our murder rates are consistently above five per 100,000 although they did drop briefly below, for a few years, yet the European average has been only about three, and many of the countries that ban corporal punishment in both the home and schools have rates less than one, a fifth of our murder rates. The only reason Europe isn't even farther below our average is because handful of countries like Russia and Ukraine are much higher.
Programs like the home visitor program which Professor Garbarino supports and provided research showing it's far more effective then relying solely on punishment ads a deterrent, this is cited in my previous article about "Burying Solutions to Prevent Gilroy, Dayton and El Paso Shootings," and there're plenty more programs like that which can help reduce violence; but instead of implementing them our government is suppressing funds for them and shipping jobs overseas where they use child labor forcing local workers to compete with them & creating a race to the bottom both her and abroad while they rig the economic system in a manner that is designed to create more economic inequality which is contributing to social problems including violence!
In a functioning democracy, we need a media establishment that is willing to report on the most effective research to solve social problems; we don't have that! Although those that look for this research in libraries, alternative media, or academic research can find it.
I also wrote to Susan Linn who responded by saying "Violent media is heavily marketed to children—so it’s not so much the deception, but the products being marketed and any violence included in the advertisement itself. Here’s a link to the most recent American Academy of Pediatrics statement on media violence," and sent a few documents that might be helpful about violence in media. She also covered this in her book in the following excerpt:
Susan Linn "Consuming Kids" 2004 p.117-8
Given that children spend more time engaged with media than they do engaged in any activity other than sleeping, it’s hard to see how they could escape being affected by the content of media’s advertising and programming. In addition to the study cited above, there is plenty of research to back this-especially about violence. I’m sure that it would be easier for everyone if media violence had no negative impact on children’s attitudes and behavior. It does. And given that it does, it would be convenient if media violence were the sole cause for children’s violent behavior. It isn’t.
On July, 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Medical Association, the American Association of Family Physicians, and the American Psychiatric Association issued a joint statement on media violence. After reviewing more than a thousand studies conducted over thirty years, they reported a consensus in the public health community that “viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behavior, particularly in children.”
While acknowledging that the effects of entertainment violence on children are complicated and may vary from child to child, the statement identifies several measurable effects:
• Children who see a lot of violence are more likely to view violence as an effective way of settling conflicts. Children exposed to violence are more likely to assume that acts of violence are acceptable behavior.
• Viewing violence can lead to emotional desensitization towards violence in real life. It can decrease the likelihood that one will take action on behalf of a victim when violence occurs.
• Entertainment violence feeds a perception that the world is a violent and mean place. Viewing violence increases fear of becoming a victim of violence, with a resultant increase in self-protective behaviors and a mistrust of others.
• Viewing violence may lead to real life violence. Children exposed to violent programming at a young age have a higher tendency for violent and aggressive behavior later in life than children who are not so exposed. Complete article
Given that children spend more time engaged with media than they do engaged in any activity other than sleeping, it’s hard to see how they could escape being affected by the content of media’s advertising and programming. In addition to the study cited above, there is plenty of research to back this-especially about violence. I’m sure that it would be easier for everyone if media violence had no negative impact on children’s attitudes and behavior. It does. And given that it does, it would be convenient if media violence were the sole cause for children’s violent behavior. It isn’t.
On July, 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Medical Association, the American Association of Family Physicians, and the American Psychiatric Association issued a joint statement on media violence. After reviewing more than a thousand studies conducted over thirty years, they reported a consensus in the public health community that “viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behavior, particularly in children.”
While acknowledging that the effects of entertainment violence on children are complicated and may vary from child to child, the statement identifies several measurable effects:
• Children who see a lot of violence are more likely to view violence as an effective way of settling conflicts. Children exposed to violence are more likely to assume that acts of violence are acceptable behavior.
• Viewing violence can lead to emotional desensitization towards violence in real life. It can decrease the likelihood that one will take action on behalf of a victim when violence occurs.
• Entertainment violence feeds a perception that the world is a violent and mean place. Viewing violence increases fear of becoming a victim of violence, with a resultant increase in self-protective behaviors and a mistrust of others.
• Viewing violence may lead to real life violence. Children exposed to violent programming at a young age have a higher tendency for violent and aggressive behavior later in life than children who are not so exposed. Complete article
Susan Linn also agrees with Professor Garbarino that our economic system is also a contributing factor for many social problems, including violence, and she provided some additional research on this, including her claim that advertising violence may be a contributing factor to real world violence, in the following article:
Growing Up under Corporate Capitalism: The Problem of Marketing to Children, with Suggestions for Policy Solutions 01/05/2016
Tim Kasser Knox College
Susan Linn Boston Children’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of development suggests that children are affected by the economic system under which they live. Corporate capitalism is one such economic system, and evidence suggests that the focus on profit and power characteristic of deregulated, competitive forms of capitalism can suppress how much citizens prioritize the values that support the nurturing of children. One manifestation of this capitalist ideology is the practice of marketing to children, a practice known to be associated with a variety of negative outcomes for children. We present empirical evidence supporting these claims and conclude by proposing numerous policies aimed at reducing children’s exposure to marketing. The policies, many of which have widespread public support, can be implemented in a number of types of institutions that directly or indirectly affect children, including professional organizations, schools, businesses, and all levels of government.
This article explores one relatively ignored fact about children’s development: They grow up under economic systems. This fact, as we hope to show, has a variety of implications for children’s development and well-being. In particular, we will argue that children who grow up under certain forms of the economic system known as corporate capitalism are subject to a variety of deleterious environmental influences. We focus in this article on commercial marketing that is directed at children and/or that uses advertising techniques known to appeal to children. We conclude by proposing an array of policy solutions to decrease the extent to which children are targeted by marketing.
The Ecological Model of Children’s Development
One helpful framework for thinking about the influences of an economic system on children derives from Urie Bronfenbrenner’s widely cited 1977 American Psychologist article and later, 1979 book, The Ecology of Human Development. In these writings, Bronfenbrenner presented an “ecological model” in which he argued that developing humans exist within a “nested arrangement of structures, each contained within the next” (1977, p. 514). Bronfenbrenner’s conceptualization of this nested structure encouraged psychologists interested in child development to begin studying not only the proximal aspects of the environment that directly impinge upon the child, but also the more distal features of the broader environment in which the proximal environmental systems were nested.1
Bronfenbrenner (1977, 1979) labeled the most proximal environments that influence the child the microsystem. The microsystem encompasses the “immediate” settings that actually “contain” the child, i.e., settings that directly impinge upon the child at particular moments. These are the sorts of environments that most psychologists tend to study: events that take place in the home, at school, and in one’s neighborhood, where developing individuals have direct interactions with other people (e.g., parents, teachers, peers) and/or with particular stimuli (e.g., second-hand smoke, television shows, fun playgrounds).
At a somewhat more distal level is what Bronfenbrenner (1977, 1979) called the exosystem. This level encompasses the structures of the environment “that do not themselves contain the developing person but impinge upon or encompass the immediate settings in which that person is found, and thereby influence, delimit, or even determine what goes on there” (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, p. 515). For example, few children directly interact with government agencies, but if the local, state, and/or national government cuts spending on schools, children will probably experience crowded classrooms taught by harried teachers who have fewer concrete resources to provide the children. That is, children’s microsystem experiences in school are influenced by occurrences at the exosystem.
.......
There are numerous other ways in which a capitalistic macrosystem ideology might affect children by filtering down to the exosystem and microsystem levels. Here are two more examples:
(1) At the macrosystem level, hierarchy values suggesting that it is proper for money, status, and possessions to be unequally distributed in a society would lead to policies and practices that create high levels of wealth and income inequality, via wage-earning practices among businesses and taxation policies among governmental institutions. In turn, wide disparities of income and wealth would affect the experiences of children in their home, school, and neighborhood microsystems.
(2) The focus on economic growth, wage-earning, and profit inherent in the capitalist macrosystem ideology would lead to a belief that the purpose of educating young people is to prepare them to enter the workforce, rather than to prepare them to be well-rounded, healthy citizens in a democracy. The former purpose would lead to a focus on imparting marketable skills, whereas the latter would include teaching topics that are perhaps less likely to yield high-paying jobs, such as the arts and humanities, philosophy, and physical education. To the extent the capitalist ideology dominates, students in elementary schools would experience diminishing opportunities for recess, art, music, etc., and children in preschool would spend less time learning through hands-on, creative and exploratory play. Further, policies would be developed in state governments to focus higher education around the priorities of business, and a college education would increasingly come to be seen as an “investment” designed to prepare young people for economic success rather than a way to prepare them for successful citizenship in a democracy (see, e.g., Deresiewicz, 2015; Harris-Perry, 2012; Keldermain, 2015).
Violence and Aggression
Violent media is heavily marketed to children through traditional commercials and licensed products, including toys (Linn, 2004). Even though violence does not increase a cartoon’s appeal to children (Weaver, Jensen, Martins, Hurley, & Wilson, 2001), more violence is present in child’s television shows than in adult programming (Wilson et al., 2002). Promotional spots for upcoming shows during children’s programming are even more violent than the shows themselves, with the former showing an average of 3.46 violent acts per minute and the latter an average of 1.32 acts per minute (Shanahan, Hermans, & Hyman, 2003).
In the United States, movies that the film industry rates as PG-13, containing material which “may be inappropriate for children under thirteen,” and R, where “some material may be inappropriate for children under 17,” have been routinely marketed to very young children through toys, ads during children’s programs, Web sites aimed at young children, and fast food promotions (Fentonmiller, Rusk, Quaresima, & Engle, 2007). In fact, market research on violent PG-13 movies has been conducted with children as young as 7 years old (Fentonmiller et al., 2007). These occurrences are especially problematic today, given that more violence is now allowed in films rated PG-13 than was the case in years previous (Thompson & Yokota, 2004). In 2009, one study found over 5,000 ads on popular children’s television stations corresponding to just five violent PG-13movies and their related merchandise (Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, 2009). What’s more, in 2008, 75% of the highest-grossing R-rated movies were advertised on Web sites that are popular with children under 17; of those, 35% were sites that are particularly popular with children aged 2 to 12 years (Fentonmiller et al., 2007).
In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and other major public health organizations collaborated on a review of 30 years of research regarding the impact of media violence on children; they concluded that heavy exposure to media violence is a risk factor for aggression, desensitization to violence, and lack of sympathy for victims (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2000). A more recent review concluded that children who view substantial amounts of media violence are also more likely to view violence as an effective way of settling conflicts (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2009). In addition, research shows that children exposed to violent programming at a young age have a higher tendency to engage in violent and aggressive behavior, including bullying, than do children who are not so exposed (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2009).
This association between exposure to media violence and real-life aggression is particularly strong, stronger even than the link between condom nonuse and sexually transmitted HIV, and nearly as strong as the link between smoking and lung cancer (Bushman & Huesmann, 2000). The negative effects of violent “interactive” media, such as computer and video games, appear to be even greater than the effects of traditional media, such as television and movies (Anderson, Gentile, & Buckley, 2007). A meta-analysis of studies conducted in both Eastern and Western countries concluded that exposure to violent video games (i.e., a product marketed to children) is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, for aggressive thoughts and feelings, and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior (Anderson et al., 2010). Aditional excerpts
Tim Kasser Knox College
Susan Linn Boston Children’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of development suggests that children are affected by the economic system under which they live. Corporate capitalism is one such economic system, and evidence suggests that the focus on profit and power characteristic of deregulated, competitive forms of capitalism can suppress how much citizens prioritize the values that support the nurturing of children. One manifestation of this capitalist ideology is the practice of marketing to children, a practice known to be associated with a variety of negative outcomes for children. We present empirical evidence supporting these claims and conclude by proposing numerous policies aimed at reducing children’s exposure to marketing. The policies, many of which have widespread public support, can be implemented in a number of types of institutions that directly or indirectly affect children, including professional organizations, schools, businesses, and all levels of government.
This article explores one relatively ignored fact about children’s development: They grow up under economic systems. This fact, as we hope to show, has a variety of implications for children’s development and well-being. In particular, we will argue that children who grow up under certain forms of the economic system known as corporate capitalism are subject to a variety of deleterious environmental influences. We focus in this article on commercial marketing that is directed at children and/or that uses advertising techniques known to appeal to children. We conclude by proposing an array of policy solutions to decrease the extent to which children are targeted by marketing.
The Ecological Model of Children’s Development
One helpful framework for thinking about the influences of an economic system on children derives from Urie Bronfenbrenner’s widely cited 1977 American Psychologist article and later, 1979 book, The Ecology of Human Development. In these writings, Bronfenbrenner presented an “ecological model” in which he argued that developing humans exist within a “nested arrangement of structures, each contained within the next” (1977, p. 514). Bronfenbrenner’s conceptualization of this nested structure encouraged psychologists interested in child development to begin studying not only the proximal aspects of the environment that directly impinge upon the child, but also the more distal features of the broader environment in which the proximal environmental systems were nested.1
Bronfenbrenner (1977, 1979) labeled the most proximal environments that influence the child the microsystem. The microsystem encompasses the “immediate” settings that actually “contain” the child, i.e., settings that directly impinge upon the child at particular moments. These are the sorts of environments that most psychologists tend to study: events that take place in the home, at school, and in one’s neighborhood, where developing individuals have direct interactions with other people (e.g., parents, teachers, peers) and/or with particular stimuli (e.g., second-hand smoke, television shows, fun playgrounds).
At a somewhat more distal level is what Bronfenbrenner (1977, 1979) called the exosystem. This level encompasses the structures of the environment “that do not themselves contain the developing person but impinge upon or encompass the immediate settings in which that person is found, and thereby influence, delimit, or even determine what goes on there” (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, p. 515). For example, few children directly interact with government agencies, but if the local, state, and/or national government cuts spending on schools, children will probably experience crowded classrooms taught by harried teachers who have fewer concrete resources to provide the children. That is, children’s microsystem experiences in school are influenced by occurrences at the exosystem.
.......
There are numerous other ways in which a capitalistic macrosystem ideology might affect children by filtering down to the exosystem and microsystem levels. Here are two more examples:
(1) At the macrosystem level, hierarchy values suggesting that it is proper for money, status, and possessions to be unequally distributed in a society would lead to policies and practices that create high levels of wealth and income inequality, via wage-earning practices among businesses and taxation policies among governmental institutions. In turn, wide disparities of income and wealth would affect the experiences of children in their home, school, and neighborhood microsystems.
(2) The focus on economic growth, wage-earning, and profit inherent in the capitalist macrosystem ideology would lead to a belief that the purpose of educating young people is to prepare them to enter the workforce, rather than to prepare them to be well-rounded, healthy citizens in a democracy. The former purpose would lead to a focus on imparting marketable skills, whereas the latter would include teaching topics that are perhaps less likely to yield high-paying jobs, such as the arts and humanities, philosophy, and physical education. To the extent the capitalist ideology dominates, students in elementary schools would experience diminishing opportunities for recess, art, music, etc., and children in preschool would spend less time learning through hands-on, creative and exploratory play. Further, policies would be developed in state governments to focus higher education around the priorities of business, and a college education would increasingly come to be seen as an “investment” designed to prepare young people for economic success rather than a way to prepare them for successful citizenship in a democracy (see, e.g., Deresiewicz, 2015; Harris-Perry, 2012; Keldermain, 2015).
Violence and Aggression
Violent media is heavily marketed to children through traditional commercials and licensed products, including toys (Linn, 2004). Even though violence does not increase a cartoon’s appeal to children (Weaver, Jensen, Martins, Hurley, & Wilson, 2001), more violence is present in child’s television shows than in adult programming (Wilson et al., 2002). Promotional spots for upcoming shows during children’s programming are even more violent than the shows themselves, with the former showing an average of 3.46 violent acts per minute and the latter an average of 1.32 acts per minute (Shanahan, Hermans, & Hyman, 2003).
In the United States, movies that the film industry rates as PG-13, containing material which “may be inappropriate for children under thirteen,” and R, where “some material may be inappropriate for children under 17,” have been routinely marketed to very young children through toys, ads during children’s programs, Web sites aimed at young children, and fast food promotions (Fentonmiller, Rusk, Quaresima, & Engle, 2007). In fact, market research on violent PG-13 movies has been conducted with children as young as 7 years old (Fentonmiller et al., 2007). These occurrences are especially problematic today, given that more violence is now allowed in films rated PG-13 than was the case in years previous (Thompson & Yokota, 2004). In 2009, one study found over 5,000 ads on popular children’s television stations corresponding to just five violent PG-13movies and their related merchandise (Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, 2009). What’s more, in 2008, 75% of the highest-grossing R-rated movies were advertised on Web sites that are popular with children under 17; of those, 35% were sites that are particularly popular with children aged 2 to 12 years (Fentonmiller et al., 2007).
In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and other major public health organizations collaborated on a review of 30 years of research regarding the impact of media violence on children; they concluded that heavy exposure to media violence is a risk factor for aggression, desensitization to violence, and lack of sympathy for victims (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2000). A more recent review concluded that children who view substantial amounts of media violence are also more likely to view violence as an effective way of settling conflicts (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2009). In addition, research shows that children exposed to violent programming at a young age have a higher tendency to engage in violent and aggressive behavior, including bullying, than do children who are not so exposed (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2009).
This association between exposure to media violence and real-life aggression is particularly strong, stronger even than the link between condom nonuse and sexually transmitted HIV, and nearly as strong as the link between smoking and lung cancer (Bushman & Huesmann, 2000). The negative effects of violent “interactive” media, such as computer and video games, appear to be even greater than the effects of traditional media, such as television and movies (Anderson, Gentile, & Buckley, 2007). A meta-analysis of studies conducted in both Eastern and Western countries concluded that exposure to violent video games (i.e., a product marketed to children) is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, for aggressive thoughts and feelings, and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior (Anderson et al., 2010). Aditional excerpts
The claim that violence media contributes to violence is treated as a highly controversial subject by the media, and academics like Susan Linn and James Garbarino that present studies showing that it does get little or no attention. Susan Linn acknowledges that it's not the sole contributing cause of violence behavior and Professor Garbarino puts most of his emphasis on other aspects like child abuse, implying that it's probably not the most important factor; and as I pointed out in Burying Solutions to Prevent Gilroy, Dayton and El Paso Shootings. Vox provided a chart that showed that Japan and South Korea both sell more video games than the United States, yet the United States has ten times higher violent gun violence deaths, and while violent media and video games have been escalating dramatically over the mast five decades the murder rates have been dropping significantly; however this chart of the decline in murder rates over decades doesn't take any consideration of any other contributing factor, making them of little value from a statistical point of view, although they do imply that there are other factors involved.
If, however you compare the decline in murder rates and other types of violence to the decline in child abuse over the same time period then there's a much stronger correlation, clearly implying that it's a much more important contributing factor. Yet there's still plenty of research that does try to separate different contributing factors, including the ones cited by both James Garbarino and Susan Linn among many other researchers; however, to the best of my knowledge there's little or no research into how much of a contributing factor lack of coverage in traditional media about leading causes of violence, or discussion in the political debate.
Susan Linn points out a partial solution when she writes "It has been pointed out that if broadcasters were to be charged a fee for their use of the digital spectrum, the government could earn $2 to $5 billion annually that could then be spent on a truly public, truly non-commercial broadcasting system. Since government expenditures for public broadcasting are currently in the $250 million range, imagine the commercial-free programming that a few billion dollars could create – including programming for children." Susan Linn "Consuming Kids" 2004 P.153 In addition to funding programming for children that money could be used to ensure that the media provides ample coverage for the best academics that can explain the leading causes of violence and most effective ways to reduce it!
Of course media pundits would be outraged by this is they were forced to discuss it at all and say it would drive up the cost of television or something; but the cost of television is already far higher than most people realize; and guess who's paying for it and how. The public is already paying for it in the form of what I call a hidden propaganda tax. The media is funded by advertising and the cost of these ads is passed on to consumers yet we have little or no influence on the reliability of the ads or the coverage the media provides.
The so-called experts or media pundits that they give an enormous amount of coverage to get paid much more than the most credible experts that can do a much more effective job teaching about the leading causes of violence and how to prevent it; and it's not the "free market" that makes these decisions! the vast majority of the public doesn't have the educational background to participate in these decisions thanks to incompetent media coverage, nor do they even understand who makes the decisions how or why! It's Wall Street executives that make these decisions; they pay people providing propaganda that makes them richer by deceiving the public much more than they pay those that teach how to reduce violence!
This problem isn't limited to advertising to kids; advertising to adults is also a major factor, especially if they weren't taught to recognize fraudulent ads when they were younger and indoctrinated from an early age to accept an economic system that glorifies many contributing causes of violence n or censors other factors; this includes both insurance and gambling. As I reported previously in Insurance Executives Profit By Inciting Murder Occasionally Paying Killers there are dozens if not hundreds of people murdered every year that may be related to a life insurance motive and at least seven or eight people got away with murder in the past and collected over a million dollars, before eventually being caught; and there's also plenty of violence associated with Gambling after the Mandelay Bay massacre I reported Las Vegas Massacre Is Just A Minuscule Fraction Of Gambling Crime which documented dozens if not hundreds of other murders at Casinos and plenty of studies show how gambling is a major contributing factor to crime.
However, both the gambling industry and insurance industry spend enormous amounts of money on advertising and the media often has interlocking boards of directors or stockholders with these industries and research about this is also absent from the media!
The best researchers often explain how a rigged economic system is contributing to violence which is why they can't get media coverage!
The following are some additional sources or related articles:
Susan Linn Consuming Kids
Roy Fox Harvesting Minds
Studies on Media Violence
Do Video Games Make Kids Saints or Psychopaths (and Why Is It So Hard to Find Out)? August 28, 2014 Common excerpt with "Mediators and moderators of long-term effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior: practice, thinking, and action." : More than 90% of American youths play video games. More than 90 % of games that are E10+ rated, teen rated, or mature rated contain depictions of violence, and that violence is often portrayed as justified, fun, and without negative consequences
Mediators and moderators of long-term effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior: practice, thinking, and action. May 2014
There Is Broad Consensus: Media Researchers Agree That Violent Media Increase Aggression in Children, and Pediatricians and Parents Concur July 2015
Tobacco Explained 11/2/2019
The truth about the tobacco industry
…in its own words
3 Marketing to children
If the last ten years have taught us anything, it is that the industry is dominated by the companies who respond most to the needs of younger smokers.
(Imperial Tobacco, Canada)
3.1 Summary
Publicly the tobacco companies have always maintained that they do not target youth, but the market logic of selling to teenagers is overpowering - teenagers are the key battleground for the tobacco companies and for the industry as a whole. Their response has been that peer pressure is the most important aspect in children smoking. But internal documents sharply contradict this, by showing that they set out to aggressively advertise to youth, and even manipulate peer pressure to make people smoke their brand.
The industry knows that very few people start smoking in the teenage years, and if you can “hook” a youngster early on they could well smoke your brand for life. Indeed, independent surveys show that approximately 60 per cent of smokers start by the age of 13 and fully 90 per cent before the age of 20. This is the paradox of the cigarette industry – it is both socially and legally unacceptable to advertise to under-age teenagers and children – yet it is to this precise age group that it has to advertise to in order to survive.
The documents show that the tobacco industry:
• Examined young people as young as five – some studies did not even set a lower age limit. As one executive says “they got lips, we want them”.
• Thought about using honey and comic strip, as well as advertising, to entice youngsters to smoke.
• Looked at ways of preventing teenagers from quitting.
• Undertook studies how to manipulate pubescent/teenage anxieties into making people smoke. Examined the attitudes, aspirations, and lifestyles of the young and how to exploit them. One document says the company needs to “Create a Living Laboratory”.
The documents also show that:
• Marketing executives set out to present cigarettes as part of adulthood initiation - an illicit pleasure, which like sex, is one of a few initiations into the adult world.
• Advertisers set out to equate cigarettes with rebellion, self-expression, self-confidence, independence, freedom, adult identity, masculinity for boys and femininity for girls.
• Two of the most successful advertising campaigns: Marlboro’s Cowboy and RJ Reynolds’ Old Joe Camel pitched their appeal directly to youth.
• The companies advertised in sports magazines and sponsored motor racing as new ways to market to youth
Complete article
The truth about the tobacco industry
…in its own words
3 Marketing to children
If the last ten years have taught us anything, it is that the industry is dominated by the companies who respond most to the needs of younger smokers.
(Imperial Tobacco, Canada)
3.1 Summary
Publicly the tobacco companies have always maintained that they do not target youth, but the market logic of selling to teenagers is overpowering - teenagers are the key battleground for the tobacco companies and for the industry as a whole. Their response has been that peer pressure is the most important aspect in children smoking. But internal documents sharply contradict this, by showing that they set out to aggressively advertise to youth, and even manipulate peer pressure to make people smoke their brand.
The industry knows that very few people start smoking in the teenage years, and if you can “hook” a youngster early on they could well smoke your brand for life. Indeed, independent surveys show that approximately 60 per cent of smokers start by the age of 13 and fully 90 per cent before the age of 20. This is the paradox of the cigarette industry – it is both socially and legally unacceptable to advertise to under-age teenagers and children – yet it is to this precise age group that it has to advertise to in order to survive.
The documents show that the tobacco industry:
• Examined young people as young as five – some studies did not even set a lower age limit. As one executive says “they got lips, we want them”.
• Thought about using honey and comic strip, as well as advertising, to entice youngsters to smoke.
• Looked at ways of preventing teenagers from quitting.
• Undertook studies how to manipulate pubescent/teenage anxieties into making people smoke. Examined the attitudes, aspirations, and lifestyles of the young and how to exploit them. One document says the company needs to “Create a Living Laboratory”.
The documents also show that:
• Marketing executives set out to present cigarettes as part of adulthood initiation - an illicit pleasure, which like sex, is one of a few initiations into the adult world.
• Advertisers set out to equate cigarettes with rebellion, self-expression, self-confidence, independence, freedom, adult identity, masculinity for boys and femininity for girls.
• Two of the most successful advertising campaigns: Marlboro’s Cowboy and RJ Reynolds’ Old Joe Camel pitched their appeal directly to youth.
• The companies advertised in sports magazines and sponsored motor racing as new ways to market to youth
Complete article
Our economic system is based on the assumption that all spending that contributes to the GDP is good, whether it improves the quality of life or not; therefore if adverting drives up the GDP without improving the quality of life this is considered a good thing, at least for the rich who increase profits. But this isn't a good thing for the working class when cuts to education or other social services are accompanied by obsessive spending on products promoted by deceptive ads that do little or nothing to improve the quality of life. spending on social workers to reduce violence doesn't contribute to the GDP, but when kids spend three or four times more than a pair of hyped up Air Jordans or Lebron James sneakers than they're worth and they lead to fighting and even killing kids for these sneakers the growth in the GDP clearly isn't improving the quality of life.
No Logo by Naomi Klein (part I) 11/27/2000
The Advertising Industry Has a Problem: People Hate Ads 10/28/2019 Agencies are better informed than ever before about consumers, having amassed huge stores of their data. But many of those consumers, especially the affluent young people prized by advertisers, hate ads so much that they are paying to avoid them.
Growth of advertising spending worldwide from 2000 to 2021 (2019-21 are projected as of this writing) Average growth in advertising is usually over 4% from 200-2018
US Inflation Rate by Year from 1929 to 2020 (2019-21 are projected as of this writing) Average rate of inflation isn't much if any more than 2% from 2000-2018
New Study Confirms Advertising as Key Driver of the U.S. Economy; Advertising is a Major Contributor to GDP, National Employment and Labor Income 11/15/2015 "According to a new report, advertising contributed $3.4 trillion to the U.S. GDP in 2014, comprising 19 percent of the nation’s total economic output. The report was commissioned by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and The Advertising Coalition, which represents the nation’s leading advertisers, advertising agencies and media companies."
U.S. Advertising As Percentage Of GDP Slows 04/08/2016 Looking at the past 15 years -- 1999 to 2014 -- total advertising averaged 1.17% of GDP. Looking only at 1999 and 2010, advertising as a percentage of GDP was 1.25%.
Hell No Barbie: 8 reasons to leave Hello Barbie on the shelf 2015
This holiday season, Mattel hopes to make Hello Barbie, a doll that records and analyzes children’s private conversations, a must-have toy. But experts agree: it’s a threat to children’s privacy, wellbeing, and creativity.
Here are 8 reasons not to buy Hello Barbie. Please help us spread the word about this terrible toy. If Hello Barbie is a hit, other eavesdropping toys are sure to follow.
1) Children’s private conversations shouldn’t be shared with corporations or strangers.
Children confide in dolls and reveal intimate details about their lives, but Hello Barbie won’t keep those secrets. When Barbie’s belt buckle is held down, everything your child says is transmitted to cloud servers where it will be stored and analyzed by ToyTalk, Mattel’s technology partner. Employees of ToyTalk and their partner corporations listen to recordings of children’s conversations--and ToyTalk won’t even say who their partners are.
2) Is Hello Barbie a “friend,” or a viral marketer?
Mattel says “there is no advertising content within Hello Barbie,” and “your children’s conversations will not be used to advertise to your child.” But Mattel doesn’t define what it means by “advertise.” Will Hello Barbie discuss other Barbie products with children? Her script already includes several lines of dialogue about her sisters, who have dolls of their own for sale on Mattel.com. Mattel has also acknowledged that Hello Barbie will talk to children about pop culture, and the doll’s script will be updated to discuss the latest movies and music. Isn’t that marketing? How does Mattel decide which artists and media Barbie talks about? And when Mattel and ToyTalk update their privacy policy, they could use Hello Barbie—and the valuable information it collects—to advertise to children. That means parents (if they are even aware of the privacy policy changes) will face a terrible choice: allow Hello Barbie to market to their child, or take their child’s “friend” away. ......
4) Surveillance has no place in children’s play.
In an era where corporations monitor what we say, where we go, what we buy, and who our friends are, Hello Barbie will instill exactly the wrong habits in children. Children should be taught to protect their privacy, not encouraged to divulge their private thoughts to a device that will share their secrets far and wide. Complete article
This holiday season, Mattel hopes to make Hello Barbie, a doll that records and analyzes children’s private conversations, a must-have toy. But experts agree: it’s a threat to children’s privacy, wellbeing, and creativity.
Here are 8 reasons not to buy Hello Barbie. Please help us spread the word about this terrible toy. If Hello Barbie is a hit, other eavesdropping toys are sure to follow.
1) Children’s private conversations shouldn’t be shared with corporations or strangers.
Children confide in dolls and reveal intimate details about their lives, but Hello Barbie won’t keep those secrets. When Barbie’s belt buckle is held down, everything your child says is transmitted to cloud servers where it will be stored and analyzed by ToyTalk, Mattel’s technology partner. Employees of ToyTalk and their partner corporations listen to recordings of children’s conversations--and ToyTalk won’t even say who their partners are.
2) Is Hello Barbie a “friend,” or a viral marketer?
Mattel says “there is no advertising content within Hello Barbie,” and “your children’s conversations will not be used to advertise to your child.” But Mattel doesn’t define what it means by “advertise.” Will Hello Barbie discuss other Barbie products with children? Her script already includes several lines of dialogue about her sisters, who have dolls of their own for sale on Mattel.com. Mattel has also acknowledged that Hello Barbie will talk to children about pop culture, and the doll’s script will be updated to discuss the latest movies and music. Isn’t that marketing? How does Mattel decide which artists and media Barbie talks about? And when Mattel and ToyTalk update their privacy policy, they could use Hello Barbie—and the valuable information it collects—to advertise to children. That means parents (if they are even aware of the privacy policy changes) will face a terrible choice: allow Hello Barbie to market to their child, or take their child’s “friend” away. ......
4) Surveillance has no place in children’s play.
In an era where corporations monitor what we say, where we go, what we buy, and who our friends are, Hello Barbie will instill exactly the wrong habits in children. Children should be taught to protect their privacy, not encouraged to divulge their private thoughts to a device that will share their secrets far and wide. Complete article
Hello Barbie, Your Child's Chattiest and Riskiest Christmas Present 12/15/2015
Marketing To "Tweens" Going Too Far? 05/14/2007
