Childhood is ‘historically, socially and culturally variable’

CMN201 – Task 2 Essay

ESSAY QUESTIONS

 

Write a 1200 word argumentative essay on ONE of the following questions. The essay must be grounded in relevant academic and industry research with a minimum of SIX academic sources included. You should use the Harvard referencing system to cite your research. Approaches to the essay will be discussed further in tutorials.(Academic style)

 

1. David Buckingham (2000:6) states that childhood is ‘historically, socially and culturally variable’. What different constructions of childhood are put forward in public debates around children’s use of, and exposure to, media content in contemporary society?

 

2. Evaluate the extent to which the tax breaks and funding subsidies that support the production of Australian children’s television on Australia’s free-to-air broadcasters, including the ABC, have helped situate Australian children in their culture since the late 1970s.

 

3. Discuss some of the consequences for children of the new delivery platforms and devices for media content that developed during the digital transition 2001-2014. Consider as part of your discussion whether or not children have benefitted from these new means of content distribution and proliferation in media services.

 

4. Investigate the different ways children are represented in reality and factual programming. Consider both shows made for children, and shows for a wider audience in which children appear.

 

5. Choose a child celebrity and analyse the ways in which their celebrity is constructed by the media using both controlled and uncontrolled information. Consider as part of your analysis how your chosen child celebrity’s representation conforms to societal norms of children and childhood.

 

6. Henry Giroux (2009:np) claims that ‘[e]rased as future citizens of a democracy, kids are now constructed as consuming and saleable objects’ (2009:np). Do contemporary media practices support this statement? As part of you discussion, consider the role of globalised media conglomerates in the lives of children and in mediated representations of childhood.

 

 

 

 

 

• Question I have chosen:

 

 

 

• Key words:

What	What is in it?	Word count/notes
Intro	·         Intro sentence – introduce the  topic ·         Roadmap of your essay ·         Thesis statement	120 words
Body	Each paragraph should have: 1.       topic sentence 2.       evidence (academic source and maybe a media source) 3.       example (cite a media source if relevant) 4.       your analysis to contribute to argument 5.       summary sentence or linking to next paragraph sentence	Notes:   Never ever have a paragraph that is less than 4 sentences.   Do NOT float your quotes.   Try to paraphrase.
Para 1	Key point of the paragraph:	150
Para 2	Key point of the paragraph:	150
Para 3	Key point of the paragraph:	150
Para 4	Key point of the paragraph:	150
Para 5	Key point of the paragraph:	150
Para 6	Key point of the  paragraph	150
Conclusion	·         Sum up main points ·         Restate thesis ·         Closing statement	120

 

 

CMN201: CHILDREN, MEDIA AND SOCIETY

RECOMMENDED READING LIST*

 

*Please note that the sources marked as ‘online’ are available electronically via the USC library website. All other sources have been placed on short term loan.

 

 

Aisbett, K 2000, 20 years of C: children’s television programs and regulation 1979-1999, ABA, Sydney.

 

Banet-Weiser, S 2007, Kids rule!: Nickelodeon and consumer citizenship, Duke UP, Durham. [online]

 

Barr, T 2000, Newmedia.com.au: the changing face of Australia’s media and communications, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW. [online]

 

Bielby, DD and Harrington, CL 2008, Global TV: exporting TV and culture in the world market, New York UP, New York. [online]

 

Brooks, K 2008, Consuming innocence: popular culture and our children, UQP, St Lucia, Qld.

 

Bryant, JA (ed.) 2007, The children’s television community, Lawrence Erlbaum, New Jersey. [online]

 

Bryman, A 2004, The Disneyization of society, Sage, London. [online]

 

Buckingham, D 2000, After the death of childhood: growing up in the age of electronic media, Polity Press, Cambridge. [online]

 

Buckingham, D (ed.) 2002, Small screens: television for children, Leicester UP, Leicester. [online]

 

Buckingham, D 2011, The material child: growing up in consumer culture, Polity, Cambridge.

 

Buckingham D & Willett R (eds) 2013, Digital generations: children, young people, and new media, Routledge, London. [online]

 

De Block, L & Buckingham, D 2010, Global children, global media: migration, media and childhood, Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

 

Giroux, HA 2010, The mouse that roared: Disney and the end of innocence, 2^nd edn, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham. [online]

 

Hammer, F 2013, Public service media in the digital age: international perspectives, Cambridge Scholars, Newcastle upon Tyne. [online]

 

Herd, N 2012, Networking: commercial television in Australia: a history, Currency House, Strawberry Hills, NSW.

 

Heywood, C 2002, A history of childhood: children and childhood in the west from medieval to modern times, Polity Press, Cambridge.

 

Howe, AN & Yarbrough, W 2014, Kidding around: the child in film and media, Bloomsbury, London. [online]

 

Kirsh, SJ 2012, Children, adolescents, and media violence: a critical look at the research,2^nd edn, Sage, London.

 

Lemish, D 2007, Children and television: a global perspective, Blackwell, Oxford, UK.

 

Lemish, D 2010, Screening gender on children’s television: the view of producers around the world, Routlege, London.

 

Lemish, D 2013, The Routledge international handbook of children, adolescents and media, Routledge, London.

 

Lemish, D 2014, Children and media: a global perspective, Wiley, New York. [online]

 

Lumby C & Fine, D 2006, Why TV is good for kids: raising 21st century children, MacMillan, Sydney.

 

Marsh, J 2005, Popular culture, new media and digital literacy in early childhood, Routledge, London.

 

McDonald, K and Smith-Rowsey, D (eds) 2016, The Netflix effect: technology and entertainment in the 21^st century, NY Bloomsbury Academic, New York.