Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture

Ads targeted at kids are virtually everywhere - in classrooms and textbooks, on the Internet, even at Girl Scout meetings, slumber parties, and the playground. Product placement and other innovations have introduced more subtle advertising to movies and television. Drawing on her own survey research and unprecedented access to the advertising industry, author Juliet Schor examines how marketing efforts of vast size, scope and effectiveness have created 'commercialized children'. Ads and their messages about sex, drugs and food affect not just what children want to buy, but who they think they are. In this revelatory and crucial book, Schor looks at the consequences of the commercialization of childhood and provides guidelines for parents and teachers. What is at stake is the emotional and social well being of our children. Like Barbara Ehrenreich's NICKEL AND DIMED (Granta), Mary Pipher's REVIVING OPHELIA (Vermillion) and Malcolm Gladwell's THE TIPPING POINT (Abacus), BORN TO BUY is a major contribution to our understanding of a contemporary trend and its effects on the culture.… (more)