Deconstructing Boy Culture

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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
  4preferences, 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

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Panic Culture?
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Mediated Childhoods

• Gendered patterns of media use by age
  4preferences, 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

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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 Rushkoffs mooks

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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

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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

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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

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Huesmann, R. L Psychological Processes Promoting
the Relation Between Exposure to Media Violence
and Aggressive Behaviour by the Viewer Journal
of Social Issues 42125-139 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

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Huessman and Ehron On socialization of aggressive
disposition in children
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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
  childrens behaviour

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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.

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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

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Surgeon Generals Report, Youth Violence, 2000

• a substantial body of research now indicates
  that exposure to media violence increases
  childrens 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

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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?

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Boyish Grooves
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Why are these two smiling?
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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

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Paradox of EmpiresRemembering Wellingtons
Solution

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

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American masculinity?
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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

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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

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SUPERHEROES, BOYS AND AGGRESSION SYNERGIES AND
GLOBALIZING MARKETS

• studies of childrens 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)

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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 childrens play

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"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".
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• . "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 dont know if I should
make a big deal about it.
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"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...
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"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.
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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

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Rescue Heroes to the Rescue?

• Mothers and the socialization of aggression

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Can Good Guys Be Cool Guys?
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ROCKY CANYON
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BILLY BLAZES
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Rescue Heroes Design Strategy

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

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RESCUE HEROES
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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

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Observing Boys Use of Toys

• Interpretation
• preferences - chose and how long
• roles - equipment and performatives
• universes - arrays and attributes
• values - judgements and stories
• Enaction
• exploration
• narrativization
• social interaction

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Exploring and Interpreting Toys
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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 Hes 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)

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• S How is he going to rescue him?
• S Hes going to go in the water, hes going to
  go in the water and this can make him swim really
  fast. ( use Billy to save Jack. He said that
  Billys 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 hes going to kill him. (he
  takes Billy in one hand and the Batman character
  in the other and uses Billys ax to chop the
  Batman character in the face).

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Themed Play Rescues and Fighting
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TV Effects
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PROSOCIAL LEVELS BEFORE AND AFTER THE
VIDEO(control condition)
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PROSOCIAL LEVELS BEFORE AND AFTER THE
VIDEO(medium condition)
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PROSOCIAL LEVELS BEFORE AND AFTER THE VIDEO(high
condition)
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AGGRESSION LEVELS BEFORE AND AFTER THE
VIDEO(control condition)
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AGGRESSION LEVELS BEFORE AND AFTER THE
VIDEO(medium condition)
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AGGRESSION LEVELS BEFORE AND AFTER THE VIDEO
(high condition)
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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

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At Home with Rescue Heroes
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CONTROL CONDITION

• before

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CONTROL CONDITION AFTER THE VIDEO

• Rescue Hero Introduction
• Loony Toons Cartoon Video
• Rescue Hero Toys to take home.

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MEDIUM CONDITION

• before

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MEDIUM CONDITION AFTER THE VIDEO

• Saw RH film

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HIGH CONDITION

• Before

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HIGH CONDITION AFTER THE VIDEO

• Saw RH film