According to the “Education and Consumerism” issue
of Radical Teacher, a major battle has heated up in the last year
between Coke and Pepsi, and it’s taking place in U.S. public
schools. These multi-million dollar soda companies want to pay
schools to exclusively market their product. For the soda marketers,
it’s a good use of advertising dollars: pay the school to
make their brand name central to kids’ lives all day everyday.
For the school, it’s an easy source of much needed funds.
Advertising is becoming ubiquitous in schools. In Colorado Springs,
the side of a big yellow school bus becomes a bill board for just
$2500. A six-foot commercial banner hung inside the school for
one calendar year costs only $700. In Toronto, schools are using
screen savers on their computers that mix motivational messages
with sales pitches from fast food and soft drink companies. The
Pepsi-sponsored screen saver advises kids to “develop a
thirst for knowledge.” In Braintree, Massachusetts, a company
called Cover Concepts has made a multi-million dollar business
out of giving away free book covers that are decorated with corporate
advertising.
|
In his book, Educating the Consumer-Citizen: A History of
the Marriage
of Schools, Advertising, and Media (2003, Erlbaum), Joel Spring
documents the many ways in which advertising and commercialism has
pervaded the schools. Advertisers and corporations provide schools
with products or funding in return to being able to place ads on
textbook covers or in schools or to sell certain fast-food/beverage
products in the school. Because school funding has been cut, schools
often need additional funds simply to meet basic needs. For example,
Primedia’s, Channel One, provides morning in-school “news,”
now in some 40% of all secondary schools, by providing schools with
free video equipment. 42% of the 12 minute “news” broadcasts
consists of ads, self-promotions, and filler, thereby using what
is assumed to be a pedagogical tool to insert advertising into the
curriculum.
Some states, including New York, and local school districts have
not allowed Channel One to be broadcast in their schools.
|
