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Statistics

Boys and Girls and the Media

"Statistics: Reasons we need to restructure the communications system. Change must come."

Consider this:

The combined wealth of the world's three richest people is greater than the total income of the 48 poorest nations.

The 84 richest people own assets worth more than the total annual production of all 1.2 billion Chinese.

The world's 225 billionaires are worth $1 trillion, equal to the annual incomes of 2.4 billion people, just under half of the earth's human population.

Source: Human Development Report, United Nations Development Programme, 1998.

Assume that the $1 trillion of the 225 billionaires returns 5% per annum, or $50 billion per year. That averages $222 million per billionaire.

If each billionaire kept $2 million per annum and distributed the other $49.5 billion, the UNDP report says they could buy:

Basic education for all the children in the world - $6 billion.
Clean water, sanitation for each human - $9 billion
Nutrition and healthcare for all currently not covered - $13 billion
Family planning for all women on earth - $12 billion

Total: $40 billion.

With $9.5 billion left over to protect the environment and promote peace, per year.

$50 billion = what Americans spent per year on soft drinks; Europeans spend per year on cigarettes.

A 5% tax on advertising worldwide would raise $50 billion/year. A 5% cut in weapons expenditures per year would raise $50 billion/year.

A magazine entitled More Than Money, 2244 Alder Street, Eugene, Oregon 97405; 541-343-2420; impact@efn.org reports on wealthy people who play giving games.

Lyman Lumber Company Chairman Tom Lowe of Minnesota is organizing fellow Minnesotans to donate 1% of their net worth per year.

Here's a quote from a contributor to More Than Money:

"I first gave away all income from my inherited stocks; then about 5% of my net worth a year, and finally up to 10% of assets a year. My principal grew, even at this rate of giving! . . ."

--the above report is taken from The Global Citizen, an article in the 1-5-2000 Pacific Sun newspaper by Donella H. Meadows, director, Sustainability Institute, adjunct professor of Environmental Studies, Dartmouth College.

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"Boys and Girls and the Media"

www.childrennow.org/media has useful information and discussion ideas

This is the link to the page for discussion and research on boys and the media

Selections from the Research Findings
* Almost three fourths of young adult male characters on TV use anti-social behaviors to solve problems.
* Some violence appears in over half the sample of television shows and movies most popular with boys.
* Almost three fourths of children describe males on television as violent and more than two thirds describe them as angry.
* One in five male characters on TV employs some form of physical aggression to solve problems.
* Overwhelmingly, children say that they rarely see men or boys showing signs of vulnerability on television.
* A majority of children say that men and boys on television are often portrayed as focused on the opposite sex.
* Over one third of children say that they never see television males performing domestic chores such as cooking or cleaning.

Top-selling Video Games 'Unhealthy' for Girls, Research Shows Parents cautioned about game content

OAKLAND, CA--Almost half of top-selling console video games contain negative messages about
girls, according to new research released today by Children Now, a national child advocacy organization. Those negative messages include violence, promoting unrealistic body images and stereotypical female characteristics, such as provocative sexuality, high-pitched voices and fainting.

The current analysis examined the top ten selling games for each of the three most popular games console systems. The games sales for Sony PlayStation, Sega Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 were ranked by PC Data, a computer industry sales tracking company. Overall, 54% of the games surveyed contained female characters whereas 92% contained male characters.

Of the games that contained female characters:

38% displayed those characters with significant body exposure: 23% exposed breasts or cleavage, 31% exposed thighs, 15% exposed behinds and 31% exposed stomachs or midriffs.

In addition, 38% of female game characters had "large" breasts and 46% had "unusually small" waists.

54% involved those characters "fighting" or "being violent." Overall, 46% of games included violence.

"Parents may want to think more closely about purchasing and renting games for their children, especially during this busy holiday season," said Lois Salisbury, president of Children Now. "The
unhealthy messages that both girls and boys absorb from these new media impact the way they think
girls are supposed to look and act," she said.

Children Now's last nationwide study of media influence on girls demonstrated that in television, movies, commercials and teen magazines, media reinforce troubling stereotypes about the importance of appearance in girls' lives. For example, two out of three girls said they wanted to look like a character on TV and one out of three said they had changed something about their appearance to resemble that character.

According to a previous academic study at UCLA, when children themselves designed video games, girls preferred non-violent games with positive feedback for players. In addition, girls did not program "evil" characters nor did they incorporate conquering an "evil enemy" as the goal of their games. In comparison, most boys in the study designed games that terminated with violence, usually resulting in the death of a player's character.

"Video game producers need to stop thinking pink," said Patti Miller, director of Children Now's Children & the Media program. "Research shows that girls want games that engage and challenge, as well as entertain them, not 'girlie versions' of games originally designed for boys."

Some positive examples of games for girls include Mia Hamm Soccer & Mia Hamm Soccer Shootout, Judith Love Cohen's You Can Be A Woman Engineer, Ecco The Dolphin and for younger children, Rugrats: Time Travelers.

In 1999, video and PC games sales in the United States totaled $6.1 billion, according to the Interactive Digital Software Association, an industry group. This year, the estimated percentage of female games console users was 30%. Last year children spent an average of one and a half hours a day using computers or video games, according to research by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

More recommendations for positive solutions to the negative game environment for girls can be read in Children Now's current Media Now newsletter, which updates media producers with current research on children and the media, available at www.childrennow.org or by calling (510) 763-2444.

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