"D is for Digital" But Not Educational

****Originally drafted on January 9th****

By way of Josh Golin at the CCFC, an announcement this week from the newly formed Joan Ganz Cooney Center, which has recently completed a report on the kids' (ages 3 to 11) digital media industry. Focusing on educational content and marketing, D is for Digital makes a pretty clear argument for government-driven standards when it comes to digital products claiming educational value. According to the Center's press release:

The 50-page study, the first to analyze the current interactive media environment for preschool and elementary age children, documents how the recent aging down and exponential growth of digital products are shaping how children, ages 3-11, live and learn. Of the 300+ products studied, the paper found that most do not take advantage of available research regarding children's educational needs particularly in a global economy where literacy and learning requirements are fast evolving. Among the findings, the survey yielded only two educational video games (in an industry that generated $500 million in 2006 for the top 20 titles alone) based on explicit educational curriculum design available in the market.

The report also identified influential market trends with strong potential for education; examined the type of informal learning products on the market; and recommended ways to expand the availability of quality educational media for children.

The report also makes a number of recommendations for industry, researchers and policymakers including:

- Better partnerships should be built between research and industry, to foster quality educational products;

- More emphasis should be placed on educational videogame development;

- Intergenerational interaction should be encouraged through product design;

- Evidentiary standards for "educational" products need to be created; -- and here the report refers back to the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2005 report A Teacher in the Living Room?, stating that in the time that has lapsed since the KFF's study, the market has become (as the KFF predicted) "dominated by products that advertise unsubstantiated educational claims." In response, the Joan Ganz Clooney Centre recommends the following "Action Step":

Federal regulatory bodies such as the Federal Trade Commission, voluntary industry groups such as The Better Business Bureau, and parent advocates such as Common Sense Media should collaborate on a consumer protection initiative to better describe educational effectiveness in interactive media products for children.

- Policies should be implemented to protect children from digital commercialism; -- a recommendation which the Centre suggests can be achieved by better coordination of regulatory bodies:

Federal regulatory bodies, such as the Federal Communications Commission, and voluntary industry, public interest advocacy, and philanthropic organizations, should initiate the advancement of policies that protect children from commercialism in a digital age. A revitalization of The Children’s Television Act needs to be undertaken to modernize the child protections now called for in a digital age.

The report also offers two recommendations specific to academics:
- A research agenda should be established that addresses the implications of market trends on product development;

Academic researchers need to investigate the implications of the current environment on children’s informal learning, and recognize “what works” in educating children through digital media products.

- Academic research should be made more accessible to industry;

Academic institutions should disseminate research findings to industry through industry publications and events.

There's a fine line between praxis or collaborating for a better media environment, and full-on commercial research, which really isn't addressed here. Read one way, it sounds like a great idea, read another way, it sounds like research for profit, or at the very least enhancing the one-way street that currently exists between academic and commercial research. Academic research findings may usually only be available through journals and academic texts, but at least it's published freely and made part of the public domain. In the world of kids' media, it's the commercial sector who sits on the research goldmine, and I'd like to see these "partnerships" result in a more open and accountable commercial research sector as well.

While the fact that the study was focused on "educational" media explains much of its emphasis on purposive play/media use, I think that an underlying bias for productive leisure is also driving much of the Center's activities and positions. This is clear from the company's mission statement (which describes the Center as "Focusing especially on the needs of disadvantaged children, the Center conducts and supports research, creates educational models and interactive media properties, and builds cross-sector partnerships to scale-up best practices"), and is also pretty explicitly expressed in Michael Levine's (the Center's Executive Director) statements about the report (as quoted in the press release), which included the following:

"Kids today are spending almost as much time with media as attending school, so there is an opportunity to create more engaging educational products than ever before. Unfortunately, most of the new digital products we reviewed, with notable exceptions, do not yet promote the vital literacy, creativity and problem-solving skills children need to succeed. The report documents how industry leaders, working closely with experts in child development and research, can develop interactive educational products that can leverage key market opportunities and promote a new vision for learning and entertainment."

A very fascinating first contribution from the people who brought us Sesame Street -- definitely going into my chapter on kiddie-tech and "educational" play.

Bratz and Commodity Flow

****Originally drafted Jan. 8th****

In follow-up to his excellent piece on commodity flow in children's television (written with Giglio and a copy of which you can access here), Matthew P. McAllister has now published an article on Bratz, which appears in the most recent issue of the Journal of Children and Media (subscription required). I saw McAllister speak this fall on ironic product placement in TV comedies, where the product placement itself becomes the target of commentary and humor, but of course advertises the product nonetheless (at least in most cases...he showed an episode of the Sarah Silverman Program as a counter example). His previous article (with Giglio) on commodity flow is a must-read for anyone interested in the commercialiazation of kids' TV (and Saturday Morning Cartoons in particular). His approach expands upon Raymond Williams' concept of flow, combining content analysis with a critical analysis of programming schedules, cross-channel coordination, and cross-media integration. Highly recommended.

iBarbie

*****Originally drafted on January 9th*****

Inspired by the success of BarbieGirls, and building upon its past good fortune with fashion games (such as the Barbie: Fashion Designer PC games), Mattel made its mark on this week's Sandbox Summit by launching its newest girlie-tech initiative, a CD/collectible card game hybrid called Barbie iDesign. According to the press release:

Barbie® iDesign™ is the newest introduction from the "Barbie Tech" group, and builds on the success of Barbie Girls™, a hybrid play experience that combines a real world, doll-inspired music device with a virtual world platform. BarbieGirls.com, the first global, virtual online world designed exclusively for girls now boasts more than 9.5 million registered users worldwide and has been referred to as the "fastest growing virtual world ever".

Continuing to tap into how today's girls play, and expand the Barbie® tech line-up, Barbie® iDesign™ turns fashion play traditionally experienced through a doll into an interactive, computer-based game with scannable fashion cards. With Barbie® iDesign™ girls become the ultimate fashion stylist through a highly creative and engaging gaming experience.

The game's incorporation of RL play and virtual play is of particular interest to me, of course, as is the clever integration of collectibility into the game design. Sort of Pokemonesque, the collectible cards that go with the game could turn into quite the cash cow for Mattel, and quite the headache for kids (as gameplay will surely be limited unless more cards are acquired) and parents (who will be expected to pay for said cards). Of course, Barbie dolls have always promoted consumption through the collection of Barbie clothes, accessories, dream houses and friends....all of which now appear available in card-to-virtual form. As the press release explains:

There are 200 different, collectible fashion cards, consisting of various hair styles, tops , bottoms, dresses, shoes, accessories and fashion models, and each has a unique barcode that when "swiped" through the USB-connected scanner, is uploaded to the "Design Studio" closet within the PC software. Once fashions are scanned and loaded on the computer, girls can play fashion stylist and create more than 21,000,000 fashionable ensembles in the game's "Design Studio." When the fashions are runway ready, girls are able to customize their fashion show in the game's "Fashion Runway" mode of play.

Other than promoting micro-purchases, the game will allow girls to "create unique fashions...by mixing and matching the different fashiosn that have been swiped and added to the "closet"" (just like on the Barbie Girls site, this sounds more like styling than fashion designing, and I'm pretty sure we'll see many of the same clothes available for purchase in Barbie doll sizes), design a fashion show featuring the runway talent of Barbie and her friends (again, through customization, and "play" in the "Designer's Club" -- where they can watch a recording of their "Runway Show", design a magazine cover using images from their Runway Show (or Design Studio), and use the "fashion cards" to play basic games like memory. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy, as this sounds like a perfect example of Mattel's now standard approach toward integrating marketing.

In related news, Mattel spent a good chunk of the pre-Christmas hype season building up its BarbieGirls brand and mp3 player, touting its popularity and claiming the title of "most requested toy" for girls, according to a number of magazines and websites that rank this type of thing. And although I did find a number of articles supporting the claim, the vast majority (i.e. all the ones I read) were cut and paste rewrites of a Mattel press release from late-November. Here's an excerpt:

As the holiday season's busiest shopping weekend kicks off today, gift-givers will be heading into the Barbie® aisle to find the season's "most requested toy" for girls. For the fifth year in a row, Barbie® toys were named the No. 1 requested holiday gift by girls, per the National Retail Federation, shining this year with the hugely innovative, tech-y Barbie Girls™ device and a new line of princess-themed dolls and playsets based on the popular new DVD "Barbie™ as The Island Princess." Additionally, several other Mattel Brands' toys have been named by toy, parenting, technology and retail experts as the season's must-have's.

I've gathered together links to all the sources cited in the Mattel press release that include the Barbie Girls mp3 in their top ten (for girls, or for younger kids, or for kids generally). These include:
All Aboard Toys.com
eToys
iParenting Media
AOL
PC Magazine
The National Parenting Centre
Top Toys Guide
Toy Wishes
Toys'R'Us
UK Toy Retailers Association.

The site/product has also won an award from the Web Marketing Association for "Best Toy Site", which I find particularly interesting and worthy of note. It seems that we are witnessing a veritable renaissance of the girls' games movement, with almost no deviation from its first incarnation, other than the massively increased presence of marketing and cross-promotion.

Yesterday's News: NPD's Kids and Digital Content

As Kidscreen's Gary Rusak (and numerous others) reported yesterday, The NPD Group has released a new study on kids' (aged 2-to-14 years) digital usage patterns, called Kids and Digital Content. As Rusak writes:

One of the more notable observations to come out of Kids and Digital Content, says NPD industry analyst Anita Frazier, is that despite the greater multi-functionality that devices - including computers, video game consoles, MP3 players and cell phones- provide, kids are by and large using the device for its primary purpose. A full 86% of kids surveyed said they used iPod-like devices to listen to music, while only 17% said they used the devices to watch movies, for example. "What this means," she explains, "is that the idea of device convergence has a ways to go to before it really becomes a factor in kids lives." In other words, kids won't be casting aside their computers in favor of internet-enabled, all-encompassing gaming systems or multi-functional cell phones anytime soon.

The study also revealed that kids download video clips the most frequently (7.1 times/month), followed by music videos (5.7 times/month), music (4.2 times/month), games (3.1 times/month) and ring tones (2.8 times/month). But the most popular activity by far remains playing video games, with a full 84% of the study's respondents gaming on all or one of the digital devices.

According to the NPD press release, the report also explores the different ways in which kids consume content. For example, the findings reveal that:

The way kids consume their digital content varies. Games and movies are primarily driven by their physical offerings, while ring tones/ring tunes are often consumed digitally, though half report consuming them in the physical format. Almost all kids who use movie content get it in the physical format, with one-quarter also getting movies in digital format.

I'm not sure I completely understand what they mean by "physical content," but I suppose it's meant to indicate that a physical product has been purchased. As with many NPD studies, the findings were gathered via "surrogate reporting"...i.e. through moms...which means that the findings are likely somewhat off, but interesting and useful nonetheless.

Announcements!!!

I have a bunch of half-finished blog posts that I've been sitting on all week, and unfortunately it now looks like I won't have time to post them until later on THIS week, as I am right in the midst of packing up for a semester in London!!! For the next couple of months I will be stationed at the Media@LSE...the Department of Media and Communication at the London School of Economics and Political Science. If you're in the area, drop me a line - I'm always keen to meet other kids' media researchers and professionals, and will be trying to set up meetings with like-minded people while I'm there.

I also have couple of other announcements to make that I'm very excited about. The first is that I have been officially enlisted as a correspondent for Amy Jussel's awesome blog and organization Shaping Youth, both of which are dedicated to providing a critical (and comprehensive) look at media & marketing to kids. You can read my first contribution to the site here, which is a reprint of the article I wrote for Children's Media Consultant. Look for more to come in the next couple of weeks. And thanks to Amy for the opportunity to contribute to the valuable work she is doing for kids and parents.

The second is that I've been invited to speak at the 6th Annual CCFC Summit, Consuming Kids: The Sexualization of Children and Other Commercial Calamities, which will take place on April 3-5, in Boston, MA. I'll be talking about my ongoing work on marketing and media convergence in kids' MMOGs, focusing in on issues of commercialization, freedom of speech, authorship and play. The Summit is geared towards combining the knowledge and efforts of various groups trying to combat the commercialization of kids' culture, bringing together academics, media producers, educators, activists and parents. This is praxis at its finest, and I'm really looking forward to both participating and attending the numerous presentations and talks that the CCFC has planned. Confirmed speakers include Morgan Spurlock (of Supersize Me fame), Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Jean Kilbourne, Susan Gregory-Thomas, Alvin Poussaint, Juliet Schor, the CCFC's own Josh Golin and Susan Linn, among many others. Registration and information for the event can be found here.

It's stacking up to be a busy spring, but an exciting one as well. I'll be sure to post those half-finished news items once I'm settled in.

Children Now's 2007 Report Card

California-based children's advocacy group Children Now has just released their 2007 report on "the state of the state's children", emphasizing the diminishing standards for both health and education experienced by kids in the sunshine state. The report's key findings include some pretty alarming statistics, including:

- Only 47% of 3- and 4-year-olds attend preschool;

- One in three children is overweight or obese;

- Just 65% graduate from high school on time;

- 37% of children, ages 2-5, did not visit a dentist within the
last year;

- Fewer than half of families can afford the basics of housing,
child care, food, health insurance and transportation.

You can access the report in its entirety here, or read the press release on this and previous reports the organization has published on children's health and well-being (many of which specifically address media-related issues) here.

Family Surveillance: Helicopter Parents and the Wireless Leash

I've noticed quite a bit of coverage lately coming out of the UK dealing with "helicopter parents", a term / phenomenon originating in the US that describes contemporary parenting styles characterized by intense levels of involvement with kids' accomplishments (in sports, arts, etc.) and academic success. For example, The Guardian has published two articles in the past week dealing with the subject, following some late-December coverage in The Telegraph. And it seems that UK schools and employers are having as tough a time as North Americans dealing with the shift. As Donald MacLeod writes for The Guardian:

They've been at their student children's open days, interfered with the Ucas form and swooped in to challenge anything from essay marks to college accommodation. Meet the helicopter parents, so-called because they hover over their children, interfering and directing their lives in a way that would probably have embarrassed standard pushy parents.

A phenomenon already established in the US, British universities are now beginning to suffer at the hands of the new breed, particularly at careers fairs. Helicopter parents oversee their child's first graduate job application, prep them for tests and interviews - and have even tried to renegotiate starting salaries.

Paul Redmond, head of careers at Liverpool University, said their arrival was evident at careers fairs across the country last year, and that some students had been barged aside. "In future we will have to be more open and say it doesn't look particularly impressive to have your parents with you at a fair," said Redmond.

"Several high-profile graduate recruiters have reported incidents where parents have contacted them to negotiate a starting salary. Others have had parents contact them to complain about a 'child' who has been overlooked for promotion," he writes on EducationGuardian.co.uk.

Companies have also complained that recent graduates have had everything done for them by their parents - to the point where they cannot get to a meeting.

In his own article on the subject Redmond identifies 5 different types of helicopter parent, which include "white knights" and "bankers". It's kind of a fun way to relay the diverse forms the phenomenon can take, but I'm not sure that categorizing "types" is all that helpful in understanding the shift and its impact on family dynamics and kids' socialization into adulthood. There's also a link made to mobile phone use among youth, which Redmond calls the "longest umbilical cord in history" -- though the connection is not explained in much detail.

Redmond's article is also covered on the BBC News site, although it's mainly a reprint / summary of the original. Similar arguments are made in an earlier article by Sarah Womack for the Telegraph. For example:

The term "helicopter parenting" was coined by Madeleine Levine, an American clinical psychologist, who claimed in her book The Price of Privilege: "Kids are unbearably pressured not just to be good, but to be great; not just to be good at something, [but] to be good at everything."

The rise of the mobile phone is often blamed for the explosion of helicopter parenting - it has been called "the world's longest umbilical cord".

Has the perpetual access enabled by mobile phones really lead to a massive shift in the ways in which parents and children interact? Or does the technology simply reinforce emergent behaviours that are concurrently being driven by much larger social, political and economic forces?

The issue of freedom vs. constraint certainly comes up a lot in discussions of mobile phones and young people. The helicopter parents coverage reminds me of other ways that mobile phones allow changing parent-child relationships to play out in technologically-mediated ways. Consider the various new services, such as Telus' Kid Find and Disney's Family Centre, that transform mobile phones into tracking devices, and allow parents to put controls and limits on how the technology can be used. We assume that these features will always only be used for benevolent and legitimate parenting purposes, but rarely consider how they are changing kids' sense of privacy, core family dynamics and social expectations of parental responsibility. Check out this article on AT&T's new "wireless leas" that appeared early this fall on Textually.org:

Parents are accustomed to setting up filters on their kids' computers that bar certain Web sites and blocking adult-themed channels on their televisions. "Now, with millions of children -- some as young as kindergarteners -- getting cellphones, the options are expanding for parents who want to set limits on their kids' wireless activities as well. The WSJ looks into the latest control options available - such as AT&T's Smart Limits service which just launched.

The new controls include those that limit the hours that children can use their phones for calling or text messaging to those that block access to inappropriate content on the wireless Web.

Wireless companies and handset manufacturers also are adding new features that actually help parents keep tabs on where their children physically are, addressing the peace-of-mind concerns that caused them to give their kids cellphones in the first place."

Lots to think about here.

Virtual Worlds for Kids Continue to Gain Momentum...and Media Attention

Some more news this week about virtual worlds for kids, mostly coming from the marketing industry p.o.v. The first, from Marketing Vox by way of Wonderland Blog, reports on a recent study by Mediamark Research and Intelligence/Marketing Charts, that substantiates the now common finding that children play lots of online games. As Marketing Vox writes:

Nearly eight in 10 children (78.1 percent) age 6-11 report they play online games — by far the largest percentage performing any online activity, according to (pdf) the 2007 American Kids Survey from Mediamark Research and Intelligence (MRI), reports MarketingCharts.

The percentage of boys and girls who play online games was virtually the same, 77.7 percent vs. 78.5 percent, respectively. Boys are more likely to go online to get tips or cheats for gaming: One-quarter of boys (25.8 percent) reported doing so versus 5.6 percent of girls.

In related news, the New York Times (subscription required) did a story this week on virtual worlds for kids, and how the industry expects "nothing but net" for its existing and upcoming kid-targeted VWs in the coming year. As cited in the article:

“Get ready for total inundation,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at the research firm eMarketer, who estimates that 20 million children will be members of a virtual world by 2011, up from 8.2 million today.

Worlds like Webkinz, where children care for stuffed animals that come to life, have become some of the Web’s fastest-growing businesses. More than six million unique visitors logged on to Webkinz in November, up 342 percent from November 2006, according to ComScore Media Metrix, a research firm.

The article also offers a good summary of existing and upcoming projects (though not as good as Izzy's):

...Disney last month introduced a Pirates of the Caribbean world aimed at children 10 and older, and it has worlds on the way for Cars and Tinker Bell, among others. Nickelodeon, already home to Neopets, is spending $100 million to develop a string of worlds. Coming soon from Warner Brothers Entertainment, part of Time Warner: a cluster of worlds based on its Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera and D. C. comics properties.

Add to the mix similar offerings from toy manufacturers like Lego and Mattel. Upstart technology companies, particularly from overseas, are also elbowing for market share. Mind Candy, a British company that last month introduced a world called Moshi Monsters, and Stardoll, a site from Sweden, sign up thousands of members in the United States each day.

...as well as some new and useful info about Pixie Hollow:

Tinker Bell’s world, called Pixie Hollow, illustrates the company’s game plan. Disney is developing the site internally — creative executives who help design new theme park attractions are working on it — and will introduce it this summer to help build buzz for Tinker Bell, a big-budget feature film set for a fall 2008 release.

Visitors to a rudimentary version of Pixie Hollow, reachable through Disney.com, have already created four million fairy avatars, or online alter egos, according to Disney. The site will ultimately allow users to play games (“help create the seasons”) and interact with other “fairies.” When avatars move across the screen, they leave a sparkling trail of pixie dust, a carefully designed part of the experience.

“We wanted to come up with a way to make flying around the site feel really good,” said Paul Yanover, executive vice president and managing director of Disney Online.

Good to know!

New Moon Gets a Make-Over

Via Ypulse's anastasia (who is on the magazine's advisory board), a head's up about a couple of upcoming online initiatives by New Moon: The Magazine for Girls and Their Dreams, the ad-free magazine by and for 8-12 year old girls. The magazine is now operating under the larger umbrella New Moon Girls Media, and has started calling itself the "original social network publication." In the coming year, the organization plans to launch two new online communities -- one for teens (girls aged 13-15) called orb28, and one for younger girls (8-12 years) called Luna Vida Club. There isn't much information about the sites yet, apart from the announcement and some discussion of how the sites will tie into the magazine/company's original mission of providing girls with an ad-free space to share their thoughts, opinions and dreams. For example, here's a little blurb from their website:

Our mission is to bring girls’ voices to the world. Eighty percent of our content is written by girls; adult content is researched and recommended by girls. Because our magazine and internet experiences for girls ages 8 to 15 remain free of advertising, we are especially grateful for coverage from supportive media organizations.

Anyway, it sounds like a very promising project - I look forward to seeing the results in the new year.

Ofcom's New Guidelines for Kids' TV

From the December 13th edition of Cynopsis! Kids, a story about Ofcom's new guidelines for children's television programming, which will apply to programs produced for both kids and teens (i.e. viewers under 18 years). According to Cynopsis!, the guidelines reflect a growing concern about game shows (and reality shows?) that involve / star child participants, following a series of "high-profile game-related debacles in kids programming in the UK this year." She writes, "Ofcom wants producers to make clear to kids and their families that they might lose, as well as explaining they should pay close attention to the related emotional angst and stresses of performing and the various issues that go with that." The organization recommends that it might be useful for producers to consult with a child psychologist for advice in dealing with the potential negative outcomes / experiences that kids might encounter. Sounds like a good place to start, anyway. Along with these recommendations, the Ofcom guidelines ask producers and broadcasters of kids' programming to comply with existing rules set forth by the Broadcasting Code, including (as cited in Cynopsis! Kids):

* Development of clear guidelines for production staff working with those under eighteen;
* Appropriate background checks on a participant's social, family, health and educational circumstances and a thorough risk assessment if necessary;
* Where practicable, ensuring there is a single, consistent point of contact with whom the participant is able to liaise throughout the production to oversee the child's welfare; and
* Careful consideration of the program format and its likely impact on the participant is recommended. For instance, springing high impact surprises on under eighteens in 'live' or 'as live' programs where conflict or highly emotional situations may be involved, could cause harm and/or distress. Similarly, in genres which involve young children in competition with others, performance anxieties and pressure to succeed may be issues.

Now I'm quite curious to find out whether Canada's Code has similar stipulations in place for game shows, reality-type competition shows and kids.

New Feature: Kids and Mobile Play

For the next three months, I will be conducting research for one my professors on mobile technologies and kids in the UK. As part of this project, I will be posting relevant news items, reports / articles of interest and (eventually) some of my research findings in the form of two new regular features -- one that will explore Kids and Mobile Play, and one that will discuss issues around Families and Surveillance.

This inaugural installment of Kids and Mobile Play links to news articles about two new mobile technologies for kids. The first, as reported by Warren Buckleitner in the New York Times, is a fascinating attempt to link a number of contemporary trends within kids culture...virtual pets (in this case, Moshi Monsters), online worlds (MoshiMonsters.com) and mobile phones (MoPods cellphone charms). Here's an excerpt from Buckleitner's article:

In a twist on the Webkinz model — pairing a password-tagged toy with an online world — Moshi Monsters (www.moshimonsters.com) are a family of six monsters that live in a light-up cellphone charm and, virtually, in an online home you create. The charms, called MoPods, were marketed last year in Britain. They contain a receiver that detects the faint signal emitted when cellphones send or receive messages, even when the ringer is silenced. They respond with a 15-second burst of L.E.D. fireworks, while the monster spins inside the plastic bubble.

According to the article, the companion online world is pretty limited. Players are required to visit the site and solve puzzles in order to feed their monsters and buy them furniture for the monster's online home. There's also an interesting surveillance dimension...in that the MoPods detect each other's presence. Buckleitner suggests that "Teachers may also find an unexpected use for the MoPods: monitoring illicit in-class cellphone use."

The second news item of interest comes from Textually.org
and reports on NTT DoCoMo's new kid-friendly 3G phone and bracelet set. The product is being marketed primarily for its "safety and convenience" features, but also appears to provide a number of play opportunities. Still, it's hard to tell if this one should go in play or surveillance...I suppose there will be a lot of overlap between these two categories, as the same features can often be used for both. Here's the description from Textually.org:

In an emergency, the child can quickly switch on the phone's 100-decibel alarm, which produces two types of noise alternately. When the alarm is activated, the phone also emits a bright light (high-intensity LED) that is easily visible to people in the surrounding area. The phone can be set to automatically notify loved ones when the alarm is activated, and provide the handset's current location as well.

... Another neat feature, if the phone's power is switched off, a presetting can enable the handset to automatically turn back on (in as little as five minutes) and message the incident and the phone's location to a registered DoCoMo phone visible to people in the surrounding area.

Kabillion Puts Child-Generated Content onto DVD

Via Gary Rusak at Kidscreen, news about a new child-generated content venture called Little Director. Rusak writes:

Riding that UGC wave, Taffy Entertainment's multiplatform VOD and broadband channel Kabillion has partnered with Little Director to enable kids to create drawings that can than be transformed into short animated movies. Little Director's proprietary technology takes children's drawings and stories and produces 90-second animated movies that can be screened on Kabillion and then copied to a DVD for home viewing. Kabillion is charging US$19.95 per DVD, a 50% discount on the same service offered on the Little Director site.

Sounds kind of neat, although my first question is what happens to the submitted content, in terms of intellectual property claims and authorship rights. I've checked out the Little Director site and can't find a terms of use...which is odd, considering the gray area of co-authorship within which this service seems to operate. Worth keeping an eye on.

New CCFC Campaign - Webkinz Incorporates Third-Party Ads

The Uber-popular, toy-based, virtual environment for kids, Webkinz, has begun incorporating third-party ads into their content, causing a bit of an uproar among parents and launching a new campaign led by child advocacy group Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood to convince the site to remove the extra ads. I say extra because the Webkinz site, as the CCFC points out, is in itself already an advertisement, of the "transmedia intertext" variety. Here are some of the details about the CCFC's campaign, from the organization's website:

Webkinz.com, the most visited virtual world for children in the United States, has quietly begun targeting its users with outside advertising.

The site is already commercial – in order to subscribe to it, children must buy a Webkinz toy that comes with a special code. But apparently using the site to sell millions of Webkinz stuffed animals wasn’t enough for Ganz (the makers of Webkinz) and now they’re selling their young users to advertisers. To make matters worse, Ganz didn’t bother to inform parents, many of whom purchase Webkinz toys for their children expecting that the website will be free of outside advertising and links. By opening the site to advertisers, Ganz is choosing to maximize profits at the expense of parents’ trust and children’s wellbeing.

Please take a moment to tell CEO Howard Ganz to stop advertising on Webkinz.

Is anyone else frustrated at the typical timeline for this particular breed of kids' sites? They start off seemingly unbranded...until you realize that they already have numerous licensing agreements in place, and that a whack of ancillary products are actually being referenced in the site and throughout kids' culture. As soon as the site becomes popular - third-party advertisers and market research (for sale, anyway, as it's surely been going on behind the scenes all along) are introduced. At this point the site either crosses into media-brand territory (films, comic books, videogames, action figures), or becomes yesterday's news, as kids seek out the "next big thing". I wonder, however, if the kids' motivation is really that of finding the "next" big fad (as marketing discourse would have us believe), or whether they might, inadvertently or not, be trying to escape the ads and other changes that take place within their favorite sites once the emphasis has shifted away from attracting a large population base, and onto ways of selling that population to advertisers. How much does the integration of advertising alter the activities, community and overall experience? Once kids are no longer the main focus -- from a business perspective at least -- are they (and their needs) treated any differently?

Read more coverage at the New York Times and at Common Dreams.

Imagine [Insert Gender Stereotype Here]

There's a great post on Bonnie Ruberg's Heroine Sheik this week about the new Imagine line of girl games by Ubisoft for the Nintendo DS. I've been seeing (and cringing at) ads for these games during Saturday morning cartoon blocks lately, and have been interested in finding out more about them, so this is great timing. You can also check out this post on Ypulse. Rather than chime in on the issues these games raise in terms of gender representation and how "girl games" are consistently defined by the games industry in the same stereotypical terms, I want to post an excerpt from a paper I'm working on that links this trend to a much deeper historical tradition of utilitarianism in the social shaping of "girls play". Adults have long sought to contain children's play, but girls' play in particular, for more "useful" and productive ends. For girls, this most often meant channeling play towards activities that were thought to prepare them to be good wives and mothers. Not that girls didn't love their dolls and Easy-Bake ovens (I know I did!), but there's a lot going on here relating to the social construction of girls play that it is impossible to really separate out from the experience itself. The following excerpt is part of a larger exploration of how western thinking about play tends to approach it in very "rational" and instrumental terms (for example, the construction of work/play as analytic categories), and how this approach influences what games and activities are deemed "appropriate" or idealized at a particular point in history.

Another important entry point for understanding how the rationalization of play occurs beyond the boundaries of the work/play binary is through a deeper exploration of the role of the domestic sphere in the construction and regulation of modern play practices. In reviewing the foundational literature on play, the male-centricity of the work/play dichotomy and the omission of female players from these debates are immediately apparent. The omission of the female experience of leisure within modernity challenges the notion that industrialization ever truly led to a separation of the spheres as reflected in the work/play binary, and calls into question the ways in which play and work have thus far been defined within the play literature. Throughout history, as Calvert (1998: 76) writes, “[L]ife was often very different for boys and girls at any given time. Boys and girls in America were dressed differently, treated differently, given different amounts of time for play, work, and study, and taught to handle all three activities differently.” Women and girls have historically enjoyed fewer leisure opportunities (Vallone 1995) and been steered toward much more limited and restrictive play practices than their male counterparts (Hendershot 1996). Indeed, productive or functional play has been a prominent feature of girls’ leisure time throughout the industrial era. In the nineteenth-century, as Formanek-Brunell (1998: 364) describes, “Girls were urged toward usefulness in their play as natural training in the republican values they would need as future wives and mothers of citizens.” Historical studies of girls’ and women’s leisure thus suggest that the modern rationalization of play does not necessarily represent the incorporation of “work” into play, as much as a continued extension of domesticization—-the rationalizing system of the “private” sphere of the home.

Not that girls just accepted the roles and limitations that were placed on them. In parallel with the tradition of containing girls' play is a tradition of little girls using play to subvert gender norms and expectations:

Although dolls are often seen as obvious "vehicle[s] of feminine socialization," recent ethnographic research, as well as historical analysis of memoirs, diaries and oral histories, reveal a long-standing tradition of gender role subversion and rejection of adult authority within girls’ doll play (Formanek-Brunell, 1998; Gussin Paley, 2004). This emerging research reveals the familiar, but academically neglected, practices of brutal doll torture, doll-body modification, doll bashing and doll funerals. As Formanek-Brunell (1998: 374), describes, although many girls (and boys) played with dolls in prescribed ways, “[E]vidence reveals that doll players pushed at the margins of acceptable feminine and genteel behaviour." For some girls, dolls became a valuable tool for thwarting social norms and undermining restrictions. For example, during the nineteenth-century “doll parties” were often promoted as a beneficial and appropriate activity for girls. Designed as a primarily aesthetic activity (girls were meant to show off their dolls and look at each others’ doll clothes), “doll parties” were regulated by a complex set of rules and etiquette which were circulated in advice books and women’s magazines. In practice, however, the events often transformed into active play dates that involved sliding down the stairs on tea trays and “smashing their unsuspecting dolls to bits” (Formanek-Brunell 1998: 375).

Link to: Rob Garner's Post on Webkinz

No time for a long post today, but thought this story would be of interest to Gamine Expedition readers. As Rob Garner writes in today's MediaPost blog, Google Zeitgeist 2007 (by Marissa Mayer) has ranked Webkinz as the 2nd most popular search item, and the most searched social networking site...above Facebook, YouTube and MySpace. Here's an excerpt from Garner's post:

Marissa Mayer’s Google Zeitgeist 2007 / Trends announcement yesterday makes a strong case that kids have already inherited the Web. Five social media portals and networks made the list of the top ten fastest-rising search terms. But the fastest-rising social media network isn’t Facebook, YouTube, or MySpace. It’s a social networking site for beanie-baby-like plush toys, and their respective preschool-to-preteen owners, called Webkinz (it’s at no. 2, just behind “iPhone”). If you’re not familiar with Webkinz, it’s a sort of technically primitive (and safe) Second Life for kids, and the price for entry is buying one of the plushes, then logging in and socializing with other online animals in their own virtual world that also includes their own little rooms and a variety of games.

Not sure what it all means, if anything, but there you have it. And I disagree with Garner's conclusion that this particular finding is evidence that "kids have already inherited the web"... I mean, every kid interested in Webkinz likely comes with a parent who then has to find out more about it. Anyway, you can read the rest of the post here.

Writing a Dissertation Proposal

At some point over the next two weeks I have to finish writing my dissertation proposal, so that my committee has time to read it before I leave for London. Despite the fair amount of work I've already done in this area (and towards my actual dissertation research), I'm finding it quite difficult to summarize the whole thing as a 20 page document. This is compounded somewhat by the fact that our school does not provide any clear template or guidelines about what a proposal should include (apparently the proposal requirement is fairly new, and none of us are completely sure that it's actually required, though certain that it will be helpful in the long run). When in doubt, my tendency is usually to hit the books, and this time is no different. I've been reading through Glatthorn and Joyner's Writing the Winning Thesis or Dissertation for some general advice and parameters. While oriented towards more quantitative / science-esque research projects, they offer the following handy template for what they call "working proposals" (vs. "comprehensive proposals", which are 75 pages long!):

Introduction to the Study = 5 pages
- One or two paragraphs that get the reader "into" the proposal (e.g. "This proposal describes a proposed research study that will examine...")
- Background of the study (sets the context and what external factors might influence the study)
- The problem or thesis statement, hypothesis and research question(s)
- General purpose and/or significance of the study

Review of the literature = 5 pages
- Review the theoretical literature, by reviewing theories and developing a conceptual framework (derived from theory, i.e. identify key concepts and trace their relationships)
- Review the empirical literature (past research on the topic, key findings)
- Link the two
- Relate the review to your own study

Methodology = 15 pages
- Type of research
- Context and access
- Participants (and selection process)
- Data collection
- Data analysis
[****And here I would add chapter outline****]

Appendix: Proposed time line = 1 page

Total = 26 pages + Bibliography

They also remind us to write in the future tense. I'm thinking that I might separate out the "Theoretical/Conceptual Framework" component into its own section...I'll probably still compare the two, but my logic tells me that it should go after the review of past research, to situate my own study and describe how it will contribute/diverge/address past oversights, etc. I might also overlap this with the methodology section a bit, seeing as I'm combining a couple of different theoretical approaches, which in a sense determines my methodology as well.

Another extremely useful resource was one recommended to me by Anil: a whole page full of Sample Dissertation Proposals offered on the University of Texas website. This afternoon, I'm putting aside some time to read through some of these past proposals, see how previous doctoral candidates have put these documents together. According to Anil, the proposals come complete with comments that the authors made years afterwards, pointing out things that they didn't end up doing, or changes made during the research process, what they would do differently, etc. He's also checked on the authority of the authors themselves, and confirms that each proposal was written by a successful PhD (who graduated and is now gainfully employed). Awesome!

Writing a Dissertation - Updated in Nov. 2009:
Here's a graph I made about how to structure the thesis itself, which I put together a few months after my thesis proposal was accepted. It's a summary of key guidelines and advice given in a workshop on "meta-structure" that I took in spring/lent 2008 with Patrick Dunleavy, author of Authoring a PhD: How to Plan, Draft, Write and Finish a Doctoral Thesis or Dissertation and professor at the LSE. You can also find many of the handouts and presentations Dunleavy uses in his regular workshops, along with various other highly useful resources, on the LSE website. I hope this helps! It's been very useful for me, esp. in keeping an eye on the "big picture" stuff throughout the writing process.

Sneak Peak at "Kids on the Go" (New Nielsen Report)

*****Oops, forgot to post this yesterday (Sara, Dec.5, 2007)*****

The Nielsen Company is getting set to release a new report on young people and mobile devices, called Kids on the Go: Mobile Usage by U.S. Teens and Tweens. According to the press release, the report will include a number of new findings about "tweens" (kids aged 8-12 years), such as:

* 35% of tweens own a mobile phone.
* 20% of tweens have used text messaging.
* 21% of tweens have used ring & answer tones.
* 5% of tweens access the Internet over their phone each month.

And among the 5% of tweens who access the Internet over their mobile phones:

* 41% do so while commuting or traveling.
* 26% do so while at a friend's house.
* 17% do so while at social events.

The press release goes on to describe that although text-messaging and ringtones (?) "remain the most pervasive non-voice functions on the phone, other content such as downloaded wallpapers, music, games and Internet access also rank highly among tweens." I'm a bit confused about the ringtones thing -- do they mean downloading ringtones, or creating them, or both? [This also reminds me of something else I read this week, about a study in Whales that found that as girls age, they engage in fewer creative activities than guys do...including creating ring tones.] Anyway, the press release doesn't provide stats on how many tweens download content, but they do give some info about those that do:

* 58% of tweens who download or watch TV on their phone do so at home.
* 64% of tweens who download or play music on their phone do so at home.
* 56% of tweens who access the Internet on their phone do so at home.

That's kind of unexpected, isn't it? That most downloads happen at home, and not "on the go"?

The report also provides some comparative analysis, looking across age groups and across media. For example, Nielsen found that tweens are spending less time surfing the internet than teens (e.g. 48% of tweens say they spend "less than one hour per day online" vs. 81% of teens who say they spend one hour or more). When they are online, "70% of tweens use the Internet for gaming" (whereas teens use the Internet mostly for e-mail...again contrary to all the hype that young people don't use email). Again, I find the phrasing a bit confusing (perhaps purposefully) - do they mean that 70% of tweens do game (as in, at all...to whatever extent and for however long), or that gaming is the most popular activity among tweens?

Check out Gary Rusak's coverage of the report on Kidscreen, or Tanya Irwin's coverage on MediaPost

The Vancouver Olympics Woos Kids with the Cutest Mascots Ever!

So, last week the 2010 Vancouver Olympics committee unveiled its team of official mascots (seen above - picture courtesy of canada.com, which you should also check out for a hilarious short article about them entitled "Why do our mascots all look like Hello Kitty?"). Each one is based on West Coast Native legend, and represents a key component of the BC landscape. For example, check out the "bio" for "Miga":

The sea bear is inspired by the legends of the Pacific Northwest First Nations, tales of orca whales that transform into bears when they arrive on land. The Kermode bear is a rare white or cream-coloured sub-species of the black bear that is unique to the central West Coast of British Columbia. According to First Nations’ legend, Kermode bears — also known as Spirit Bears — were turned white by Raven to remind people of the Ice Age. Orcas are also honoured in the art and stories of West Coast First Nations, as travellers and guardians of the sea.

They're also super cute, anthropomorphic Pokemon-types, that do look like Japanese animation-style (e.g. Hello Kitty) characters, and surely not by accident. On the other hand, the mascots and their branding are also obviously targeted to kids, and in that regard are pretty on the pulse in terms of what's aesthetically and thematically popular right now. Think of the huge popularity of Chinese and Japanese legends in kids' culture over the past few years, which forms the basis of a number of media brands. This includes Xiaolin Showdown and Avatar: The Last Airbender, and even things like Magi-Nation and Pokemon that incorporate the same mythical themes and elemental magic. In this respect, I think Miga the Sea-Bear, Quatchi the Sasquatch, and Sumi the Animal Spirit might have a lot to offer, adding Native legends to kids' repertoire and possibly opening the door for a more diverse kids' cultural landscape.

I can't help but notice, however, that the Olympics committee seems to have taken a much larger cue from the commercial kids' industries (not just style and themes). Branded toys, books and other mascot-imprinted accessories are already available for sale on the website. Hmmmmmm. Is this an example of making a big important public event more relevant for kids through the incorporation of themes/interests drawn from kids culture, or is it simply yet another case of rampant commercialization (increasingly associated with the Olympic games in general) reaching into the child demographic? I suppose we'll have to wait and see, but my fingers are tightly crossed for option number one.

Everybody's Talking About: Magi-Nation

This week, everyone's been talking about a new kids' MMOG project in the works that will tie into an up-and-coming (and Canadian-based) property called Magi-Nation. The property was first introduced as a collectible card game (CCG), Magi-Nation: Duel, which was heavily inspired by Pokémon and other collectible kids' properties. It had a few incarnations as a videogame, mostly aiming for the same type of CCG-Gameboy crossover success enjoyed by Pokémon (hmmm...I think I see a pattern emerging ;). This past year, Canadian-based Cookie Jar Entertainment launched an animated series to tie-into the CCG (and remaining digital games, I suppose, which includes a cell phone game) -- appearing as part of the CW's Kids' WB Saturday morning cartoon block, as well as on Canadian public broadcaster CBC -- along with a first, smaller online game, Magi-Nation Arena, as well as various ancillary toys and product lines (including a new CCG). The new MMOG will foster and supplement the emerging Magi-Nation media brand, and will surely have some pretty close links to the tie-in card game (I'm guessing that "secret codes" with every purchase will be somehow involved). Here's the description from the company press release:

Magi-Nation: Battle for the Moonlands is based on the popular children's animated television series Magi-Nation, which follows the adventures of 15-year-old Tony Jones, an average teen from Earth who finds himself mysteriously transported to the magical world of Magi-Nation. In these Moonlands Tony befriends two young Magi heroes-in-training who join him on a journey to defeat the evil Shadow Magi who are out to rule their world. Along with their trusty collection of Dream Creatures these new friends must solve riddles, battle evil and discover the secrets hidden in each region on the Moonlands. During their adventures, they just might discover some secrets about themselves.

According to Cynopsis Kids!, the game will be beta-testing this December (unfortunately it's a closed beta, but you can apply here to become a tester). What makes this web-based branded game unique is that while much of the game will be free (i.e. ad-based), it will also incorporate a micro-payment or microtransactions model, in which players will pay small fees to upgrade characters, etc. As Next Generation reports, while this strategy isn't all that new, it is not that common among kids' sites/properties. As Kris Graft writes:

Battle for the Moonlands will be a browser-based game that is supported by advertising as well as microtransactions, an increasingly common business model. What makes Moonlands more unique is that it will be putting microtransactions in the hands of kids. Finding a chunk of charges for virtual clothing and spells on a credit card bill would likely irk some parents, but [Cookie Jar senior VP of digital media Ken Locker] insists there will be restrictions set in place.

"We want to make sure that parents are in control of any online spending, so we are developing a number of ways for parents to be involved in Magi-Nation purchasing activity," Locker says. [Notably, however]"We are also working on implementing a number of payment options so that we do not rely solely on credit cards as heavily as many online games."

Hmmm....perhaps this is where the "secret code included with every purchase" will come in. Either way, it certainly seems like Cookie Jar is casting the widest net possible in its bid to become the next Pokémon. In Virtual Worlds News, Locker is quoted describing Cookie Jar's goal to:

"[R]each kids wherever they are, be it via through television, consumer products or online worlds. [...] We are thrilled to be working on such an ambitious undertaking as Magi-Nation: Battle for the Moonlands and can’t wait to bring the Magi-Nation online entertainment package to our fans. Our young viewers are extremely Internet savvy and routinely monitor their TV shows online. With this project we will extend that connection and enable players to have a fully interactive experience with their favorite characters in one of their favorite worlds."

Indeed! Find out more by following the various links above, or follow the ongoing developments firsthand by visiting the Magi-Nation website.

Children's Rights in Teen Second Life

By way of the MAGIC network, another cool example of gamers using machinima for political expression, this time through a 5-week-long initiative led by Global Kids (with support from UNICEF) and taking place entirely within Teen Second Life. Teens from three different countries (Finland, UK and US) participated in the second annual "Camp Global Kids", a virtual summer camp geared towards producing short videos about children's rights, in order to commemorate the 18th anniversary of the Convention of the Rights of the Child. The initiative also had an obvious educational imperative, which appears to have hit home with the teens involved. According to one project volunteer, quoted in the UNICEF press release:

"Although the campers knew that children have rights," said Global Kids volunteer Nafiza Akter, 17, "they didn't know what was in the document specifically. After the camp, they really learned about what different rights the document guaranteed children around the world. And I think it made them compassionate, because you realize that children should be having these rights and yet they’re violated."

The end products were screened as part of a "red-carpet affair" that took place on the Global Kids Island (in Teen Second Life), which included a selection of "real-world" short films made by teens involved in UNICEF's "One Minute Jrs" project (in conjunction with the Sandberg Institute). The filmmakers introduced their machinima and answered questions to an audience of nearly 100, each of whom received free virtual popcorn and a child rights t-shirt for participating. The short films covered a variety of topics, from drug use and health care, to media and play, to child soldiers. On using machinima as an educational, political and creative tool, Global Kids' Second Life Education Specialist, Tabitha Tsai, was quoted saying:

"We feel that making machinima is an excellent way to share the kids' work with the public because you don't need to know Second Life to watch a movie or to understand what their message is. [...] [The participants] learned a lot of transferable skills in this camp. They were able to learn how to capture angles, tell a story and raise awareness on a right, while at the same time having fun with it."

The organization hopes to expand the camp next summer, to "include more children from around the world." For more info, you can check out the Global Kids' Digital Media Initiatives project website, Holy Meatballs, or the One Minute Jrs project site. Prepare to be impressed!

Children's Studies at York University

Cool news on the academic front. York University (in Toronto) has launched a new undergrad program and Children's Studies department dedicated to exploring "global childhood experiences in philosophical and social terms and their personal, societal and human consequences." The program currently maintains a small full-time faculty, with a much larger number of associated faculty drawn from different York University departments. According to the press release and program description, students will learn about the various dimensions of children's culture -- "distinguishing between culture created by adults for children and the culture of children themselves" -- as well as practical skills needed for working with and researching children. It sounds absolutely, positively awesome, and is the first of its kind in Canada. Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Children's Studies program is truly interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, incorporating expertise and courses from programs such as sociology and psychology. Courses include The World of Childhood, Listening to Children: Ethics and Methodology of Child-Centered Studies and Contemporary Children's Culture Internships/Practicums. You are required to participate in community-based programs involving local schools and are encouraged to take part in advocacy work. Graduates of this program can pursue a wide-range of careers including counsellors, social workers, lawyers, teachers, librarians and international development workers.

It also sounds like the program is hitting the ground running: the school has a massive archive of "child-related materials" called the Canadian Children's Culture Collection, which includes data from a number of previous studies conducted out of York University, as well as unique toy collections, including toys designed by kids themselves. Very cool indeed. No news about job opportunities, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye out.

Here's a link to the Children's Studies department website.

The Coolest Girl In School, or Bully w/ a Pink Bow

Another great article from YPulse this week, this time around a new Australian mobile game that's being promoted as "GTA for Girls". Here's an excerpt from anastasia's post:

Do girls need their own GTA? A female Australian mobile game developer thinks they do, which is why she created "The Coolest Girl In School." The game is provoking parental outcry Down Under. [...] [It also] Sounds like the game is full of mixed messages -- being a "mean girl" wins the game, i. e. "lie, bitch and flirt your way to the top of the high school ladder," but according to the article about the game in The Daily Telegraph, risky behaviors, i.e. drinking, drugs, etc. do have consequences. So if the argument is that Grand Theft Auto allows boys to live out their fantasies of mass murder and beating up prostitutes, than the Coolest Girl in School lets "good girls" live out their fantasies of being "bad" and popular?

For more coverage, check out Tweenage Wasteland and this article in The Ottawa Citizen by Misty Harris.

Reading the game's description and taking a step back from the controversy a little, it seems to me that we've seen all of this before...last year, in fact, when Rockstar's identically-themed Bully was released and everyone was up in arms about how it promoted bullying by "rewarding" bullying behaviours. In Bully, the player advances by spreading rumours, rebelling against teachers, pitting cliques against each other, trying to impress the cool kids, fending off constant attacks from larger bullies, dressing to impress the cool kids, going on dates with and/or merely smooching with the right people (girl or boy). If you got caught, you would get punished. Actions had repercussions -- every move you made to fit in with one group put you at odds with the others. Etc. Etc. Now, replace some of the more overt forms of physical violence with emotional or psychological violence, and what you've got sounds a heck of a lot like The Coolest Girl in School.

I played a big chunk of Bully last year for my thesis, along with another controversial game called Rule of Rose. Like Bully, Rule of Rose dealt with bullying, although the fact that it was girls doing and receiving it seemed to be enough to send that game out of the realm of public debate and into the realm of censorship. The game was banned in Europe, and had late releases in the US and Australia because of the controversy around it. Meanwhile, although Bully had originally attracted more public attention, it ultimately sort of came and went without a hitch (well, a Jack Thompson court case, but that was par for the course last year). My own opinion about both games is that not only are they not nearly as violent as most, but that they address violence in a way that could actually be much more meaningful and value-laden for young people (not children, but teens and young adults) than, say, some gangland fantasy or alien killing spree. Both games are attempts -- albeit flawed -- to delve into an enormously significant and serious issue...far from merely "promoting" bullying, they each explore bullying in complex ways that have not been discussed in the ensuing debates, which instead seem to limit themselves to whether or not the games should exist. Which brings me back to The Coolest Girl in School, which finds itself as the newest focus of this same essentializing discourse about whether games are "good" or "bad", and questions of how we can make these bad games disappear.

I'm not saying that The Coolest Girl in School will contain the same depth and intelligence as Rule of Rose, or that it will bring the player through the many layers of moral ambiguity that underlie high-school social hierarchies the way Bully did. All I'm saying is that we can't write a game off outright just because it deals with "unpleasant" issues, or addresses them in an exaggerated or unconventional way. That sort of reactionary attitude is what leads to censorship, and places dangerous pressure on the industry to limit itself to "family friendly" fare, even when designing games for adults or older kids and teens. Let's play the game first, and then have an informed discussion about it afterward.

Update: I just heard about another new game that fits this genre, called Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble. Check out Leigh Alexander's review on Playthisthing.com.

From No Cells to "Edu"Cells...Hmmmm

This story from AdAge about the continuing saga of kids and cells in NYC gave me serious pause. Last year, NYC put a ban on mobile phones in schools, causing quite an uproar among students and their parents. Now, the New York City Department of Education is working with advertising agency Droga5 on a new program (termed "The Million" in reference to the number of kids in the NYC public school system), that would see the distribution of free mobile phones to NYC students. The twist? The phones would come equipped with "educational" content, and would be plugged into a learning reward system. The real twist? Content would be sponsored, incorporate ads and other forms of cross-promotion, and the reward system limited to a bunch of "discounts," undoubtedly for sponsored products. Yikes! Here's the description from the AdAge article:

"[T]he program involves giving away free mobile phones packed with learning tools such as a thesaurus, spell checks and an extra-help tip line to each student. The more a student uses these learning applications, the more rewards -- discounts for movies, sneakers, clothes and music downloads, as well as air-time minutes and text messages -- are unlocked. Additional incentives for achievement and attendance, including congratulatory voice-mail messages from, say, Derek Jeter or a wake-up call from Jay-Z, are also planned.

"What's cooler than the iPhone is something that has almost as many applications but is free," Mr. Droga [founder of Droga5] said. In addition, the phone's exclusive nature -- only public-school students will be able to reap the benefits of it -- may drive up the "badge factor," adding to its appeal.

Naturally, there'll be room for brands to latch onto the cause. The hardware provider, based on the video Mr. Droga showed at the conference, appears to be Motorola, though he wouldn't confirm it. He also declined to name the service provider that's been chosen. There'll also be some room for advertising on the phone. After all, the phones, while provided for free to the students, won't be completely without cost. As such, marketers will be able to infiltrate the students' world through "responsible" sponsorships."

This sounds like corporate monopoly to me...ban kids from bringing in their own cell phones, and then enforce this "free" system that essentially grants Droga5 and their sponsors exclusive reign over kids' mobile use outside of school? It looks like I'm not the only one who smells a rat. Anastasia from YPulse had this to say:

So we're replacing students phones that they can't bring to school with new phones (that they still may not be able to bring to school) packed with branded content.

What about incentivizing students with innovative new ways of learning in the classroom using blogs, wikis, iPods and cellphones? How about integrating the technology they already have or use into existing lesson plans? If students aren't engaged or interested in learning, bribing them with phone bling feels like a Band Aid solution and another opportunity for marketers to reach kids in class.

I agree...this really does just seem like another case of commercialization in (or in this case via) the classroom. Check out Commercial Alert's ongoing campaign for a discouraging number of comparison cases, as well as Jill Sharpe's new documentary Corporations in the Classroom (or here) for more info.

Noteworthy Blogs Alert: Parental Guidance Please

I came across two awesome blogs this weekend that I want to let everyone know about, both dealing with kids and media/marketing, both written from (and for) a parent's perspective. The first, Outside the (Toy) Box, is written by a mother of two/media studies professor, and focuses on various aspects of kids' consumer culture, kids' media and gender issues...as well as news from the front lines of the ongoing battle against the encroaching commercialization of kids' social environments (for example, how her child's preschool is dealing with Scholastic's adverbooks and the branded book fairs issue). I love the first line of her bio: "Like many of you, I’m a parent with a brain and a critical eye." The blog is new but already quite extensive, with a variety of issues, thoughts, links, and news items to delve into.

The second, Corporate Babysitter is part of a larger, newly-launched non-profit organization called Parents for Ethical Marketing (PEM). The author/founder, Lisa Ray, is also a mother of two, a writer, and a stay-at-home mom who previously ran a blog called Two Knives. At Corporate Babysitter, you will find a variety of useful links -- to reports, papers, interviews with scholars/activists in the field -- and a small (but growing) selection of critical posts on marketing to kids (and what parents can do about it). Here's an excerpt from the PEM mission statement:

Of course, parents are ultimately responsible for raising healthy children. But corporate marketers would have us believe that combating their damaging commercial messages is exclusively our problem. Parents for Ethical Marketing thinks it’s about time that corporations take some of the responsibility. Through parental awareness, public pressure, and legislative initiatives, Parents for Ethical Marketing encourages corporations to adopt responsible marketing standards and practices that sustain the health of children and families.

I'll be adding both blogs to my links list. Thanks to both authors for sharing their insight, thoughts and experiences...I suspect their posts will be quite valuable to my own work, and look forward to reading them more thoroughly.

Reforming Copyright Law: A Six-Step Strategy

Head's up on a great article by Anders Bylund posted on Ars Tehnica last week, on Public Knowledge's six-step plan for reforming copyright law to better protect citizen (as opposed to solely corporate) interests. The plan was presented at a New Media conference that took place recently at Boston University, and seeks to address the growing "'disconnect between the law and the technology' of media production and distribution." Said Public Knowledge president Gigi Sohn,

"For the past 35 years, the trend has been nearly unmitigated expansion of the scope and duration of copyright, resulting in a clear mismatch between the technology and the law." ...Advances in technology keep making it easier to copy and distribute songs, movies, books, and so on. Meanwhile, the kind of legislation that gets big-money lobby support from content producers makes it increasingly illegal—but not necessarily harder—to use these new powers of information and entertainment.

The article goes on to describe the six solutions that Sohn proposes could be used to establish a more balanced (US) copyright system. Here's a brief overview of her key points:

1) Make fair use reform a top priority: "The US must allow for more incidental and non-commercial media uses; it is currently far too easy to break the law without knowing it."

2) Elevate the landmark 1984 Betamax decision (which acknowledged the consumer's right to record and timeshift media content for personal use at home) from mere "legal precedent" into actual law.

3) Implement and enforce limitations on the DMCA, to keep the number of takedown notices and SLAPP suits to a minimum. Included in this is the recommendation that the DMCA be reprimanded "for "knowingly or recklessly" demanding takedowns without a real case."

4) Clean up the existing music licensing system and create a clear and simple legal framework. This would include equalizing royalty rates (traditional radio currently pays lower royalties than new media channels), and making it easier to find copyright owners and obtain clearance.

5) Relax the rules around orphaned works: "You should be able to sing a song or use a picture if a "good faith copyright search" can't turn up the owner."

6) Simplify and clarify license notices to a clear and concise set of instructions, that use everyday language (not legalese) and do not misrepresent or exaggerate copyright claims.

You can read more about the organization's copyright reform campaign on their website, where you can also access a full transcript of Sohn's speech.

Pigs Fly! Also, FTC Leaning Toward New Regulation!

More repercussions from the FTC's Privacy Townhall, as the evidence and testimonies -- and their potential implications -- continue to reverberate throughout the advertising industry (and amongst policy makers!). From today's Online Media Daily digest, an article by Thomas Claburn at Information Week on the (dare we say growing?) likelihood that the FTC might actually introduce some new online ad regulation. The industry is all abuzz today about a shift in the US governmental body's hitherto corporate-friendly attitude toward new media goings-on. The tipping point was apparently Facebook's and MySpace's increasingly invasive ad strategies, and their respective announcements over the past couple of weeks that they plan to significantly enhance their invasion(s) of users' privacy -- and, of course, advertise to them even more. As the Online Media Daily post describes,

Consumer privacy groups have been complaining to the Federal Trade Commission about the enhanced targeting practices of marketers. They want stricter regulation of online data tracking-referred to more broadly as "behavioral targeting" these days. And the FTC is starting to listen, as the prospect of enhanced data targeting increases.

Mergers like Google-DoubleClick and Microsoft-aQuantive have consumer groups particularly worried. One of their chief complaints is that ad networks can no longer contend that they don't collect personally identifiable information, as the increase in data collection leads to more distinct user profiles. Moreover, the ways that networks collect user information are expanding: content tracking, browser toolbars, promotions, sweepstakes, discounts, online purchases, search and declared user information. Advertisers aim to take the latter to the next level via social networking. So, how much is too much? Unfortunately, it looks like the FTC no longer trusts the industry to decide.

Claburn's own coverage is certainly a little industry-biased, but he nonetheless makes a number of good connections and tackles the nuances of "personally -identifiable information" in a way that has been lacking in the other articles I've read so far. He writes (albeit with a hint of sarcasm):

The Center for Digital Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group laid these and other social ills such as racial profiling at the feet of online marketers at a Federal Trade Commission meeting two weeks ago and urged the FTC to investigate and regulate online marketing. The advocacy groups singled out Pepsi, General Mills, and MasterFoods USA, part of Mars, for targeting the youth market with online ads in a complaint filed with the FTC. They also documented the extent to which some of the lenders caught up in the mortgage meltdown were among the biggest online advertisers.

And...

One person's relevant ad apparently is another's manipulative marketing technique that makes use of personal data in ways that compromise privacy. "The right hand of online marketing continues to hide behind the myth of anonymity, even while the left hand of Web analytics constructs remarkably detailed mosaics out of innumerable shards of purportedly 'non-personally identifiable' information," the groups said in their complaint.

The first three pages of the article are a pretty good read, before Claburn's analysis dissolves into a series of pats-on-the-back for industry self-regulation. You might also want to read Claburn's earlier article on how social networking sites makes money.

Media Action Pre-Launch

A new media watchdog network, focused on gender representations in the media, pre-launched its site today to coincide with the release of a new report on young women's responses to media portrayals. Media Action, a reincarnation of Media Watch, is a Canada-wide initiative led by some pretty amazing people, including its director -- well-known (a.k.a. Governor General award-winning) social activist and media critic Shari Graydon. The new report, conducted by EKOS Research, found that young women in Canada are frustrated by what they see as a double standard when it comes to gender representation. Here's the press release and description:

In conjunction with National Media Education Week, Media Action (formerly MediaWatch) has released an EKOS research study looking at young women's responses to dominant media portrayals. Young women in several Canadian cities expressed almost universal frustration with pervasive images of "flawless" female bodies, and the disproportionate media attention paid to women as sex objects and "those who mess up."

The report reveals the conflicted relationship young women have with pop culture, simultaneously engaging with many forms of traditional and emerging media, while rejecting and resenting many dominant messages about female sexuality and appearance. They were particularly quick to note the double standard that exists regarding the greater diversity of male body types and portrayals.

Young women noted that "society worships guys who come across as good or bad, tough, responsible, independent and even weird," and "They don't have to conform to one specific image."

According to director Shari Graydon, "This research reminds us that despite the enormous gains women have made in recent decades, many media practices continue to reinforce limiting and destructive stereotypes. Media Action's investment in improving the picture and giving women a voice on these issues remains timely and relevant."

While the site doesn't go live until January, it already provides a number of downloadable goodies, including a PDF of the report itself, and some background documents: "It Just Sucks You In": Young Women's Use of Facebook by Leslie Regan Shade, and Popular Culture and Female Sexuality: Consuming the ‘Representations'.

Notes from the FTC Townhall on Privacy

While coverage of last week's FTC Townhall on Privacy issues is still pouring in, I thought I'd take some time today to link to a few articles published by MediaPost that I've found particularly interesting in terms of what they say about the industry response to the testimony and issues raised. Firstly, I was quite surprised to see our old friend "proof of harm" pop up in this discussion, since I really didn't think that infringing upon citizens' rights could ever be defended as "unharmful". The "proof of harm"/media effects debate -- so often used by the press to dismiss public concerns about its media by creating polarity and confusion -- is surprisingly out of place within this debate, but as you can see from the excerpt below, has nonetheless somehow wiggled its way in. From MediaPost:

IT'S NOT HARD FOR CONSUMERS to say why they dislike intrusive ads, pop-ups served via spyware, in-box-cluttering spam, or a telephone ringing during dinner. But whatever damage is caused by targeting, or serving ads to people based on the Web sites they visit, is harder to pinpoint--which is leading some Internet industry executives to question whether the FTC even has the authority to call for the regulation of the practice.

"What we haven't seen is that real harm," Mike Zaneis, Interactive Advertising Bureau vice president of public policy, told the FTC Friday, on the second day of a meeting to address behavioral targeting. He dismissed as "speculative" advocates' concerns that companies would misuse information gleaned from monitoring Web-surfing behavior.

Consumer and privacy advocates like the World Privacy Forum say they worry that companies could make assumptions based on Web users' online activity and then use that information to consumers' disadvantage. For instance, a health insurance company might decline coverage to people whose online behavior indicates they suffer from AIDS or other costly medical conditions.

But Zaneis and other Internet executives appearing in Washington last week say that the prospect of that type of scenario shouldn't lead to broad curbs on targeted advertising. They also argue that governmental attempts to regulate behavioral targeting will hurt the online ad industry's ability to grow and innovate.

Yowza! Isn't privacy invasion in itself reason enough to call these practices into question. I'm quite shocked by this position, and very glad that we already have even minor policies in place that establish privacy rights as citizen/consumer/human rights, including Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

If market research doesn't qualify as arbitrary, I don't know what does. And as for attacks upon one's reputation, I think that the scenario outlined by the World Privacy Forum certainly represents a likely and quite apt example. But what about other, less obvious instances of social sorting and categorization that occurs during web-tracking and data-mining?

A second typical industry response can be found in a thought piece ("Just an Online Minute") the publication sent out on Friday (Nov. 2), discussing Esther Dyson's call for enhanced disclosure around online marketing / data-collection practices. Here, the emphasis is on how difficult it would be to put the power back into consumers' hands, blaming the fact that many users don't read privacy policies:

Call it "Disclosure 2.0." That's the term Internet guru Esther Dyson used today to describe a new type of privacy notice that might be coming to the online marketing world. Speaking at the second day of a Federal Trade Commission conference about privacy and Web ads, Dyson proposed that social networking sites will drive new types of interaction between marketers and consumers. She said that consumers -- now trained in some aspects of the art of profile creation and maintenance via sites like Facebook -- will want to wield similar control over their marketing profiles.

Dyson predicts that users will soon ask, "If I curate my profile... and if I can decide which of my friends can see which part of my profile, why can't I do that for marketers?"

It's an intriguing idea, but executing it will be another matter. There appears to be widespread agreement that very few consumers currently read privacy notices. Of course, it's not surprising that people don't interrupt their Web surfing to click on privacy links and then read policies written in page after page of dense legalese. But, Dyson said, that doesn't mean that people don't want answers to the basic questions, "Why are you showing me this ad? What is it you know?"

Of course, the position that users are to blame for the lack of privacy protection online directly contradicts a concurrent (and also typical) industry position that companies "already fully protect users' privacy interests" and that "additional regulations could harm the online advertising industry," -- a position that was expressed in another MediaPost article which appeared on the same day. Stay tuned for some links and discussion of alternative perspectives...however, I thought it would be useful to first point out how stagnant the debate about users' rights becomes when this approach is taken by industry representatives and press...repeating the same arguments over and over, taking the same (albeit contradictory) positions time and time again, even as business practices and the technologies themselves are changing and intensifying at light speed.

Guest Commentary on Children's Media Consultant

A couple of weeks ago, Ashley from Children's Media Consultant blog invited me to write a Guest Commentary, in response to a posting she had written about Edgar & Ellen back in August. The focus of my short commentary is on child-generated content and intellectual property issues, and is entitled Who Owns the Content When Kids Produce It Online. Thanks again to Ashley for this opportunity to contribute to her site - I hope we get to do it again someday!

Jobs Galore @ Grand Text Auto

Academic gaming blog Grand Text Auto has started a thread posting the many, many communications/media/visual and digital culture positions and postdocs searching for candidates right now. While the thread is focused somewhat on jobs that would be suitable for scholars researching digital games, the calls themselves are often quite broad and relevant for new/upcoming PhDs in a variety of related fields. Job postings (all courtesy of Grand Text Auto and its thread contributors) include:

- Two new faculty positions in Game Design Studies at UC Santa Cruz

- Two new faculty positions in Digital Humanities and Media Studies at UCLA (deadlines Nov. 10 and 20), along with a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Digital Humanities (deadline Feb. 2008).

- New assistant prof. position in Television Studies at UCSD (deadline Nov. 15)

- A games-related faculty position with the Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media Department at Michigan State (upcoming)

- A tenure-track interactive visual media position with the Arts, Media and Engineering program at Arizona State University. (deadline Nov. 25 and every 4 wks until position is filled)

- An Associate or Assistant Professor in Media Studies with The Department of English at Rutgers University (New Brunswick-Piscataway) (deadline passed)

- Assistant Professor in Digital Media Studies with The Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University (reviews begin Nov. 16)

- A Tenure Track Junior Faculty Position in Communication and Technology at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Department of Language, Literature and Communication.

- A Tenure-track assistant professor position in Creative Writing program at the University of Eastern Michigan (deadline Nov. 5)

- A Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies (review begins December 2007)

- An Assistant Professor in New Media and Digital Culture, with the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University, The Netherlands

- Assistant or Associate Professor in Game Design and Development at Michigan State University, Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media (deadline Dec. 1)

- Assistant Professor in Visual Culture/Media Studies, with the Department of Cinema and Photography, College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (deadline November 30 until filled)

- A tenure-track Assistant Professor of New Media Studies, with the Department of Communication at the University of Utah (deadline Nov.1)

- Multiple faculty positions in media studies with the Communications and New Media Programme at the National University of Singapore.

And numerous others that have been circulating in my Inbox of late, including:

- Three tenure track positions (assistant or associate prof) at Northwestern University with the Department of Communication Studies in the School of Communication: A position in Media, Technology, and Society; a position in Rhetoric, and Public Culture; and a position in New Media/Interactive Artsv(cross-appointed with the department of Radio/TV/Film) (deadline Dec. 1)

- Two positions in Cinema and Media Studies with the Department of Film at York University (deadline Dec. 1 and Jan.4 respectively)

- A tenure-track position in New Media Studies with the department of English, Linguistics, and Speech at The University of Mary Washington (deadline has passed)