The Effects of Popular Culture on Education

As the title suggests this paper will discuss the effects of media on children and what that means from an educational standpoint. The discussion will center, particularly, around visual media-television, movies, and video games. The statement made in the title through the phrase, “Change the channel, this is boring,” is meant partly in jest and partly in criticism. One of the most addicting qualities of television is the instant gratification provided by it. This same stimulus cannot always be found in the academic arena.

The government has made some attempts to balance this problem. In 1990, a law called the Children’s Television Act was passed. It stated that all broadcast stations had to limit the time given to advertisements during children’s programming. In addition, all stations are required to satisfy the educational needs of children by providing appropriate programming. (Kinder, 1999, pp. 177-178) This is itself a contradiction considering most programming provides its educational content in loose ways. Many children’s shows will provide a moral or lesson at the end of the program that in actuality serves as a parody of FCC regulations based on the Children’s Television Act. (Kinder, 1999, p. 190)

As Neil Postman states in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, “American television…is devoted entirely to supplying its audience with entertainment…No matter what is depicted…the overarching presumption is that it is there for our amusement and pleasure.” (1986, pp. 86-87) What Postman is saying is that even when TV programming is meant to be educational it still passes itself off as entertainment. He makes the claim that this is evident even in news programs where our attention is beckoned by images of human barbarism and overwhelming tragedy. We are urged to “join them tomorrow” to find out more. (Postman, 1986, p. 87)
What does this mean in regards to children and education? Simply put, when a child is given the choice between instant gratification and endless choices or an environment that doesn’t always satisfy and forces you to be there, what are they going to choose? What provides a more lasting education–television or school? According to Postman, the two are split into separate curricula. TV is the first curriculum because it represents the values appreciated by American youth without yielding to school values. School is the second curriculum because it doesn’t represent. School demands more attention than children are willing to give. TV more easily gains attention through engaging images. Thus, schools have compromised to attain the same effect as television by shortening class periods and attempting to incorporate media in the classroom. (Postman, 1979, p. 85)

This paper will attempt to clear up these issues as well as provide information on related topics. The following organizing questions provide the course for the analysis of this topic:
1. What are the effects of media on education?
2. What is Postman’s “literature of television?”
3. What role does stimuli play in both arenas?
4. Why is TV a surrogate for reality and why will it not compliment school? Plus more on curriculum.
5. What are the statistical facts about the time spent in front of the television vs. time spent in school?
6. How does this relate to speech and what Cornelius Riordan refers to as the “Adolescent Subculture?” Plus a survey on Pop-Culture knowledge vs. standard history, science, and math knowledge.
7. Does media cultivate violence? How do video games fit into this category?
8. What are the solutions to the problem of media influence?
9. Conclusion

The Effect of Media on Education

It can be said that while television is a visual medium, academia is a linguistic medium. Although visual cues may be used in classrooms as instructional materials, the basic tool of education is speech. Part of schooling is the cultivation of ideas. The purpose of education should be the building of thinkers. Every lesson taught should nurture the cognitive process. With television and other visual media, thought is sometimes, but not always, necessary.
Postman contends that the spoken word is a “small universe of ideas…every spoken sentence contains the seed of an argument.” (1979, p. 75) Television denies us this opportunity. By nature it is neither argumentative nor ambiguous. “Nothing to debate…Nothing to refute. Nothing to negate…only feelings to be felt.” (Postman, 1979, p.75) As he lists there are six reasons for this. Television is:
1. Fast moving: one must pay attention to the images flashing by or risk losing track of the situation.
2. Concrete: fairly self-explanatory. The viewer need not worry about abstract thought.
3. Discontinuous: it is possible to watch a program without having to retain the information for the next broadcast.
4. Alogical: the provocation of thought is not always a necessity.
5. Requires Emotional Response: viewers are expected to share vicariously the emotions felt by the characters on the screen whether real or created.
6. No Conceptual Processing: the act of learning is not always an expected result. (Postman, 1979, p. 75)
The expectation of immediate gratification is an addictive drug. Television supplies this in large portions. If you don’t like what you are watching, change the channel. If you don’t like what you are learning, there is no channel to change so the student will just tune out. School is not always “fast moving.” This will be discussed further in the segment on stimuli.
What television does and how it ultimately affects children is it leaves no boundaries. Recently the FCC implemented an action where stations now rate their programming so parents can monitor the shows viewed by children. The children I spoke to on this lead me to believe this isn’t the most effective course of action. Children still find ways to watch inappropriate television. Some parents feel it is okay to allow their children to watch mature programming as long as the parents themselves are aware of it.
Therefore, television teaches children more about life than they need to know at whatever age they are. I can admit to watching ample amounts of TV.
Postman in his book The Disappearance of Childhood calls this the development of the “adultified child.” (1982, p. 126) On television, children are often depicted as miniature adults. Adults are often depicted as having childlike qualities. This blurs the line then between adult and child. Adultified means children are not only viewed as miniature adults, but are treated as such. Studies beginning in the late 1960’s show a rise in criminal activity among children as well as increased sexual activity. This trend correlates with the rise of violence and sex on television. (Postman, 1982, pp. 126-142)
Children as a result grow up faster than they should. Thanks to television, movies, and as will be discussed later video games children are taught more about adult matters than they would find in most classrooms. It could be argued that they learn it from others, but those other children had to have heard it elsewhere. Trace the line of blame back as far as necessary and eventually it will lead to some form of media.

Postman’s Literature of the Television

Literature appears in many forms. It can be a novel, short story, news article, personal narrative, essay, poem, and so on. Television contains many elements of these genres. Postman contends that like literature, “television reflects the assumptions and values of the men who create it…
Stimuli in School and Media

The stimuli of education are based on the facets of proper behavior. Teachers emulate not the style valued by the youth culture, but rather values that are behaviorally acceptable. School is the last remaining establishment that defines clear boundaries between adult behavior and child behavior. The adults working in the schools should represent the values that are educationally and socially acceptable. This implies a type of manners education. One must quell one’s own desires, impulses, and interests to fit into the social situation. The stimulus is a response to what the educator wants and anticipates. (Postman, 1979, pp.209-210)
Television is the opposite. The most prominent stimulus is the instant gratification expectation. When a child is watching a program that he or she is not interested in, the child can simply change the channel and locate a more satisfying program. The child is “learning impatience with any stimulus that is not responsive to her interests.” (Postman, 1979, p. 209)
As the impatience generated by this stimulus increases, so does the proper behavior in the classroom decrease. When a child learns that his or her needs can be satisfied by the simple click of the remote their impatience and lack of interest in the classroom worsens when the remote control is replaced by a pen or pencil.

TV Curriculum vs. School Curriculum

Postman believes that the TV curriculum comes first in a child’s life because of its camouflage. That is television is not viewed as having any type of curriculum attached to it. That is why parents tend to ignore the lessons their children are exposed to through constant television viewing. Television is seen as being a total entertainment medium. Therefore, it is of little educational value. There is an education being represented, though, an education of the values of popular culture. The most remembered aspect of school is the learning environment itself not the content learned-the visual, concrete characteristics, not the abstract. (1979, p. 49)
Statistics on time can best support this claim. “A typical American child will be in the presence of a school curriculum…Part of the reason for this, Postman suggests is that television and other forms of visual media act as a surrogate for reality. Visual aids become the representation of reality. People on vacation take pictures or film it for prosperity. Just as someone may prefer a fictional character in a book to reality, so a person may prefer the adventure from a distance offered by television and movies. (1979, p. 84) At sporting events large monitors are placed strategically throughout the arenas because “watching it on television is better than being there, even when you are there.” (Postman, 1979, p. 84)
The underlying effect is that education offers the learner the opportunity to acquire knowledge through curiosity and inquiry. In television and movies, there are no secrets. The world is revealed in a way not found in school or possibly in the home for that matter. “There is no such thing as children’s programming…everyone sees and hears the same thing.” (Postman, 1979, p. 208) Children are being forced or more appropriately being lead to grow up at an ever quickening pace.

Cornelius Riordan and the Adolescent Subculture

In his book, Girls and Boys in School: Together or Separate, Riordan discussing a phenomenon in young America coined the adolescent subculture. “The adolescent subculture favors physical attractiveness and…popularity over academic achievement.” (1990, p. 56) The result of this subculture reveals a value system based on what is the popular fad or flavor of the moment, so to speak.
In relating it to the argument that television contributes to this development, one must look at what is being viewed by the children of America. Something a simple as a commercial can influence the value system of a child. The messages in commercial are subliminally laden with sexual undertones and suggestions of acceptance through the acquisition of certain products. If you want to excel at sports, wear the shoe of the ideal athlete. If you want to fit in, wear this designer brand of clothing. One of the worst examples of sexual innuendo and values based on appearance come from a Victoria’s Secret commercial. Scantily clad women prancing around with serious looks on their faces under the slogan “what is sexy?” What is the message? Girls affected by this image may acquire a skewed conception of what they need to achieve physically in order to be accepted by the opposite sex.
It can be argued then that knowledge of popular culture is held in a much higher respect than knowledge of school subjects. In an effort to study this theory, I conducted a survey with my own seventh grade class. The questionnaire I used I designed myself. It consisted of fourteen questions. Seven questions were related to popular culture and seven were questions related to Social Studies, Math, and Science. Part of the survey was multiple choice and part of it was fill in the blank. Although I designed the academic questions myself, I cannot imagine they are more difficult than third or fourth grade level questions. The survey was administered to approximately fifty students of various economic backgrounds, various racial backgrounds, and both genders. On five of the seven pop-culture questions all students were able to answer correctly. Among all popular culture questions the average for correctness was 98%. Among the academic questions the average was 53%. For example, the third question asks the students to name a Britney Spears song. 100% answered correctly. The related question asked them to give the name of the national anthem. 32% answered correctly.
I can admit that this is probably not the most accurate barometer of American youth considering the size of the audience used, but I feel it at least supports my claim that children value popular culture more than school. Given more time, a larger quantity of questions, and a larger audience, I hope to one-day conduct a more extensive survey.

Video Games and Violence

Do video games cultivate violence among American youth? There is no clear yes or no answer to this question. With the increasing amount of violence present in video games, it can honestly be stated that there is more exposure to violence from the birth of the first Atari game to the latest incarnation of the Playstation 2, X-Box, and Nintendo Gamecube. A company known as Rock Star Games recently published a video game titled Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The object of the game is to help a mobster earn enough cash by fulfilling hits on other mobsters, randomly robbing pedestrians, and stealing cars in order to pay back a mob boss. This game can only be called educational when spoken in sarcasm. Despite the rating for mature audiences only, parents still purchase games like this for their children because, as Postman stated earlier, it is merely entertainment.
The effect is mainly concerned with boys than girls since video games tend to be “more militaristic and [masculine in orientation.]” (Green, Reid, and Bigum, 1998, p. 37) Girls, of course, are not excluded all together from this equation.
In her book, Remote Control Childhood?, Diane Levin refers to this exposure as the “Continuum of Violence in Children’s Lives.” (1998, p. 97) She represents this concept as a cone shaped diagram displaying increasing levels of portrayed violence in children’s lives. The bottom level represents visual media, including video games, since this is the most prominent exposure to violence in children’s lives. For the actual diagram, see Appendix B.

Possible Solutions

Levin, in the same book mentioned earlier, suggests a course of action involving parents stepping in and taking a larger role in monitoring television content. She suggests families use a “Tune-Out Contract” suggesting alternatives to television viewing. See Appendix C for a copy of the tune out contract.
This can be taken a step further. Not only should parents monitor programming, but also the placement of school above other priorities should come first from the home. If education is not valued in the family setting how can the individual student value it?

Conclusion

“Do new media make schools obsolete, and create new conceptions of education?” (Postman, 1995, p. 141) Are schools made obsolete? The tentative answer is no. Does media create new conceptions? The tentative answer is yes. With the ever-increasing popularity of media in the lives of students, many teachers have developed styles that include the use of film, computers, and other methods that cater to the media-shortened attention spans of students. (Postman, 1979, p. 210) “Teachers make desperate attempts to keep students ‘tuned-in.'” (Postman, 1979, p. 210) There is no literature that can clearly state whether this is the appropriate course of action. It depends on which side of the argument a teacher supports. The person who relates to Postman believes that media is the end of childhood. When children’s needs can be gratified immediately by the click of a button, why should they concern themselves with the dissatisfaction of the school environment? Others, like Diane Levin, believe that a balance is possible. The catalyst is the family. With the support and understanding of family, the line between the value of education and the values of popular culture is more vividly drawn. The final analysis is children look toward media images as a model for behavior both in and out of school. “[Television represents] children’s expectations of adult behavior.” (Collins, 1999, p. 137) What Postman calls the adultified child needs to be eliminated. This begins in the home and should be supported in the school.

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