I started reading Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlossen this morning. I found the section about fast food companies advertising to kids particularly interesting… This bit I just found disturbing:

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The spiralling cost of textbooks has led thousands of American school districts to use corporate-sponsered teaching materials. A 1998 study of these teaching materials by the Consumers Union found that 80% were biased, providing students with incomplete or slanted information that favoured the sponser's products and views. Proctor and Gamble's 'Decision Earth' program taught that clear-cut logging was actually good for the environment; teaching aids distributed by the Exxon Education Foundation said that fossil fuels created few environmental problems and that alternative sources of energy were too expensive; a study guide sponsered by the American Coal Foundation dismissed fears of a greenhouse effect, claiming that "the earth could benefit rather than be harmed from increased carbon dioxide."

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This isn't advertising, which is identifiable and clear-cut. This is propaganda, which seeks to get into the subconscious of the public without them noticing.

The reason why this makes me uneasy is that I've been learning about Nazi Germany in history class. We recently covered propaganda, and the Nazi Party used these exact techniques (putting across ideas subtly through school textbooks) the significance being that Nazi propaganda thoroughly brainwashed the majority of young Germans.

In general this sort of infiltration of schools by corporations doesn't happen so much in England. How much do you think certain brands are thrust into your face in high school? Are you aware of excessive advertising or do you think the methods are more sneaky? I'd be interested to know if this scale of corporate advertising is common or only happens in a few American schools. And what do you think of propaganda in general- political or corporate? I would like to hear your views…

-Pen

Oh and that will help kids learn, turning schools and students into NASCAR. Sponsored up the wazoo, beholden to more corporate interests than Bush and Cheney...

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All the stuff that was said about misleading info in books never came across me.

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It didn't then, but trust me, when you get older and have a family of your own to raise someday, you'll have it come across you.

Even if you don't raise a family or kids, you'll still get it to come across you.


Sinope, what you described, i.e., the inner-city schools, is a direct result of the U.S. Government regulating education.

I don't know first-hand how expensive sending a kid to private school would be, but you see, if the U.S. government got their unions and their teacher's associations and their regulations out of education, it would be MUCH cheaper to send, say, you to a private school of your choice.

Tax credits are one of those measures. Allow businesses or corporations to pay for a kid to go to school somewhere, anywhere, get the education, and then let that business write every dollar off at tax filing time.

Arizona does this and it saves taxpayers MILLIONS!

There's one thing you people will learn I hope -- that it doesn't matter where you go or what you learn, the regulation of schools will ALWAYS be the direct cause of this "decay" in education, etc.

When i was reading a few of these posts i noticed that a few of them slightly bashed public schools and praising private school. I went to public school since i was in Kindergarten up until Senior year of high school. All the stuff that was said about misleading info in books never came across me. And i really don't understand why private school is seen as so much better. I have quite a few friends who left private school to come to public because there was more freedom. Some people swear that if you go to public school you'll sell drugs or do them, and you'll sleep around etc. Well you can end up doing the same thing in a private school. The school system you go to does not define your choices, your views and personality will. I never once was offered drugs, or did them.. and thank you i'm still a virgin. So the debate on if we should go to what school has no real right answer i believe and the misinformation isn't in all text books, but if there is that kind of stuff i agree it's really to bad and needs to be corrected but some of you please becareful when you place public schools and the evils of the world together.

Where's the propaganda on Youthnoise then?

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. (ooops. wonder if they'll kick me off this site. I wond...........................

Yeah Fast Food Nation's an interesting book. Did you know that the smell and flavour of a Macdonald's hamburger doesn't in any way shape or form originate from a Macdonalds kitchen? It's made up of special potions mixed by scientists (flavourists, they're called) and manufactured in factories in Europe.

Regarding the general topic of propaganda I don't think people think enough about it. Every government uses propaganda in some way or another. We're all exposed to it… The Labour government (british gov. … I dunno how much you guys know about the politics over here) is often criticized for using loads of spin. The important thing to remember when reading the newspaper is who is writing it and why. Right now I'm pretty sure we're being blasted by a lot of propaganda that seeks to make war look like a good thing… I'm reluctant to take anything I read about Iraq at face value.

However it's one thing for governments to use propaganda… It's only what you'd expect- they are politicians after all! Since when were politicians honest?- But I think that corporations promoting outright lies in school textbooks, for their own benefit, is way out of line. Education should really be unbiased. And besides, what right does some greedy corporation have to determine what people learn? It's just not right whichever way I look at it.

Here's another worrying advertising tactic I read about in Fast Food Nation. A few years back Coca Cola started selling babies bottles with advertisements for Coke on the side… Sure enough it was found that many parents were actually giving their babies Coke in the bottles. It seemed that this had been the calculated intention of the advertisements.

The Coca Cola babies bottles caused an outrage and were subsequently taken off the market.

One of the reasons fast food companies try to appeal to kids so young is that research suggests that a lot of our basic tastes are developed as babies and throughout our first few years. A toddler that likes Macdonalds chicken nuggets will most likely have a craving for them in later life. I think it's called the 'birth to death' strategy or something… I haven't actually got Fast Food Nation here right now so I can't give you a direct quote.

dante raises the fundamental question. how do we teach our kids the truth? what is the truth? if your christian than the answer is the obvious one dauben- send them to a private school and everything is settled. problem is; alot of kids... repeat... alot of kids.. can not afford a private school. some are stuck. were they are. on their own. (referring to some public schools here in detroit). sometimes it feels like noone cares about em. so they deal drugs to get by which i can't honestly blame them for, because hey... you can't eat a book. get a job you say? sweet, mcds sounds good to me.... or i could sell drugs, and make more money than the average lawyer (to bad i gotta die before 25).

what about them. i feel the inner city is extremely neglected.... at least relative to cushy suburbia.

sorry to get off subject but there's an interesting conversation going on here i felt i had to say something in. about propaganda... i haven't read that book, but i'll check it out and maybe have more to say on the subject. oh and propaganda is evil.

take every single $bill you have in your pocket and immediately write apon it the words, "I AM NOT A SLAVE". money seems to rule the world. i just wish it wasn't always the denominater.

What's wrong with more people recognizing the Golden arches than the Christian Cross? We all eat, but we aren't all Christian!! Oy, Jesus should have such good PR!!

I'd just start pulling my kids out of school.

Unfortunately, you're still supporting (or your parents are) the schools with property taxes, but if you homeschooled them or sent them to a reputable private school, you'd KNOW the education they will/would be receiving.


James Dobson (Focus on the Family) urged Christian parents to just start pulling their kids from schools.

I'll hopefully have a big story on Public vs. Private later this year - but basically making people more aware is the only way we're going to try to curb this crap.

So now that we've cut through that:

Advertising masquerading as fact and education. What do we do about it? Is this undue influence? A free way to a captive audience? How do we teach kids the truth?

Guys, let's get one thing straight here: "free education" (government-run schools) are the problem.

They're brainwashing students, they're controlling them, they're engineering them, they're giving them only what the "government wants them to know."

Let's establish those facts now.

I am in total agreement with what you guys are saying.

I just didn't want it to be a rant against capitalism.



Besides, I'm a Libertarian. All schools should be privately funded, whereas my son or daughter would get the education I personally want them to get.

There's this big scam - it's called Globalization or a World Government - the best way to get there is to brainwash the kiddies at the school level.

This is just a piece of the World Government's puzzle and it's working beautifully.

Like Dante said it was a throwaway sentence… The truth is that nothing like that has happened in English schools yet. There's a lot of corporate advertising elsewhere but it's not yet in the schools, at least not to the extent described in Fast Food Nation. I don't want corporations to infiltrate my school. I think I can do without all that. But you're missing the point.

Incidentally- have you read the book? …I never said England was 'better off'.

You're missing the point. I was intending to start a discussion on propaganda and advertising techniques used by fast food industries, intending to brainwash the nation's kids and teenagers, whether you think this is a good thing for kids to be constantly preyed on by advertising… 

It was the fast food industry, especially Macdonalds, that introduced child-orientated advertising. Before that they were not really marketed for. Now there's a huge amount of advertising to kids, because they are more easily fooled and are likely to believe whatever the tv tells them.

I don't want this to turn into a discussion on the pros and cons of capitalism. That was not my aim at all.

I can start a topic on that elsewhere if you wish
-Pen

It was a throwaway sentence, the point was not to debate the merits of capitalism.

The point is lies to our children and whether or not people agree it is wrong to indoctrinate our children. After all, that's kinda what school is all about.

You say there will always be bias. But, you can also take steps to root out and do away with, bit by bit, the lies. Teaching them to pick a position not because they were presented it as fact by an autority, but because after considering all points of view, including their own they picked the side with whom the balance of reason agreed.

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In general this sort of infiltration of schools by corporations doesn't happen so much in England.

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Want to know why? Because like that book, the government of England did away with capitalism.

I totally agree with the corporate propaganda in schools, but hello, this is the information age. We're going to get hit with bias, bias, bias.

But that book is more against capitalism than anything, I'm afraid.

Sure, it points out the bias, but when you mentioned the deal about England, you were highlighting the fact that England (socialist country) is somehow "better off" because of their corporation-less school system.

However, the American school system is socialist too, but capitalism did more for this entire world - no matter how "greedy" - than what any other economic policy will EVER do.

I wanted to say that I've read the bok adn there's a lot more where that came from. I don't want this topic to die so I'll say this for now:
World-wide, more people recognize the McDonald's Golden Arches than the Christian Cross...