Joel In the Media
Audio Interview with Marti and Erin Erickson
Joel is interviewed by the mother and daughter co-hosts about marketing to children.
Joel Bakan’s ‘Tornado Warning’ to Protect Kids – Interview with Robyn Smith
Spending time in the backyard with his son a few years ago, Joel Bakan asked the boy what he was doing online. His son, 11 at the time, said he’d discovered a “really cool site” named Addictinggames.com. That moment launched Bakan on a journey of virtual discovery. As he browsed websites oriented for kids he found games like Whack Your Soul Mate and Boneless Girl. The former entices a player to choose their own murder scenario between a cartoon couple. The latter features an unconscious, scantily-clad young woman that a player whips and pulls mercilessly across the screen.
Joel Bakan on Studio 4 with Fanny Kiefer
Two-part TV interview with Fanny Kiefer.
American Education Reform and Aunt Ally
American schools are undergoing radical change, something to consider with back to school just around the corner. Initiatives of Presidents Obama (Race to the Top) and Bush (No Child Left Behind), along with the loud shouts of business lobbies, think tanks, and reform groups across the country, have made standardization the new holy grail of schooling.
Childhood Under Siege – Review and Q&A with Joel Bakan
Skype Interview with Morgan Leichter-Saxby: “The cover design for Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children is forcefully linear, with the black-and-white-and-red colour scheme of a thousand classic political posters. If the attitude of the two children holding hands is ambiguous, the oppressive quality of their surroundings is definitely not – as billboards tower above them and meaningless corporate names dominate the skyline.”
Childhood Under Siege Book Review by Kristen Galles, Blogger at Book Club Classics
Every parent–and consumer–should read Bakan’s work, which not only aims to protect children, but illuminates what “accountability” means in the U.S.
How Game Designers Strategically Keep Kids Addicted to Playing
Games tap kids’ particular fascinations, and are structured in ways that elicit repeat and continued play. “Gaming addiction is a sign of total design success,” according to one game designer.
The Kids Are Not All Right (NYT Op-Ed)
WHEN I sit with my two teenagers, and they are a million miles away, absorbed by the titillating roil of online social life, the addictive pull of video games and virtual worlds, as they stare endlessly at video clips and digital pictures of themselves and their friends, it feels like something is wrong.
Games People Play
The Supreme Court’s decision to strike California’s ban on selling and renting violent video games to young people raises the obvious question: what are children and teens playing on their computers and digital screens?
Insightful books put ubiquitous corporations under a microscope
What is a corporation? Short question. Long answer. A corporation is a legal construct, or charter, granted by the government that allows multiple investors to share ownership of a financial entity without exposing themselves to individual liability. As Ambrose Bierce put it: “An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.”