Description
Instructions
Choose a topic for your essay from the list below. Develop your essay using a combination of course materials and readings, and secondary research. At least 60% of the sources that you use for the essay must be taken from the course readings; up to 40% of the sources that you use for the essay must come from your own research. Your sources outside of the course materials must be critical, peer-reviewed articles or books; please consult AU Library’s Discover tool and the AU Library journal databases.
Your essay must address one or more questions raised in the course. Given that the field of children and media is very broad, this requirement reduces the possible scope of your essay, which should make it easier for you to narrow down your topic. Please finalize a topic with your tutor after you have completed Unit 8. It is recommended that you submit your essay at least two weeks before the end of your course contract.
Essay Topics
Your essay should address one or a combination of the following topics. Alternatively, you may devise another topic in consultation with your tutor.
Your tutor will only accept an original essay topic that the two of you have discussed beforehand.
- Using the eighteenth century and the twentieth or twenty-first centuries as points of comparison, discuss some aspect of the interplay between social change, definitions of childhood, and narrative.
- Literacy is a theoretical concept that was first formulated with respect to print culture, particularly the ability to read. Having now studied the different competencies required for “literacy” across a variety of technologies, this topic offers an opportunity for you to summarize your learning and add to it through further research. Choose two or three technologies to compare or contrast. What has changed from the medium of print? What has stayed the same? What do we think we know? What questions remain unanswered?
- Examine how movies, toys, and experiences based on narratives are marketed to children. Outline and explain the effects that such media-based commodities and their associated advertising may have on children. Analyze and evaluate the role played by the Disney Corporation or any comparable organization in the narrativizing of consumption.
- Genre is an important factor in any study of storytelling. Each text genre—whether chapter books, information books, series books, or digital stories—requires certain competencies from its readers. After performing a close reading of two or three books of a particular genre, indicate which skills readers would need to bring in order to understand that genre, and describe which skills would be developed through reading it.
- Employing methodologies and readings that you have encountered in this course that relate to analyzing the relationship between narrative and visual imagery, write an essay indicating why you would or would not recommend five or six specific texts for the curriculum of a certain school grade (you must choose and identify the age of the children).
- This option gives you the opportunity to write an essay that analyzes some aspect of narrative in film and television. This analysis can take you in many directions. You may look at repertoire, address, modality, intertextuality, focalization, camera techniques, cultural difference, and so on. You might, for example, compare different television shows or films aimed at the same age or gender; versions of the same show or film produced in both the United Kingdom and the United States; versions of the same show or film produced in different eras; or the same narrative delivered through different technological formats. You might focus on how successful the show or film has been in its intent to entertain, to educate, and/or to inform. Alternatively, you might examine how one show or film has influenced others over time. Choose a specific aspect of narrative in film and/or television for your essay.
- The study of narrative in video games presents an especially interesting field for discovery. Have a good look at the literature on what happens to narrative in video games. What should we ask ourselves about the ways in which video games are changing (or may change) narrative? You may wish to refer to a specific game or game type to illustrate your argument, but you must ensure that your tutor has access to the game.
Generic essays on “Violence in Video Games” or “Sex-Role Stereotyping in Video Games” will not be accepted, as these areas have been covered thoroughly by students before you. Be original. Take this general topic and apply it specifically to a narrative text or an aspect of narrative that has not yet been studied or thoroughly analyzed. For example, consider the questions raised about narrative in video games in the course readings. Do any of these questions or issues interest you?
- Any study of children and narrative is inevitably implicated in the material culture of childhood. Several obvious choices include Disney, Barbie, Peter Rabbit, and so on. Describe and explain what you see happening to a particular narrative (and its readers) as it becomes part of the fabric of material culture. If you choose a popular narrative (for example, a Disney narrative), make an effort to develop a new take on an old theme. Alternatively, take a narrative not discussed in this course and use a theory or methodology that you have encountered in the course to describe and explain the progression of the narrative as it has become part of material culture.

Explanation & Answer

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Attached. Please let me know if you have any questions or need revisions.
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Q3: Children Media-Based Commodities
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Q3: Children Media-Based Commodities
Introduction
The advertisement and marketing of toys, narrative-based experienced has become
common in the contemporary as entertainment corporations use various ways to advertise their
products to the target audience. One of the ways is through online advertisement due to
skyrocketing number of online games, which provides many opportunities for companies to
advertise their toys, experience-based narratives, and movies. In this case, children's
advertisements can take various forms such as social media, text messages, advergames, the
internet, movies, newspapers, magazines, billboards, radio, applications, YouTube, and
television. Although media-based commodities have become rampant in the modern world,
advertisers always spent millions of money to manipulate, persuade, and encourage people to
into consumer lifestyles, which they are not accustomed to. Children and adolescents have
become an increasing target of marketing and advertisements due to the influence they have on
their parents and the amount of money used in spending. Disney stands out as a giant company
that contributes to narrativizing the consumption of various products, especially children's
movies, and toys.
How Movies, Toys, and Experiences based on Narratives are marketed to Children
Marketing movies, toys, and experiences based on narratives for children take different
ways. One of the ways is through online advertisement due to skyrocketing number of online
games, which provides many opportunities for companies to advertise their toys, experiencebased narratives, and movies. Advertising campaigns have increased through broadcasting
services, which aim at attracting children (Brown, 2017). In this regard, children experience
advertisement in various forms, especially through social media, text messages, advergames, the
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internet, movies, newspapers, magazines, billboards, radio, applications, YouTube, and
television. Children have always viewed advertisements objectively and rarely understand the
overall nature or intention of the advertisement. In this case, advertisers always create emotional
attachments to the toys or movies they advertise. For instance, associations with iconic Walt
Disney Characters, cartoons, and movie stars or characters are used to create strong bonds with
the children (Brown, 2017). Furthermore, the advertisements are also associated with several
features such as foods, especially ice creams and fun; hence, attracting children's attention. Since
children have access to technology, the advertisers have an immense platform and medium to
obtain a large audience. For example, the children always request tablet devices as their
Christmas gifts. The children use such devices to download many games and movies. According
to (Brown, 2017), children use mobile devices and a computer, which has always banner
advertisements on game sites. As these advertisements pop up on the screen while the children
play games, it becomes difficult for them to ignore the ads; hence, clicking on them. Such
advertisements have become increasingly on many games. In this case, incorporation of products
within the games or other products is the common strategy that is commonly used by advertisers.
Furthermore, advertisements concerning children's movies, toys, and experiences based
on narratives always appear in places that children cannot avoid. The purpose of advertisers is to
get a captive audience. For advertisers have always used radio shows, especially those that go
into school districts to capture the audience. Brown (2017) observes that the advertisers’ aim is
having a captive audience, which is normally the children. He asserts that children always have 8
minutes for every hour of programming on the bus for advertisements. Although schools used to
be places where children were protected from the advertisement, they have allowed
advertisements in the recent past. Shortages in school budgets have led the schools to allow
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advertisements by some corporations in exchange for capital and other equipment such as
computers, educational materials, and cash. Corporations have realized the significance of the
school environment in the promotion of their products and their names. Zeiser (2015) postulates
a school setting promotes a captive environment, where teachers can support or promote the use
of certain tools or watching of some movies. In this case, marketers have increasingly been using
this platform in various ways. Firstly, they have always used this medium to sponsor educational
materials, which are required in school. Secondly, the corporations supply the schools with the
technology in exchange for advertisement and high company visibility and presence in the
school. Thirdly, these companies offer exclusive deals such as foods and soft in the school
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