Newman.+	New+media,+young+audiences+and+discourses+of+attention

=Newman, Michael Z. "New Media, Young Audiences and Discourses of Attention: from //Sesame Street// to 'Snack Culture.'"= //Media, Culture & Society// 32.4 (2010): 581-96. Web.

Abstract
No abstract.

Argument
Newman investigates the history of the “attention span,” how the term originated, and what the term means today. Moreover, Newman explores the myriad of theories arguing that there is a link between media and attention. He focuses on one television program in particular, //Sesame Street//, and examines the American cultural belief that new media leads to a decline in intellect. Newman argues that this culture should embrace forms of new media that are consistent with the attention spans of contemporary Americans. Additionally, Newman highlights how these beliefs shape American culture. For instance, Newman discusses Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and how this disorder shapes Americans' beliefs about attention as well as how it generates a negative attitude toward the inability to sustain attention. Moreover, Newman concludes that whether media truly does affect individuals' attention spans, the common belief in American culture is that media, such as television, leads to cognitive decline.

Key Passages
Newman explains, "The central concern of this article will not be to judge the validity of the (dubious) claim of media’s power to stunt cognitive functioning, but to trace the way that the very idea of media affecting attention has circulated historically in American culture" (582).

Newman articulates, "Sesame Street was instrumental in popularizing the notion that television holds our attention by exploiting its essential formal features, the same ones that Benjamin and others, such as 1920s cinematic avant-garde theorists, had previously identified in cinema: movement, speed, constantly refreshed views" (586).

Newman states, " Thus the popular notion of the shortened attention span functions in a kind of feedback loop running between media producers, writers for the popular press and the audience" (582).

Selected Works Cited
Adorno, T. and M. Horkheimer (2002) Dialectic of Enlightenment. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Benjamin, W (1968) ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, pp. 217–51 in Illuminations, trans. H. Arendt. New York: Schocken. Polsky, R.M. (1974) Getting to Sesame Street: Origins of the Children’s Television Workshop. New York: Praeger.