The flashy billboard at the entrance to the tunnel between Hong Kong and Kowloon does a great job of getting people's attention. The gigantic advertisement shows pleasant-looking children holding microphones and posing in a professional manner. From the text, I gather that Disney is recruiting children to be junior reporters.
All who think they have got what it takes can audition, it suggests. Reading the fine print, however, I am taken aback to learn that only subscribers of the Disney Channel may apply.
I can feel the disappointment of a non-subscribing child as I peer at the billboard; nowadays, even carefree innocence comes with a price tag.
Where has childhood gone? The Disappearance of Childhood comes to mind. It is a thin, enlightening book, a mini-classic of the modern age. The central idea is that today's mass media, through its unrelenting targeting of consumers, has brought about a collective loss associated with childhood. The book argues that because of the media, children are gradually starting to behave like adults, specifically in the areas of language, clothing, product preference, interests and criminality. The writer is a long-time pundit of mass media and culture, Neil Postman. His disturbing conclusion is that childhood, like the black rhino, is becoming extinct.
Postman describes the hazards of letting our children grow up under the harsh spotlight of the mass media. After prolonged exposure to television, adverts and the internet, children passively and subconsciously digest the messages being sent; messages designed to promote materialism and consumerism. Thus they slowly lose the ability to take the initiative in making life choices. Once a child raised by the media reaches adulthood, he or she is devoid of independent thought.
This is too distressing. I see the entire globe stuck in the same boat: the doors have been flung open and every society is defenceless against besiegement by mass media and technology, its partner in crime. The Disney billboard is a fine example; the company does not care whether a child is interested or talented unless he or she has paid the entrance fee. The privilege of being eligible to become a junior reporter must be paid for in cold, hard cash. Since when did children have to worry about entrance fees?