Tonya and PQBON's WebLog
LancasterOnline.com: Students Remember More Ads Than News
Schools that agree to show Channel One on 90 percent of school days receive free televisions and satellite dishes, a deal critics say turns students into a captive audience for advertisers. Nearly 8 million students see the program, according to Channel One's parent company, Primedia.
"The benefits of having Channel One in schools seem to have some real costs that should create an ethical dilemma for schools," said study co-author Erica Austin of Washington State University. The study appears Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
My first highschool was a prototype school for channel 1. It was kind of like MTV news light. In retrospect it reminds me of the Ben Stiller charecter's TV network in Reality Bites. I was dubious of it even then, since it required us to watch ads at school. My savvy english teacher pointed out that they could show it and require that teachers not teach through it but they couldn't make us WATCH it. So we didn't.
Posted by pqbon at March 6, 2006 12:31 PM | TrackBackShocking, really.
In the narrow window when it was maybe useful to have a satellite dish at a school, this was still a bad idea. Now, a handful of computers connected to the internet can inform students who need to learn about world events that their teachers can't just tell them about during the day.
Geez. If you want students to have a roundup of current events each day, print a little crib sheet for each teacher. That way, you can even add extra notes for when the students ask questions, rather than hitting them with a crappy, unsupported television news segment.
Posted by: Alex at March 6, 2006 2:02 PM