Intellectual junk food like this is exactly why those in academic/PhD circles have lost the trust and respect of most of mainstream society.

You are one of the few people in the world who has a job that allows you to research whatever tricky or interesting problem you want; and you choose to nitpick a childrens' television show?

I understand your point of view, and while I mostly agree with what you’re saying, I think the loss of trust in academic/PhD circles is not just because of flakey articles like this - and actually I think a lot of lay people would jump at this one because it’s easy to read, and about a popular kids show.

While I personally find this article to be extremely subjective and the arguments are weak, I do think it provides some food for thought, and perhaps more generally it creates some good discussion points.

I think the loss of trust in academic circles is also to do with elitism, it’s not like just anyone can go off and get a PhD, even if you can get it for free it’s a significant time investment which a lot of people cannot afford to invest to advance their education. I guess my point is not everyone can realistically achieve a PhD, so that elitism creates a perception of “them vs us”.

Additionally, academic’s often use language that separates them from those who have not been schooled in their rhetoric, further reinforcing beliefs that they are some how different to the rest of us.

Also, academic’s are often used to support government initiatives and as social trust in governments continues to plummet - so to will trust in academic’s.

Also, academia is guilty of p-hacking.

So there’s a lot of reasons why academic/PhD circles have lost trust of mainstream society and I would say articles like this are fairly benign, and the ones that do the real damage are the ones like Andrew Wakefield’s publication in the Lancet falsely linking MMR vaccine to autism.

Overthinking children’s television.

Thank you, I clicked on the link because of your comment. It's actually more interesting than I'd expect. How does societal framing in kids shows affect children? The author takes a critical tone against things he doesnt like, but doesn't actually show there are any negative effects of this. He doesnt look into the developmental psychology of simplified ethical narratives, or how it compares with other children tv shows across times and countries.

He doesn't seem to consider analyses counter to his own. For example, framing authority figures as incompetent and promoting personal action to improve the world could be empowering and lead to better outcomes for children, and not to a neoliberal hell state in the real world.

Here is a quote from the discussion:

"PAW Patrol (re)produces common problematic narratives about crime and punishment as well as upholds major tenets of neoliberalism, primarily a faith in private enterprise, distrust in government, and emphasis on individual responsibility. In so doing, the television series encourages audiences to support the current global capitalist system that subjects an ever-increasing segment of the populace to invasive surveillance, causes environmental degradation, and harms non-human animals."

One thing that is noteworthy he brings up is the criminals are predominantly outsiders (migrants and visitors). Is this a malicious narrative, does it pander to childen's in built prejudices? Or does it follow from a structured rule to give children simple heroes (everyone in the main town is well behaved, you should be too if you want to belong!), and an excuse to the trouble makers (they don't know any better because they're not part of the club). How does this simplification of the world help or hinder children's development? The author appears to not interest himself too much in this area. It's not clear whether this article is a joke.

He does not look into whether any of these effects actually leads to those beliefs propagating in people who watch this stuff. Nor does he look into the intentions of the writers. He completely ignores that children have comparatively strange brains.

My take away is that I screwed up somewhere by not going into sociology. Those guys can have a good time.

I agree with what you're saying! I am currently studying forensic psychology, and this was a compulsory reading, along with a few others. This one stood out to me as I felt it wasn't very objective, and I was surprised it was mandatory. I asked myself if the entire paper was just the author's excuse to watch Paw Patrol with his kid. Oddly, this was the most interesting one I read today for many of the reasons you described.

I felt that there were a few comments the author made that were food for thought, particularly the statement that the criminals are predominantly outsiders (migrants and visitors), which I felt was a really interesting observation that the author made, particularly in light of some other stuff I've been reading about group and intergroup relations and its impact on security, where perceived differences can lead to tensions and conflicts between groups. This observation makes me wonder how concepts of 'them vs us' are represented to young people through their engagement with media.

Ultimately though, I came away from the reading feeling that many of the author's points were rather weak, particularly those regarding misogyny. My ultimate conclusion was that this was overthinking kids' cartoons, and the author was testing whether they could get away with submitting an academic paper on Paw Patrol.

Oh, I didn't notice it was you sharing the article. I don't know why it hasn't generated more discussion! It's fun. How did you come across this one? How does this paper fit in with other works on children and criminal philosophy (hah)?

I recall something while taking Russian classes. Soviet children's cartoons would contain societal critique/satire that nothing else could get away with, because it wouldn't occur to the state sensors to look at cartoons (I have no sources).

It supposedly reproduces problematic narratives around crime and punishment that are based in neoliberalism, and also reinforces the idea that personal responsibility is achieved through intensified surveillance and more stringent border control.

I can see how it would be important to pay attention to those themes, and have a good understanding of them. However my thoughts are that in this article the author does a weak job of relating the themes he discusses to how it has any impact on children’s development of opinions or behaviors relating to crime and punishment.

I will probably read this particular article a few more times and I wonder if by the time I have, my perception of it will have changed, and I will look upon it more favourably for fostering a discussion around children’s television and reinforcing of damaging beliefs… or whatever.