The Effects of Media and Marketing on Children

PASADENA, Calif.-Are children really negatively influenced by television, commercials, and the media? Dr. Susan Linn, Ed.D., cofounder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and author of Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood, will speak about the effects of media and commercial marketing on children. The event will take place on Wednesday, April 13, at 8 p.m., at the California Institute of Technology Ramo Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations are required.

Linn is associate director of the Media Center of the Judge Baker Children's Center at Harvard University, and an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She has written extensively about the effects of media and marketing on children. Her articles have been published in the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. Her work on behalf of children has also been featured on 60 Minutes. Linn, along with Family Communications Inc., the producers of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, created Different and the Same, video-based classroom materials designed to help children in grades one through three identify and prevent prejudice. The series won the 1996 Media Award from the National Association for Multicultural Education and is being used in 47 states around the country.

The presentation is sponsored by the Child Educational Center, Caltech, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and cosponsored by Bank of America, the Chandler School, and Kidspace Children's Museum, in recognition of the National Association for the Education of Young Children's Week of the Young Child.

For more information, call the Caltech ticket office, (626) 395-4652. ###

Media Contact: Deborah Williams-Hedges (626) 395-3227 debwms@caltech.edu

Visit the Caltech Media Relations website at: http://pr.caltech.edu/media