TheStar.com:  Can subcultures still thrive in the glare of the digital age?

The underground, and especially the subcultures that inhabit it, have been much debated and examined since British academic Dick Hebdige published Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979), a groundbreaking examination of the symbols and rituals of the punk subculture in London. Almost a decade after Subculture, in an essay reflecting on youth culture, Hebdige wrote: “Subculture forms up in the space between surveillance and the evasion of surveillance, it translates the fact of being under scrutiny into the pleasure of being watched. It is a hiding in the light.” Read the full story… 

Family meals turn teenaged girls away from drugs, alcohol 

Adolescent girls who sit down for frequent meals with their families are half as likely to smoke, drink and use marijuana as those who share family meals less often, according to a new study. “Part of it is just parents being more in touch with their kids, being able to see earlier on if their kids are veering down a path that might not be filled with healthy choices,” says Marla Eisenberg, lead author of the paper and a professor of pediatrics in the University of Minnesota’s medical school. Read the full story…

MediaPost: Overexposed: Kids See Too Many Alcohol Ads On Cable

Alcohol TV commercials are on the rise—and more young people are being exposed to them, especially on cable programs. Georgetown University’s Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) says 12- to-20-year-olds witnessed nearly a 40% rise in alcohol messaging from 2001 to 2007. The group says exposure levels to these ads by young people are the highest since the group begin monitoring ads in 2001. But there is some progress—especially from one self-regulating approach from alcohol trade associations. Where 30% or more of a TV show’s audience is made up of underage drinkers—under age 21—the group notes that the percentage of alcohol product ads on these programs has been trimmed to 6.3% in 2007 from 11% in 2003. The main problem is cable TV. Read the full story…

New York Post: RETAILER SEES RED OVER RISQUE AD ‘SPEED DRESSING’ 

New York ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi is trying to contain the damage after a major client, JC Penney, took the firm to task over a fake viral ad that makes light of teen sex. The ad, called “Speed Dressing,” shows two teens practicing taking their clothes off - and then putting them back on quickly - in anticipation of eventually hooking up in the basement while mom is upstairs. The spot displays Penney’s logo and campaign slogan, “Every Day Matters.” Penney officials claim they became aware of the ad, which never aired on television, only after it popped up on YouTube and a slew of other Web sites over the weekend. Read the full story…

Red Herring: Report: Apple Killed Music Industry 

Apple’s iPod is partly to blame for the collapse of the music industry, according to a report Friday from researcher eMarketer. The Mac maker helped set the tone for a “rat’s nest of restrictions and incompatibilities” that have stalled the growth of digital music, according to Paul Verna, the author of the report. Revenue in the music industry continues to decline in part because of consumer confusion, the report said. A big part of the reason is music fans are asked to sort out the explosion of incompatible formats, players, restrictions, and retailers. That lack of simplicity  has slowed sales. Apple has been a “double-edged sword” for the industry, the report said. Its closed system works well for iPod users, “but leaves many frustrated consumers outside of that system.” Read the full story…

CNET: Kid Rock’s surprising take on illegal downloading 

Kid Rock’s sarcastic “just do it” YouTube rant on illegal downloading is funny and makes the point—illegal downloading is stealing. With a smile on his face Rock says, “I’m rich,” so sure it’s OK to steal my music. Oh, and while you’re at it, “Steal everything.” Steal an iPod, Steve Jobs is a billionaire, he’ll never miss it. Get yourself a Toyota, “They’re foreign” and the gas too, “You know how much money the oil companies make?” Rock shrugs it all off, “They’re not going to miss $30 or $40 worth of gas.”  Read the full story and watch the video… 

MSNBC: Religious Americans: My faith isn’t the only way 

America remains a nation of believers, but a new survey finds most Americans don’t feel their religion is the only way to eternal life — even if their faith tradition teaches otherwise.  The findings, released Monday in a survey of 35,000 adults, can either be taken as a positive sign of growing religious tolerance, or disturbing evidence that Americans dismiss or don’t know fundamental teachings of their own faiths.  Among the more startling numbers in the survey, conducted last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: 57 percent of evangelical church attendees said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life, in conflict with traditional evangelical teaching.  Read the full story…

AP: Little `Barbie Brat’ bullies become concern 

Recess was Allie Long’s favorite part of the day until the second grade, when some of her friends on the playground pressured her to join their whisper campaign against a classmate. Allie shrugged. She didn’t want to hear their rumor or help spread it around. In an instant, her best friends since kindergarten became her tormenters. “They started taunting and teasing her,” said Allie’s mom, Trudy Ludwig. “She was on this play structure and they blocked all of the exits and wouldn’t let her off. They started moving closer to her. Allie just freaked out. One of the girls realized it was getting out of hand and got a teacher to help.” Bullying among adolescents has captured the attention of researchers, educators and parents alarmed by a parade of mean girls and cyber-bullies caught in mid-punch on viral video. But such aggression may not just happen in a whirl of adolescent hormones, some in the growing anti-bully movement argue. Read the full story…

Advertising Age: Hey, Buddy, Can I Bum a Snus Off You? 

Faced with rising taxes for cigarettes — in New York the price of a pack hit $9 — and ever-tightening smoking bans in places such as Los Angeles, where a bill threatens to force smokers out of all outdoor eating areas, Big Tobacco is trying a new approach to keep America’s dwindling 45 million smokers in the fold. The solution: snus (they are always curiously plural), a pinch of steam-cured tobacco nestled in a tiny tea-bag-like pouch. Snus don’t need to be spit out like traditional fermented dipping tobacco; they simply remain under your upper lip until you’ve gotten your nicotine fix.  Read the full story…

Advertising Age: In Google We Trust

The most reputable company in America: Google, which toppled Microsoft from the top perch in the 2007 Harris Interactive Reputation Quotient study released today — and sent it tumbling all the way down to No. 10. But what should be even more eye-opening to the companies rounding out the top 10 — which include Johnson & Johnson and General Mills — and the rest of the list is that Google’s victory shows that a company that spends nothing on advertising can still be the most positively perceived by consumers.  Read the full story…

Texting ‘addiction’ costing teens, parents

When the cell bill arrived, complete with a $300 payment notice, Travis Ramsay was in a state of disbelief. Travis Ramsay ran up a $300 mobile phone bill, mainly because of texting charges. “I was pretty mad,” the 13-year-old said. “I walked outside and punched the wall as hard as I could.” He was mad because even though the bill was his father’s name, Travis Ramsay had to pay it. After all, it was his text messaging that padded the amount due. Ramsay said when he started texting his friends, some who at times were standing right by him, and he didn’t realize the cost. Plus, he said, it was fun. Read the full story…

Emaxhealth: Strong Student Connection To School Community Key To Preventing Violence

In a report issued by McLean Hospital, the United States Secret Service and the United States Department of Education, researchers note that creating a positive school climate in which students believe the school staff genuinely wants to hear from them about threats or possible attacks is critical to preventing future Columbine-like school violence. The 15-page report “Prior Knowledge of Potential School-Based Violence: Information Students Learn May Prevent a Targeted Attack,” available at www.secretservice.gov , outlines the results of multiple interviews of bystanders to violent school attacks to determine how students with prior knowledge of school violence made decisions regarding what steps, if any, to take after learning the information. Read the full story…

New York Times: Starving Themselves, Cocktail in Hand

Manorexia. Orthorexia. Diabulimia. Binge Eating Disorder. All are dangerous variations on the eating disorders anorexia and bulimia, and have become buzzwords that are popping up on Web sites and blogs, on television and in newspaper articles. As celebrity magazines chronicle the glamorous and the suffering, therapists and a growing number of researchers are trying to treat and understand the conditions. The latest entry in the lexicon of food-related ills is drunkorexia, shorthand for a disturbing blend of behaviors: self-imposed starvation or bingeing and purging, combined with alcohol abuse.  Read the full story…

The National Post: Exposed G-string tied to today’s social values.

For hippies, it was the androgynous tunic; for modern teens, it is the exposed G-string. “There’s always a link between style and social values,” said Mariette Julien, a professor at L’Universite du Quebec a Montreal who presented a paper on the topic of teen dress at the country’s largest annual gathering of academics last week. “People aren’t conscious of the symbolism in their style of dress, but it remains very present.” Read the full story…

Other Headlines:

• Possible Gossip GIrl Spinoff
• Gen Y Fears Wrinkles: Cosmeceutical Sales To Hit $21 Billion
• Beloved Characters as Reimagined for the 21st Century
• Disney Revs Up Tween Star Machine
• Thai School gets bathrooms for transvestite students
• Why GTA IV Was the Beginning of the End
• Teen Choice Awards 2008 Nominations
• Sears teams with MTV to lure teens
• Facebook overtakes MySpace worldwide
• Disney’s “Camp Rock” racks up ratings
  
  

Teen survey shows virginity pledges can work.

Virginity pledges do deter some teens from having sex, according to a study by the RAND Corp. that surveyed teen virgins over three years to see whether they stayed that way.

Of 1,517 adolescents ages 12 to 17 in 2001 when the research began, teenagers who vowed to remain virgins until they were married were less likely to be sexually active than others who didn’t make a pledge.

About one-quarter of the adolescents surveyed (23.8%) made a promise to wait until marriage to have sex; 34% had broken it by 2004, compared with 42% of those who didn’t make the pledge and had sex during that time.

Read the full story… 

Study: Teens Heed Parental Warnings against Drugs and Alcohol But Indulge When Left Unguided.

A new survey released by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and the MetLife Foundation has found that parental guidance and example has a profound affect on their children’s use of alcohol and drugs, especially at such “coming-of-age” events as prom and graduation parties.

The survey indicates that when parents engage their children in discussions about alcohol and drug abuse the teens take their parents’ message to heart.

“Only 16 percent of teens whose parents set a zero tolerance policy reported their individual likelihood of using drugs or alcohol, whereas 45 percent of teens whose parents didn’t set such boundaries reported they were likely to drink or use drugs at prom or graduation parties this year,” the report states.

Read the full story… 

Teen girls fight body image battle. 

For teens, especially girls, it may be very difficult to accept themselves as normal in appearance.

Health care authorities say the “body image” that teens have of themselves is often distorted by visual media that relies heavily on images of thin women and muscular men.

Recent high school grad Madison Hayes, 18, said it is very common for girls to be critical of their appearance.

“On a daily basis I hear girls complain about things like their jeans giving them a muffin top; the little love handles above their hips,” she said. “Girls are so picky about how they look.”

Hayes said she believes media influences are probably 90 percent of the reason that young women think there is something wrong with their body shape.

Read the full story… 

Teens listen to less radio, more Ipods. 

Teenagers are beginning to desert radio in favor of music from personal devices and computers, according to Coleman Insights, which studied teens’ listening behavior in a major market.
Long observed by media pundits, the trend is finally having a measurable impact on audience size in the teenage demo. Specifically, Coleman found that 84% of the 14-17 cohort listen to music daily on an MP3 player, iPod, or computer, versus 78% for radio. Coleman described these results as evidence of a “tipping point” in audio consumption: “Coleman Insights has for the first time detected greater use of them than of FM radio in a few specific instances.”

Another Coleman study found the 15-17 cohort favors iPods and MP3 players as primary destinations for listening to music, with 41% choosing the personal devices, compared to just 22% for FM radio.

Read the full story… 

Living together: No big deal?

An analysis of cohabitation, marriage and divorce data from 13 countries, including the USA, shows that living together has become so mainstream that growing numbers of Americans view it as an alternative to marriage.

The National Marriage Project study of a sampling of Western European and Scandinavian nations, Australia, Canada and New Zealand found that cohabitation elsewhere is far more common and indeed viewed as an option to matrimony. The study found that anywhere from 15% to 30% of all couples identified themselves as living together, compared with about 10% right now in the USA.

“We’re still the most marrying of all these countries, but the data are clearly headed in the one common direction. It’s headed in the direction of cohabitation as an alternative,” says David Popenoe, the report’s author and co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, which studies marriage and child well-being.

Read the whole story… 

Entertainment Weekly: How teens took over pop culture

Anyone who’s a teenager — or one of the many adults whose pop culture tastes lean in that direction — might want to blow off that summer job. Given how much teen entertainment will soon be gushing into the nation’s TiVo queues and iPod playlists, this might be the best time ever to be a fan of teen-tertainment. Whereas five years ago you’d have been stuck with only The O.C., now you’ll spend summer catching up on Gossip Girl while downloading new albums from Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, and Jesse McCartney. 

Read the full story… 

 What not to say to overweight teens.

A recent study has found that younger children are increasingly being diagnosed with eating disorders like anorexia. Child and adolescent psychiatrist at Sydney’s Westmead Children’s Hospital, Dr Sloane Madden, studied children under 13 years old with eating disorders and found that children as young as 8 are being diagnosed with anorexia.

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The percentage of American children who are overweight or obese appears to have leveled off after a 25-year increase, according to new figures that offer a glimmer of hope in an otherwise dismal battle.

“That is a first encouraging finding in what has been unremittingly bad news,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of an obesity clinic at Children’s Hospital Boston. “But it’s too soon to know if this really means we’re beginning to make meaningful inroads into this epidemic. It may simply be a statistical fluke.”

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Children today are growing up too fast and acting like adults at a very early age, child health experts say.

With television and the internet playing an increasing role in their lives, children are often exposed to ideas and issues they cannot comprehend fully. They are coming under influences that were kept away from them in the past , and sometimes their parents are to blame.

Read the full story…