Channel One Promotes "Not Safe For School" Pics in Schools

If you're one of the 5.5 million students in a school with Channel One News, you have to watch ads every day as part of your taxpayer-funded class time. And one thing you'll see is ads for websites operated by Channel One's parent company, Alloy Media and Marketing. One of those websites is Teen.com. Despite the name, Channel One advertises Teen.com to both its junior high and high school students. So I stopped by Teen.com today to see what was being promoted to a captive audience of children as young as 11. Here's what's on the homepage:



Click on the link and it gets worse.There are the promised pics of Glee star Naya Rivera in various stages of undress, accompanied by some pathetic text designed to titillate while feigning shock:

Glee bad girl Santana Lopez wasn't lying when she said "Everyone knows my role here is to look hot." But in a recent spread for men's mag, FHM, Naya Rivera trumps her gleeky character's sexy outfits (remember the nurse costume?) by wearing, well... basically nothing! The girl's 24 years-old, so we'd say it's fine. But, is anyone else reminded of the controversial GQ photoshoot with Lea Michele, Dianna Agron and Cory Monteith? If it wasn't okay for them, then these pics definitely are pushin' it, too. Are Naya's pics too sexy for a Glee star? [Warning: They're all hot, but you probs shouldn't look at them at school and/or work!].

Huh? I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I'm thinking if the pictures are not safe for school, then Channel One "probs" shouldn't be promoting Teen.com in schools, either.

And if pictures of Ms. Rivera posing in her skimpy underwear isn't enough, Teen.com tells kids where to head for more:

"Wanna see more scandalous Naya pics? Pick up the November issue of FHM today!"

Now some might argue that today's culture is so pornified that teenagers see images like these all the time, but that misses the point. Shouldn't the standard be higher for what is shown and promoted to children in classrooms? Remember, we're not talking about sex education designed by educators, but sex being used to sell kids to Teen.com's advertisers (in this case K-Mart). Research links this type of sexualization to some of the most pressing and common mental health problems for girls including eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression and poor sexual health.

There is simply no justification for school districts forcing their students to watch ads for Teen.com...or anything else on Channel One. Remember, schools with Channel One lose a full week of instructional time to the broadcasts and a day just to the ads! That's why so many schools are waking up to the fact that Channel One is a bad deal for students. Since 2005, the network's student audience has shrunk by more than 25%.

That's good news, but we shouldn't celebrate until every child's classroom is free of compulsory commercial viewing. So if you're the parent (or grandparent or sibling) of a middle or high school student, ask if his or her school has Channel One. If they do, share this post with that school's administrators and urge them to spend a few minutes on Teen.com. That alone should be enough to get the plug pulled on Channel One. Read more!

Commercialized Sexualization and the Choice to Opt Out

My initial thoughts about the Canadian couple refusing to make public the sex of their baby were not kind. It seemed like just another media circus fomented by parents exploiting their children for celebrity—like Jon and Kate, or the balloon boy. But two things made me change my mind. I listened to an actual interview with the couple on the CBC. And someone sent me pictures of a new French lingerie line for four year olds.

Despite important gains made by the LBGT community, 2011 is a lousy time to be trying to raise children of any gender with a healthy, nuanced sense of what it means to be male or female. The unprecedented convergence of unfettered commercialism and ubiquitous screen media means that we are inundated with what the advertising industry calls “shockvertising,” ads or products designed to get our attention by being ever so much more outrageous than their competitors. The pornification of little girlhood is just one example—but it’s particularly troubling.

Marketers claim that parents don’t have to buy these products—and that they don’t even have to look at the ads. What they don’t mention is the power of advertising to normalize both the aberrant and the abhorrent. As we gaze upon photos of Thylane Loubry Blondeau, the prepubescent sex pot and new darling of the fashion world, it seems positively quaint that we were so worked up years ago when nothing came between a teenage Brooke Shields and her Calvins. And, compared to the provocatively posed preschoolers now selling sex and lingerie, a ten-year-old nymphette seems—well, not so bad.

But actually, it’s all bad. The commercialized sexualization that normalizes turning toddlers into teenagers harms children’s health and well-being. It teaches them to play consciously at sexuality without having any cognitive understanding of the meaning and consequences of their behavior. And the sexuality they posture about has nothing to do with relationships—it has to do with sex as object, sex as power, and sex to sell. Sexualizing little girls deprives them of middle girlhood—traditionally a time of great intellectual and creative exploration for girls who have all their basic skills down, but aren’t worrying about how they look.

Which brings me back to the Canadian couple so excoriated in the media for their counter cultural decision to shield their new baby from societal mores about sex and gender. It’s not a choice I would make for an infant in my life. But when I look at what a mess we are making of how children learn about the similarities and differences between boys and girls, opting out seems suddenly more appealing.
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Are you Kidding Me, Kmart? More on Alloy's First Day

Earlier this week, I wrote about my concerns regarding First Day, the new online Kmart infomercial webisode for tweens and teens from Alloy Media and Marketing. Well, the first episode is up and it’s even worse than I predicted. (The second episode is up too, but there’s a limit to my masochism).

The takeaway? Pick your outfits carefully for the first day of school because:

First day of school determines who you’re gonna be friends with, which determines if a guy is gonna like you which determines if you’ll ever be kissed, because after awhile you build it up and you get all nervous, until you’re 25 and totally unkissable.

Pretty subtle message for a program developed by Kmart to promote its back-to-school clothes.

The show is only 9-minutes and takes place over the course of a single day, but there are still plenty of outfit changes. In fact, the plot consists of little more than a series of mishaps that force the main character to change her clothes after they’ve been soiled. As new outfits are introduced, they flash on a sidebar next to the episode, complete with links to Kmart where young viewers can purchase the items right away.



The entire premise is inherently deceptive. There’s no disclosure that Kmart actually helped write the script, just a credit that says “Styled by Kmart” that flashes on screen before the show starts. If kids knew they were about to tune into a 9-minute commercial, they’d most likely click somewhere else. That’s why Alloy has to pretend that First Day is something more than an ad.

In addition to all the marketing, the show is pretty vile. Amy Jussel of ShapingYouth.org calls First Day “classic online product placement meets mean girl drek.” She breaks down the show a lot more thoroughly than I’m able to (she’s got a sharper eye and a stronger stomach) and I highly recommend her take.

The unholy alliance between Kmart and Alloy is not, however, limited to First Day. Kmart is also promoting its Bongo jeans at Alloy’s Teen.com website, a site that is regularly advertised in classrooms on Alloy’s Channel One. As with First Day, Kmart and Alloy disguise their Bongo advertising as something else – in this case, a “behind the scenes” of a photo shoot with Bongo model (and star of The Hills) Audrina Patridge. Because the “behind the scenes” is one of several rotating ads on Teen.com and may not appear when you click on this link, I’m including a transcript and some screen shots below:

Hi this is Audrina Patridge and I’m taking you behind the scenes on my Bongo shoot. We were shooting the Bongo campaign for this fall and it was really fun and exciting.


The concept behind the Bongo shoot today was very flirty, sexy, pin-up style a little bit. Bongo’s a great brand for going back to school because it’s affordable and it’s stylish.

There’s some really cute striped tops that tied in the back that I loved. All the jeans fit really nice and comfortable and you feel like you look like you have a cute butt.

To sum up:

1. Alloy and Kmart have teamed up for a series of deceptive 9-minute infomercials for teens and tweens to sell back-to-school clothes.
2. Kmart is using a “very flirty, sexy, pin-up style” to market its junior line so girls can “have a cute butt”.
3. Channel One is promoting Teen.com, which features ads like the one described above, to a captive audience of students in nearly 8,000 schools around the country. If you live in a school district with Channel One, your tax-dollars are being used to encourage kids to visit Teen.com where they'll watch ads that celebrate the "sexy, pin-up style."

So what can we do?

First, find out if your child’s school has Channel One. If they do, show your administrators this blog post and ask them to pull the plug. If they don’t, thank them and show them this blog post in case they are ever tempted to consider it.

And if you’re appalled by Kmart’s decision to sexualize children and commercialize classrooms (remember, they are advertising directly on Channel One, too), let them know. Kmart’s chief marketing officer Mark Snyder can be reached at mark.snyder@searhc.com.

More on Alloy and Kmart::


Today is the First Day of Kmart's Marketing Assault on Children:  http://commercialfreechildhood.blogspot.com/2010/08/today-is-first-day-of-kmarts-marketing.html
 
Everything you ever wanted to know about Channel One from Obliation, Inc.: http://www.obligation.org/category/alloy-channel-one-news.

Toxic Teen Messaging In A K-Mart/Alloy Episodic: The First Day by Amy Jussel: http://www.shapingyouth.org/?p=11984.

Kmart targets teens online, via Alloy Media Digital Marketing: Time for FTC & Congress to Protect Adolescent Consumers, inc. Privacy by Jeff Chester: http://www.democraticmedia.org/jcblog/?p=997.


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Today is the First Day of Kmart's Marketing Assault on Children

Later today, Alloy Media + Marketing, will launch First Day, its latest web series for children and teens on the Internet channel AlloyTV. An Alloy press release suggests the show will have it all – if by all you mean the full gamut of troubling trends in youth marketing.

Because First Day will air on the web instead of a traditional television channel, the FCC’s rules that dictate strict separation of commercial content and programming matter do not apply. That means that, unlike children’s television shows, First Day can feature product placement. That’s where Kmart comes in. Not only will the characters wear Kmart’s back-to-school fashions (Dream Out Loud by Selena Gomez, Rebecca Bonbon and Bongo), but Kmart actually helped create the script for First Day, so expect the clothes to play a prominent role in the show’s narrative. And if you’re creating a Kmart infomercial, why stop there?

First Day will also feature a unique retail component in each episode. Kmart will "hotspot" its fashions throughout the series, enabling viewers to buy the inspired looks worn by the lead characters by means of a direct link to the products on the Kmart website.

When they click through to the Kmart website, what will they find? Perhaps images like these that are being used to promote the same Bongo line in Seventeen magazine and Teen Vogue, two publications whose readers skew younger than their titles imply:



Or this ad that touts Bongo’s junior line for “back to school” at Kmart’s parent company, Sears:



It’s as if Kmart designed their back-to-school campaign using the exploitative marketers’ handbook. Use sex to sell tween girls on clothes. Create “branded entertainment” so that children won’t realize they’re really watching ads. Use interactive technology so that kids can click right from the “program” they’re watching to the checkout line. Add a viral component so that children’s friendships are commercialized; Kmart is offering applications for kids to upload to their phones so they can tweet their purchases to their friends.

And of course, promote your brand in schools. Kmart is also advertising its fall fashions on Alloy’s controversial in-school television network, Channel One. For students in the 8,000 schools with Channel One, viewing Kmart’s ads will be a compulsory part of the school day. That’s right – Kmart will be using class time paid for by your tax dollars to promote its clothing to a captive audience of students.

Kmart clearly believes that its provocative marketing strategy will result in more sales, but I’m not so sure. There are a growing number of parents who are saying, “if you want my business, treat me and my children with respect.” That’s a lesson that Kmart clearly hasn’t learned. Maybe we need to teach them that this fall.


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Beyond Barbie: Mattel's Monster of an Assault on Girls

A new study ads heft to the argument that girls are entering puberty earlier than ever before. No one knows why more girls than ever are developing breasts at seven or eight—some scientists attribute it to childhood obesity, others cite environmental factors. Whatever the reason, there’s cause for concern. How do girls so young deal with feelings heightened by hormonal surges, changes in their bodies, and how people think about them in their bodies?

What these seven year olds need is support from their families and communities to help them understand and cope with the unsettling changes occurring in their bodies. What they don’t need are anorexic junior dominatrix dolls for girls as young as six. Oops, I mean the Monster High brand (“Freaky Just Got Fabulous”), Mattel’s latest multi-platform assault on children.

Come to think of it, what girl does need these dolls? Or the Monster High clothing, toys, accessories, video games, movies, TV specials, virtual worlds, and books for “young readers.”

All girls are vulnerable to harm from sexualized images, but girls in the throes of early sexual maturity are especially vulnerable. Companies like Mattel that market sexualized this and that to girls often justify their campaigns and products by pointing to early physical maturation as one more sign that “Kids are getting older younger.” But, as I’ve said before, “Breast buds do not a woman make.” Girls’ bodies may be maturing, but there’s no evidence that their judgment is keeping pace.

The market strategy of sexualizing little girls has become so usual these days—from Hannah Montana, to the Bratz (which are coming back), My Scene Barbies, Twilight Kids Meals, and endless other products, it’s easy to feel jaded about Monster High. But that’s a mistake. According to the Wall Street Journal, Mattel is aiming for nothing less than an “entertainment juggernaut.”

By foisting fashionistas on little girls and providing them with the trappings of maturity—sexualized toys, clothing, and media—we deprive them of middle childhood. That’s the glorious time between preschool and adolescence that’s should be a time of great creative flowering for girls—because they’ve mastered basic skills and aren’t hampered by the self-consciousness of teenagers.

But we’re making it harder and harder for girls to have a middle childhood. We should be doing everything we can to identify and rectify whatever is launching seven-year-old girls into puberty. We also need to talk with them honestly and carefully about their bodily changes and what they mean. But sex education is different than the sex sold in commercial culture. Given the hormonal upheaval many girls are going through at ever younger ages, shouldn’t we be even more careful than ever about protecting them from sexualization?

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Should We Care if Cher Swears? The FCC, Indecency, and Marketing to Children

The news that a federal appeals court struck down a Federal Communications Commission indecency policy reminded me of the whole Justin-Timberlake-ripping-Janet-Jackson’s-blouse-off-during-the-Super-Bowl debacle a few years ago. Tens of thousands of people called the FCC to complain, which is what spurred the agency to crack down on indecency.

A few months after the Super Bowl, in a presentation to the Network of Spiritual Progressives, I expressed concern that a lion’s share of the outrage was voiced by people identified with the country’s Religious Right. Progressives, who tend to support sex education in schools, often stay away from voicing outrage about how sex is marketed to children in the media. I don’t really understand why. After all, it’s possible to be simultaneously for thoughtfully educating kids about sex, and opposed to child-targeted, commercialized sexualization in which sex is represented not in the context of caring relationships, but in the context of power, commodification, and violence.

Here’s the thing. Around 6.6 million 2 to 11 year olds watched a white man rip a blouse off of a black woman—an act that was certainly indecent both for its racist and its sexist connotations. We all should have been complaining about that. And we should have expanded our complaints to include all of those Super Bowl beer ads featuring talking animals. It’s indecent to market alcohol to children.

I absolutely believe that companies have the right to make any kind of media using any kind of language or imagery they choose. But I’m not alone in believing that corporations should not have the right to bypass parents and target children with marketing for whatever it is they produce. That’s why thousands of concerned adults are participating in CCFC’s campaign to convince Nickelodeon to stop marketing its website AddictingGames.com—which features a selection of violent and sexualized games—to children.

The FCC was trying to address what’s called “fleeting expletives,” which include unacceptable utterances by celebrities like Cher and Bono during prime time television. The court ruled that the FCC’s policy was too vague and would have a “chilling effect” on the First Amendment. Julius Genachowski, the FCC Chairman, was quoted in the New York Times as saying that “the Commission was reviewing the court’s decision in light of our commitment to protect children, empower parents, and uphold the First Amendment.”

The government could do that by not worrying so much about an occasional celebrity uttering an occasional obscenity during a televised award ceremony. If, for instance, the marketing of violent or sexualized PG-13 movies to preschoolers were prohibited, that would certainly protect children and empower parents, and it wouldn’t interfere in the rights of companies to make those movies—or the rights of adults to see them. What would really protect children from large amounts of inappropriate content, and the First Amendment, is if marketing to children were regulated. Commercializing childhood is much more indecent than a *.* fleeting expletive.

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Lechery, Misogyny, and Sadism...Oh My! Nickelodeon’s Internet Assault on Children by Susan Linn, Ed.D. & Josh Golin

Nickelodeon has been urging children to vote for their favorite games at Addicting Games.com, a gaming website that is part of its popular media empire for kids. Tomorrow morning, in a television special called the Addicting Games Showdown, Nickelodeon will announce which game was voted “Most Heart-Pounding,” “Most Superior Ninja” and “OMG! Cutest Animal.” It may sound like Addicting Games is just another innocuous game site for children, but that’s not the case.

CCFC has been monitoring AddictingGames.com for several months. The site, which is just a click away from many of Nick’s popular websites for children, contains numerous sexualized and graphically violent games that aren’t—by any stretch of the imagination—suitable for kids.

That’s why Nick should add a few more categories to its award show:

Category: Most Horrifyingly Misogynistic Game
Nominee: Nancy Balls
Game Description: “You can try to keep women out of congress, but it's going to be really difficult. Take their shoes away and collect guns. That's how to be a MAN."

Category: Most Disturbingly Violent Game
Nominee: Torture Chamber III
Description: “The object of Torture Chamber is to cause as much pain as possible to your victim before he dies. Doing so awards pain points, and unlocks new forms of punishment."

Category: Creepiest Stalker Game
Nominee: Perry the Perv
Description: “Perry the sneak loves women. The only problem is that women don't love Perry. The fact that he's a peeper on a mission doesn't help either. So Perry decided, if you can't beat ‘em, try harder! Help Perry get an eyeful without getting a handful for being the world's best Serial Peaker!"(sic)

Nickelodeon cynically refuses to stop promoting Addicting Games to children, which is why CCFC members overwhelmingly chose the site as the winner of this year’s TOADY (Toys Oppressive And Destructive to Young children) Award for worst toy of the year.

In fact, until recently, Nick promoted—and linked to—AddictingGames.com from websites for preschoolers such as NickJr.com, and the Dora the Explorer website. Those links were removed only after more than 7,000 CCFC members wrote to Nick demanding their removal. But Addicting Games continues to be marketed on Nickelodeon websites popular with young children. That means kids who play online with SpongeBob are only a click away from games that celebrate stalking, torture, and debasing the current Speaker of the House of Representatives solely because she’s a woman.

Since we launched CCFC’s Addicting Games campaign, we’ve heard from a number of angry parents who believed that all of the games on the website were fine for children because they trusted Nickelodeon to provide only age-appropriate content. It’s not surprising that they were—and continue to be—misled. Nick promotes itself as a family-friendly company and promotes Addicting Games under the heading of “Nickelodeon Kids and Family Websites.” And now the company is using the power of its popular children’s television network to lure even more young children to a site that features “naughty” games, shooting games, and even games where the object is to torture animals.

While we find these and other games on AddictingGames.com appalling, we would, to paraphrase Voltaire, defend to the death the right of others to play them—provided those others are adults. Therefore, we recommend a simple solution. Viacom, Nickelodeon’s parent company, should move the adult gaming content to an adults-only website that is not promoted on, or linked from, any of Nickelodeon’s websites or media properties for children. Then the umbrella of “Nickelodeon Kids and Family Websites” would be comprised only of games that actually are for kids and families.

Doing so would acknowledge the obvious: Children are different than adults and deserve special protections on the Internet. No matter how lucrative gaming may be, Nick should not promote lechery and sadism just to keep young eyes glued to advertising supported-screens by providing content.

To urge Nickelodeon to stop promoting violent, sexualized and misogynistic games to children, please visit http://www.commercialexploitation.org/actions/nicknaughtygamesjune2010.html.
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