Getting Kids Interested in Important Current Affairs
Oct 31 '00
****This is written from the perspective of a writer who is trying to suggest what should be done with youth publications to make them cater to the youth more, therefore gathering a larger audience. This is the best section I could find for this sort of subject.**** Samadust
Immediately when I think of drawing the attention of youth I imagine the use of Hip-Hop and other popular music, clothing, fashions and trends as being the most probable, quickly effective and easy approach. Yet this sort of approach, I believe, would be counterproductive with my own personal ideologies too much for me to be able to recommend it for use. I believe that the constant pursuit of the ever changing and fleeting, globe encompassing “Pop Culture”, is helping to abstract the issues of the world from the attention of many young people today.
It’s hard to pay attention to the Presidents escapades in Colombia when MTV, the SOURCE, T.V shows, WBLS 101.5 and your friends and classmates are collectively impressing upon you the importance of being sexy, or how much gold the Hot Boyz can wear at once with out falling over.
Content
What are magazines made for young people doing to attract their audience?
Many highly popular youth magazines like “Seventeen” and the “Source” tend to attract their large audience by using adds of clothes, shoes/sneakers, pretty faces, half dressed bodies, hip-hop, celebrities and headlines like “Love and Sex: He loves me, He loves me not” or “ Mandy Moore’s Blind Date: What she wore, where they went and who’s that cute guy we fixed her up with”. From observing this it seems that sex, music and clothes have a dominant role in attracting the attention of today’s young people. The task of removing these subjects from the paramount of importance and replacing it with important issues is a difficult one.
It is arguable that many of the sources of attraction used to lure the regard of today’s youth are negative or empty influences and founded on nothing more than the premise of generating money and encapsulating the viewers mind in a world where missile crises, famine and every day injustices are distant concerns. While some would say that this is false I believe that the larger percentage of the media, musical and cultural images that are being marketed towards young people are nothing more than this. Images that cultivate ultra-materialism, selfishness, dissonance between the sexes and a lack of awareness and concern for the happenings of the world that are more detrimental to society and worthy of consideration than the color clash of Mandy Moore’s latest outfit.
Non-Conformist Socially Conscious Popular Influences
Fortunately, within this marsh of corporate mass marketing, quasi-pornographic images, explicit lyrics and acquisitive behavior, there exist influential icons with positive, socially aware focuses who’s purpose it is to convey the importance of issues that are otherwise obscured by the glitz of modern society. Groups like Dead Prez and Rage Against The Machine (RATM), while enjoying widespread popularity, are bringing to the foreground issues including those of political prisoners, unjust censorship, sweatshop labor, Anti-Nazi activities, Farm Worker benefits, police brutality etc. RATM donates the profits from many of its sold-out shows to organizations like Friends & Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal, FAIR and Women Alive. Using the positive influence and the popularity of such groups as these it is possible to attract while also retaining the social consciousness of the publication.
Conveying the news to a young audience
Getting young people interested in issues like Senator Slade Gorton’s crusade against Northwestern Native Americans or Vladimir Putin’s decimation of Russia’s environmental protections could be facilitated by writing the editorials in a way that would appeal to the concern of the young reader. Many of these problems seem hopelessly remote and don’t draw attention from concerns that are more recognizable and identifiable in everyday life. Editorial content can be altered to subjects that affect young people more like the revolutions in the Video Game industry, Napsters law suits, Metallica’s movement against MP3’s or Thailand’s new, dangerous drug scene powered by Yaba the current trend. Using these sorts of recognizable issues, a level of concern can be achieved and used to create a connection with the reader.
If using current popular subjects like music and style to attract an audience I would speak of it from an objective point of view. Neither negatively nor positively. Not promoting the artist or object or trying to destroy it, just presenting it from the point of view of someone who is not interested in helping sales figures grow or satisfying corporate sponsors. There can be interviews with musical artists asking questions about their lives, level of education, marital and parental status, religion, philosophies, favorite places to visit/vacation; deeper questions than are usually asked of them. Questions that defy the superhero-like imagery that is projected by the dazzle of their screen life therefore making them more human and taking the intensity out of the obsessive grasp that pop culture fantasies have on youth.
I think that this sort of approach to rampaging pop culture would allow a new perspective of it. It wouldn’t turn people away with negativity but it would also not glorify it any further. It would provide some level headed commentary, fresh realistic scrutiny and a way of understand what is really happening instead what is being shown to happen. These sort’s of editorials would be interesting and educational for young people who are trying to understand the world around them. It would encourage the readers to detach themselves from the maniacal hype and glamour that is advocated by many publications that are made for young people.
Alternative subjects, helpful programs and resources
Incorporating alternative subjects like skateboarding, graffiti, hip-hop and youth political activism, although some of these are becoming mainstream, can also attract attention. Making the publication adhere to the interests of the audience with advertisements and editorials about subjects such as youth programs, internships, fellowship awards, work study, scholarships and English teaching abroad would make it a great resource for finding bulletins that young people building their career and social awareness will be interested in. Offering links to web sites that provide youth services, such as those listed above and/or discussing the results of said programs through research or essays by participants could be helpful and proficient. Young people who are thirsting to find programs that are designed to put them where they want to be would frequent any site that has such resources.
Also, coupling certain issues with subjects that are closer to home for the readers can make them seem more relevant. The presidential candidate debates can be explained via issues that will directly affect the lives of young readers. A commentary on Joseph Lieberman’s opposition towards the Video Game industries freedom of design might make a deeper and more significant impression upon young readers than his ideas of health care reform or the like. Yet, using this to grasp the attention of the reader can be a gateway leading to other important issues. At the same time the importance of health care reform can be relayed to the young reader through things they might have experienced first or second hand like health care for young mothers, minimum wage workers and working students.
Interactivity
To compliment the coupling of subjects could be a response section where readers can e-mail their reactions, thoughts or comments on any of the articles. This would add a whole new dimension to the publication by making it interactive. It is always good to read someone’s response to something you have just read and maybe add your own opinion.
Another idea that I think is beneficial to the web page is the implementation of polls recording votes on presidential candidates, and other popular decisions. This gives a distinct conception of the reader’s point of view, and way of thinking while it also informs the publisher of the audience that is being attracted. There are so many exciting and informative thoughts and conclusions that can be drawn from open-ended polls. Questions about perception of youth cultures, pop culture, new political bills, elections, presidential decisions, Global Economy and Environmental Justice can constantly produce results and create an impetus for daily/weekly visits as the polls will change regularly. Archived results from previous polls can be kept for reference by the writers and visitors alike.
These are but a few ways that youth publications, or any publications for that matter, can draw in more young readers. It is important that young people give their attention to current events and not just the flashy sway of the pop culture pendulum.
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samadust
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Member: Douglas Flowe
Location: USA
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