Contextualizing Corporate Kids: Kinderculture as Cultural Pedagogy

Abstract

Consumer culture has an overwhelming impact on the young consumer generation. International corporations often focus on children and youth for a major part of their income generation. This focus is a component of the changing nature of society. Instead of consumers discovering their own wants and needs, corporations create and dictate exactly what people want. This article discusses how media and corporation-generated consumption have helped to form what I call the new childhood. My analysis investigates the footprints of power created by the corporate producers of kinderculture and the effects on the psyches of our children and youth. The understanding of kinderculture can create democratic pedagogies for cultural, personal, and school levels of society.