Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: social marketing, digital generation, digital kids, White House, Rock the Vote, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"For those whose media experience is bounded by newspapers and radio, Generation Digital will be an eye-opening guide to the media revolution that is changing the way the next generation thinks and behaves."
—Michael F. Jacobson, Executive Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest

"Kathryn Montgomery brings clear thinking and empirical evidence to one of the most important and widely misunderstood issues of our time: how children and teenagers shape and are shaped by digital culture. Are 'digital natives' more or less engaged with civic matters? What are the effects of the commercial targeting of youth? How vulnerable are children to Internet pornography and online predators? What laws can protect both freedom of speech and the private lives of minors? Until now, many of the claims that advocates have made regarding these issues have been based on beliefs rather than evidence. Montgomery—a media scholar, activist, and mother—brings an encyclopedic and well-organized body of evidence to bear on a debate that has been confused by moral panics, uninformed analyses, and ideological agendas."
—Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community and Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution

"Montgomery's study combines the immediacy and engagement of an insider's story with the sharp and dispassionate eye of the scholar. This book will be of interest to those studying children and media, as well as to readers with an interest in cultural policy."
—David Buckingham, Institute of Education, University of London

"This is a wonderful book—descriptive, analytical, and insightful. Kathryn Montgomery provides a detailed look at how children use digital media and its role in their development. Most important, she elucidates policy concerns about the commercialization of youth with an understanding of marketing and programming practices that are specific to digital media. Beyond the hype, this book reminds all of us that the digital age is being led by our children."
—Ellen Wartella, Executive Vice-Chancellor and Provost, University of California, Riverside

Product Description

Children and teens today have integrated digital culture seamlessly into their lives. For most, using the Internet, playing videogames, downloading music onto an iPod, or multitasking with a cell phone is no more complicated than setting the toaster oven to "bake" or turning on the TV. In Generation Digital, media expert and activist Kathryn C. Montgomery examines the ways in which the new media landscape is changing the nature of childhood and adolescence and analyzes recent political debates that have shaped both policy and practice in digital culture.

The media have pictured the so-called "digital generation" in contradictory ways: as bold trailblazers and innocent victims, as active creators of digital culture and passive targets of digital marketing. This, says Montgomery, reflects our ambivalent attitude toward both youth and technology. She charts a confluence of historical trends that made children and teens a particularly valuable target market during the early commercialization of the Internet and describes the consumer-group advocacy campaign that led to a law to protect children's privacy on the Internet. Montgomery recounts—as a participant and as a media scholar—the highly publicized battles over indecency and pornography on the Internet. She shows how digital marketing taps into teenagers' developmental needs and how three public service campaigns—about sexuality, smoking, and political involvement—borrowed their techniques from commercial digital marketers. Not all of today's techno-savvy youth are politically disaffected; Generation Digital chronicles the ways that many have used the Internet as a political tool, mobilizing young voters in 2004 and waging battles with the music and media industries over control of cultural expression online.

Montgomery's unique perspective as both advocate and analyst will help parents, politicians, and corporations take the necessary steps to create an open, diverse, equitable, and safe digital media culture for young people.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; 1 edition (July 31, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262134780
• ISBN-13: 978-0262134781
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #691,573 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN EXCELLENT HISTORY, September 12, 2007

By	Eitan D. Schwarz "Eitan D Schwarz MD DLFAPA F... (usa) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Ms. Montgomery, although an avowed (ex)activist, provides a fair and balanced, well-researched, well written, and readable account of how media targets youth for marketing in pursuit of commercialism and consumerism.
I am a practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist. As I was researching the topic for my own book, a 'how to' developmentally-based guide for parents about raising and preparing children for life in a media-rich world, I found Ms. Montgomery's work invaluable in its coverage of the complex conflicts around TV and the Web among marketers, advocates, civil libertarians, and government. I am heartened to learn how a complicated matter with many competing interests slowly -- albeit imperfectly -- achieves resolution in our democracy.
The matter continues to be a work in progress, and so it should be as technology presents us with ongoing ethical , moral, and social challenges. Anyone seriously interested in this subject must read this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought Provoking and Incisive, August 23, 2007

By	R. I. Berkman (Rochester NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There are many books on the new generation's use of digital media and the Internet, but most seem to give a superficial, breezy or not very compelling treatment of the topic. Generation Digital, though, is an exception as it references top notch sources and studies, is persuasive and logical, well written, and extremely timely. Its a superb source for discovering how young people (GenY or Millennials) are living their lives deep in the digital age, and how their habits and behaviors are impacting the wider culture, and changing the nature of what it means to be a young person today.

2.0 out of 5 stars Very dry reading, July 26, 2009

By	Brian Slesinsky (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

While this book provides a fairly comprehensive summary of U.S. political debates surrounding how children and teenagers use the Internet, I found it very dry reading for what should be a fascinating subject. There is one fact after another, but the facts are relatively superficial and not obviously in support of a larger argument. For example, the author describes how various companies tried to market to children and/or collect marketing information from them during the dot-com boom, but we don't learn how effective they were at getting children to participate or what the consequences were for those who did.

I would have thought that an active participant in these policy debates might have a few interesting stories to tell. But there are no personalities, very few anecdotes, and many of the quotes are so bland that one wonders why the author didn't just paraphrase. Apparently the book is intended more as an objective reference, but for that purpose, the same information would have been better conveyed as a series of encyclopedia-style articles, not as something to read through.