Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood Conference Highlights by Julie Frechette

On October 26-28th, the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood held its 5th summit at Wheelock College in Brookline, MA: "Consuming Kids: Marketing in Schools and Beyond." As someone who has traveled to all sorts of media literacy conferences in the States and the world, I found this one to be extraordinary! Smaller conferences such as these have the advantage of keeping people focused on key themes--in this case, how marketers and advertisers use children as cheap ingredients in the capitalist industrial complex.

Drawing from the work of experts and advocates in education, psychology, law, cultural studies, communication, and women's studies, the sessions explored the myriad ways that childhood is compromised by materialism marketed as choice, happiness, and independence. Unlike other "critical" conferences that can leave you with an overwhelming desire to move to Canada or Switzerland, CCFC empowered its audience with a culminating session on the successes of diligence and activism. We learned about the power of Dad's & Daughter's to stop Hasbro from producing and selling the Pussycat Dolls, the courage of Brita Butler-Wall to take on the Seattle School Board's decision to market junk food in schools, the tremendous success of Jim Metrock's boycott efforts against Channel One in schools, and Josh Golin & Susan Linn's valiant efforts to stand up to big media, including the newly proposed BusRadio.

All of the speakers examined how hyper-commercialism and branding alter the development, experience and possibilities for today's children and youth. Keynote speakers included Alvin Poussaint, MD, David Elkind, author of The Hurried Child; Jean Kilbourne, author of Can't Buy My Love; Susan Linn, author of Consuming Kids; Joe Kelly, president of Dad's and Daughters; Diane Levin, author of Remote Control Childhood; Michael Rich from the Center on Media and Child Health; and Alex Molnar, author of Giving Kids the Business.

My talk was about cyber-marketing to children and youth. Based on my book "Developing Media Literacy in Cyberspace: Pedagogy and Critical Learning for the Twenty-First-Century Classroom," I examine the limits of blocking software, third-party ratings, and proprietary environments as solutions to cyber-safety concerns that narrowly define what is inappropriate to nudity, sexuality, trigger words, or adult material. What gets lost in this hegemonic view of cyber-safety is unbridled cyber-branding: online advertising and marketing to children. Never mind TV commercials during children's programming! Cyber-branding is the preferred 21^st Century venue for covert child-exploitation. Few are aware of it, fewer still of how it's done.

Whether you're talking about viral marketing online, adver-gaming, sticky content, microsites or matchmakers, cyber-branding IS part of the next wave of child-colonization.

To underscore my point, I explore the marketing practices found in AOL@school, Yahooligans, and other corporate web portals purportedly interested in children's education. I examine the limitations of COPPA legislation, blocking software, third-party ratings systems and proprietary environments (the "virtual play-pens" of the Internet).

The only damper to the conference was Saturday’s rainy weather, which also led to the cancellation of my children’s soccer tournaments. However, this led to an opportune change-of-plans, as my husband and two sons attended the last day of events. My boys listened to how their toys, media and culture have been marketed to them in branded candy-wrappers. This realization led to a thought-provoking conversation on the ride home. They noticed that the storefront signs and billboards were a source of "eye pollution" because you can't see the stars and it wastes electricity. They were eager to show us what they recognized as violent content by showing us a Lego “Exoforce” website so that they could explain what was wrong with it. Dinner-time led to a conversation about the nutritional value of what we ate and how much junk food is pitched to their age group.

Although my sons aren’t giving up the experience of "Trick-or-Treating" on Halloween this Tuesday, their realizations demonstrate that sharing what we know with our children makes a difference. Following Diane Levin’s advice, perhaps the next summit should be for children so that they can self-regulate their needs and behavior in a mediated world.

CCFC's conference came at the tail-end of exciting media literacy conferences that I participated in during October, including ACME and NERCOMP. For naysayers claiming media literacy remains futile in the face of hyper-commercialism, it's time to expand your outlook, get involved, and "become the media." That's what I'm doing today as this is my very first blog! We all have to start somewhere--as educators, parents, citizens and consumers seeking alternatives.

To respond, please email Julie Frechette at cyberliteracy@yahoo.com