University News Last updated 14 November 2014
Pop culture is full of overtly sexualised and demeaning lyrics and visuals that are having a negative impact on young children, a sociology lecturer will tell an audience at an NSPCC debate this week.
Birmingham City University’s Dionne Taylor will be joining an expert panel on Friday 14 November for the first event in NSPCC’s Dare to Debate series; 'Children or sex objects – where has it all gone wrong?'
Dionne Taylor, Lecturer in Sociology at Birmingham City University said: "Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Lady Gaga, and Miley Cyrus have been criticised for their music videos and on-stage performances which have been deemed as overtly sexual and sending inappropriate messages to young women and girls.
"Popular culture - in particular hip hop/rap and pop music - is flooded with images of scantily clad women. But conversely there is imbalance of male artists who are often fully clothed and making derogatory references to women."
From 1 October 2014 online music videos have carried an age classification as part of a pilot scheme by YouTube, music video service Vevo and the British Board of Film Classification. David Cameron first announced the scheme back in August saying it was, "to help parents protect their children from some of the graphic content in online music videos.”
'Children or sex objects – where has it all gone wrong?'
Birmingham City University’s Dionne Taylor will be joining an expert panel in London on Friday 14 November. 'Children or sex objects – where has it all gone wrong?' will be chaired by NSPCC CEO Peter Wanless and will include the following speakers:
- Reg Bailey, Chief Executive of the Mothers' Union, Reg wrote, 'Letting Children be Children' which looked at the commercialisation of children
- Dionne Taylor, Lecturer in Sociology at Birmingham City University. Dionne has undertaken research into the influence of pop videos on young girls
- Maris Stratulis, England Manager for the British Association of Social Workers
- Jon Brown, head of the NSPCC's sexual abuse programmes
Ali Jeremy, Director of Communications at the NSPCC said: “We have seen some terrible cases of children being sexually exploited, particularly in Rotherham and Rochdale. So we want to open up a debate to determine if we can understand why it happened and how we can strive to keep our children safe in the future.
“This is going to be the first in a series of NSPCC debates about contentious issues and we are delighted that Dionne has agreed to be a guest as she has carried out some fascinating research in this area. She will be joined by a high quality panel of speakers who will describe different aspects of the sexualisation of children to an invited audience of academics and experts from law enforcement and child protection.”