Toxic TV Fairytale – Part II

I’ve just e-mailed this addition to my earlier written complaint to the ASA about the dreadful, manipulative TV advert Bedtime Stories. I’m not sure if it will have any effect now – for all I know, a decision has already been made as to whether or not to uphold complaints against this ad. But I think I’ve probably done my best, in the circumstances.

Dear Sir/Madam,

As an addition to my letter of complaint, I would like to provide the following material, which I consider to be helpful in backing up my assertion that the Bedtime Stories advert could be emotionally harmful to very young children. Normally I would have sent this by post, but am e-mailing this instead, due to the erratic quality of postal services at the moment.

1) My first reference is to a web page maintained by the National Mental Health Information Center of the US Department of Health and Human Services – Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA.)

PSYCHOSOCIAL ISSUES FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES IN DISASTERS:
A Guide For The Primary Care Physician

On this page is a table (Table 5) showing various points to consider when understanding the comprehension of death in children and adolescents. I believe this is relevant, as people and pets such as dogs can and do lose their lives in natural disasters such as floods, and a dog drowning in a flood is depicted in the Bedtime Stories advert.

In this table, developmental considerations for preschool children include the terms “magical thinking”, “egocentric” and “no concept of time.” My interpretations of these are as follows:

“Magical thinking” would be the erroneous connection between thoughts such as “I didn’t switch off the light”, or “Daddy left the lights on” and either recollections such as “There was a flood (and I must have caused it)” or anticipations such as “There will be a flood (and it will be my fault).”

“Egocentric” is self-evident; it appears very possible for preschool children to imagine that what is happening to them is happening to everyone, or that their actions or private thoughts and feelings have a direct and magical effect on the rest of the world.

“No concept of time” again is self-evident. Preschool children do not have a realistic notion of long periods of time such as decades or centuries. The idea that the energy generated to provide power for electric lights also generates CO2, and that the UK’s man-made CO2 emissions (about 2% or less of the world total) would contribute (according to the controversial theory of anthropogenic global warming) to the increased likelihood of floods in unspecified locations and in future decades, would be more or less incomprehensible to preschool children. In the advert, they see the catastrophic consequences of not switching off a light occurring immediately and nearby, perhaps the very next day in their own neighbourhood.

2) My second reference comprises quotations from a 2005 article from the US-based News-Medical.Net, which recommended that parents limited television viewing of the Katrina disaster for children under 12 years of age.

THE MEDICAL NEWS: from News-Medical.Net – Latest Medical News and Research from Around the World

“Although they were not directly involved with the tragedy, repeated television viewing of the disaster puts these children at high risk for developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression.”

“Research on the impact of the World Trade Center attack indicates that children who viewed more television news of the attack were two times as likely to develop symptoms of PTSD than children with lower TV exposure,” said Harold S. Koplewicz, M.D., Director of the NYU Child Study Center. “Our job as parents is to protect our kids from unnecessary media coverage of this event. Good parents will stop the television.”

3) My third reference is from the University of Michigan Health System website
This lists the following ways that TV can scare or traumatize children.

“Children can come to view the world as a mean and scary place when they take violence and other disturbing themes on TV to be accurate in real life.”

“Symptoms of being frightened or upset by TV stories can include bad dreams, anxious feelings, being afraid of being alone, withdrawing from friends, and missing school.
Fears caused by TV can cause sleep problems in children.
Scary-looking things like grotesque monsters especially frighten children aged two to seven. Telling them that the images aren’t real does not help because kids under age eight can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality.
Many children exposed to scary movies regret that they watched because of the intensity of their fright reactions.
Children ages 8-12 years who view violence are often frightened that they may be a victim of violence or a natural disaster.”

4) My fourth reference is from Pediatrics – the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics
Published online August 31, 2005

CLINICAL REPORT

Psychosocial Implications of Disaster or Terrorism on Children: A Guide for the Pediatrician
Joseph F. Hagan, Jr, MD and the Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health and the Task Force on Terrorism

I have excerpted three paragraphs from this report (below) which I consider to be particularly relevant:

“Traumatic and disrupting events can have adverse effects even on children who are too young to verbalize their distress. Although infants and toddlers may have no cognitive comprehension of a disaster, the destruction of routine and loss of loved ones can lead to regression and detachment. In the first year of life, such experiences can manifest as increased crying and irritability, separation anxiety, and an exaggerated startle response. Toddlers and preschool-aged children are likely to experience sleep terrors and nightmares and exhibit behavioral and skill regression manifesting as helplessness, clinging behavior, and increased temper tantrums.”

“School-aged children often demonstrate the experience of trauma through play, expressing trauma-related themes and aggressive behavior. Similar to their younger counterparts, sleep disturbances and regressive behaviors such as separation anxiety are often seen. School-aged children also may become withdrawn or apathetic or exhibit somatization and behavioral problems. Although fear was the most common primary reaction to the events of September 11th among school-aged children, the developmental diversity of this age
group leads to a wide range of responses to such trauma.”

“Children remote from catastrophic events by both location and experience are not immune to the acute and chronic psychopathologies related to disaster. Several studies have implicated indirect television exposure to disaster as a risk factor for children’s reactivity. The amount of information that a child will find valuable in understanding a disaster largely depends on a child’s developmental stage. Parents and caregivers should be aware that gruesome and disturbing details are likely unnecessary in facilitating a child’s comprehension of a tragedy. Such information has a great potential to engender fear and may be psychologically injurious and thus impede a child’s psychosocial recovery. In addition, the subjective response of a child to disaster has been demonstrated to have a high predictive value for symptoms of PTSD.”

Due to the very short time frame, I have not had the time or opportunity to access the primary sources, i.e., scientific studies and books, cited in these web pages. I am confident that were I able to have full access to these primary sources, I would be able to build an extremely robust case against the Bedtime Stories advert. However, even with the limited material I have been able to find on the internet, I am confident that I have been able to demonstrate convincingly some the factors by which the Bedtime Stories advert could be injurious to the emotional health of small children, and to summarise, I have listed some of these factors below.

1) The prevalence of “magical thinking” among very small children (“I didn’t switch off the light, so there will be a flood.”)
2) The natural egocentricity of very small children (“My thoughts and actions have a direct and powerful impact on everything around me.”)
3) The lack of a clear concept of time among very small children (“By not switching off the light, I could cause a flood tomorrow.”)
4) The fact that frightening TV stories can, in general, lead to bad dreams, anxiety, withdrawal from friends and sleep disorders in children.
5) The fact that scary images (such as a giant black CO2 sky monster, or pets drowning in a flood) may upset children between two and seven years especially, because they cannot differentiate between fiction and reality.
6) The fact that there is strong evidence to suggest that repeated TV viewing of disasters can lead to PTSD, anxiety and depression in children.

I believe that I have put forward a case strong enough to persuade the ASA to at least investigate this appalling advert, and I hope that there is enough of a case for the advert to be withdrawn as soon as possible. I think that children and parents in 21st century Britain have enough on their plates without the Halloween spectre of CO2 emissions, however illusory this threat may ultimately prove to be, hanging over them as well.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Cull

UK Gov’s Toxic TV Fairytale

On 9th October 2009 at 8.45 PM, viewers of Coronation Street on British TV channel ITV1 watched a commercial that had been put together by the UK Government, at a cost of about £6,000,000 and which is part of their “Act on CO2″ initiative. You can watch it in all its sinister glory here on YouTube.

This commercial shows a little girl being told a scary bedtime story by her father, a story in which man-made CO2 causes “strange” weather and the possibility of lands disappearing under the sea. This story is in a children’s picture book, which shows a group of distressed-looking animals, including a weeping rabbit, looking down at a drought-stricken patch of dried-up mud. It shows little grey blobs of CO2, anthropomorphised into tiny faces with hands, rising up into the sky and forming a giant grey monster cloud with jagged teeth and glaring eyes. It shows what appears to be a small town in the English countryside being overwhelmed with floodwater and people waiting for rescue on rooftops. It shows a dog disappearing under the water, presumably drowned. Finally it shows a suburban street with lights glowing from windows, and a little girl smiling as she switches off the light in her room.

Where to start with this? I have just written to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to complain about it, and here is what I wrote:

I am writing to the Advertising Standards Authority to complain about the Government’s TV advert that was aired on 9th October 2009 at 20.45 on ITV1 and which is part of their “Act on CO2″ initiative. It shows a father telling his little daughter a frightening bedtime story about horrible things happening as a result of man-made CO2 in the atmosphere.

On your website, under “A short guide to what we do”, you state: “The main principles of the advertising standards codes are that ads should not mislead, cause harm, or offend.” I assert that this advert misleads and also that it is likely to cause emotional harm. In the numbered points below, I will explain why I believe this is the case.

1. Firstly, in my view, this advert is blatant, unabashed scare-mongering. This advert is not telling us about the likely consequences of irresponsible behaviour such as drink-driving or drug taking. It is putting forward the unproven view that people doing “ordinary, everyday things” like keeping their houses warm, driving cars and switching on lights are the direct cause of “strange weather” such as “awful heat waves” and “terrible storms and floods”. It was shown before the 9 PM “watershed”, which means it is likely to have been watched by very young children who may well have identified with the little girl in the advert and who would have been upset to see pictures of distressed animals and what appears to be a drowning dog.

What associations will have been formed in the minds of these children? I believe that when they continue to see their parents and other people around them carrying out harmless activities such as switching on a light, they will make an association between these harmless activities and distressing scenes of scary clouds and animals drowning in floods. People are not going to stop using electric lights or driving cars, so when impressionable children see lights continue to be switched on or cars continue to be driven, they are likely to recall this advert and expect that disastrous consequences will follow. In this way, I believe this is likely to cause emotional harm, in that it is going to evoke excessive and unfounded anxiety in young children.

2. I also assert that this advert is likely to cause unnecessary anxiety and guilt in parents. We are currently experiencing a recession, with many parents already worried about how to make ends meet and look after their families, in the face of threats such as redundancy and the higher cost of living, and with many families already economising by reducing their energy bills and car use, as far as they are able to do so. What message does this advert send to parents? That even while being sensible and economising, simply by using electricity, gas and motor vehicles they are still somehow being irresponsible parents because by doing so they are causing “strange weather” and endangering their children? In a few weeks’ time, it will be winter here in Britain, with darker, shorter days, and colder temperatures. People will need to use electric lights more in order to carry out their everyday activities – keeping them switched off will not be an option. People will need to switch on the heating in their homes. People will need to use motor vehicles, as an alternative to the barely adequate public transport system in this country. Should a parent who decides to give their child a lift somewhere in the family car, as an alternative to letting them walk along cold, dimly-lit streets on some dark November evening, be made to feel guilty about it? It would be unreasonable to think so, surely. In this way too, I assert that this advert is liable to cause emotional harm.

3. I finally assert that this advert is misleading. It states that higher levels of man-made CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere are the direct cause of “strange weather” such as heat waves, storms and floods. This remains a highly contentious theory, nothing more. Even the BBC is now stating: “For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.” The last major heat wave we had here in Britain was in 2003, over six years ago now. And far from being “strange”, extreme weather events have happened in every epoch – in the 18th century alone there was no shortage of such “strange” events. In 1774 the bridge over the Thames at Henley was swept away in disastrous floods. Europe had a record heat wave in 1757, much like the 2003 heat wave in its intensity. The most catastrophic storm in England’s historical records took place back in 1703.

Scottish scientist Wilson Flood is reported to have analysed the CET (Central England Temperature) records, which started in 1659, and found that UK summers in the 20th century were cooler than those of two centuries previously (average UK summer temperature 15.46 degrees C in the 18th century, 15.35 degrees C in the 20th century.) As for sea level rise, historically sea levels have been rising by an average of several millimetres a year, a few tens of centimetres a century, for the last couple of centuries at least, and there is no sign of any significant acceleration.

According to the advert’s narrative, “There was once a land where the weather was very very strange. There were awful heat waves in some parts, and in others terrible storms and floods. Scientists said it was caused by too much CO2, which went up into the sky when the grown-ups used energy. They said the CO2 was getting dangerous. Its effects were happening faster than they had thought.”

The facts are that global temperatures have not risen in 11 years, “strange” weather events are actually not strange at all, and the rate of sea level rise has not changed much for centuries. I therefore assert that there is little or no evidence to support the advert’s claims that CO2 is causing or is about to cause the sort of disastrous effects that it portrays. I believe that this advert thus contravenes the advertising standards code, as it sets out deliberately to mislead viewers. The way it misleads is to imply certainty, with sentences like “They said the CO2 was getting dangerous”, where in fact there is a complete absence of certainty, and where there is plenty of evidence that suggests a very different scenario, i.e., that CO2 plays a very minor role (perhaps a vanishingly small role) when it comes to the rise and fall of global temperatures.

In short, I consider this advert to be an egregious piece of misleading, scare-mongering nonsense, and conclude that the UK Government should have done better things with the £6 million it spent creating this work of propaganda, to use the most accurate word to describe it. I would like to see, as a result of ASA adjudication, the Government withdrawing it with immediate effect and issuing an apology and a retraction in its stead.

I look forward to receiving your response by return of post.

Yours sincerely,
Alex Cull

I intend to update this as soon as I have a response.

UPDATE

No adjudication by the ASA yet (this is Sunday 18th October) but there may be one this coming Wednesday (21st). There have, however, been over 200 complaints so far – see this article in The Guardian.

Also please visit TonyN’s excellent climate blog Harmless Sky for news about this ad campaign and the views of some of us who oppose it.