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.

Gaming's "Sea Change"

There's an article of interest by Seth Schiesel in last week's New York Times, which attempts to analyze last year's videogame sales stats (released in December by NPD Group). Although Schiesel's claim that the videogame market experienced a "sea change" this past year is a tad hyperbolic (and as Kotaku points out much of these arguments in this article have been made before), I completely agree that the figures point to some much larger changes within gaming that may be indicative of an important social shift around digital game usage and popular perceptions of the medium. Yes, that's right, I'm talking about the Wii...the domestic integration of physical and virtual play is exciting and fascinating, and I'm looking forward to reading some good theoretical explorations of this as scholarship in the area becomes available. But I'm also talking about Schiesel's identification of the spread of collaborative play...expanding beyond the realm of MMOGs and other multiplayer computer games, incorporating players of all kinds, frequencies and experience levels. The diffusion of mutliplayer gaming technologies, continued developments within portable play technologies such as the DS (which combines multiplayer gaming with portability), are opening up social conceptualizations of digital play...and making digital gaming much more inclusive.

Although the NPD doesn't seem to have a report of its findings available on its website, an issue of Wired blog from December reprinted a number of its sales stats. Most of you have probably already seen these, but I figured I'd reprint them as well for easy reference. These sales stats are for the US only:

Top-Selling Hardware/Consoles 2007
1. Nintendo DS - Sold $8.5 million in 2007 ($17.65 million to date)

2. Nintendo Wii - Sold $6.29 million in 2007 ($7.38 million to date)

3. Xbox 360 - Sold $4.62 million ($9.15 million to date)

4. PlayStation 2 - $3.97 million ($41.12 million to date)

5. PSP - $3.82 million ($10.47 million to date)

6. PlayStation 3 - $2.56 million ($3.25 million to date)

Top-Selling Console Games 2007
1. HALO 3 (360) - by Microsoft, Released Sep. 2007, Rated M: $4.82 million

2. Wii Play (Wii) - by Nintendo, Released Feb. 2007, Rated E: $4.12 million

3. Call fo Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360) - by Activision, Released Nov. 2007, Rated M: $3.04 million

4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) - by Activision, Released Oct. 2007, Rated T: $2.72 million

5. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - by Nintendo, Released Nov. 2007, Rated E: $2.52 million

6. Pokemon Diamond (NDS) - by Nintendo, Released Apr.2007, Rated E: $2.48 million

7. Madden NFL 08 (PS2) - by EA, Released Aug.2007, Rated E: $1.90 million

8. Guitar Hero 2 (PS2) - by Activision, Released Nov.2006, Rated T: $1.89 million

9. Assassin's Creed (360) - by Ubisoft, Released Nov.2007, Rated M: $1.87 million

10. Mario Party 8 (Wii) - by Nintendo, Released May 2007, Rated E: $1.82 million

Janet Wasko on Virtual Worlds for Kids

FlowTV -- an experimental, critical online forum written primarily by academics but aimed at a general audience -- has just published a short piece by political economist Janet Wasko, exploring commodificaiton in Webkinz and Neopets. Wasko's previous work on the film industry and Disney is enormously respected (and widely referenced) within communications and media studies, and it's great to see her expanding further into kids' new media forms. In the article, Wasko provides a comprehensive overview of the market mechanisms at work within these sites, linking them to larger trends within kids' consumer culture. She concludes:

It might be argued that these sites contribute to the commercialization of childhood and youth. Indeed, the process of targeting youth for consumption through media and advertising has become increasingly more developed and sophisticated, as documented by many scholars and some policy people. It seems obvious that these new websites have become a part of that process.

Even before Neopets and other sites were created, child development specialist, David Elkind, poignantly observed that "Children’s play – their inborn disposition for curiosity, imagination and fantasy – is being silenced in the high-tech, commercialized world we have created." (Elkind, 1982)

While this development may not be surprising to many, maybe that is the point. The popularity of Neopets, Webkinz, and many other sites aimed at kids feed into the naturalizaton of the commodification and commercialization processes that are at the core of advanced capitalism. And, again, another new technology has been harnessed for commercial purposes, as well as promoting and teaching consumption to young people.

Nicely said. The past couple of months have seen a lot of media/academic/critic coverage of kids' virtual worlds, and there are almost too many interesting articles and commentaries to list. I'd recommend checking out Bonnie Ruberg's brief, but insightful, look at the new Build-a-Bear VW over at Terra Nova, and Izzy Neis' recent post on why FAO Schwartz won't be launching its own VW any time soon.

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

The UK Kids' Media Disconnect

One of the reasons I came to London this semester was because the UK is currently such a hotbed of academic and public debate about kids and media. From child obesity and videogame controversies, to the numerous nation- and EU-wide studies being conducted here, to special government task forces and initiatives, to the large amount of media coverage UK newspapers and bloggers provide of these developments, London just seems like the 'place to be' for a children's media scholar. As a hotbed of debate, it is necessarily populated by conflicting opinions and interpretations -- which is both hugely exciting and a little overwhelming. As in the US and Canada, however, the debates here are also characterized (possibly hindered) by an underlying disconnect between everyday use (kids' media usage, parental concerns, family dynamics, school life) and popular discourse (governmental response, media representations, industry agendas). An example of this can be found in two articles that appeared in the BBC News online in the past couple of months. In December, the BBC published an article on a Microsoft commissioned review of 4000 parents in various countries around the EU. Among other things, the study found that:

- "More than 75% of parents are concerned about the content of video games played by their children."
- "Almost half of the 4,000 parents surveyed in the UK, France, Italy and Germany said that one hour of gaming each day should be the limit."
- "43% of the surveyed parents said they were not aware of ratings systems for games to determine suitability."

Without digging up previous reports/surveys, I'd risk making the claim that these findings pretty much support prior work in this area, which consistently finds that the "problem" lies in the parents' lack of awareness about ratings...a convenient argument that puts the blame and responsibility back in the home and well away from the industry (i.e. any need for government regulation).

The story is positioned in relation to an ongoing study being conducted by Tanya Byron on kids' new media culture (you can check out her study's Bebo page here), which was commissioned by the PM and launched in September 2007 to the immediate outcry of the UK videogames industry and self-regulatory board. Although the findings of the "Byron Review" won't be released until March, the BBC story appears to be laying some important groundwork for its reception, making preemptive links to industry-commissioned studies, and setting up the debate within the age-old industry-vs-parents binary. The article notes that according to the Microsoft study, parents "saw themselves as the key decision makers for which games should be played by their children, rather than regulators or the video games industry", making it seem like an "either or" scenario, rather than a system that can (and often does) work in concert. A big chunk of the remainder of the article is dedicated to providing the industry's perspective -- its defense of the educational and social aspects of games,reproducing the same tired dichotomies we've been seeing for years - violent vs. educational, wasted time vs. productive leisure.

The last third of the article gives some of the study's findings on kids' media use, again based on parental reporting/perception:

- "[M]ore than half of children played games on consoles, 32% on PCs, 9% played games online and 4% played on a mobile phone."
- The majority (64%) of kids play digital games alone, while less than 10% played with family members, and 12% played with friends. (although it doesn't specify whether this includes playing with friends online, I would assume that it probably doesn't)
- Only 5% of kids played "mainly online" - again, not sure what that signifies exactly, or how and whether parents keep track of this.

A few weeks later, the BBC published an opinion piece (though not so clearly labeled as such) by the Chief executive of Becta, Stephen Crowne, under the headline: "Parents urged to embrace new tech: The head of the government agency which promotes technology in schools urges parents to see it positively". The article takes aim at recent ChildWise report, under the introduction of: "It seems that every week a new report is published revealing the negative impact technology such as the internet, computer games and television is having on young people." The report found that UK kids spend about 5 hours and 20 minutes "staring at a screen each day", which reading continues to decline. Crowne suggests that before parents throw away their television sets and computers, they should consider some usage stats published by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (that 41% of children 8-11 yrs regularly use the internet; 75% of 11-year-olds have their own TV, games console and mobile phone; 56% of children aged 8-11 play computer games; and 7% of 10-year-olds have their own web cam), stats which he says describe the "real world of children." The gist of the argument is that because technology is to kids what honey is to bees, parents shouldn't fight their children's technology use, but channel it towards positive outcomes. etc., etc., etc.

Again here we see a tidy reduction of the issues, a championing of productive play and educational value as the right and only response to parental concerns, a vilification of children's current technological/media use as "non-effective" (i.e. wasted time) that can be "repurposed" (by parents and teachers, of course) as developmentally and economically beneficial activities, if only parents and teachers will "get on board". A perfect example of the kind of thing Ellen Seiter talks about in The Internet Playground, and that Anil Narine and I discuss in our paper Playtime is Over! (forthcoming). Crowne concludes with the following advice to parents who are worried about their kids' uses of technologies:

Rather than trying to exclude technology from their lives because we feel uncomfortable with it or have a vague idea that it is "not a good thing", we need to do what parents and educators have always done - harness their children's passions and interests and use technology to engage them in learning.

Sound familiar?

My G-Life: Game Design with a Mission

Cool site alert! An article was published in the BBC news online a few weeks ago (but I only just now had the chance to research it) about a new "social networking site" aimed at enabling teens around the world (aged 13+) to learn game design/development skills and then share their final products...all under the Creative Commons license. The site is called My GLife.org, and is currently in beta-mode, operating with only a bare bones structure and no teen-designed games as of yet. Some media and marketing (?) companies have donated simple flash games as examples, though, to give visitors and potential developers a sense of what they're looking for. Here's an excerpt from the official description of the site:

Through an open architecture of websites and related wikis and blogs, MyGLife participants learn to analyze, design and build web-based games and simulations that address globally relevant and social issues of their choice and passion. Topics include climate change, ecology, water, community services, technology skills, peace and more.

[...]

MyGLife.org is comprised of an open architecture of educational, programmable websites and related wikis that offer more than 100 educational activities, simulations and tutorials to play, learn, explore and contribute new ideas online.

* PLAY to Learn invites participants to play with an arcade of games, puzzles, creative tools and scientific simulations and to think about them critically as game developers. Donated and open source customized tutorials allow participants to tinker with the underlying game code and learn programming skills.

* LEARN to Build features an extensive library of hand-picked, custom written and open source tutorials for learning Flash, HTML, Graphic Design, Wiki, Blogging and Project Development skills.

* EXPLORE Web 2.0 Resources features links to recommended online resources and lists of suggested readings that will help participants.

* CONTRIBUTE Knowledge and Support encourages participants to follow-up their learning by contributing works back to the site. Professional developers and organizations worldwide can also donate work and learn how to start MyGLife programs locally.

The project is run by an organization called World Wide Workshop, which I hadn't heard of before now, but appears to have a pretty awesome goal of spreading global participation in digital cultural production to groups that are most often excluded, in this case young people from disadvantaged communities in developing countries worldwide.

Habbo Gets Ready to Rumble

A news item that caught my eye this week was the announcement that World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has formed a promotional partnership with the popular teen virtual world Habbo.com. From Cynopsis! Kids (Jan. 24 edition):

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and Habbo.com have teamed to promote WWE's Royal Rumble on the teen-targeted website. While the actual Royal Rumble takes place January 27, live on PPV, the Habbo Royal Rumble began this week, as Habbo members vote for the top 30 WWE wrestlers they think will make it into the big event this weekend.

Upon reading this, I immediately started thinking about a great article I found a few months ago in the Business & Society Review by Shanahan and Hyman. The article argues that WWE (still called the WWF at the time the article was written, back in 2001) broadcast programming should be deemed a program-length commercial based on the FCC criteria, and that the WWE "is a major violator of the strictures on host selling and program-length commercials." What are they selling? Well, according to Shanahan & Hyman, they're selling themselves...in the form of pay-per-view events. The article goes on to provide a political economic analysis of the WWE brand, and a well-constructed argument that WWE broadcasts are pretty much hour-long advertisements that hook viewers into a narrative that can only be followed properly if the pay-per-view components are regularly viewed/consumed as well.

The stats they provide on the WWE are humbling esp. when considering that -- although they are now quite outdated -- the brand remains immensely popular among young boys and adolescent males. For example:

With more than 5 million viewers, RAW IS WAR, the WWF’s weekly flagship program on the USA network (but recently moved to TNN), is the highest-rated program on U.S. cable television; Smackdown, the WWF’s weekly program on the UPN network, draws almost 5 million viewers. On average, the 35 million U.S. fans of the WWF and rival WCW (World Championship Wrestling) watch 15 hours per week of wrestling programs. Although WWF broadcasts attract an audience that is 70 percent male, viewers belong to many demographic segments (e.g., women are the fastest-growing segment). The three largest audience groups are 6 to 17 year olds (especially 11 to 15 year olds), 18 to 44 year old men, and 18 to 24 year old women. Pre-teens constitute more than 15 percent of the audience. To accommodate these younger viewers, the WWF tempers the violence and sexual innuendo on its weekend morning programs. The WWF’s more than one-half million U.S. fans part with $30 million a month for its pay-per-view programs, such as King of the Ring.

The broadcast programs promote the pay-per-view by creating week-long hype for the weekend PPV events. According to Shanahan & Hyman's study, the average two-hour RAW IS WAR program contains only 36 minutes of actual wrestling. The rest is dedicated to developing soap opera-esque storylines through interviews, grudge match announcements, interruptions by surprise visits from other wrestlers or wrestlers' girlfriends (or boyfriends for female wrestlers)/spouses/children or enemies, etc. The storyline, interviews and all the rest build up intricate plotlines that promise to find resolution only during the PPV event:

All pay-per-view tournaments are scheduled immediately after the Sunday evening program HEAT, which is used to promote the event; tournament results are announced the next night on RAW IS WAR. Unlike many pay-cable programs, these tournaments are never re-broadcast on U.S. stations such as USA, TNT, or WTBS. Still photographs are used to promote a pay-per-view re-broadcast of the event the following night (Tuesday; a non-wrestling night for the WWF). The winner of King of the Ring is touted as the newest icon in professional wrestling’s upper echelon. Of course,“winner” is somewhat of a misnomer; in 1989, Vince McMahon admitted, while under investigation by the New Jersey Gaming Commission, that the matches are scripted.
[...]
Because viewers are highly involved with wrestling programming in general, the WWF can work pay-per-view programs into the storyline in the guise of matches to resolve grudges fostered during weekly broadcasts.

The shows also contain numerous other examples of host-selling for sponsor products, which are often also advertised between programming, theme music (each wrestler has a theme song, which can be purchased on a CD promoted during broadcast). The study found that even advertising students (university age) had trouble identifying all the examples of host-selling contained within the programs - this truly seems like an early example of the immersive advertising that has now become so popular online.
There are also problems with the disconnect between ratings and the actual age of audience members. As Shanahan & Hyman explain:

The FCC defines a child as someone under the age of 17, yet RAW IS WAR, Smackdown, and HEAT are rated TV-14. As the largest viewer segment for professional wrestling is 6 to 17 year olds, this inconsistency is meaningful. Although the TV-14 rating means that parents could block children less than 14 years old from viewing these programs, 14 to 16 year olds, who fall into the largest segment of wrestling fans, would not be excluded. So, contrary to the Children’s Television Act of 1990, the WWF is host selling to children.

I think much of the same arguments could be made in relation to this new development, which will surely have some "unintentional" overlap in terms of age groups. Habbo.com is already so heavily commercialized, I doubt that this new development will raise too much of a fuss (sadly), but I think it's nonetheless worth to note how easily the program-length commercial can be digitized. The arguments made by Shanahan and Hyman also provide a good foundation from which to analyze future WWE promotional efforts, and I think provide some good grounding for arguments against advergames and immersive advertising generally.

Here's an additional link to the full article (subscription is required).

Publish or Perish!

*****Update: IJIRE links repaired*****

A bit of shameless self-promotion today, I'm afraid. I am very pleased to announce the publication of two new articles drawn from my ongoing work on kids' online culture. The first appears in the inaugural issue of the International Journal of Internet Research Ethics, which was launched just last week. The issue includes an article by Gove Allen, Dan Burk and Charles Ess (on the ethics of robotic data gathering), an examination of emerging legal issues in the collection/use of internet-sourced research data (by Tomas Lipinski) and an interview with Annette Markham. My own article, Researching the Researchers: Market Researchers, Child Subjects and the Problem of "Informed" Consent - which I workshoped at last year's Trials and Tribulations conference, looks at some of the ethical dilemmas I've encountered in my own research, and how the disconnect between academic and industry standards can lead to problems in conducting research in commercial online spaces.

My other new publication appears in the most recent issue (no.12) of the International Journal of Communications Law & Policy, a special issue that is linked somewhat to a panel on legal issues that took place at the 2006 AoIR. Highlights include Ian Gillies' exploration of Virtual World legalities, and Gerard Goggin's article on mobile content regulation in the converging media environment. My contribution to the issue, entitled Kids' Ad Play: Regulating Children's Advergames in the Converging Media Context, looks at possible entry points within existing Canadian and US media law and policy that could be mobilized to better regulate marketing to children online. The article originated as a course paper for Jon Festinger's Video Game Law course at the University of British Columbia, and my thanks again to Jon for his valuable guidance on this projet.

Kids and Mobile Play: Ofcom and Mobile Content

By way of the Times Online journalist Elizabeth Judge, news that UK media regulator Ofcom will be launching an inquiry into mobile content, after a series of complaints that the mobile industry is not effectively enforcing existing - voluntary - rules aimed at limiting the types of content kids can access via mobile technologies. A number of children's charities (I suspect they mean advocacy groups) point to the industry's lax standards when it comes to marketing and implementation as key examples of the inadequacy of the voluntary system. As Judge describes:

Mobile phone networks including Orange, O2 and Vodafone signed up in 2004 to a code that is aimed at protecting children using “next generation” 3G phones that offer services including internet access, video cameras and full-colour screens. Under the code, the phone companies agreed to offer parents who bought the 3G models for their children the ability to install a filter, which would block access to unsuitable internet content such as adult chatrooms.

A classification system for content - similar to that used in cinemas - was also introduced, with unsuitable material to be labelled “18”.

According to the children's charities who have launched the complaints, major phone networks and phone shops are not doing their job when it comes to providing parents with tools or information related to the risks associated with kids' unsupervised mobile technology use. Their arguments build upon a report released last year by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, which concluded that "the boom of phone ownership among under-18s had created an “increasing opportunity for the sexual exploitation of children and young people”."

Judge's article also provides some great stats, such as:
- A million under-10s in the UK (1 in 3) own a mobile phone (according to mobileYouth)
- 32 per cent of children aged 8-11 regularly use a mobile (according to Ofcom)

Further coverage can be accessed at MoCoNews.

"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.