Turn Off The Television!

Paper Summary:

The writer asserts that because of advertising to children on television, children now nag their parents to buy what they want and they become the consumers of the future. The writer reveals that advertisers know that children are cognitively not developed enough to resist such advertising and once these consumption patterns are established early on in life, they will be difficult to eradicate. The writer uses the Dora the Explorer television character to illustrate how an entertainment show has become an advertising medium for an expensive cereal. The writer discusses the need to ban advertising to children and proposes that parents should simply ban television from their home and reinstate the family meal as an institution. The writer is passionate about not buying food masquerading as toys, like the Dora the Explorer cereal.

From the Paper:

"Turn off the television. This may sound like a simplistic and perhaps extremist statement to make to America's families. But when we as a society get to the point where we are consuming what we watch on television even in our breakfast bowls, it is time to take control of our leisure time and lives. In particular, with children's advertising, the line between entertainment and advertising has grown so blurry that television characters like Dora the Explorer have 'become' cereals, and advertisements for unhealthy processed foods and cheap toys are made to resemble the advertisements of cartoon shows."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Beder, Sharon. '"A Community View', Caring for Children in the Media Age." Papers from a national conference, edited by John Squires and Tracy Newlands, New College Institute for Values Research. Sydney, 1998, pp. 101-111. "Children, Adolescents, and Advertising." 24 Sept 2007.http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/sbeder/children.html#RTFToC1
• "Dora the Explorer Cereal." The Breakfast Bowl. Jun 2006. 24 Sept 2007.http://breakfastbowl.blogspot.com/2006/06/dora-explorer-cereal.html
• Martin, A. (2007). "Kellogg to Phase Out Some Food Ads to Children." The New York Times. 14 Jun 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/business/14kellogg.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
• "Statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics." Pediatrics. Dec 2006. 118:6: 2564-2569. 24 Sept 2007. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/118/6/2563?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT
• Topel, Amy. "Setting Lifelong Eating Habits." National Geographic Green Guide. Sept/Oct 2004. 24 Sept 2007.http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/104/patterns

More papers on Turn Off The Television!:

• Persuasive Essay # 112935 : "The Negative Effects of Television"
• Argumentative Essay # 95921 : "Controversial Television Advertising"
• Analytical Essay # 65722 : "A Critique of "Television Addiction" by Marie Winn"

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