Channel Surfing : Race Talk and the Destruction of Today's Youth
- Book Review,
by Henry A. Giroux
Amazon.com
The two sections of Channel Surfing, dealing respectively with youth culture and racial politics, may not appear to have much in common with each other at first. But Henry A. Giroux has an underlying class critique that binds them together. Young people are being barraged, he argues, by consumer culture messages that consistently identify them as alienated outcasts. They are also being assaulted by racial messages "targeting black youth as criminals while convincing working-class white youth that blacks and immigrants are responsible for the poverty, despair, and violence that have become a growing part of everyday life in American society." Although the balance between academic jargon and pop culture is somewhat precarious, Giroux's thesis is packed with the consideration of detail that marks useful cultural criticism.
Review
"Giroux deserves high marks for presenting all sides of the issues."
Review
"Giroux deserves high marks for presenting all sides of the issues."
Book Description
Kate Moss wears a sexual pout in a Calvin Klein ad. Kurt Cobain’s suicide is held aloft as the archetypal example of teen alienation. What truth, if any, is contained in these depictions of today’s youth? What message about our children is being transmitted? In Channel Surfing, Henry Giroux turns his gaze to this barrage of media images and sees a message that sells our children short by damning them to the preconceived role of alienated outcast. Surfing from one channel of communication to the next, Giroux builds up a complex web of associations between characters in films, tarnished real-life teen idols, and sexualized presentations of nubile young clothing models to show us the dark vision of our children that rides the airwaves and inhabits the print media. Channel Surfing, Henry Giroux’s most fascinating and intriguing book yet, is sure to create controversy and debate at the same time that it calls for a more ethical attitude towards the prospect of our children’s future.
Card catalog description
Surfing from one channel of communication to the next, cultural theorist Henry Giroux builds a fascinating, complex web of associations among film characters, tarnished real-life teen idols, and sexualized presentations of young clothing models. He goes on to show how this barrage of media images sends a message that sells our children short by damning them to the preconceived role of alienated outcast. Channel Surfing, Henry Giroux's most fascinating and intriguing book yet, is sure to create controversy and debate at the same time that it calls for a more ethical approach to representations of our children and their future.
About the Author
Henry A. Giroux holds the Global Television Network Chair in Communications in the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University in Canada. He is the author of many books, including Stealing Innocence, The Abandoned Generation, and Take Back Higher Education.
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