| Young Adult Literature and Multimedia--Resources |
MTV Shapers Readers
by Ron Frascht
UW-Stout: Young Adult Literature
Reading is holding on. The media is putting up a good fight, but I hope that as a society we can battle back from the precipice of this new MTV generation and reinstate literature to its rightful place as a staple in entertainment. MTV seems to be the biggest culprit. MTV stormed onto the scene in the 1980s and in a short period of time revolutionized how audiences view entertainment. I think that the biggest blow to reading lies in the fact that the youth today have had their attention span whittled down over the years by the quick-cut form that entertainment has adopted over the course of time. Since books are built on the premise of focusing for an extended period of time and using imagination to enhance the experience; literature has become a maverick in an industry that was built on it.
The introduction of MTV into the media mainstream has really created a different type of entertainment consumer. It’s distressing to watch a generation that has trouble engaging in literature because of how the young people today are built to absorb entertainment. Their attention span has been affected by the sensory overload that started with MTV’s videos and has seeped into television and movies. “Sensory overload (i.e., jamming as much information as possible within the short time span by means of increasing the rapidity of images (or) splitting the screen, notable examples include Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and Tom Petty's "Jammin' Me"” (Hoffman, 2003, p. 1). One of the ways the media overloads the senses is by making very quick cuts in the editing of their shows, videos, or movies. They do this to constantly stimulate the viewer, but in doing so the media creates a viewer that begins to crave this fast paced form of entertainment that is very addictive. I think this is why I sometimes see the look of terror in my students’ eyes when they see a 200 hundred page novel staring them in the face. They have been conditioned to take their entertainment in smaller segments. “It’s worth noting that it was the quick-cut editing style of so many music videos that MTV (used to) play that pioneered an appetite for bite-sized bits of entertainment” (Albrecht, 2007, p. 1). This is something that concerns me as a reading teacher.
It is important to sustain a certain focus to read for an extended period of time. A class period can be daunting when you’re trying to read that 200 hundred page novel I mentioned earlier and you are a student who is used to these “bite-sized” forms of entertainment. Even when young adults are watching television or a movie, which one expects to take up a certain amount of time, they are subjected to the quick-cut editing and storylines that keep their attention. “MTV's effect on television is similarly profound. Then came dramas influenced by MTV's sensibility of quick-cut editing and integral music. Beyond the literal aping of MTV, you have fast-paced shows almost any young-oriented cop show today does things fast and furious” (Gundersen, 2001, p. 1). It’s this pace that I believe is affecting young adult readers. They have to battle the conditioning that the media is perpetrating on them to find the intestinal fortitude to focus on reading a book. MTV has started something that has reshaped how entertainment is produced and in doing so has created a generation that thirsts for entertainment in a certain form. I think this is the reason that graphic novels are becoming so popular. They are as close to a movie or video on the page as you can get. Students today have to battle certain forms of media to maintain the skills to be proficient readers.
I think that there are young people out there that still thrive on reading because I see it every day and if I didn’t the sales figures of the Harry Potter books alone would confirm it. I do believe that in this day and age it is tougher for young adult readers to really immerse themselves in a book because the format is so seemingly lacking when up against television, movies, video games, and videos. The technological advances in entertainment sometimes make a book with pages sitting in your lap pale in comparison. The other options for passing time can really pull the attention of a young adult away from books. That is the challenge of the educational community. We need to find ways to assist the great literature out there to be appealing to young adults in today’s world. It’s amazing how many awesome works of literature are emerging and we have to make sure that we are promoters of that literature. There are books like American Born Chinese in which there are three shifting stories with brilliant illustrations that could contend with today’s media in capturing the attention of young adults. In fact it would be interesting to have students compare the juxtaposition of the panels of the graphic novel to the editing of movies, television, or videos. Some books like Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083 plays into the media craze by connecting literature to reality television in an interesting and exciting way. There are other books like Candy that are just great books because they are filled with romance and mystery, which appeal to students at this age level. These are just a few examples of literature that we can introduce to our classes. We also have to keep scouring magazines and newspapers for reviews of the current books that could be amazing reads for our students. We have to make sure we introduce novels in fun, exciting, and motivational ways. Because, even in this world of fast paced entertainment nothing can compete with sitting under a great shade tree on a summer’s day enjoying a cool breeze and reading a great book.
Albrecht, Chris (9/10/2007). MTV and TMZ Swap Places. Retrieved 2/11/2008 from http://newteevee.com/2007/09/10/mtv-and-tmz-swap-places/
Brooks, Kevin (2005). Candy. London: The Chicken House.
Gundersen, Edna (8/1/2001). MTV, at 20, Rocks On Its Own, USA Today. Retrieved 2/11/2008 from
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/2001-08-01-mtv-at-20.htm
Hoffmann, Frank (January, 2003). Survey of American Popular Music. Retrieved 2/11/2008 from
http://www.shsu.edu/~lis_fwh/book/other_notable_genres/Video%20Clips2.htm
White, Andrea (2005). Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 208. New York: Harper Collins.
Yang, Gene Luen (2006). American Born Chinese. New York: First Second.
These lesson plans, guides, and other resource materials for young adult literature topics were created by participants in a professional development course in young adult Literature. Each resource is copyrighted by the individual educator who developed the material. The present course being taught is titled: Teaching Young Adult Literature in the Classroom from the University of Wisconsin-Stout (Sharron L. McElmeel, instructor)