Channel Surfing: Racism, the Media, and the Destruction of Today's Youth

by Henry A. Giroux

Kate Moss wears a sexual pout in a Calvin Klein ad. Kurt Cobain's suicide is held aloft as the archetypal example of teen alienation. What truth, if any, is contained in these depictions of today's youth? What message about our children is being transmitted? In Channel Surfing , Henry Giroux turns his gaze to this barrage of media images and sees a message that sells our children short by damning them to the preconceived role of alienated outcast. Surfing from one channel of communication to the next, Giroux builds up a complex web of associations between characters in films, tarnished real-life teen idols, and sexualized presentations of nubile young clothing models to show us the dark vision of our children that rides the airwaves and inhabits the print media. Channel Surfing , Henry Giroux's most fascinating and intriguing book yet, is sure to create controversy and debate at the same time that it calls for a more ethical attitude towards the prospect of our children's future.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

American cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies, and critical theory.

A high-school social studies teacher in Barrington, Rhode Island for six years, Giroux has held positions at Boston University, Miami University, and Penn State University. In 2005, Giroux began serving as the Global TV Network Chair in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Giroux has published more than 35 books and 300 academic articles, and is published widely throughout education and cultural studies literature. Since arriving at McMaster, Giroux has been a featured faculty lecturer, and has published nine books, including his most recent work, The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex.

Routledge named Giroux as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern period in 2002.