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31
‘Kets’, therefore, are the antithesis of the adult conception of ‘real’ food
while, for adults, sweets are metonymic meals. ‘Kets’ involve a rejection of
the series of rituals and symbols surrounding the concept of the meal and are
regarded as rubbish by adults. Because they are despised by the adult world,
they are prized y the child’s and become the metaphoric meals of childhood.
Although children will consume sweets of any kind, it is ‘kets’ which the
child will most often buy. Adults never buy them. The child’s private funds,
which are not controlled by adults, are appropriately spent on those sweets
symbolic of his world. ‘Kets’ deemed by the adult world to be rubbish are
under the child’s control.3
‘Kets’ are distinguished from adult sweets in several ways. The candies are often
named after nonfood items or have nonsensical, silly names; they are often brightly
colored and oddly shaped; they are also consumed differently from ‘real’ food, as
they often have unique tastes, textures, or characteristics (such as making the mouth
tingle, making noise, or requiring that the child remove the candy from his/her mouth
repeatedly to see it change.) In the contemporary US food market, similar “kid
foods” abound, ranging from Fruit Roll Ups with temporary tongue tattoos to Pop
Tarts printed with images of Barbie, Hot Wheels, and Indiana Jones.
Food is just one of many commodities that distinguish children as a consumer
group with particular needs, wants, and tastes; often those tastes are at odds with
those of adults, who feel responsible for children’s well being (including the
cultivation of “proper” tastes). Both of these elements are evident in food
advertisements directed at children. Ellen Seiter has written about children’s
commercials as presenting a utopian image of the world—if the child can acquire the
product being advertised, she can break out of whatever boring or oppressive
conditions she finds herself in. Within the utopian world of commercials, food
products (cereal and candy in particular) are advertised as not only delicious, but also
Object Description
| Title | Kids as cultural producers: consumption, literacy, and participation |
| Author | Stephenson, Rebecca Herr |
| Author email | rherr@usc.edu; bhs@hri.uci.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Communication |
| School | Annenberg School for Communication |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-08-25 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2008-10-17 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Banet-Weiser, Sarah |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Gross, Larry Seiter, Ellen |
| Abstract | This dissertation looks closely at the practice of digital media production within a group of special education students and their teachers. Using ethnographic methods of extended participant observation and semi-structured interviews with students, teachers, and parents, along with textual analysis of students' media projects, this work examines the types of learning that emerge from making media at school and the ways in which that learning relates to media and technology use in everyday life. Over the course of one school year (2005-2006), the students who are the focus of this dissertation undertook eight different multimedia production projects, ranging from designing PowerPoint presentations to digital video production and stop-motion animation. Through media production, the students found opportunities to practice traditional and digital literacy skills as well as to explore issues of identity and self-expression.; This dissertation provides empirical support for recommendations made by several media literacy scholars to include media production as part of critical media literacy curricula and contributes a unique case study -- one situated in special education -- to a growing body of work on digital literacy. Three interdisciplinary themes--consumption, literacy, and participation -- are used to organize the description and analysis of the students' media production activities. These themes connect the specific production that took place in the classroom to larger discourses about youth, media, technology, education, and access, working to complicate existing constructions of young people as either helpless victims of manipulative media or naturally savvy media and technology users. Instead, this research emphasizes that the relationships kids have with media and technology are complex, dynamic, intrinsically linked to their identities as consumers and participants in society. Media literacy is thus theorized as a tool for understanding and controlling consumption, participation, and the construction of young people as both current and future citizens. |
| Keyword | media literacy; media production; special education; middle school; digital media |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Los Angeles |
| Coverage date | 2005/2006 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1674 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Stephenson, Rebecca Herr |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Stephenson-2393 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume29/etd-Stephenson-2393.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 36 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 31 ‘Kets’, therefore, are the antithesis of the adult conception of ‘real’ food while, for adults, sweets are metonymic meals. ‘Kets’ involve a rejection of the series of rituals and symbols surrounding the concept of the meal and are regarded as rubbish by adults. Because they are despised by the adult world, they are prized y the child’s and become the metaphoric meals of childhood. Although children will consume sweets of any kind, it is ‘kets’ which the child will most often buy. Adults never buy them. The child’s private funds, which are not controlled by adults, are appropriately spent on those sweets symbolic of his world. ‘Kets’ deemed by the adult world to be rubbish are under the child’s control.3 ‘Kets’ are distinguished from adult sweets in several ways. The candies are often named after nonfood items or have nonsensical, silly names; they are often brightly colored and oddly shaped; they are also consumed differently from ‘real’ food, as they often have unique tastes, textures, or characteristics (such as making the mouth tingle, making noise, or requiring that the child remove the candy from his/her mouth repeatedly to see it change.) In the contemporary US food market, similar “kid foods” abound, ranging from Fruit Roll Ups with temporary tongue tattoos to Pop Tarts printed with images of Barbie, Hot Wheels, and Indiana Jones. Food is just one of many commodities that distinguish children as a consumer group with particular needs, wants, and tastes; often those tastes are at odds with those of adults, who feel responsible for children’s well being (including the cultivation of “proper” tastes). Both of these elements are evident in food advertisements directed at children. Ellen Seiter has written about children’s commercials as presenting a utopian image of the world—if the child can acquire the product being advertised, she can break out of whatever boring or oppressive conditions she finds herself in. Within the utopian world of commercials, food products (cereal and candy in particular) are advertised as not only delicious, but also |
