The rise of radio
in the early twentieth century marked the dawn of the electronic
age. Ever since that first broadcast medium found its way
into homes, advertisers have found ways to get into them
too. With radio and TV, advertising made programming possible.
Today's media are no different. Whether you pay for a ticket
or expose your eyeballs to an ad, the media are never free.
It's easier to slide through your day if you don't pay attention
to how many times you're asked to open your wallet or promise
your allegiance. But sometimes you have to take notice of
financial backers' latest methods, especially when they
target children. Recently, I saw two news reports that reminded
me how many people there are out there who want a piece
of our kids.
The first story highlighted a growing trend in video games:
advergaming. This is pretty much exactly what it sounds
like, video games that contain advertising messages. Some
of these games have ads built into them, such as billboards
in a car racing game. Other advergames function as game-length
ads for a brand or product, often another media product.
For years, video games have featured characters from popular
films and TV cartoons. And in recent years, big-budget action
movies have been made from video games stories. But advergames
take cross-media promotion a step farther. For instance,
Disney is making advergaming a large part of its 50th anniversary
campaign to promote its theme parks. And the U.S. Army has
released video games as part of its recruitment strategy.
Advergames are here to stay. This year they may represent
as much of one billion dollars of the video game industry's
10 billion dollar haul. Some advergames are as much fun
and as well made as other games designed simply for the
sake of entertaining game play. And that's just the point.
It's hard to tell the difference between an advergame and
a regular one. We need to make sure our children know that
some of their favorite games are trying to trick them into
spending more money.
The second story that piqued my interest described a white
supremacy group's plan to distribute 100,000 free CDs. The
CDs, featuring songs with lyrics containing messages of
racism and hate, were part of the group's plan to recruit
white children to the movement. The packaging doesn't highlight
the group's affiliation. The group's appeal is in the music
itself. Like the producers of many advergames, this group
is attempting to infiltrate kids' minds without showing
up on parents' radar.
I'm not suggesting that an advergame pushing a product is
as harmful or as insidious as a hate-group attempting to
create young racists. But I do think they have something
in common. They're both trying to sneak their messages into
our kid's minds. Like radio waves, promotional messages
are all around us, even if we fail to notice them. Mediawise
parents should help their kids keep their antennae up.
David Walsh, Ph.D. is the founder of the
MediaWise Movement, a program of the National Institute
on Media and the Family (www.mediafamily.org).
His latest book is Why Do They Act That Way? A Survival
Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen.
Our
media culture is changing how kids learn.
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