I immediately knew another threat-on-the-Web study had been released. I was doing a phone interview on a Cincinnati radio broadcast for Virtuous Reality, and instead of the usual questions about bomb instructions, illiteracy, cyber-molestation, isolation, and kidnapping via the Net, the host threw me a curve: "Hey, a new report says kids are being hit with seductive advertising for vodka, beer, and tequila on the World Wide Web. What about that?"
Some parents-for-decency group had struck again, I thought, and the Manipulable Media was hard at work. There is an inexhaustible supply of Net phobias, dangers, concerns, and anxiety, and our political and journalistic culture delights in parceling them out in their miserly way, one at a time, until even the steadiest parent's nerves are frayed or shot.
So this was the Net fear of the week, more fresh fuel for mediaphobes and the politicians and journalists who pander to and exploit them. More good news for William Bennett, Bill Clinton, the Gores, and their many right-wing, boomer, and intellectual guardian followers. People concerned about real values or serious social concerns might gnash their teeth trying to get air time or ink, but for anybody who does a study on any conceivable danger to kids and the Internet, big-time publicity is no problem.
I was wrong about the source, but right about the launching of a new survey. This time it was the Center For Media Education, described as a "Washington-based nonprofit group," that had released yet another report warning of yet another Internet danger.
Friday's New York Times front page carried the story, headlined, "On Web, New Threats Seen to the Young." Oh brother, my daughter groaned at breakfast. They'll be all over you today on your book tour.
"Since the advent of the Internet," said this story, "concerns about children in cyberspace have focused on pornography accessible with the push of a button. Now, children's advocates and public health officials are becoming increasingly concerned that liquor and beer companies, and to a lesser extent tobacco companies, are turning their marketing muscle to cyberspace."
The story went on to cite warnings from the center about Web sites' use of video clips and animation to subtly tout drinking and smoking. It said that critics of these slick commercial Web sites included the National Parent Teachers Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. These groups all argue, said The Times, that the government should declare that "entertaining" Web sites violate the liquor and beer industries' promise not to market to children. Cigarette Web sites, moreover, are an effort to circumvent the nearly 30-year-old prohibitions against tobacco ads on broadcast media.
Surely these were serious groups with valid concerns and just alarms against greedy and exploitive companies. Once more, we were reminded that we can expect about as much restraint from alcohol and tobacco companies as we can from Hollywood producers, network executives, record producers, and pornographers when it comes to exploiting new media and technology.
But we better hope there's a saner and more effective way to approach issues of children, media, and safety than through government regulation. And we better not look for any help from journalism or politics in finding it. We'll clearly have to do it ourselves.
At the moment, the irrational nature of our discussions about these issues offers solutions that can't possibly work, that don't really protect needy children or teach any kids how to be savvy and safe from entertaining Web sites.
How to get on to the front page of The New York Times in a few easy steps: Take a danger, any danger - smoking, drinking, pornography, mind-control, addiction, obsession, hate-mongering, militias, social isolation. Then form a nonprofit group. Then issue a warning about the Net posing said perils. You're on page one.
They will never question your motives, funding, or track record, or even explain much to the public about who you are. The country's leading newspaper will run a front-page story, and every major TV and radio newscast, taking the cue, will report on a new danger rushing toward kids along the information highway. And this is our best media.
In recent months, The New York Times has run stories suggesting screen-addicted college kids at Dartmouth and other schools have given up sex, socializing, and liquor for email. That Internet addiction is a pervasive psychological disorder. That the Net has become a primary source of unfiltered, irresponsible information. And that cyberthieves are looting corporate records and bank accounts.
Do we have to approach an issue as critical as the well-being of our kids in this silly, piecemeal, and counterproductive way? Can't we take these very legitimate concerns together, as the whole they are, and recognize and respond to the new realities of the information revolution?
Such as these:
*There is no coherent, legal, or acceptable way to regulate all the information flowing through electronic media that is accessible by or aimed at children. Government regulation isn't going to help; there aren't enough cops to police the information age. Capitalist media corporations run by greedy marketers are going to exploit every loophole and squeeze through every nook and cranny.
We have to stop pretending there's a government agency or ratings system that will do for us what we have to do ourselves - supervise, protect, and teach our kids.
*Journalists need to begin seeking accurate and reliable data on which children are vulnerable to this imagery and what kind of specific impact it has on crime, alcohol and cigarette consumption, etc. How do the fears really square with reality? How vulnerable are kids to advertising imagery? Portrayals of violence and sexuality?
Our public discussion is nearly overwhelmed with studies, arguments, public posturings, but little consensus and few concrete or useful answers.
*We have a right to know who is funding nonprofit groups when they sound alarms about safety, literacy, and violence on the Net, from TV and movies or any place. Are they nonpartisan?
Do they have a political or religious agenda? A credible track record?
No wonder libraries, schools, and parents are disconnecting their homes and institutions from the Internet and freaking out over the impact of new technology on society.
Are parents, educators, even politicians correct to be concerned about the imagery now available to kids and the impact it might have on them?
Absolutely.
But media coverage of children's safety, morality, and technology is often inaccurate and of no help. Many reports of so-called "copycat" incidents of culture-sparked violence and other social problems turn out to be false or exaggerated. Journalists don't seek out the facts; nor do politicians or bureaucratic entities like the FCC, anxious to control cyberspace as they once did broadcasting.
Many of these stories, like Time magazine's famous "Cyberporn" story a couple of years back, or The New York Times' inane suggestion that Dartmouth students have foregone life for email a few months ago, are replete with concern but short on statistics, proof, or victims. The New York Times story on this latest Web threat to kids didn't offer one bit of evidence that a single child had wandered onto an Absolut Vodka site and then gone out and gotten smashed. Apparently the Center for Media Education hadn't, either. When it comes to bashing new media, journalism has no trouble tossing aside its reverence for objectivity.
In the case of this latest Net phobia, there was no effort to balance the story, offer different perspectives, put it in any useful context, or give parents useful remedies. For a medium that is perennially squawking about unfiltered information on the Net, maybe it's time to take a look at the unfiltered information on papers' front pages.
William Bennett is allowed to shoot his mouth off on TV almost daily, but people who believe that new media aren't dangerous or responsible for violence and social disorder, and offer many wonderful, educational, and civilizing opportunities, are far less frequently heard from (though I'm trying, I'm trying). We're often portrayed as degenerate libertarians, our extreme views carefully "balanced" whenever we do speak.
So how can we put our money where our mouth is, and be helpful to parents whose concerns about the manipulation of children by new-media imagery are valid?
