This book reveals the profound impact that our purchasing-obsessed culture has on our children and argues that corporate marketing to youth has reshaped the experience of childhood into something that is prefabricated. Top scholars in education, sociology, and cultural studies contribute insightful essays that students, parents, and educators will find entertaining and disturbing. This third edition is thoroughly updated with examinations of the icons that shape the values and consciousness of today's children, including Twilight, Barbie, hip-hop, Disney, McDonald's, and many more.
Never before has so much popular culture been produced about what it means to be a girl in today's society. From the first appearance of Nancy Drew in 1930, to Seventeen magazine in 1944 to the emergence of Bratz dolls in 2001, girl culture has been increasingly linked to popular culture and an escalating of commodities directed towards girls of all ages. Editors Claudia A. Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh investigate the increasingly complex relationships, struggles, obsessions, and idols of American tween and teen girls who are growing up faster today than ever before. From pre-school to high school and beyond, Girl Culture tackles numerous hot-button issues, including the recent barrage of advertising geared toward very young girls emphasizing sexuality and extreme thinness. Nothing is off-limits: body image, peer pressure, cliques, gangs, and plastic surgery are among the over 250 in-depth entries highlighted. Comprehensive in its coverage of the twenty and twenty-first century trendsetters, fashion, literature, film, in-group rituals and hot-button issues that shape—and are shaped by—girl culture, this two-volume resource offers a wealth of information to help students, educators, and interested readers better understand the ongoing interplay between girls and mainstream culture.
Slum beautiful is a remarkable, straight forward, poetic and eye stretching memoir of KyDeja Morgan’s (Slum Beautiful) struggling life. In her first 28 years of life she was molested, practiced blasphemous acts, robbed, sold drugs, used drugs, prostituted, and arrested and almost prosecuted for the murders of both her mother and brother. Like her other siblings, Slum was raised in a dysfunctional family that practiced open sex, used drugs, gambled and treated their home as a hangout for other addicts. Through her avowed journey in life, it would take Slum 28 years and 11 months, along with becoming homeless to find the beauty in her slum (mind, body, soul and surroundings.) she was able to connect, dig out and remove some of the most scattered and unraveling moments of her life thanks to the acts of soliloquy, prison and an unlikely fallen angel along the way. However, before Slum could share her newly found beauty she has to beat a slew of charges, including breaking and entering, robbery, murder-and come fourth with secrets that inadvertently prolonged her vicious life cycle. Slum Beautiful- in retrospect not only visits the most dangerous place on earth in our heart’s memory, but gives a mind-boggling, touch of retrograde amnesia exploring the inducement of dysfunction in Slum’s family that includes, molestation, sibling rivalry, systematic dependency, drug dependency, self hate, cultural hate, racism, and women and child abuse. Slum Beautiful explores how cycles of injustice begin, and how they can continue to plague without culminating. Penned with a poetic pen, conscience mind, and honest heart, Slum beautiful is the Pangaea of life before the evolution of such disheartening events, and then some. It is an internal reflection of yours and mine. Find your beauty, before the wrong hands do. Without further do, Kenny Attaway presents Slum Beautiful: the soliloquy of the kandy lady.
A horrific, killer tornado rips through Wichita Falls in 1979, launching 12 year-old DeLaine Reynolds into adolescence. Living in a tiny 'rattle-trap trailer' with her abusive step-mother and step-brother and struggling with feelings of abandonment, DeLaine starts 7th-grade at the local high school. There she faces social hierarchy, bullying and the hint of first love. Can DeLaine face the changes and challenges of normal adolescence as well as her dysfunctional family? This story is inspired by true events.
By conducting an in-depth review of the great toys from ancient times to the present, youth- marketing expert Gene Del Vecchio reveals the six core qualities that help toys achieve blockbuster status: the toy's unique satisfaction of children�s emotional needsthe toy's acceptance among parents and unique fulfillment of their needsthe toy's perfect alignment with significant historical events or social trendsthe toy's ability to reinvent itselfthe toy's employment of inspiring, playful marketing and, sometimes, the toy�s serendipitous rendezvous with powerful, random events The Blockbuster Toy! How to Invent the Next BIG Thing also sheds light on the definition of what it means to be a toy in today�s world. From traditional toys, to foods, to multi-player on-line games, to the importance of story and Hollywood studio alliances, Del Vecchio casts a broad net and explains, in ways that marketers can learn from and interested readers will find amazingly insightful, how playthings become pop culture. Readers will learn here the essence of a blockbuster toy and the various recent approaches used by Crayola, Disney, and other companies in choosing theirproducts. Six chapters discuss blockbuster marketing strategies, all designed tohelp toy-industry professionals ignite te smiles that can make their careers.
This comprehensive second edition provides an updated essential guide to the key issues, methodologies, concepts, debates, and policies that shape our everyday relationship with advertising. This updated edition takes a critical look at advertising and promotion during the explosion of digital and social media, as well as with significant social and cultural shifts, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, the destabilization of democracies and rise of authoritarianism around the world, and intensification of the climate crisis. The book offers global perspectives on advertising and promotion with attention to issues of diversity and difference. It contains eight sections: Historical Perspectives on Advertising and Promotion; Promotional Industries; Advertising Audiences; Advertising Identities; Advertising and/in Crisis; Promotion and Politics; Promotionalism and Its Expansions; and Advertising, Promotion, and the Environment. With chapters written by leading international scholars working at the intersections of media and advertising studies, this book is a go-to source for scholars and students in communication, media studies, and advertising and marketing looking to understand the ways advertising has shaped consumer culture, in the past and present.
In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.
"To understand the history and spirit of America, one must know its wars, its laws, and its presidents. To really understand it, however, one must also know its cheeseburgers, its love songs, and its lawn ornaments. The long-awaited Guide to the United States Popular Culture provides a single-volume guide to the landscape of everyday life in the United States. Scholars, students, and researchers will find in it a valuable tool with which to fill in the gaps left by traditional history. All American readers will find in it, one entry at a time, the story of their lives."--Robert Thompson, President, Popular Culture Association. "At long last popular culture may indeed be given its due within the humanities with the publication of The Guide to United States Popular Culture. With its nearly 1600 entries, it promises to be the most comprehensive single-volume source of information about popular culture. The range of subjects and diversity of opinions represented will make this an almost indispensable resource for humanities and popular culture scholars and enthusiasts alike."--Timothy E. Scheurer, President, American Culture Association "The popular culture of the United States is as free-wheeling and complex as the society it animates. To understand it, one needs assistance. Now that explanatory road map is provided in this Guide which charts the movements and people involved and provides a light at the end of the rainbow of dreams and expectations."--Marshall W. Fishwick, Past President, Popular Culture Association Features of The Guide to United States Popular Culture: 1,010 pages 1,600 entries 500 contributors Alphabetic entries Entries range from general topics (golf, film) to specific individuals, items, and events Articles are supplemented by bibliographies and cross references Comprehensive index