The Possibility to Clean and Buy Stuff Shop

Via the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) and Advertising Age magazine, news (well, Thanksgiving-leftover news) of the recent online launch of Disney's newest kids' program The Possibility Shop. Described by AdAge as Disney's "First Branded-Entertainment Program," The Possibility Shop is a DIY Craft show for kids and "moms" (according to the official "About" description) staring Courtney Watkins, an author/TV personality who specializes in crafts and "Creative Adventures" (i.e. crafts and games). More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that the program is also:

[A] web video series at Disney.com/PossibilityShop produced with the Jim Henson Co. and exclusively sponsored by Clorox. The series was customized in part to promote Clorox brands, including Clorox disinfecting wipes, toilet-bowl cleaners and the new Clorox 2 laundry pre-treater, but the episodes will not feature any use of the products themselves. Instead, each episode will be accompanied by a Clorox-branded vignette showcasing how each brand can help clean up the home, a common task among the characters in "The Possibility Shop."

Yikes, yikes, yikes, on so many levels. First, there's the blatant and clearly over-reaching commercialization, which surely pushes (I would say exceeds) the limits of existing regulations around advertising to kids. But second, and no less disturbing, are the archaic gender discourses that arise from a craft show, most likely targeted to girls and already explicitly targeted to women ("moms"), that is not only sponsored by cleaning products but "commonly" features cleaning as a key theme of the show itself. I'll delve a little deeper into the gender implications after addressing the commercial/regulatory issues. But first, a brief synopsis of The Possibility Shop pilot webisode.

Episode One: Thanksgiving
The first webisode is quite brief. The first segment lasts 3min 26sec, and starts with an introduction of the show and its mission statement by Courtney Watkins, focusing on the current holiday episode and the surrounding web features, which include plenty of ads and links for Clorox products. Following the intro (which just features Courtney talking directly to the audience from a white sound stage) and a short title sequence, is a short episode about finding something to do at the kids' table during Thanksgiving dinner. The activity is presented as a solution to a problem a "girl guide"-like child friend of The Possibility Shop, Ivy, presents to Courtney. The idea is that she'll get a new Thanksgiving-themed badge for creating table "the best Thanksgiving Kids' Table ever." Courtney suggests a game that facilitates turn-based storytelling, which she calls "Fascinating Factoids". A third character, Mix, is involved throughout the exchange, contributing funny quips and some physical comedy. His job at the shop is undefined, but for now he appears to be Courtney's assistant. After demonstrating how the game works, Courtney and Ivy get to work on preparing the game at the crafts table. The camera pans to a "hand puppet" housed in a picture frame on the wall, who gives further instructions and advises the viewer to visit the Family Fun website.

This is followed by a 90 second ad for Clorox, featuring Courtney and Mix, and set within a back room of The Possibility Shop with a large bookcase full of Clorox bleach/laundry detergent and other cleaning products. Mix has some spaghetti sauce on his shirt, which Courtney sees and suggests that he recycle the shirt as fabric for a quilt. As soon as she walks away to do some "Possibility Shopping", Mix hears a disembodied voice from above - "Mother Knowsbest" - who advises him that with the power of Clorox he can save the shirt. She then talks him through a step-by-step spot cleaning session using Clorox, which she describes using the same ever glowing terms featured in Clorox ads and slogans.

The ad segment is followed by another, shorter segment of original content that lasts 1 min 14 sec. This includes a 40 second follow up with Ivy (who tells us the game was a big success), and then a separate segment set in the white sound stage from the introduction, where Courtney suggests using the extra pieces from incomplete puzzles as the basis for a drawing. Just look at it until you're inspired.

The webisode ends with a straight up 30 second ad for the same Clorox laundry detergent featured in the earlier ad segment, featuring a group of young moms touring a Clorox "test lab". The screen then resets back to the first segment.

Neither of the ad segments can be fast forwarded, paused or skipped. If you click on the ad segment while it's playing, a new browser window opens up to a Clorox website. Both ads carry a subtitle-style text warning that the content in question is an advertisement and that the program will resume in x number of seconds (counting down as the ad runs its course). Significantly, when I watched through the entire program a second time, the ad warning was gone. The ability to skip the ad was not.

Possibility Shopping
AdAge hints that while the show may not meet television ad standards, "slightly different rules apply on the web." However, while it's true that slightly different rules apply to the web, I'm doubtful that the show as is meets the FTC- FCC's web standards either, especially in regards to "Host Selling". According to the FCC definition, Host Selling includes "any character endorsement that has the effect of confusing a child viewer from distinguishing between program and non-program material." And as far as web content goes:

The FCC’s rules permit the sale of merchandise featuring a program-related character in parts of a related Web site that are sufficiently separated from the program to mitigate the impact of host selling.

There is certainly very little in terms of "look and feel" to distinguish the Clorox ads from the rest of the content. The setting simply looks like another room in the Possibility Shop, a conclusion supported by Courtney's movements through the scene. The characters are the same ones that appear in the program content, playing the same roles, referring to the same themes (quilting, Possibility Shop, etc.). Even the editing fails to provide a definitive cue that the segments are ads, seeing as the regular content is also broken up into sections, for e.g. switching between the white sound stage and the Possibility Shop. Although there is a text warning that the ads are "advertisements," the warning disappears with repeat viewings. I highly doubt that the show meets the criteria outlined above, even if it is online instead of televised.

Not that this is all that surprising, but the webisode also fails to provide any meaningful content in between its promotions of Clorox. Is it just me, or is there a shocking lack of crafting & creativity? The "Fascinating Factoids" game sounds fun and all, but it doesn't exactly scream craft skills or DIY. Even here, there is little time dedicated to showing kids how to prepare their own versions of the game. The note-sized construction paper cut-outs are already prepared in advance, neatly contained in a fish bowl before Ivy even steps into the room. And just as they're about the show Courtney and Ivy writing out their personal factoids on the paper cut-outs, the camera pans over to a "hand puppet" who gives some brief instruction about asking a parent to write your factoid for you if you can't write clearly enough (which seems wrong somehow, bypassing an opportunity for young writers to practice their craft), and then just promotes the Disney Family Fun website. The game is so simple that it might not need much detailed instruction (although you can download these from another page on the Possibility Shop website), but the lack of any substantial guidance or instruction - both for the factoid game and for the "puzzle piece" idea - just makes the enormous emphasis placed on spot cleaning all the more noticeable.

It also looks as though The Possibility Shop is not the only branded property Disney is trying to build these days. The AdAge article goes on to interview Brad Davis, Disney Online's VP-advertising sales, who describes that:

Disney sites have gotten more flexible in partnering with advertisers in recent months. A partnership with Walmart called "Rock Out Your Zone" made its debut in June on Disney.com and promoted Walmart's teen-targeted furniture line, Your Zone.

"Everything we've created before that has been Disney-driven. Now we've flipped that model where in our case we're creating the product with the advertiser's needs in mind and with the [online] guest's benefit," Mr. Davis said.

As for Clorox, they maintain in the article that the "intended audience is moms, but Ms. Liu [a representative from Clorox's digital media arm] said she expects they will view the webisodes with their kids." Clearly, the tone and mode of address taken in the Thanksgiving webisode is aimed at children - you don't tell a mom to ask her parents to help her write out a factoid. But this does highlight a pretty strange facet of the show - the nature of the sponsor product itself. Laundry detergent with bleach isn't exactly something you want kids getting into, and since there's very little in the program to either indicate that the product placement/host selling is aimed at selling a product OR that it is intended only for adult viewers, this particular nuance seems more like a PR attempt to hide the glaring contradictions of a very iffy marketing strategy.

The AdAge article doesn't comment too much on this, but they do admit that "Products such as toilet-bowl cleaners may seem like a stretch for integration with Muppets." And a bit of a stretch for a kids' show, no?

Craft and Clean
A deeper consideration of the product itself brings me back to my second point, which is the gender politics of a show that tries to integrate play & crafts with cleaning at all, but particularly in a show that seems to be so clearly targeted to girls. In follow up to my post a couple of weeks ago, there is a long history of problematic links between girls' "craft" toys and domesticity, the implications of which seem to be epitomized in a craft show that so heavily emphasizes cleaning and laundry. This includes implications in terms of the continued instrumentalization of girls' play -- play that emphasizes productive outcomes rather than fun and enjoyment -- along with the ongoing emphasis found within girls' culture on activities that work to reproduce and reinforce traditional ideals of "femininity" and "domesticity".

Despite the fact that the cleaning scene depicted in this particular webisode features a man as the one actually doing the cleaning, the associations are much clearer here than in most of what I've seen so far in the commercial construction of "kids craft culture" (by which I mean media and products aimed at commercializing arts & craft....not to be confused with the cultural practice itself). First, Mix cleans under the instructions of the disembodied female voice of "Mother Knowsbest" (a strategy often used in television ads for cleaning products as well, wherein the man doesn't know how to clean and a woman or voiceover shows him how). Second, in positioning itself toward a predominantly female audience (though we'll have to wait and see the ads, etc., to draw any final conclusions about the demographics of the child component of the target audience), its underlying message of play and cleaning as a) intertwined and b) appropriate activities must also be seen as necessarily aimed at female viewers.

Of course, many would say that learning to clean up after oneself is a key lesson that all kids should learn, one that stands in stark contrast to the larger commercial culture's promotion of hedonism, waste and ephemera. But the messages being communicated in Possibility Shop must be seen within the larger historical & social contexts specific to girls' culture, wherein cleaning, care taking and home making are not only prevalent but often hegemonic - squeezing out alternatives until you're left with a bright pink girls' toy aisle that could serve as a diorama of western gender stereotypes. For example:



This is hardly the only Disney initiative that contributes to this regressive approach found throughout girls' culture. But it is a particularly sad missed opportunity to make some of those links between crafting and empowerment discussed in my previous post on this topic.

Important note - there are a couple of other things I noticed that are perhaps worth mentioning. Not only is Mix the one depicted cleaning the shirt, but Courtney actually proposes turning the stained shirt into a quilt rather than try to clean it. She also doesn't hear the voice of "Mother Knowsbest," and although she moves in and out of the ad segment compiling a "Possibility Shopping List," she doesn't engage with the Clorox products in any way. She doesn't even look at them. I'm not sure what this distancing is supposed to imply, but reading through Courtney Watkins' very non-commercial website, there may be a hint of tension here in terms of the different interests going into the show's production, or evidence of some underlying awareness of traditional gender roles/representation and the need to avoid going too far with the associations. I admit that this is perhaps wishful thinking on my part, and perhaps even part of the advertising strategy to avoid sullying Courtney's image with product shilling, but nonetheless worth keeping an eye on in the episodes to come. [**Note: I was waiting for today to post about this because the Possibility Shop site said there would be a new episode today, but there seems to be some sort of delay. I'll try to update this post once the next show becomes available]

The companies involved are treading on pretty tenuous ground with this one, so this particular show may not be around for much longer. Then again, it could also just as likely evolve into a full blown television series. Seeing as the FCC recently held a public consultation on product placement in kids media (check out Shaping Youth's filing here), the time seems pretty ripe for a crack down on these kinds of initiatives. But, of course, the precedence isn't all that good when it comes to extending media regulation these days. Either way, however, I'm dismayed to see Disney barreling down this particular trajectory.

Rethinking Domesticity in Girls' Lives and Play Cultures

This week I've been thinking a lot about the changing (and not so changing) role of "domesticity" (traditional notions of femininity, home/private sphere, keeping house, proper etiquette, gender roles, aesthetics, etc.) in the lives of girls and women, particularly within the realm of leisure. This is in large part due to the fact that my lecture this week was on "technologies of empowerment," looking at how women are using traditional and new technologies -- often in combination -- to challenge status quo, gender politics, and gender role expectations...as well as to construct new ways of engaging with social institutions (such as markets) and techno-politics. A key theme was how technologies (& technological practices) that have traditionally been designated as "feminine" and/or associated with women (such as looms and knitting needles) share many of the same formal characteristics as key digital technologies, including computer software and networks. While I feel optimistic and very enthusiastic about these developments, at the same time I can't help but be reminded of the very different ways many of these same traditionally feminine technologies have historically appeared within girls' play culture as modes of domestication and containment. Now I'm left wondering how these two areas might be reconciled -- on the one hand to add some perspective to the optimism that surrounds handmade/DIY feminist culture, and on the other hand to produce a more progressive approach to a tendency within girls' play culture that can otherwise seem quite regressive.

I think the best way to start this discussion is to first provide a better explanation of the contents of the above-mentioned lecture. As I may have mentioned here before (and as indicated in the sidebar), I'm currently teaching a fourth-year seminar course called "Women and New Information Technologies" at the School of Communication, SFU. This week, I presented some of the themes raised in Sadie Plant's "Future Looms: Weaving women and cybernetics" (here's a link to a GoogleBooks excerpt), by examining both the parallels between traditional women's craftwork (such as weaving, embroidery, knitting, etc.) and computing technologies, as well as the ways in which these traditional practices are currently being reclaimed and reinvented by young women as part of a variety of cultural practices, business ventures, and forms of feminist community-building and activism. Here are a couple of examples to illustrate what I mean by this:

Handmade Nation
A key example (in my lecture at least) is the Handmade/Arts and Crafts movement, which links with contemporary feminism in a variety of ways, not least of which is the potential the movement contains for alternative economic models. One of the sources we "looked at" (although I couldn't get a hold of a full licensed copy in time for a screening - it just came out 2 weeks ago!), was a new documentary by Faythe Levine called Handmade Nation, which chronicles the resurgence of traditional craft-making across North America. Levine also co-authored a companion piece with Cortney Heimerl last year entitled Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design, published with the Princeton Architectural Press. The film and book focus on interviews Levine conducted with crafters and artists across the US, the vast majority of whom are women who have combined traditional practices (albeit oftentimes with a very contemporary spin, e.g. skull and cross bone doilies) and new info technologies to establish both a new crafting community and burgeoning neo-artisan economy. As described on the publisher website:

Participants in this community share ideas and encouragement through websites, blogs, boutiques, galleries, and craft fairs. Together they have forged a new economy and lifestyle based on creativity, determination, and networking.

Open Source Embroidery
Another example I looked at in this lecture is a project/art collective called Open Source Embroidery. Founded in 2005 by postdoctoral researcher Ele Carpenter, the project was created to explore and support artists engaged in investigating the relationships between embroidery and programming. As the website describes, Open Source Embroidery is "based on the common characteristics of needlework crafts and open source computer programming: gendered obsessive attention to detail; shared social process of development; and a transparency of process and product." Very interesting. Here's an excerpt from an article in Wired about the project:

The movement brings together knitters, embroiderers and quilters who see parallels between the way they create their crafts and how open source software creators share their ideas. At the BildMuseet at Umeå University in Sweden, an exhibition — also called Open Source Embroidery — showcases artworks that use embroidery and code as a tool for participatory production and distribution.

“The idea of collaboration has been made cool by open source software,” says Carpenter, the curator of the exhibition. “But artists have been working like this for a long time.”

Even the differences between needlework crafts and open source software are alike, she says. Embroidery is largely dominated by women, while software is created mostly by men, she says. In embroidery, tiny stitches come together to create a pattern visible on the front of the fabric, while its system is revealed on the back. It’s similar to how software is created.

There is of course some argument about how "alternative" these practices really are, and some good feminist challenges to the purported empowerment and progressive politics (if any) that they ultimately bring about. But from what I've seen, they do indeed seem to represent an alternative to (rather than support of) the status quo, one that contrasts in important ways with the liberal feminist approach of making space for women within existing structures/institutions. By creating new spaces and new structures within which women and men can redefine workplace norms, opportunity, and expectations, and thereby challenge outdated (patriarchal) structures -- not from within, but rather on their own terms -- these practices do become political in ways that extend far beyond leisure or a nostalgia-laden aesthetic trend. As such, they could indeed represent a key facet of an emerging political movement.

And while Handmade Nation and sites like Etsy (and the surrounding debate about women and Etsy) and the like focus specifically on craft work, there are also a number of links between Arts&Crafts and various other forms of DIY and the hidden productive practices of women and girls -- from music and film production, to girl's bedroom culture, to open source and hacker cultures. There are also some very interesting overlaps between craft/DIY and women's lifestyle sports subcultures, particularly in sports that have traditionally been male-dominated, such as snowboarding (e.g. Holly Thorpe's article on female snowboarding "feminizing" their gear with hand-knitted toques and other customizations).

In giving some further consideration to these themes and ideas, however, I've become quite caught up in the paradox that emerges when the discourses of empowerment/feminism/community contained within much of the handmade/DIY movement are contrasted with feminist discussions of girls' play. Here, I'm thinking about all the research into girls' commercial culture and toy culture that reveals the enormous emphasis that has been placed on instrumental activities, domesticity and the development of traditionally feminine skills as the most "appropriate" use of girls' leisure time. Within girls' culture, the emphasis placed on tea parties, play kitchen sets, sewing and the like, all become examples of how girls play is shaped by an ethos of "domesticity", which operates both as a ideological justification for girls' confinement within the home (with indoor play & domestic themes portrayed as natural choices for girls' play), as well as the systematic instrumentalization of their play and leisure (play that is geared towards a purposive end (namely of training girls to be future mothers/wives) rather than "play for play's sake").

So my question has become - can these two areas be reconciled within a feminist theory of/approach to play, and if so how?

Starting Out Points
- Arts&Crafts is a key area of kids' toy/play culture, with girls' targeted with a plethora of sewing/stamping/beading/knitting games - ranging from plastic pretend kitchen sets and sewing machines, to semi-functional Easy-Bake ovens and very basic Singer sewing machines, to more-or-less fully functional embroidery sets and the like. While the marketing for these objects is often quite stereotypical, you do see quite a bit of them promoted as educational toys or "alternative" toys as well. Are there links between the current Arts&Crafts movement and the tradition of arts&crafts in kids' (and primarily girls') leisure? If so, where and how are these links promoted? How could girls' toys/leisure be more firmly incorporated into the discourses of empowerment enjoyed by the older girls and women who are engaged in this subculture?

- If purposive leisure is indeed a better conduit into the emerging structures of the "information society" - artisan markets, open source, immaterial labour, the blurring of traditional boundaries between play/work public/private - are we in fact seeing an expansion of traditions established within girls' play culture and women's "leisure" (always a contested category as women have historically enjoyed less leisure, engaged in more purposive leisure, and have more often multi-tasked chores and leisure) into the lives of boys and men?

- Read through the work done by Ludica - this group has done some fascinating work examining some of these themes, particularly in regards to girls' play, gendered relationships with space (domestic, public and digital) and digital games. For example, their article A Game of One's Own examines conceptions of play space from a female perspective.

All I have for now are some preliminary ideas - there are obvious overlaps and obvious starting points, as you can see from my rudimentary list above, but at a theoretical level the empowering dimensions of craft work do seem to trouble my emerging definition of "domesticization" as the form of social rationalization currently taking place within children's digital play (extending from girls' play traditions into boy's play as well through virtual worlds and transmedia intertexts that transform play into a form of consumption/affective labour). Perhaps it is within the vocational/non-alienated labour implications of women's craftwork that its potential emerges??? Perhaps it is the lack of alternatives within girls' commercial play culture (as it is constructed within commercial and social discourses only - I do not mean to ignore girls' and parents' very real ability to choose toys outside of the pink aisle) that makes the emphasis on purposive play so limiting??? More to come as I think these issues through a little more, and in the meantime I welcome any points of discussion or challenges in the comments section below that might be of use in making sense of these questions.

If this is of interest, you might also want to read a previous post I wrote on my "under construction" idea about domesticization as a parallel system of social rationality within modern society.

Here are some examples of the kinds of girl's toys I'm talking about:

Transmedia Expansions from Fairies to Fairy Godmothers

There's been so much "buzz" around the Disney Fairies, Tinkerbell and Pixie Hollow these past couple of weeks I don't even know where to start. I was initially thinking of posting about Tinkerbell's recent "makeover" (which actually isn't a makeover but rather just a new additional outfit she appears wearing in the new Disney Fairies direct-to-DVD Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure), perhaps in comparison with other much discussed revamps of girls' culture characters Dora the Explorer, Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite. But style is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the new media powerhouse emerging out of the Fairies/Tinkerbell/Pixie Hollow media brand, which just seems to keep growing in both reach and success since the site's launch a couple of years ago.

Some of the more interesting/important developments right now revolve around the launch of the second Tinkerbell-based DVD, which of course comes with its own Nintendo DS tie-in game, both of which in turn tie-in to the Pixie Hollow virtual world. According to the press release, the new game creates even more linkages with the virtual world than the previous title (i.e. the original game/DVD released last fall). Considering how much of the virtual world (features and activities) are now exclusive to paid subscribers, this likely also ties in nicely with the velvet rope marketing model the site has increasingly oriented itself toward to accord with the VW's gains in population base and popularity. Here's an excerpt about the tie-in features taken from the press release (as published on Business Wire:

Unique to this year’s game is the ability for players to create and personalize up to five of their own fairies, from facial features to hair accessories, each with different talents focusing on tinkering, light, water, animal and gardening. One of those fairies can be uploaded onto the Disney Fairies Pixie Hollow (PixieHollow.com) virtual world from Disney Online, where visitors worldwide have created more than 22 million fairy avatars. Players are then able to use their DS fairy to go on quests, play talent games and gather items within the PixieHollow.com world.

Players can also embark on an online quest that ultimately unlocks a special item on both platforms and they can add ingredients gathered in the DS game to their collection on PixieHollow.com. The two platforms are now linked through up-to-date news and polls, dispatched from the online world directly to DS.

In addition, Disney Fairies: Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure includes DGamer, the online community exclusive to Disney gamers on Nintendo DS, allowing players to connect with others and unlock Fairy-themed items in their DS game.

Interesting to see that Disney is still updating DGamer - I haven't checked in on that game/site in awhile, it might be time for a return visit to see if things have improved or expanded much since its soft launch last year. But anyway, without seeing them firsthand, the cross-platform features sound a lot like the Club Penguin virtual world/DS game campaign built around Secret Agents that emerged soon after Disney acquired the site. I think it might be time for a more formal comparison of the ways in which these tie-ins function, are marketed, and impact the virtual world space/community.

Another esp. noteworthy Tinkerbell news story that also (surprisingly, or perhaps even shockingly) ties into the launch of the Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure DVD is the UN's announcement naming Tinkerbell an "Honorary Ambassador of Green". And then the UN screened the film at its New York headquarters, making it the site of the DVD's "world premiere". Bizarre! Here's an excerpt from the UN press release:

The United Nations today named the Disney animated character Tinker Bell an “Honorary Ambassador of Green” to help promote environmental awareness among children. The announcement came just prior to a screening at UN Headquarters in New York of the world premiere of the Walt Disney animated film, “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure.”

“We're delighted Tinker Bell has agreed to be our Honorary Ambassador of Green,” said Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information. “This beloved animated character can help us inspire kids and their parents to nurture nature and do what they can to take care of the environment.”

Today's event is intended to promote environmental awareness in the lead-up to the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December, where countries will aim to 'seal the deal' on a new global agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Okay...I had no idea that the UN was now part of the Disney promotional machine. I mean, using a beloved children's character as a kid-targeted "ambassador" is only ambiguously different from using a celebrity or sports hero, and there are of course promotional undertones anytime a media persona (real or fictional) gets involved in a campaign like this. Identifying Tinkerbell or any other Disney character built around the promotion of pro-environment values is in itself not so troubling - I've had these discussions with Amy Jussel before about using children's media characters to promote healthy foods. and overall I'm still open to the idea of using icons and themes from kids' culture for pro-social, pro-health and pro-environment type purposes. But all of that aside, it's the fact that this particular initiative announcement came as part of the promotional spectacle of the movie's (and game, books, toys, etc.) "premiere" (i.e. release date) that really stands out as odd, off and unworthy of the UN. This announcement is much too deeply embedded in the marketing of the film and much too in conformity with Disney's promotional interests to be seen as anything but a new and disturbing form of product placement.

Can't get enough Tinkerbell news? Disney Fairies is also an iPhone app now. Hmmm - there sure are a lot of kids' games coming in as iPhone apps. Looking forward to reading some research on parent/child co-use of iPhone devices for (cooperative?) gaming. ************Nov.5th update: And on that note, here are some emerging statistics courtesy of MarketingCharts, which indicate that: "More than 59% of US mothers who own an iPhone say they let their children use it, and 61% of these moms download games or educational content specifically for their kids." Hmmm - and what about dads?********

Not that Disney is the only one playing the transmedia game these days. The examples are endless. A recent, and also fairy themed venture Jan Bozarth's "Fairy Godmother Academy" book series/transmedia brand. As Omar L. Gallaga writes in yesterday's Statesman, Bozarth's book deal with Random House resulted from how well argued and organized her online/multimedia tie-ins were in her initial proposal; tie-ins that came with an existing media team at the "ready to begin work." Gallaga writes:

The staff is made up of designers and artisans whom Bozarth has worked with for about 15 years — the people she says she could trust to translate her detailed fantasy world into what Bozarth and the team call "Transmedia."

Explains Mario Champion, FGA's creative and technical director, "'Transmedia' is a shorthand way of saying the way kids play in a connected age. It's not just that it's digital — it's that it's connected."

Such connected media might mean a part of the Web site where girls can ask questions about or communicate with characters from the books, design their own virtual clothing or participate in a "Million Girl Choir," downloading audio tracks created by friends to combine with their own for a digital duet.

The ambitious project, which the team says will be rolled out over several years as the books are published, combines elements of massively multiplayer online games like "Club Penguin" with design tools, interactive music and video, and activities meant to get readers off the computer and into real-world activities with friends.

The interviews with the designers is well worth the read -- their comments tie into the whole girls' games discourse quite nicely and they have some interesting things to say about making space for UGC, craft and dress-up play, etc. But I can't help but sigh at the suggestion that transmedia is something new or innocuous or kid-based. Kids might play well with transmedia intertexts, but let's please not blame them for multi-modal branding. And the vast majority of the time the texts themselves are designed to maximize cross-promotion and incite multiple sites of consumption, rather than truly experiment with or tap into the opportunities contained within children's transmedia play practices.

I do like how the team presents its vision for the site/book/game, but only a thorough review of the contents themselves will tell if this is just another promotional strategy or something that's actually unique and postmodern. In particular, I think that future reviews (my own or yours) of the Fairy Godmother Academy's online components should focus on testing the following three statements that appear in Gallaga article:

"We're aiming to create a place where the books are a jumping-off place into this world of play and discovery, and of girls finding their own wisdom." ( - Ann Woods, art director of the Web site)

Here, the focus should be on opportunities for UGC or inter-user communication, flexibility of the system, opportunities for uploading original materials without usurping the kids' authorship or IP. Are kids able to engage with and subvert the source materials? If not, how are the books serving as a jumping off place. Where's the "discovery" occurring and what parameters are being placed on it?

In one example of the team's work, girls have the ability to not only choose virtual clothing, but to design it themselves.

What does 'design it themselves' amount to? Are we talking customization or real opportunities for original creations. If it's the former, what is the range of freedom and creativity afforded by the design/options available. What's the palette, what "sizes" are available, etc.?

"It's an intriguing balance," Woods said. "We never dumb down to girls."

This one's a bit harder to give a brief guideline for - what are some good ways to question or identify how games/sites "dumb down to girls" in their language and design. Then again, this might be the most intuitive one to detect. I'd love to see/read some good descriptions of what dumbing down is and what it looks like, so I'll leave this one open.


********On a totally different note:
Also, has anyone been watching the Jim Henson Company's new kids' animated TV program Dinosaur Train? Catchy tunes, cute characters, and some cleverly integrated educational content - I'm sure there are a zillion commercial tie-ins current or in development to consider and critique here too, but in the meantime the series itself seems delightful, intelligent and very Jim Henson-esque. Definitely worth keeping an eye on. Here's a clip to start the week off on a foot-tappingly good note.

Kids Mobile Play: Nick Goes Mobile

By way of David Kaplan, over at MocoNews, another spat of new developments over at Nickelodeon....this time in the area of mobile content. The company plans on launching three new mobile websites, which will tie-in with existing Nickelodeon branded content. Each site will be targeted toward a different demo - one for kids, one for teens and one for parents. Kaplan thinks that a heavier emphasis will be placed on the sites/properties aimed at teens and adults, as they represent the bulk of existing cell phone users, but I suspect that the kids market will be targeted quite aggressively. The children's industries have been trying to establish a kids' mobile market in North America for a couple of years now, and Nickelodeon has been particularly successful in using cross-media convergence strategies to continuously devise new ways to infiltrate kids' lives.

Kaplan further provides a summary of an interview he conducted with Viacom's Steve Youngwood, who described Nickelodeon's mobile strategy in terms of a "multi-pronged approach", although it's not immediately evident how their site will differ from the plethora of kid-oriented cross-media brands currently spreading through the kids' digital media culture. The mobile website (in beta since late 2007), "represents the juncture of the group’s gaming and mobile focus." As Kaplan describes, the Nickelodeon WAP site will initially contain around 25 casual games, with more on the way. The company is planning to use a (*gasp*) ad-based revenue model. On this, Youngwood assures us that “Because of the sensitives associated with kids and advertising, we try to be proactively responsible by clearly identifying what is and isn’t an ad. This is all part of a continuous dialogue with our users and their parents”. We'll see.

You can read more of Kaplan's interview with Youngwood over at PaidContent.org, and find out more about Nickelodeon's emerging mobile properties here. I've been amassing a ton of info about kids and mobiles over the past two months, and will be posting a lot more on this topic in the very near future.

Virtual-to-Real World Play

March 11, 2008: Big oops! So, yesterday I mistakenly posted the article that I was trying to link to instead of posting my own write-up, an error I didn't notice until just now. Yikes! That original post was written by Virtual Worlds News, a great source for gaming news and for keeping track of the evolution of the virtual worlds industry. So, here's take two on Virtual-to-Real World Play.

******
By way of Virtual Worlds News, some nice liveblogging coverage of last month's Worlds in Motion Summit. The Summit itself included a number of fascinating talks from some of the world's leading game producers and designers, who discussed everything from advergames and virtual markets in Habbo Hotel, to content and technological convergence within various game environments. Of particular interest was a talk given by MindCandy's Michael Acton Smith on "Thinking Outside Virtual Worlds" and the company's newest game/toy/project Moshi Monsters -- a new virtual-to-real world kids' property that I first reported on in December, and set to launch sometime over the next couple of weeks. Like many of its contemporaries, Moshi Monsters bridges different forms of mediated play, using a "virtual pet" as the anchor. What I find unique about this project, is that the brand is incorporating mobile devices from the get-go, resulting in a property that (according to Virtual Worlds News) Acton Smith describes as "Tamagotchi mixed with Facebook and a little bit of Big Brain thrown in."

Commenting on the success of Webkinz, which although impressive still lags behind traditional toys such as Beanie Babies, Smith had this to say:

"So why, as a game designer, should we care? Why should we bother thinking beyond the screen?" Smith posited. One reason is that toy tie-ins are not only an additional revenue source, but they allow for a deeper connection with the users.

To which he added (according to VWN):

"I believe there’s still a huge amount of opportunity left in this space,” said Smith.

Game designers, though, need to start thinking “beyond the screen.” The revenue stream has too much potential not to. “More importantly,” said Smith, “it allows consumers to connect to our worlds and create more engagement and, hopefully, more fun.”

What makes online pets different from earlier, non-digital versions is, Acton Smith believes, their high levels of interactivity:

Setting online pets apart from Furbies...is the ease of interaction. From Webkinz to MyePets to Moshi Monsters, interaction is key. MindCandy, for example, is adding widgets aimed at its older audience to tie their pet experience to Facebook or Bebo. Once users add friends, the creatures will socialize even when the users are offline, generating a Facebook-style newsfeed to track activity.

For the younger audience, MindCandy is adding "stealth education” with changing vocabularies and puzzles tied to the in-game currency of “rocks,” with monsters adding new puzzles for their owners every day.

In terms of the larger industry trends, here's a quick run-down of what Acton Smith and Virtual Worlds News had to say about the key players in this area and where they've focused their virtual-to-real play efforts [****Note, this list is great, but incomplete - I can already think of a few that are missing, and will work on providing a more comprehensive list as soon as I get a chance****]:

- Webkinz: The plush toys for starters, as well as figurines, lip gloss, and other licensed products to monetize the interest in the brand.

- BarbieGirls.com and Be-Bratz: Are targeting older. Toys and accessories already available, more to follow.

- Collectible cards: A number of properties are expanding this way, including Bella Sara, Chaotic, Maple Story, and World of Warcraft.

- Virtual Paper Dolls and IRL (Fashion) Design: Moo.com (with Habbo), Stardoll, Zazzle, and FigurePrints.com all provide different tools that allow users to bring virtual fashions into the real world: by printing avatars on a T-shirt, or designing avatar clothes that can then be made IRL for the player, designing your own avatar-based figurine, etc.

- TestTubeAliens.com: Toy that detects screen patterns when held up to the computer screen, changing the mood of the "test tube alien" inside.

- UbFunKeys: Similar to Webkinz, but with plastic figurines instead of plush toys.

- Tamagotchi: Relaunched and updated to include an online world.

- Me2: According to VWN "A motion sensor that records your physical activity and then points to your virtual character at home, potentially promoting activity away from the sedentary lifestyle."

- iBuddy or Ambient Devices’ gadgets: Which "interface with your computer or environment to provide you more information, creating more of an augmented reality than a straight up virtual world, but creating possibilities, said Smith, for giving feedback to users away from their avatars."

To this we could add Neopets, which has long had its own line of plush toys, interactive figurines, collectible cards and console tie-in games...as well as Barbie i-Design and a slew of others...

...Including many of the properties represented in the last panel of the summit, which was (appropriately enough) entitled "Striking Gold: How Kids’ Worlds Took the Crown". The panel (moderated by game journalist Leigh Alexander) brought together a nunmber of heavy hitters within the kids' digital play landscape, including Paul Yanover (of Disney Online), Lane Marrifield (co-founder of Club Penguin), Jason Root (Senior VP of Nick.com & NickatNite.com) and Kyra Reppen (Senior VP of Neopets). Again, this is primarily a summary of first-hand coverage (to which I will add comments at a later date or incorporate into something else), this time provided by the Worlds in Motion blog, which I've divided up into the key questions/themes that appear (from reading the coverage at least) to have driven the discussion.

On the question of how each company initially decided to focus on the kids' market:

Paul Yanover (Disney): "[S]tarted off from "[the] revisionist side of things." In the 90's, Disney Imagineers began experimenting with virtual reality and “though that didn’t really pan out, that team built great tech and art” eventually those ideas became Toontown."

Lane Marrifield (Club Penguin): ""We didn’t have an identity to start with, other than we had kids." He discussed looking at what was available for kids, what they liked, what they didn’t." [We] map every decision we make around the experience of six year olds, well, my six year old really."

Jason Root (Nickelodeon): They "Saw patterns on how kids were using our site, and the web at large.” 84% of kids are playing games online. “We wanted to evolve into a ‘place’, we wanted to bring those things together” with focus on mixing branded and non-branded content.

Kyra Reppen (Neopets): "[T]here is a "[natural] emotional connection with pets." Their virtual world "just started out being fun, but it's endless how much can be done with it."

On how player loyalty is maintained, as well as how player feedback and input is used:

Kyra Reppen (Neopets): “It’s about listening to the users...we get 30,000 new accounts every day... we need to cater to them, but we also need to take care of the old users who’ve been there for over four years. They have different needs, they’re the experts. So listening to them, making new content every day, keeping them engaged is important. It’s up to us to keep them.”

Paul Yanover: "It’s all about participation, it’s about listening. It’s something they have to have ownership of. We don’t want to project something at them, they need that ownership.”

Jason Root: "For user generated content and professionally created content, it’s about balancing those. Some kids want more of one than the other, but we have to find that balance."

Lane Marrifield: “It [was] a whole different gig. The purist nature of creating something for kids helped set us in the right kind of decision making.... all we hoped [for] was it liked enough that we could build a sustainable business model. We just hired our first marketing person!”

On safety as a key feature (and selling feature):

Lane Marrifield: “We have over 120 people dedicated to the safety of Club Penguin. We don’t mess around with that. We knew that if we were going to build the trust of the parents, there was no margin for error there. Only one incident and it would’ve been over.”

As the Worlds in Motion coverage describes, "The company’s safety program was thorough enough that they were invited to an F.B.I conference on safety to give a talk. "We’re more focused on that then we are on the gaming community.""

On balancing play with profits:

Jason Root: [T]he difficulty lays in, "figuring out how stay true to the audience and [at the same time] how to make a viable business plan... feeding these sites, they need to be tended to."

Kyran Reppen: "It’s hard to get the payment mechanisms in [kids’] hands.” Which, according to the Worlds in Motion article, "is why pre-paid cards for online services have been a boon for them as well as others."

On how to keep kids playing the games as they grow older.

Kyran Reppen: "This generation of kids are growing up with virtual worlds as their play pattern. They’re going to grow up demanding new kinds of play patterns... I can only speak for what Neopets has done, and it speaks to constant innovation."

Lane Marrifield: "Frankly, that's part of the fun. It's not just about building it, it's about sustaining it. It needs to be a labor of love. Kids will smell a disingenuous product from a million miles away... you got to truly care about kids."

New Book Alert: The International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture

An exciting new publication to report on today, co-edited by my supervisor here at the LSE, Sonia Livingstone - in collaboration with Kirsten Drotner - called The International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture. The collection is a sort of response or follow-up to Singer and Singer's Handbook of Children and the Media, by providing both a more international focus, as well as a broader and more up-to-date overview of the various media forms and technologies that inhabit children's culture. It includes chapters by a number of high-profile children's media scholars, including David Buckingham, Mimi Ito and Dafna Lemish, as well as some of my favourite scholars from related disciplines such as toy studies (Dan Fleming), political economy of communication (Janet Wasko), and communication rights research (Cees Hamelink). Here's a copy of the abstract:

This essential volume brings together the work of internationally-renowned researchers, each experts in their field, in order to capture the diversity of children and young people's media cultures around the world. Why are the media such a crucial part of children's daily lives? Are they becoming more important, more influential, and in what ways? Or does a historical perspective reveal how past media have long framed children's cultural horizons or, perhaps, how families - however constituted - have long shaped the ways children relate to media?In addressing such questions, the contributors present detailed empirical cases to uncover how children weave together diverse forms and technologies to create a rich symbolic tapestry which, in turn, shapes their social relationships. At the same time, many concerns - even public panics - arise regarding children's engagement with media, leading the contributors also to inquire into the risky or problematic aspects of today's highly mediated world.

Deliberately selected to represent as many parts of the globe as possible, and with a commitment to recognizing both the similarities and differences in children and young people's lives - from China to Denmark, from Canada to India, and from Japan to Iceland, the authors offer a rich contextualization of children's engagement with their particular media and communication environment, while also pursuing cross-cutting themes in terms of comparative and global trends.Each chapter provides a clear orientation for new readers to the main debates and core issues addressed, combined with a depth of analysis and argumentation to stimulate the thinking of advanced students and established scholars. Since children and young people are a focus of study across different disciplines, the volume is thoroughly multi-disciplinary. Yet since children and young people are all too easily neglected by these same disciplines, this volume hopes to accord their interests and concerns they surely merit.

Really looking forward to reading this one!

Media International Australia: Beyond Broadcasting Now Available

The newest issue of Media International Australia is now out (though available only with subscription, I'm afraid), and provides a collection of articles exploring the special issue theme "Beyond Broadcasting? TV for the Twenty-First Century". Edited by Graham Meikle and Sherman Young (and including a new article by yours truly), the theme articles deal with a variety of issues - policy, cultural, political - currently taking center stage, as television moves away from traditional models and into new practices, technologies and formats. A number of general articles are also included in the issue - of special interest to kids' media researchers is the article by Geoff Lealand and Ruth Zanker describing findings of a recent study of New Zealand children's "media worlds". My own contribution to the issue addresses the shift toward and use of MMOGs by children's television networks, the product of a preliminary study into kids' media convergence I conducted last spring, which I also presented at a couple of conferences in October (UDC and aoir 8.0). Here's the abstract (which might already be somewhat familiar to regular Gamine Expedition readers):

This paper traces the migration of North American children’s television into the realm of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), and the issues this raises in terms of the commercialisation of children’s (digital) play. Through a content analysis of three television-themed MMOGs targeted to children, Nickelodeon’s Nicktropolis, Cartoon Network’s Big Fat Awesome House Party and Corus Entertainment’s GalaXseeds, I examine how this new development within children’s online culture operates in relation to existing industry practices of cross-media integration and promotion. Dominant trends identified in the content analysis are compared with emerging conventions within the MMOG genre, which is generally found to contain numerous opportunities for player creativity and collaboration. Within the cases examined, however, many of these opportunities have been omitted and ultimately replaced by promotional features. I conclude that all three case studies operate primarily as large-scale advergames, promoting transmedia intertextuality and third-party advertiser interests.

Enjoy!

Disney Fairies, On and Offline Play

So this year's American International Toy Fair has now come and gone, with plenty of noteworthy announcements to keep kids' media researchers busy for the next few months (at least!)...Including a number of new developments within the emerging virtual-to-real (or real-to-virtual) toy market, and some interesting news from Disney regarding its Disney Fairies franchise. As covered by Business Wire, Disney has partnered up with Techno Source to produce a line of "Clickables" toys that will tie-in to the Fairies website...soon to become a full-fledged "virtual world". As with other initiatives of this kind (BarbieGirls, Webkinz, be-bratz, etc.), the (stated) goal is "to extend" kids online play into offline playtime, and vice-versa. As Chris Heatherly, VP of Technology and Innovation at Disney Consumer Products, states (as quoted in the Business Wire article):

"The future of toys is about connecting online and offline play. Kids and tweens are quickly embracing virtual worlds and, while there are several Internet-related toys in the market today, the play ends when the computer gets shut down. With our new line of Disney Fairies toys featuring Clickables technology, we're bringing the fun of social networking, collecting, and trading into the real world so that girls can extend the fun of the enchanting online world of Pixie Hollow to school, the park, or wherever they may be."

And how do they plan to achieve this most holy of the holy grails of the children's industries (i.e. branded play)? By embedding, or "naturally aligning," the property within children's "existing play patterns"...and of course by offering "exclusive content" within the virtual world that kids won't be able to access without purchasing one (or all) of the associated products. According to the article, Disney also "hopes that by offering these Internet-connected toys that it will teach girls to share their Fairies and create friendships" - which we can also read as a hope that the "friendship bracelet" theme promoted by the toys will enhance viral marketing within peer groups. Thus, like BarbieGirls, Disney appears to be creating games and toys that more or less depend upon (or one could say exploit) real-life relationships by encouraging word-of-mouth marketing (by requiring that kids find a real-life friend to sign up if they want to access all the site's features, communicate more freely, etc.).

Here's a full list of the tie-in products released to date, courtesy of Gearlog (which you should definitely check out if you want to see some pics of the products themselves):

* Pixie Dust eJewelry Collection: a jewelry box, charm necklace, and three exclusive Disney Fairies charms powered by Clickables technology. When a girl touches a charm to the Clickables center of her jewelry box, it unlocks a unique fairy gift at www.PixieHollow.com, including exclusive clothing and décor.

* Tink Friendship eBracelets: a Fairy Friendship Kit where a girl can select her fairy avatar, a special message, and a gift on the virtual world, and then save it onto her eBracelet to be shared offline with friends. When a girl touches her band to her friend's and presses a button, her band will glow to confirm that a Fairy Friendship has been made!

* Tink's eCharm Bracelet: a customizable charm bracelet and three themed charms. Each charm unlocks a unique, exclusive fairy gift at www.PixieHollow.com.

* Fairy eCharms accessory packs: Each pack contains three themed Disney Fairies eCharms powered with Clickables technology.

* Tink and Friends Fly with Me eLCD: an electronic handheld with five games, letting girls play as their favorite Disney Fairies characters Tinker Bell, Fawn, Iridessa, Silvermist, or Rosetta no matter where they are. Best of all, points earned during gameplay are turned into exclusive Tink Points in the virtual world to use toward clothes or décor.

The toys will be launched to coincide with the release of the upcoming direct-to-DVD animated film based on the franchise, Tinker Bell (so...summer 2008?) and probably with the planned MMO expansion of the site (which will see Disney Fairies transform into Disney Fairies Pixie Hollow). With all this news, we've also been given some new stats on the Disney Fairies franchise, which is by all accounts mushrooming in popularity. According to corporate communication:

* The Disney Fairies site contains just under 5 million unique fairy avatars;

* It attracts 1 million unique visitors every month;

* In 2007 alone, the franchise generated more than $800 million in global retail sales from an array of "merchandise and lifestyle" products, including apparel, toys, electronics, home décor and stationery;

* The over 385 Disney Fairies books that have been published worldwide (in 51 countries) have sold nearly 9.5 million copies;

* Disney Fairies magazines have sold 6 million copies in 40 countries.

From what I've seen and read so far, the site (and/or its planned expansion) reproduces many of the same issues as other branded kids' games, including privacy/safety/freedom of expression trade-offs, cross-media (and cross-product) promotion (fostered through problematic strategies such as collectibles and viral marketing), and potential IP issues as well (depending on the levels of UGC enabled within the upcoming MMOG). That said, the site is a total blast to play and I'm really hoping (with fingers crossed) that the MMOG will maintain the playability and limited commercialization of Disney's Toontown. I'm not too convinced that this is likely, however, as the cross-promotional machine is already in full swing with this one...and even follows a pretty eerily accurate industry prediction made a couple of years ago.

In trying to describe the Disney Fairies franchise to a colleague earlier today, I found myself somewhat trapped in the very intertextuality upon which the brand was launched...the books, the website, now the toys and film, all part of a carefully rolled-out strategy, with no real originating text other than the minimally-defined Tinker Bell character (from Peter Pan and subsequent Disney usage) and some good ideas about character differentiation...mixed in with a few tried-and-true 'fantasy genre' motifs (e.g. elemental magic, etc.) and drawing upon a number of popular digital play forms (virtual paper dolls, MMOGs, etc.). Yet, although the brand is obviously completely embedded in its own cross-promotional synergy, it is this very dynamic that makes it more difficult to analyze than other games/media that start off as one thing, and then become more overtly commercialized through the insertion of third-party advertising or other marketing schemes. Sites/brands like Disney Fairies are tricky because they are -- from the get-go -- primarily promoting themselves...the brand's characters and themes, and consumption of the brand through a myriad of interconnected products, media, and play forms.

As a bit of an aside, I'm really starting to feel that we need a shared term to describe games and toys that converge on and offline play in this way. Suggestions?

For more coverage, check out Izzy Neis' post here, and keep an eye on her excellent and ongoing list of upcoming virtual worlds for kids.

Family Surveillance: Mobile Locators

It seems that news about new mobile locator technologies designed to help parents track their kids -- either via cell phones or some other device -- are being launched almost every other week these days. In the UK especially, news coverage of the devices and their potential "safety" value is frequent and fairly prominent. In a country where one third of under 10s allegedly have their own mobile phone, tacking on surveillance features may appear to be the intuitive next step in "remote parenting"...rather than hassle your kids with a phone call, just look up their GPS coordinates to make sure they are where they said they'd be, etc. Here are a few recent examples of mobile locators in the news:

From SourceWire, a new study by MobileLocators.com found that:

Fears about child abduction have left British mums and dads desperate to keep tabs on their youngsters – and as a result, nearly two thirds have invested in a mobile phone for their offspring.

But many parents are taking security a stage further – by turning to the very latest satellite spy technology to ensure the safety of their kids “on a day-to-day basis”.
[...]
Hundreds of mums and dads have already registered their children’s mobile phone numbers with the website http://www.mobilelocators.com to pinpoint the user’s exact location. And of the 2,100 people polled – two thirds said they would be happy to invest in the new software, no matter how intrusive.

According to the article, however, another third say they don't want their kids to become paranoid about being under constant surveillance, and question the ethics of these types of devices. Although the MobileLocators.com company head says that "concern for security outweighs the worry about the Big Brother phenomenon,” the fact that the survey also found that about a fifth of respondents would also want to use the technology to track their significant others, I'm not so sure that privacy issues are so easily dismissed.

In terms of interesting usage/family dynamics stats, the study also found that most kids get their first mobile phone at age 11 (20% vs. 16% at age ten, 14% at age 12, and 2% at age 4). Among the 43% of parents who wouldn't allow their child to have a mobile, most based this decision on the belief that "the child was “not old enough” to have one." Other reasons given were the fear that having a mobile would attract bullying or theft, that it would lead to text messaging "addictions," or it could cause a brain tumour. In keeping with the industry's emerging party line when it comes to kids and mobiles, however, MobileLocators.com suggests that not allowing kids a phone creates a "“massive” extra workload for security-conscious parents" - who now more than ever (?assuming an increase - not so sure about that) drive their kids around everywhere (20%), don't let their kids out after dark (12%), and get involved in "vetting" their child's friends (defined as "some"). In relaying these stats, however, the article fails to mention any age differences (for example, it's pretty likely the parents of any 4-year-old will drive them everywhere, mobile phone or no), differences over time, or whether these behaviours apply solely to parents who don't give their kids mobiles, or to parents generally. Needless to say, I detect a bit of fear mongering. Keep an attentive eye on the use of the term "peace of mind" within industry discourses and ads.

Case in point, a recent article in The Inquirer on a "Madeleine McCann effect" apparently taking place in the UK, linking the MobileLocators study to the recent high-profile child disappearance/kidnapping of Madeleine McCann. According this article, parents are buying phones for their kids at an increasingly young age in direct response. As for those that don't allow their kids to have a mobile, the reporter blames "that government boffin, Sir William Stewart, specifically advised parents not to give the phones to children under the age of eight." Yikes! Nevermind that a number of well respected medical associations have advised the same thing, or that the debates around mobile phones and health, mobile locators and privacy/surveillance, and even mobiles and safety are still very much in full swing.

The safety issue comes up again within another recent innovation -- mobile monitors. As reported by Actual Technology News Blog, "a handful of companies are rolling out software that they say lets parents monitor communications their kids are having on the phone and hopefully protect them from unwanted advances." Just like Internet filters before them, these products are being sold (or at least promoted) as solutions to new forms of wireless stranger danger:

"All the problems of the Internet are on the cell phone," said Bob Lotter, founder of Newport Beach, Calif.-based eAgency Mobile Solutions, which offers a cell phone monitoring service on mymobilewatchdog.com. "Cyber-bullying, unsolicited sexual advances and child pornography" are all happening on the mobile phone, he said.

While much of the attention is centered on predators using the Internet to stalk children, Lotter and other experts say cell phones are an ideal means for predators because parents often don’t check what’s going on with a child’s cell phone. It's also a device that is commonly used by children out of their parent’s watchful eye.

The article also includes the following quote, which I found particularly interesting:

According to Teri Schroeder, chief executive of iSafe.org, parents need to be aware of any two-way communications whether it's via the Internet or a cell phone. "They have to understand it's high-tech high-touch," she said, noting that text messaging is a "huge" means of communications and with things like global positioning systems built into the phone it's increasingly dangerous for children. "We now have a medium that's intimidating to the parent and challenging parenting skills," she said.

Schroeder's comments point to a pretty important and largely unspoken aspect of these mobile locators -- the lack of regulation and transparency about how the collected data is used, by whom, and what safety measures are applied to ensure that no one but the parent is able to track the kid's phone.

This leads me to another article, one which delves a little more deeply effectiveness issues of and begins to explore the impact they may have on family dynamics and "traditional" values such as honesty, responsibility and trust. It's from a story that was covered on Channel 9 WSYR news (in Syracuse) about the use of GPS locator technologies in the workplace. Perhaps because the topic is introduced in terms of adult employers tracking their adult employees, issues around privacy and the potential detrimental effects of being constantly surveilled are introduced immediately. Near the bottom of the article, the focus shifts onto parents using GPS to track their kids -- listing a number of such services, their cost and more "peace of mind" rhetoric, this time from Jack Pflanz of Sprint/Nextel. After introducing the state of the market, however, the story shifts again, this time placing the focus on one family that tried the technology and have since decided against it. Although definitely of the "human interest story" variety, this part of the article also functions quite effectively in reconnecting the parents/kids dimension of mobile locators back to the employer/employee tracking examined at the start of the article. Here's an excerpt:

Carl Loerzel gave his daughter what every teen wants: a cell phone; but then Carl told Brittany the cell phone plan would allow him to track her movements through GPS technology. "I thought about the mall trips, what if something happens, where is she."

Brittany didn’t think the technology was going to work, and would be able to do what ever she wanted. "That's not how it turned out." Brittany got caught in a lie at one point, caught being where she wasn’t supposed to be. "[My dad] knew exactly where I was; he picked me up, and brought me home. That didn't get me nowhere but grounded."

"I think she understood that, once we talked to her about it, once we got passed the yelling part of it," Carl said. Dad and daughter did a lot more talking following the incident. In fact, they've come to terms and have decided to give relying on talking and tender loving care, instead of GPS.

Brittany says she learned to be honest, and not lie. "If you lie, you're going to get in more trouble." Her dad says he now trusts his daughter a lot more.

Ok, so the way the story plays out, it does appear that having the GPS unit initiated better family communication, and so on, but I think that the important thing is that the family decided to go with honesty over tracking. I wish that the story had examined this change in opinion a little more in depth, but I suspect that it links up to some of the academic studies on parental monitoring, which argue that child disclosure is still the best way to keep track of your kids...Best in terms of the parent-child relationship, the likelihood that the child will engage in "delinquent" behaviour, and in terms of the amount and quality of information that the parent obtains about the kid when she/he is away from home.

In particular, I'm referring to two articles by Stattin and Kerr:
Stattin, Håkan and Margaret Kerr (2000). Parental Monitoring: A Reinterpretation. Child Development, Vol. 71, No. 4, pp. 1072-1085.

and

Kerr, Margaret and Hgakan Stattin (2000). What Parents Know, How They Know It, and Several Forms of Adolescent Adjustment: Further Support for a Reinterpretation of Monitoring. Developmental Psychology Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 366-380.

Their exploration of family surveillance and parental knowledge of children's activities outside the home, have found that much of the information parents obtain about their child's whereabouts and activities come from the children themselves...and that child disclosure, as opposed to parental monitoring and control, is correlated to a number of pro-social variables (as described above -- better parent-child relationships, lower rates of delinquency, better informed parents, etc.), and is much more in line with children's participatory rights and right to privacy. As Stattin and Kerr (2000) describe:

"[H]igh parental knowledge was linked to multiple measures of good adjustment. But children's spontaneous disclosure of information explained more of these relations than parents' tracking and surveillance efforts did. Parents' control efforts were related to good adjustment only after the child's feelings of being controlled, which were linked to poor adjustment, were partialed out.

This has led them to conclude that:

"[T]racking and surveillance is not the best prescription for parental behavior and that a new prescription must rest on an understanding of the factors that determine child disclosure."

More to come!

Mobile Regulation: In the News

From the Times Online, some early coverage of an issue that appears to have come up quite a bit at the recent 2008 Mobile World Congress: how to protect kids from accessing innappropriate content on their mobiles. Of key concern at the congress and throughout industry discourses around this issue appears to be coming up with a "self-regulatory solution" before any form of new government regulation can be introduced. As seen last month in the UK, for example, where Ofcom and the Children's Charities' Coalition for Internet Safety (CHIS) announced their intention to review its industry's voluntary code of conduct for mobile content. According to the Times article:

A spokesman for Ofcom said: "To ensure that children continue to receive appropriate protection, Ofcom is working with the CHIS and the mobile operators to review the voluntary code of conduct for mobile content." A report is expected in the summer.

Mobile phone ownership among the young is common, with a million under-10s in the UK — one in three — now owning one, according to figures from mobileYouth, a research consultancy. Separate figures from Ofcom found that 32 per cent of children aged 8-11 regularly use a mobile.

The access that the latest phones provide to the internet — often away from parental supervision — was cited last year as an increasing concern in a report by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, a branch of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, which is dedicated to combating child abuse.

Flash forward a couple of weeks, to the Mobile Congress and the announcement that:

Europe's mobile phone operators are joining forces to obstruct access to child sexual abuse websites. Leading operators, including Vodafone, Orange and 3, will announce plans today to install technology in their networks that will bar access to thousands of blacklisted sites.

Efforts to ban access to these sites has focused on service providers such as BT, which offer internet services via personal computers, but with internet access increasingly becoming a standard feature on mobile phones, the phone operators are facing increased pressure to take action on their networks.

Under the scheme, which is being spearheaded by the GSMA, the mobile industry's global trade body, customers who, inadvertently or otherwise, try to access illegal sites will be directed to a police warning notice or will be presented with a message saying that the site is not available.

The participating companies will also provide hotlines for customers to report any child sexual abuse content discovered via their mobile phones.

The scheme is backed by Vivian Reding, the European Telecoms Commissioner.

An obvious preemptive move -- but what democratic process produced the "blacklisted" sites, I wonder, and how will the "technology" function...can it be customized, what are the defaults, and how (and by whom) were these decisions made?

Vancouver Province Article on Virtual Worlds for Kids

Last week, I was interviewed by Lena Sin of the Vancouver Province about kids' online games, commercialization and market research. We had a nice long chat about the various issues that arise within children's gaming sites, a chunk of which is featured in Sin's article on virtual worlds for kids, which appears in today's issue. Here's an excerpt:

Sara Grimes, a PhD candidate at SFU whose research is centred on children's evolving relationship with new technology, said parents can easily be lulled into a sense of safety because media companies are careful not to raise red flags with violent or sexual content on children's sites.

"What they are doing is using this notion of a safe or fun area that's really kid-appropriate to advertise heavily and also conduct market research in almost every aspect of the sites," said Grimes.

Advertising and marketing techniques run the gamut of placing a simple ad on the screen -- which Webkinz did for the first time last October to much outcry -- to actually incorporating products into the game.

You can read the rest of the article here. Thanks to Lina for her clear and succint coverage of the topic, as well as her excellent summation of my comments...which I'm sure were actually much more rambling than they appear in the final text.

CARU Cracks Down

By way of KidAdLaw, news about a number of recent decisions made by the US-based Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU), an industry self-regulatory board which monitors compliance to FCC and FTC regulation on children's advertising. The first involves potentially deceptive advertising aimed at children promoting the Nintendo Wii and Mario Party 8. As the KidAdLaw article decribes:

The Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) reviewed a website ad featuring the game system and the "Mario Party 8" game, advertised as part of a campaign titled, "Wii Would Like to Play." The ad in question featured groups of four people-a family, office mates and young girls at a slumber party-playing Mario Party 8, each with a separate remote control. However, each Wii game console only comes with one remote control.

"CARU was concerned that children watching the advertising at issue could be confused by what is included in the initial purchase of the Wii game system," CARU stated in a summary of its review.

Nintendo said the ad had run its course, and would be pulled from the website. The company also agreed to consider CARU's guidelines.

Interestingly, in the review press release, CARU describes that Nintendo also used industry norms as a justification for the ad in its response:

"Nintendo noted that the advertising at issue was consistent with longstanding industry disclosure practices for marketing of video game systems, games and accessories. However, the company said, it has reviewed its TV advertising guidelines in consideration of CARU’s comments.

This last part is particularly interesting when one considers how industry standards can slowly morph into regulatory standards...which seems to be the underlying argument within Nitendo's mention of this fact in its defense. The fact that deceptive advertising practices are a "longstanding industry disclosure practice" is hardly something to brag about.

The second decision was aimed at kids' sport-themed site called JunkBall, which got a warning about its privacy policy. According to KidAdLaw:

The website, which features promotions and articles on sports products, contained a sign-up feature for "Junk Ball E-News." The sign-up page included the statement that "I am at least 13 years of age," and provided "yes" and "no" options for users to select. A child who clicked "no" was unable to proceed, but he or she could re-select "yes" to register.

COPPA requires site operators to obtain parental consent before gathering personally identifiable information from children who are under 13.

According to the CARU press release:

CARU, in its initial inquiry, questioned whether the Website was properly age screening to determine if parental consent was necessary and whether the site potentially collected personally identifiable information from children without first receiving verifiable parental consent. CARU also questioned whether the operator was collecting more information than was necessary for the e-newsletter.

As a result of its inquiry, CARU recommended that the site tighten privacy controls and better ensure parental consent. It also suggested that the site operator:

...request all previous recipients of the E-newsletter either re-register or be unsubscribed. CARU recommended the Website delete all information for users who fail to re-register.

In response, the site's operators, Little Kids Inc., pulled the e-newsletter feature. However, it sounds like they disagree with the idea of deleting information already collected from users:

The company, in its advertiser's statement, said it disagrees with CARU’s findings, but "appreciates CARU’s observation and suggestions concerning the Junk Ball Website and shares CARU’s goals of protecting children’s privacy."

The third review involved a book published by Discovery Girls magazine, called the Girl's Survival Guide 2007. CARU has asked the magazine to review an ad it had run promoting the book which "urged readers to "order now ... before it's too late" and described the price with qualifiers such as "only" and "just"," asking them to "tone down" their marketing. As described in the CARU press release:

At the outset of its inquiry, CARU questioned whether the advertisement created a sense of urgency for children to purchase the product by employing such language as "order now" and "before it's too late," in violation of CARU's guidelines on sales pressure. Further, CARU questioned the use of the words "only" and "just" to describe the price of the item.

In response, Discovery Girls Inc. has stated that it would accept the CARU's decision and modify their advertising in accordance with CARU guidelines. Of course, as with the Wii decision, it seems that this review may have come a little late...seeing as the book in question is a 2007 "survival guide", which may or may not even be for sale anymore (or at the very least probably isn't being actively promoted at this point).

Is it just me, or does it sound like the children's industries don't really take the CARU's reviews all that seriously? I find that accountability is particularly lacking - it would be impossible for the CARU to review all the relevant ads in its jurisdiction and make decisions about them WHILE the ads are running, so the fact that some ads may have already had their run by the time the review occurs shouldn't mean that the offending party gets away scot free. There really should be some sort of repercussion besides a mere request to "pull" the offending ad(s). Not to mention the ambiguity surrounding what happens if a company disagrees with a CARU finding (as is the case with Junk Ball, and maybe Nintendo, depending on how you read their "industry norm" defense).

If you go to the CARU site, you can also read recent reviews of KoolKids.com (whose privacy practices were questioned, esp. in relation to their "Princes of the Month" feature), BeaconStreetGirls.com (which was also questioned for its loose privacy protection practices), and Hanna Montana site MileyWorld.com (which needs to make it clear that becoming a member of the site will NOT guarantee tickets to Hanna Montana concerts). Lots of privacy infractions going on, making it pretty clear that even though advertising and market research methods are indeed becoming more invasive and subtle, traditional methods are still quite pervasive and need to be monitored diligently.

Kids and Mobile Play: David Buckingham's Camcorder Culture

On January 30th, I attended a seminar at the London Knowledge Lab, featuring David Buckingham, who talked about the latest component of a study his Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media is doing on "Camcorder Cultures". His talk focused on the use of video/film within youth skate (board) culture: the film conventions found within this subcultural genre, how knowledge (both in terms of the sport and surrounding media production) is exchanged among skaters, and the complex relationship with commercial culture (including sponsors, commercialization, appropriation, etc.). A very interesting and well put-together presentation, with lots of openings for analysis and future questions about technology, performance, play, celebrity culture, digital culture and DIY media. He showed a number of clips of typical skate videos and provided a brief content analysis of a skate-video website called Skate Perception.

I was struck by both the continuities and the evolution of these videos since my earlier exposure to them in the early to mid-1990s (when they suddenly became a feature of my own peer culture), through to the late-90s (when they would often materialize in the later hours of university house parties). In many respects, a number of the predominant conventions present in the skate videos of a decade ago remain -- often filmed with a fish-eye lens, frequent use of black and white, grainy "documentary" style footage (esp. during complex tricks, which are as unedited as possible) from low perspectives, and the inevitably trendy indie soundtrack. They still follow the same format of introducing a skater (whose name appears on the bottom of the screen), followed by a montage of them performing a series of tricks (set to a particular song/band/genre), switch to the next skater, a series of their tricks, with their own song/band/genre, etc. Buckingham pointed out that the use lettering and the ways in which names appear on the screen during these intros is an important part of the production value, as is the accentuation (perhaps added in) of the sounds the skateboard makes, as it grinds, rolls, hits the pavement, etc.

There were also quite a few noticeable differences between "then" and "now" - the videos we watched were much more polished than previous, more serious in a way (although Buckingham argues that they aim to "not be too serious), without the short shots of pranks, gross-out scenes and general silliness that were often sprinkled into the videos we watched as teens (and that Anil's friends made themselves, as he described during Q&A). There's even a trend of explicit "sponsor me" videos -- made and promoted to find the skater a corporate sponsor.

The relationship between extreme sports (skating) and commercial leisure was of particular interest to me. Although he didn't delve too far into it, Buckingham pointed out that from the outset the sport has had tight links to corporate sponsorship and branding, although he presents this as a complex, back and forth (or bottom-up and top-down) exchange. I, of course, was a little more suspicious of how the videos appear to conform to previous versions, including the commercial versions we watched back in the day. I suppose the argument would be that those videos were probably already trying to appropriate and replicate what kids were doing on their own anyway. It's hard to say, and even harder to say if it matters, but I suppose I'm nonetheless troubled at the way in which the political economic relations are so overt and yet so subtle within skate culture, which appears to have internalized an attitude of ironic acceptance towards its own commodification.

Anyway, here are more links to some of the things Buckingham talked about:
Ale Ciattoni's "Sponsor Me" Video
Dogtown and Z-Boys
A recent Vans ad