Dancing in the Dark: Youth, Popular Culture, and the Electronic Media

One of the the finest books evaluating the impact of popular culture on American's youth is Dancing in the Dark: Youth, Popular Culture and the Electronic Media, ed. Roy M. Anker, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, c. 1991). Under the direction of Quentin J. Schultze, a team of scholars at Calvin College devoted a year to this study, and they present us a balanced, scholarly, valuable treatise. Initially, they remind us that "youth have been a 'problem' for hundreds, probably thousands, of years. Every adult reading this book was very likely part of a generation that criticized and was criticized by its elders" (p.3). In many ways, today's youth simply reveals, in distinctively adolescent ways, the broader American culture, which as a consumer society clearly believes happiness can be bought. Having acknowledged this, having surveyed the various forces of "modernization" which have shaped youth culture throughout this nation's history, the authors then focus on the primary force in modern young peoples' lives: the electronic media. "Indeed, it is hard to underestimate the dramatic extent to which radio, television, cable, satellites, and the VCR have changed the ways that youth relate to each other and to other generations" (47). Attuned to the media, today's youths have a shared network which radically severs them from traditional social ties with family and church. Thus they find irrelevant those "traditional institutions" which revere "history, maturity, or wisdom" (58). Consequently, what "maps of reality" youngsters obtain come from music and films rather than parents and teachers. With ever increasing amounts of money and leisure time, America's youth indulge in walkmans and concerts, TV and videocassettes and compact discs. Add to this the mobility and privacy of the automobile (owned by increasing numbers of teenagers), and you find a sub-culture effectively insulated against the broader world. With enormous profits accrued courting young people, the entertainment industry has deliberately exploited "ad nauseum the emotional, social, and physical tensions of their adolescent market" (98). Dancing in the Dark effectively establishes the bond binding youth culture and the consumer society--and this uniquely distinguishes its presentation. We cannot separate the two! Often those who most condemn youth culture promote the very consumerism which underlies it. "For all its seeming divergence, the world of youth is largely shaped, sustained, and strained by the broad and aggressive consumer culture that envelops North America" (112). On the surface it may seem different, but at its heart "the 'wisdom' that the entertainment industry gives youth is consumerism" (112). TV shows, especially MTV (which is "one nearly continuous advertisement"), records and films are produced by profit-hungry corporations; for all their counter-culture posturing, rock stars and media celebrities

If there's ever a time when this book and its message need to get out to youth ministers, it's today, with the "emergence" of emerging churches. It's time for Eerdmans to update and print a second edition of this book reflecting more recent trends. This is must-reading for everyone involved in ministering to and educating adolescents.

"To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization." - Bertrand RussellThis book was written by five professors from Calvin College who teach in the following disciplines: communication arts and sciences, English, history, music, and philosophy. I picked it up after listening to a tape by Howard Hendricks from Dallas Theological Seminary, who gave it a fabulous recommendation. After reading it, I would have to do the same. This book gives it's own statement of purpose better than I would be able to - "In short, our thesis is that youth and the electronic media today are dependent upon each other. The media need the youth market, as it is called, for their own economic survival. Youth, in turn, need the media for guidance and nurture in a society where other social institutions, such as the family and the school, do not shape the youth culture as powerfully as they once did" (11,12). This book is now ten years old and it is outdated by some standards, but it's only ignorant in naming the newest forms of the influence it speaks so perceptively about.The focus of this book is on the critical evaluation of the music industry, the music television industry (MTV), the film industry and the impact they have on the teen population. It's chapters plod much deeper into these issues than I'm able to do here without opening a can of worms, but their insight is invaluable. Being twenty-five years old, I learned as much about myself and the influence of the media on my own life as I did about the media itself. This book suggests that we have today is a "generation gap" that has been created by the media. Youth have been isolated from the more traditional worlds of previous generations, their parents included. The promise of the media is that of intimacy, identity, meaning and guidance, but the teens pay a price. Today's youth have a greater feeling of disillusionment, boredom, fatigue, addiction, abuse, narcissism and suicide than ever before. Cultural distinctions have been blurred and distant images have taken the place of intimate relationships. The youth today have a culture all their own. The media tells them what music rocks, what clothes look good, what to say to their girlfriend/boyfriend and what are good goals to shoot for in life. However, the media must evolve at a breakneck pace to keep up with teenagers because teens are fickle. The media must constantly reflect the youth culture in order to continue upholding it. It is a reciprocal relationship that pours gasoline on the fire of our consumer driven culture. Teens buy more music and watch more movies than the rest of the population combined even though they only comprise about one-fifth of the population. Why? Largely because their emotions are unstable on the journey from childhood to adulthood and our consumerist society has thought it good to capitalize on the opportunity to make a buck.I found this book to be a great level-headed approach toward

These five profs from Calvin College address the complex web of youth culture and the electronic media from a Christian perspective laced with compassion, intelligence, and thought-provoking perception. They are not going to stand up -- like so many other evangelicals -- and lambaste youth culture for its excesses, bad taste, foul language, etc. (though they don't look kindly at these things, either); instead, they seek to see WHY such things appeal to youth, honing in particuarly on our culture's institutional SEPARATION of youth from adults. Very provocative and level-headed. Highly recommended for Biblical thinkers who want to grapple with what is going on in the heads of young rockers and video-philes.