Many Minds on the Media as Conferences Convene in New York

csm-button.jpgToday Common Sense Media and the Aspen Institute announced the schedule for February 5 & 6th’s “Beyond Primetime” Media Conference in New York, and I’m hoping they’ll debrief us all via podcast or webcast.

My keister is staying put this round, as I have a conflict on my slate and haven’t found a clone for myself yet.

That said, CSM is taking questions and concerns to open up this dialogue, so ‘bring em on!’ I’ll be sounding off in full before they hit the Time Warner Conference Center and suggest you fire a few their way as well.

“The Media as Parent” kicks off their evening keynote. Oddly enough, I just experienced a media as “surrogate parent” request last week as a few tween students in our counter-marketing session wanted to befriend me & connect via their MySpace profiles to chat! (um, what are ten year olds doing on MySpace anyway?)

Could this be kids using media as an ‘outreach’ vehicle for guidance and support? Mentors and parents need to explore that one big time…

Beyond Primetime has a session finale titled, “Good Media for Kids Can Make a Difference”…which suits me fine, since Shaping Youth’s focus is to shift the track rather than pull the brake on this runaway media train.

I kind of feel like Cinderella who can’t make the ball on this one, as it’s bound to be a biggie, but I just don’t have the juice to be all places at all times.

I’d really like to hear them crack open some of these nuts to chew on when it comes to media, ethics and kids…

They’ve got some good topics lined up: What’s the Responsibility of Media Leaders? Should Media be Regulated When it Comes to Kids? How do you Keep Kids Healthy in a 24/7 Media World? Does the Internet Change Everything?

They’d better dang well use MEDIA to capture this thing.

Partial list of participants includes:

Walter Isaacson, President the Aspen Institute; James P. Steyer, CEO and Founder, Common Sense Media; Ken Auletta, The New Yorker; Geoff Cowan, Dean, Annenberg School of Communications, USC; FCC Commissioners Deborah Tate and Michael Copps; Doug Lowenstein, President, Electronic Software Association; Eziekiel Emanuel, MD, NIH; Thomas Robinson, MD, Stanford; James Marks, VP, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Jane Brown, professor, UNC — Chapel Hill; Vicky Rideout, VP, Kaiser Family Foundation; A.O. Scott, Film Critic, The New York Times; Howard Gardner, professor and author, Harvard University; Carla Hendra, Co-CEO, Ogilvy & Mather; Jeff Cole, Director, Center for the Digital Future, Annenberg School, USC; Elliot Schrage, VP, Google; Mike Tollin, television and film producer; Pat Mitchell, President, Museum of Television and Radio; Gary Knell, President, Sesame Workshop; Laura Walker, President, WNYC; Charles Ogletree, professor, Harvard University; Sarah Brown, Director, Center for the Prevention of Teen Pregnancy; Alan Schwartz, Managing Director, Bear Stearns & Co.; Gene Sykes, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs & Co.

Since I can’t make THAT media event…I’ll pre-promo the one where I CAN with Mind on the Media, featuring the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty folks and other advertising biggies at the end of June.

I’m all lined up to be at the tween/teen body image event in New York when Mind on the Media hosts national leaders for Turn Beauty Inside Out making a difference out there for kids.

This is a fabulous action-packed workshop for 11-16 year old girls AND boys this year, with national leaders in self esteem/body image engaging kids in media literacy, deconstruction and hands-on participation and fun.

Shaping Youth Advisory Board member Audrey Brashich and powerhouse publisher and girls advocate, Nancy Gruver of New Moon are co-chairing the event.

I had a ball when they ran this event in Hollywood…Geena Davis was the keynote speaking about her org SeeJane (an adjunct of Dads & Daughters) and the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie mavens were on hand to discuss media’s impact on teens in depth.

I was honored to sit with Kira Davis, Executive Producer of ‘Sisterhood’ at lunch, as our small roundtable of teens fired queries her way about movie messaging and what Hollywood could do to improve the plight of toxic cues and behavioral stereotyping that were eroding the souls of so many, so often.

The teenagers were smart as a whip, serving on the youth board of New Moon, “the magazine for girls and their dreams”…

To this day I’ll be thankful for one 16 year old who gave me a bracer on leadership training…

Unbeknownst to me, she’d been watching MY own body language as the “tall thin blonde blue-eyed’ bit was being trashed and tongue-lashed time & again.

She walked up to me and sarcastically said without missing a beat, “Gee, YOU must be feelin’ pretty good right about now.”

Apparently, I’d become so used to that kind of “anti-media messaging” about my own body type that I’d become desensitized, and almost inherently apologetic by demeanor.

This teenager boldly looked me in the eye and said, “They don’t even hear it…and neither did you. This is a leadership conference…LEAD.”

I started to do the shoe shuffling, evasive, “no, no, it’s okay, they don’t MEAN to be personal, they’re just talking about a particular look” routine.

She didn’t drop it.

She had the guts to push me further and went on to say, “no, it’s NOT ok! You have a daughter, and she probably looks like YOU…which means SHE’LL have to fight this same stereotype you’ve probably had to fight YOUR whole life too!”

Wow. It was like a slap across the face. My eyes welled up and the force of her words struck me like a painful blow, hitting a raw chord on ALL my “stuff” pent up over the years…Living life almost apologetically…ouch.

And with that, I took to the microphone to point out that the Hilary Duff-Hannah Montana-blonde hair/blue-eyed “look” was itself being demonized and stereotyped.

Ah, the irony.

I’ll never forget that teenager’s brave, ‘matter of fact,’ candor.

She was one of many kids that inspired my foray into the nonprofit world to build this vision of Shaping Youth…

If MY voice was being squelched into timidity and self-effacing squeamishness just for ‘the way I look’ imagine what’s going on inside of kids’ brains with appearance based cues, body image and media messaging served up 24/7.

By the way, they’re expecting about 150-200 at the Common Sense Media/Aspen Institute Conference…and I should point out there was ANOTHER important youth conference that ended today, with 1800 people concerned about kids at Anaheim’s California Childhood Obesity Conference.

Lots of buzz centered around media and marketer’s practices of junk food targeting. Hmn.All conference presentations and materials will be available online soon…SO:

Common Sense Media & Aspen Institute, we’re counting on you to do the same…Use the media to cover the media…then post a full record of same!!

Can’t wait to hear a full debriefing of all…

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Comments

  1. Thanks for blogging about the TBIO conference! That’s a great story about the 16-year-old. 🙂 I have the honor of working with New Moon Magazine’s Girls Editorial Board, so I witness girls’ brilliance and gumption all the time.

    Cheers,
    Catherine Conover
    Associate Editor & Communications Coordinator
    New Moon

  2. I’m anxious to attend & contribute to the N.Y. session, for I learn more & more from these kids each day! 🙂

    I’ll be doing a more extensive interview with New Moon re: the TBIO event as soon as I can come up for air in March. I’m sure the conference has now solidified to the point where you’ll all have worthy topics to put out there in advance and start some dialogue BEFORE we even convene!

    Thanks for your comment, and pls. feel free to link/share content & resources whenever you wish…Does TBIO have a blog up yet? Amy

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