Channel Surfing: Racism, the Media, and the Destruction of Today’s Youth

Kate Moss wears a sexual pout in a Calvin Klein ad. Kurt Cobain’s suicide is held aloft as the archetypal example of teen alienation. What truth, if any, is contained in these depictions of today’s youth? What message about our children is being transmitted? In Channel Surfing, Henry Giroux turns his gaze to this barrage of media images and sees a message that sells our children short by damning them to the preconceived role of alienated outcast. Surfing from one channel of communication to the next, Giroux builds up a complex web of associations between characters in films, tarnished real-life teen idols, and sexualized presentations of nubile young clothing models to show us the dark vision of our children that rides the airwaves and inhabits the print media. Channel Surfing, Henry Giroux’s most fascinating and intriguing book yet, is sure to create controversy and debate at the same time that it calls for a more ethical attitude towards the prospect of our children’s future.