Popular culture and moral panics about ‘children at risk’: revisiting the sexualisation-of-young-girls debate

Abstract

In an attempt to resist moral panics over children's media consumption, and especially girls' consumption of hyper-sexualised popular media, this paper aims to offer a more positive account of popular culture and young children's, especially girls', engagement with it. By adopting a historical approach to modern childhood and the moral panics associated with it, I argue that the consumption of entertainment media and popular culture is a leisure activity which, rather than facilitating or reinforcing female subordination and youth vulnerability, can be seen as a possible source of knowledge about sexuality, about the self and the social world. I draw on findings from qualitative research conducted in Athens with young schoolgirls aged 10–12 years about their favourite popular icons in order to examine the variety of their engagements with, readings and practices of popular culture. Their discursive accounts reveal the intricate ways in which pre-teenage girls make sense of fandom and stardom, discuss taste, fashion and body aesthetics, and construct notions of attractiveness and ethical selfhood.

Keywords::

• sexualisation
• moral panics
• leisure
• identity
• popular culture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/14/miley-cyrus-feminist_n_4274194.html

^2. See, for example, Home Office (2006) or DCSF (2008).

^3. Photograph 1 can be accessed at http://www.gotceleb.com/rihanna-concert-in-belfast-northern-ireland-sept-30th-2011-2011-10-02.html/rihanna-concert-in-belfast-02, photograph 2 can be accessed at http://fashionbombdaily.com/2011/05/23/look-for-less-rihannas-2011-billboard-awards-max-azria-white-suit/ and photograph 3 can be accessed at http://www.redcarpet-fashionawards.com/2011/05/03/rihanna-in-stella-mccartney-2011-met-gala/

^4. Postman (1982/1994) has argued that television was largely responsible for the loss of childhood. While print technology accounted for the emergence of a distinctive youth culture (i.e. a form of childhood) in industrialised societies, television was conducive to the destruction of childhood in two ways: by ‘banishing shame’, as it made adult sexual knowledge directly available to children, and by superseding literacy as the primary means of communication.