[okie01]

"...it goes into explicit detail as to how our children are manipulated by the media, popular culture and marketing."

All selling involves "manipulation". Whether you're selling peanut butter to moms or shoes to teenagers. You discover what the market wants, then try to deliver a product that fulfills a perceived need.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with marketing and salesmanship.

At bottom, if the product doesn't deliver what the customer wants, it doesn't sell. This is the free market in action.

PBS is not familiar with, nor respectful of, this thing we call the free market.

[ContentiousObjector]

you just keep telling yourself that when you see 9 yearold girls dressed like crack whores

before you go on some anti-pbs rant, why not watch the show

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

of course PBS isn't familiar with a free market. They depend on handouts and begging for their support.

[jodorowsky]

You are correct Sir.

"Advertising-created desires" is something I usually expect to hear from the anti-SUV crowd.

Schools, and people who selfishly have children and lazily abandon them into the clutches of schools, are to blame for this alleged "problem", such as it is.

[SnoM]

Manipulation of teenagers is very different to manipulation of adults. Teenagers are scared of being the odd one out, of being picked on for not fitting in. They are actually desperate to be like everyone else. The whole cool marketing is aimed at their fear of being different and uncool and not fitting in. Cool culture needs to say what or who isn't cool and make fun of the uncool and that can be very damaging to young adults and can scar their self esteem well into adulthood. Because teenagers want to be like each other rather than stand out they are effected by this culture on mass rather than individually. We have a teen culture that feeds on the fear of teens and tells them they have to be something they can't be and the marketers say they can be cool by paying a fortune for the right shoes or whatever. Whats worse is that the teen culture is based on rebellion and basically tells teens that everything bad is cool. Coolness ends up glorifying evil. It is hard being a teenager, and it is even harder with a world culture trying to use you to make money as they ruin your innocence and morality.