The Media’s Control Should there be a limit of what television can “teach” children? In David Denby’s article, “Buried Alive: Our Children and the Avalanche of Crud,” he raises the issue about the influences that pop culture and media have on children today and the methods used to influence children. Denby explains how producers use television to grab the attention of young children, which differs from older days when TV was not easily accessible. He also talks about how media and pop culture harm children by teaching them vulgarity and to only care about “… winning or losing or popularity” (104). Like Denby I believe that pop culture and media have a major impact in the lives of young children because it is everywhere for example television and the streets. Pop culture and media also replace the role of the parent, but I also believe that children need to be exposed to this type of influence in order to create their own interest. Pop culture and media is shown everywhere especially with the help of television sets and the negative influences impacts are demonstrated in the streets, which in result causes children to be vulnerable and easily influenced. Everyone from all ages watch shows or at least know of the popular television network MTV. When MTV was first aired, the network became widely popular, especially with the younger generation because it was all about music videos. In just a few months children were hooked on the show, and it became the most talked subject in almost every area. Children began to imitate the social and fashion style that the music videos portrayed. Parents had no control over the impact the show had on their children. Slang and vulgarity were becoming a more appealing “language” to children than proper English. In his article Denby states, “whether the sets are off or on, the cruddy tone is in the air and on the streets” (103), which was a hundred percent fact. Out in the streets if you did not match the current fashion trends then you weren’t considered “cool”. Popularity pressured children significantly because in order to be popular you had to be constantly up to date with current fashion trends, and have the skill to hit on the opposite sex. Unfortunately children almost lived a doubled life, the life they portrayed at home and the life they portrayed on the streets. Pop culture and media such as MTV has and currently have a giant impact on children, and their perspective of life changes in an instant.
Like Denby I believe that children are using pop culture and media to get their questions answered instead of asking their parents. Parents went from being helpful life mentors to being stand by relatives. If you see children now, most of them are nothing like their parents. Children don’t common life goal as their parents instead they have different and conflicting views on issues. Pop culture and media usually portray popularity, money, sex and drugs. Those issues are not life goals, they are steps to failure because children are not put to have the right mind set of being successful and do not understand the work it takes to be successful. Most Parents have the knowledge on how to be successful, but they cannot get their children’s attention because pop culture and media already have control over them by the time children reach adulthood. About three years ago, I had a friend who was obsessed with rap music and violent TV shows about gangs. He used rap music as a guideline to life and began associating with the wrong crowd because they shared a common interest: rap and violence. After a couple months, he changed and began to only worry about money and having sex with girls, consequently he began to fail school and was never home. His parents could not get through to him because he already replaced their morals with morals he learned from the media and on the streets. Parents aren’t raising their children anymore but