Deconstructing Boy Culture Paradox of Empires and the Politics of Testosterone

Deconstructing Boy Culture

Paradox of Empires and the Politics of Testosterone

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What Happened to the Boy Culture in the Age of Marketing?

• Gendered patterns of media use by age 4:preferences, time and medium

• Determinants: variation by SES, ethnic background, family structure• 10% of school age population needs special education• 65% of Special education for learning disability are male • 83% of special education for emotional and behavioural reasons are

male• 76% of special education for problems at home are male• Boys twice as likely to be aggressive by eight years• Girls outperform boys on reading and study

Panic Culture?

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Mediated Childhoods

• Gendered patterns of media use by age 4:preferences, time and medium

• Polysemy: variation by SES and background• 10% of school age population needs special education• 65% of Special education for learning disability are male • 83% of special education for emotional and behavioural

reasons are male• 76% of special education for problems at home are male• Boys twice as likely to be aggressive by eight years• Girls outperform boys on reading and study

Two Approaches

• Psychological: Heussman -effects of media and the psychological mechanisms:– Learning scripts, desensitization, identification

and modelling,

• Cultural: Culture of Violence - circuits and grooves of identity ie Rushkoff’s mooks

National Television Violence Study. 1996

• “Programming appealing to children under seven is singled out because these very young children are as likely to be affected by animated programming as they are by live action programming, given their limited ability to genuinely distinguish fantasy from reality”

• .. “For young people in particular cartoon violence must be taken seriously”

• “cartoon violence goes unpunished, is undertaken by an attractive character, seems justified, and has minimal consequences for the victim”

The Smoking Gun?

• by age 11 children will have seen:– 8000 murders– 100,000 acts of violence

• 20-25 acts of violence on kids programming

• 5-6 acts of violence on prime time

• violence on TV continues to increase

Why are there effects to watching TV

• Social Learning – Copy Cat and Imitation

– Stimulation and Arousal

– Identification and Modeling of Behavior in long term

• Attitudes and Values– naturalization (mean world syndrome)

– legitimation (new values for a ruthless world

• Emotional Learning: – Desensitization and numbing to violence

• Displacement Effects (what kids no longer learn)– reading, social skills, moral problem solving

Huesmann, R. L “Psychological Processes Promoting the Relation Between Exposure to Media Violence and Aggressive Behaviour by the Viewer” Journal of Social Issues 42:125-139

1986

• “The effect of media violence in individual differences in aggression is primarily the result of a cumulative learning process during childhood. Aggressive scripts for behaviour are acquired from

observation of media violence and aggressive behaviour itself stimulates the observation of media violence. The child constantly exposed to violence is more likely to develop and maintain cognitive scripts emphasizing aggressive solutions to social problems”

Huessman and EhronOn socialization of aggressive disposition in children

window of opportunity

• Eron et al. Age trends in the Development of Aggression, Sex Typing and related Television Habits” Developmental Psychology vol 19(1) 1983 pg 71-77

• “The results of our 10-year longitudinal study suggested a relationship between televised violence and aggression. Support was also found for the theory that there is a sensitive period- probably up to the age of 10 - during which television can be especially influential on children’s behaviour”

Standing Committee on Communications and Culture, Television Violence:

Fraying our Social Fabric. Ottawa 1993

• “television violence is one of many risk factors which may contribute to aggressive tendencies and antisocial behaviour. We have clearly found that the violence portrayed on television reflects and shapes unhealthy social attitudes.. The committee has concluded that although the risk may be small, that television violence causes aggressive tendencies and antisocial behaviour in certain individuals, and may never be proven conclusively, it cannot be ignored”.

Josephson. W. Television and Violence: A Review of the Effects on Children of Different Ages. 1995 Health Canada

• “there is an unfortunate lack of non-violent educational and entertaining programming specifically geared to children”

• “viewing patterns children establish as toddlers will influence their viewing habits throughout their lives”

Surgeon General’s Report, Youth Violence, 2000

• “a substantial body of research now indicates that exposure to media violence increases children’s physically and verbally aggressive behavior in the short term”

• “a small but statistically significant impact on aggression over many years”

• “the science shows that media violence and this is primarily TV, can in fact in the short term increase aggressive behavior”

Wegener Sporhing: why are children interested in violence

• War toys and aggressive play scenes. In Toys, Play and Child Development Goldstein ed. 1993

• Gaming in Games. Rules and Patterns in Video Games. In Toys and Playthings 1998 Angouleme

• Rough and Tumble Play Smith; Pelegrini

• Goldstein: Media Violence: Why we watch?

Boyish Grooves

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Why are these two smiling?

Is it because they just got to play with their favourite toys?

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Deconstructing the military entertainment complex

• contradictory values and ideologies promoted in American youth culture – militarized masculinity vs. democratic self restraint

• confusing debates about the role of cultural industries in socialization– promotion of violence vs. access to entertainment?

• limited theorization of play and social learning– Play ethos vs. moral panic

Paradox of Empires:Remembering Wellington’s Solution:

The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton

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American masculinity?

Dubow and Miller: Media effects in a culture of violence?

• Aggressiveness vs. Impulsiveness

• Family violence/ Fragmentation

• Institutional violence

• Relation to crime generally/ gangs/ drugs

• Home Care and Latch Key Children

• Social Isolation and Friendship

• Playground safety/ monitoring

• Mean world -fear of neighbourhoods

the paradox of empires: How to cultivate both aggression and civility in

youth culture

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Have Media Made Hockey More Violent?

• explanation of effects:– imitation– identification– re-scripting of the rules and expectations– eroding previous notions of sportsmanship

SUPERHEROES, BOYS AND AGGRESSION SYNERGIES AND

GLOBALIZING MARKETS • studies of children’s TV schedules and

audiences - a global phenomenon

• Groebel - action adventure genre/ superheroes and boy audiences (12yr)

• persistence of generalized entertainment patterns across media - TV/ video games

• the onset of the syndrome (2-3)

BOYS, TOYS AND SUPERHEROES: A Pilot Study

• Mothers Responses to Superheroes

• Canadian mothers are deeply concerned as they watch their young boys growing fascination with superheroes

• mothers observe the effects of TV-TOY synergy in their children’s play

"afterwards he went and got one of his brothers guns and said he was off to hunt rabbits" or with Power Rangers he'll start kicking and fighting”.

Another stated: " we were watching Spiderman and Batman and we found we were planning our day around (it was the old Batman) and we found we

had to cut it out because there was a lot of punching and kicking and X started picking up on it and going 'pow' and things like that, so we had to

cut it out".

. "just the fighting I don't know what it is. It does seem like boys get more into that [fighting]". Another said of her four year old "he just got into action figures, definitely has bad guy and good guys." "talks about fighting off bad guys a lot" "Batman is always the good guy".

“Sometimes, I would notice he says ‘oh this guys will kill this guys.’ Then, he would crash the two toys. I thought about it a lot. It shocks me at that point, but I don’t know if I should make a big deal about it.”

"Managing anger has been something we've had to work on with him, he used to kick the door quite

regularly into his bedroom and we actually took his door off"

"we've had to have some chats about the kids he plays with that I think play quite violently and that's been kind of tough because there was a new friend that Z was making in his kinder-

garden class and we had to say that we didn't like the way that he played because the other boy

played very rough...

"TV for kids should be censored... I don't think violent images are good for the spirit and I think the way that media has become so global and it has really contributed to the level of fear that society has now, for instance the crime rate is dropping but the perception of crime is still huge and I think that is because of global media".

"I think that what makes us adults today, everything is instilled in us as young kids and if they see so much violence that they think it is an everyday thing then there is a good chance that they may act that out. I don't want my kids to think that that is ok".

“…And so I have a real concern about it because I feel that kids get numbed to the level of violence .... Its sitting there slapping us in the face and no one is doing anything about it.”

Summary of Mothers Attitudes

• concerned about values as well as disruption in superhero play

• mothers retreat from intervention

• mothers welcomed pro-social alternatives and corporate responsibility

Rescue Heroes to the Rescue?

Mothers and the socialization of aggression

Can Good Guys Be Cool Guys?

ROCKY CANYON

BILLY BLAZES

Rescue Heroes Design Strategy

Drawing the line between action toys and war play with pro-social roles

RESCUE HEROES



My Research Strategy

• Boys (3-6) and mothers

• lab and home interviews

• 10 minutes of free play with variety of toys

• Control for communication:– the video ( Looney Tunes) + ad– personal introduction of toys and roles – mothers involvement

Observing Boys Use of Toys

• Interpretation– preferences - chose and how long

– roles - equipment and performatives

– universes - arrays and attributes• values - judgements and storiesvalues - judgements and stories

• Enaction– exploration

– narrativization

– social interaction

Exploring and Interpreting Toys



Behind the groupings

• Equipment was indeed the primary cue in these interpretations of design-for-action. Gil “A bad guy, cause he has claws” and Billy “He’s a fire man with an axe.. he can kill someone”. Similarly the boys respond to our inquiries about what the toys can do “this guys job is to protect people (Billy)…and this guy rescues by shooting this thing out of his gun (Rocky)”

• S: How is he going to rescue him?

• S: He’s going to go in the water, he’s going to go in the water and this can make him swim really fast. ( use Billy to save Jack. He said that Billy’s axe would help him swim really fast) No more Rescue Heroes for you… (He says this while holding the Batman character). Their going to fight. (He has the Batman character and Billy)

• Interviewer-So why do they want to fight?

• Subject -Cause this guy put this guy in the water. (The Batman character put Jack in the water).This is how he’s going to kill him. (he takes Billy in one hand and the Batman character in the other and uses Billy’s ax to chop the Batman character in the face).

Themed Play: Rescues and Fighting



TV Effects



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The Difficulties of Constructing Cooperative Play Narratives

• invitations to play

• common knowledge and co-enacting scripts

• longevity of the pro-social phenomenon

• role of coaching and mothers involvement

• identification with rescue roles

At Home with Rescue Heroes



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• Rescue Hero Introduction

• Loony Toons Cartoon Video

• Rescue Hero Toys to take home.

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• Saw RH film

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Documents

Deconstructing Boy Culture Paradox of Empires and the Politics of Testosterone