Register Now for Media Madness: The Impact of Sex, Violence, & Commercial Culture on Adults, Children, & Society, July 8-11, Boston
Categories: Feminist Perspective, Sexual Education, Impact of Porn, Porn Industry, StopPornCulture, Media Ethics, What You Can Do
Media Madness: The Impact of Sex, Violence, & Commercial Culture on Adults, Children, & Society
Dates: Tuesday July 8 – Friday July 11, 2008
Faculty: Gail Dines, Chair and Professor of American
Studies, & Diane Levin, Professor of Early Childhood Education
Earnings: Non-credit or 3 Graduate Credits; PDPs/CEUs
available
Tuition: Non-credit/Audit: $475; For-credit: $2,025
Course Description:
For the 14th consecutive year, Wheelock College is offering the very popular summer institute on the role that the media (television, movies, magazines, video games, advertising and pornography) plays in shaping children’s development and behavior, as well as our overall cultural attitudes. The institute will be held on Wheelock’s Boston Campus.
By focusing on the onslaught of violent, sexist and commercial images that bombard us daily, participants will: understand harm caused by this onslaught; build skills to educate and support children, youth and adults to resist the dangers; and integrate broad-based media literacy curricula and activism into classrooms and everyday life.
Who Should Attend
Human service providers, educators, anti-violence activists, parents, media educators, producers, and graduate and undergraduate students.
Why Now
Media touches almost all aspects of our lives and shapes the way
we think about our culture, our world and ourselves. Children spend
more time in front of a TV screen than in school. By age 18, they have
witnessed more than 100,000 violent acts and more than 300,000 commercials.
The majority of children’s toys are linked to TV programs and
movies (many of which are violent) as are the clothing they wear and
the food they eat.
Emotional immaturity, narrow media-linked
play; violent and sexualized behavior; childhood obesity; rampant consumerism;
difficulty communicating; and poor literacy, math, and science skills
have all been associated with media consumption.
Banning media from our lives is rarely a viable solution. Children and adults must become more critical consumers of media to combat the harmful culture created by the media.
What You’ll Learn
- How media violence affects behavior and contributes to violence in society;
- How media influences children’s ideas about sexual behavior and relationships with others;
- How media affects children’s cognitive and emotional development;
- How media messages perpetrate and legitimize sexism, racism, classism, and homophobia;
- How political and economic forces shape and control the media;
- To analyze a wide range of media, including movies, cartoons, sitcoms, MTV and advertisements for important messages about race, gender, class and violence;
- Strategies and resources for combating the hazards of media culture with children using age-appropriate approaches to media literacy, violence prevention, and conflict resolution;
- To become active in advocacy, community building and policy around media issues.
Institute Faculty
Gail Dines, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Chair of Women’s and American Studies, author of Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality and co-editor of Gender, Race and Class in the Media, a featured speaker in the videos The Strength to Resist and Mickey Mouse Monopoly, and a nationally acclaimed lecturer.
Diane Levin, Ph.D., Professor of Education, author or co-author of So Sexy So Soon (in press) The War Play Dilemma, Remote Control Childhood?, Teaching Young Children in Violent Times, Who’s Calling the Shots? and Before Push Comes to Shove, a featured speaker in the videos Beyond Good and Evil and Mickey Mouse Monopoly, and a founding member of Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment (TRUCE) and Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children (CCFC).
Learn more and register here.See also:
Gail Dines Presents: Pornography and Pop Culture (explicit, 5/5/07)
"Now, I've been on television shows with many pornographers, and they have the absolute chutzpah to turn around and say to me, 'But we love women. This is a celebration of women.' Well I have to tell you, if you think calling a woman a 'cumbucket' is your sign of love, sorry... These men hate women...
"I do not believe that men go to look at pornography because they hate women. I think for most males in our culture, and remember the average age of downloading your first porn is now 11 to 12... I don't think that these 11 to 12 year-olds hate women. Their hormones are going crazy, they live in a hypersexualized culture...what passes for sex education is pathetic, so where are you going to go? You're going to go to pornography...
"I say this to men over and over again. You might not go to pornography hating women, but you're sure as hell going to come away with that feeling. You get much more than you bargained for with pornography, and that's the problem with it. The other problem with pornography is it sexualizes the violence and degradation against women. And when you sexualize violence you render that violence invisible, because when men see that they can't step back and critique it... You are basically trying to have a rational conversation with an erection and it doesn't work."
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