How Consumer Culture Controls Our Kids: Cashing in on Conformity

This gripping book considers the history, techniques, and goals of child-targeted consumer campaigns and examines children’s changing perceptions of what commodities they need to be valued and value themselves.

In this critique of America’s consumption-based society, author Jennifer Hill chronicles the impact of consumer culture on children-from the evolution of childhood play to a child’s self-perception as a consumer to the consequences of this generation’s repeated media exposure to violence. Hill proposes that corporations, eager to tap into a multibillion-dollar market, use the power of advertising and the media to mold children’s thoughts and behaviors.

The book features vignettes with teenagers explaining, in their own words, how advertising determines their needs, wants, and self-esteem. An in-depth analysis of this research reveals the influence of media on a young person’s desire to conform, shows how broadcasted depictions of beauty distort the identities of children and teens, and uncovers corporate agendas for manipulating behavior in the younger generation. The work concludes with the position that corporations are shaping children to be efficient consumers but, in return, are harming their developing young minds and physical well-being.

Features content from across disciplines including sociology, psychology, cultural anthropology, and social work

Introduces the idea that corporations exert a powerful-and largely negative-influence over children and childhood

Offers a theoretical explanation of the current state of consumer capitalism

Presents findings based on original research conducted by the author