Adults need to be more engaged in popular culture, according to visiting professor in media studies

Graham Robinson

15 August 2008: The moment a child is born they are bombarded with 40,000 commercial messages from television alone. That’s the message from Southern Cross University associate professor and author Dr Karen brooks on a recent lecture tour to University of Canberra.

Dr Brooks recently published a book called, Consuming Innocence: Popular Culture and our Children, identifying the many influences of the media on children.

Dr brooks believes that it is important for adults to engage with popular culture.

“If parents are constantly part of their children’s lives and interacting with them, then television is only a part of what will influence them,” she said.

Lecturing on the impact of the media on children, Southern Cross University Associate Professor Dr Karen Brooks

Dr Brooks says she is amazed by the number of adults who have never watched an episode of reality TV or listened to the lyrics of a popular song, yet still are prepared to devalue them.

“Every time they do that they are absolutely denigrating the young person because the young person feels a connection and they take that connection very personally.

“We also need to realise that popular culture is not out of our control,” said Dr Brooks.

Dr Brooks believes that we need to find a balance between recommendations and what we feel is right.

“For example”, she said, “You wouldn’t dump your child and leave them alone in a street in a foreign country. Giving them a computer and internet access in their bedroom is fundamentally the same thing.”

Dr Brooks is a 2007 Carrick Institute National Award winner for outstanding teaching and is listed in the 2008 Who’s Who of Australian Women: Leadership and Beyond.