Conference speakers

Professor Sharon Beder

Sharon Beder is a visiting professorial fellow with the University of Wollongong and author of several books including Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism (1997, 2002), Selling the Work Ethic: From Puritan Pulpit to Corporate PR (2000), Power Play: The Fight to Control the World’s Electricity (2003), Environmental Principles and Policies (2006), Suiting Themselves: How Corporations Drive the Global Agenda (2006), Free Market Missionaries: The Corporate Manipulation of Community Values (2006) and This Little Kiddy Went to Market: The Corporate Capture of Childhood (2009)

Abstract:The corporate capture of childhood

Corporations are strategically shaping children to be hyperconsumers, submissive employees, and passive, unquestioning citizens. One way they do this is by gaining access to the school environment and the school curriculum. Schools have been seduced into opening their doors to commercialism because they are desperate for funds. Corporate messages bombard school students everyday. Businesses seek to sell their goods to children and develop brand loyalty now and into the future, through sponsorships, docket collection schemes, competitions and classroom materials. Corporations also seek to further their public relations goals with industry-sponsored classroom materials that give students a distorted picture of environmental, health and social issues. 

Jane Caro

Jane is a freelance copywriter, lecturer, author and media commentator. And a proud mother! She has been a copywriter in the advertising biz for 28 years, working for such agencies as Forbes, Macfie, Hansen, The Campaign Palace, JWT and Saatchi & Saatchi. She has won a number of awards for her creative work at shows around the world. She now runs her own communications consultancy, Jara Consulting, and does top-secret freelance work for a wide variety of agencies and clients. She is also a part-time lecturer in Advertising at the University of Western Sydney.

Commissioner Sarah Court

Sarah Court was appointed a Commissioner of the ACCC in April 2008 for five years. She is a full-time commissioner, and a former senior executive lawyer and Director with the Australian Government Solicitor.  She brings to her role extensive experience in Commonwealth legal work, including restrictive trade practices, consumer protection and law enforcement litigation.

Ms Court oversees the ACCC’s enforcement and litigation program and she is chair of the Commission’s Enforcement Committee.  Ms Court also sits on the Commission’s Merger Review Committee and Adjudication Committee.

Ms Court holds a Bachelor of Arts (Jurisprudence) and a Bachelor of Law (Honours) from the University of Adelaide as well as a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the ANU.

Abstract: Children and young people as vulnerable consumers: the ACCC’s role

ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court will discuss recent ACCC compliance and enforcement action where products or services are aimed at young people or children.

The ACCC also has statutory responsibility for product safety, and Ms Court will discuss the ACCC’s focus on reducing the risks to children posed by some consumer goods

Dr Glenn Cupit

Dr Glenn Cupit is Senior Lecturer in Child Development in the deLissa Institute of Early Childhood and Family Studies at the University of South Australia.  He coordinates undergraduate research training and the Honours strand of the Bachelor of Early Childhood Education. Glenn has written three relevant books, Kids and the scary world of video (Australian Council on Children and Media), The child audience (Australian Broadcasting Tribunal), and Socialising the superheroes (Early Childhood Australia). 

Julie Gale

Julie Gale is the founder of Kids Free 2B Kids. She is also a comedy writer and performer and has performed her one woman shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Julie has been raising public, corporate and political awareness about the sexualisation of children since February 2007. She has generated great media interest about the issue and has appeared on television, radio and in newspaper articles throughout Australia and internationally.

Julie’s work instigated changes to the children's advertising codes and she also helped to instigate last year's senate inquiry into the sexualisation of children in the contemporary media environment.Julie received a 2009 National Leadership Achievement Award from the Centre for Leadership for Women.

Professor Douglas Gentile

Dr. Douglas Gentile is a research scientist, author, award-winning educator, and is an associate professor of developmental psychology at Iowa State University. His experience includes over 20 years conducting research with children and adults. He is the editor of the book Media Violence and Children (2003, Praeger Press), and co-author of the book Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy (2007, Oxford University Press).  He has authored over 30 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, including studies on the positive and negative effects of video games on children in several countries, the validity of the American media ratings, how screen time contributes to youth obesity, and what is being called video game and Internet "addiction."

Dr. Gentile runs the Media Research Lab at Iowa State University where he conducts research on media's impact on children and adults. As the leader of this effort, Dr. Gentile develops and conducts research projects designed to give parents and other caregivers the kind of information they need and want to make informed media chioces for their children.

Abstract: Children’s addictions to screen-based media: costs and consequences 

Research from a range of countries is now showing that video games have considerable addictive potential for children and adolescents, and that such addictions can have many negative impacts. This may be especially true for multi-player online games.

From a commercial perspective, children who play a lot spend a lot - buying and upgrading games, or paying their monthly online game access fees. Indeed, some games have characteristics that encourage frequent playing, a factor that not only boosts profits, but may be also problematic for some children. This talk will examine the recent research on video game addiction, factors that may make games more addictive, and what this means for children and adolescents.

Professor Elizabeth Handsley

Professor Elizabeth Handsley has degrees in law and French from the University of New South Wales and a postgraduate degree in law from Northwestern University. She teaches constitutional law and media law at Flinders University, where she has worked since 1996. She has taught also at law schools in NSW and Perth, and her teaching areas have included tort law and feminist legal theory.

Professor Handsley has researched and published on food advertising regulation; internet regulation; and the implications of digital television for children. She is the co-convenor of the Harvard-Australia Symposium on Media Use and Children’s Well-Being. Most recently she has been closely involved in the R18+ computer games debate, having served on the representative panel at the December 2010 meeting of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General, written opinion pieces and given numerous media interviews on the subject.

Since October 2010 she has been the President of the Australian Council on Children and the Media, having been active in that organisation for more than 10 years, and a regular contributor to submissions and media interviews on its behalf.

Professor Alan Hayes

Professor Alan Hayes is the Director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, taking up his appointment in September 2004. He also holds a professorial appointment at Macquarie University. He is currently a member of the Family Law System Reference Group, the Chief Justice’s Family Law Forum, the Australian Government’s Longitudinal Studies Advisory Group (LSAG), the Work and Family Roundtable, an inaugural member of the APS200 Leadership Forum and a member of the National Advisory Board recently established by the Family Law Section of the Law Council of Australia.

He has research and policy interests in the pathways children and their families take through life, and the role of families in supporting and sustaining development across life, from infancy and early childhood. Much of his work has focused on disadvantage, with a longstanding interest in prevention and early intervention. The impact of relationship breakdown on children is a particular interest.

Professor Stephen Kline

Stephen Kline is a Professor in the School of Communication and the Director of the Media Analysis Laboratory at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. His research interests include the study of domestic consumption, advertising and consumerism, video game policy debates,  community media education, children’s food and toy marketing, and family consumption dynamics. He is the author of five books including Globesity, Food Marketing and Family Lifestyle (Palgrave 2011)whichprovides a critical analysis of the public debates about role of media in the rise of child obesity in the UK, USA and Canada. Currently on a Marshall McLuhan Fellowship at the University of Toronto Dr. Kline’s current research into media-saturated family life in Canada explores the relationship between the patterns of children’s sedentary lifestyles, food consumption and their consumer socialization.

Abstract: Fast Food/ Sluggish Kids: Researching Media Saturated Domesticity

Professor Rob Moodie

Rob is Professor of Global Health at the University of Melbourne’s Nossal Institute. Between 1998 and 2007 he was the CEO of VicHealth.

Since 1979 he has worked for Save the Children Fund, Medicins Sans Frontieres, the Aboriginal Health Service in Alice Springs, the Burnet Institute, the World Health Organisation and the Joint UN programme on AIDS (UNAIDS).

He was Chair of the National Preventative Health Task Force from 2008-2011, and now chairs the federal Minister’s Men’s Health reference Group.

He was Chair of Melbourne Storm until being unceremoniously dumped in 2010. He is an Ambassador for community organisations such as Whitelion, FebFast, SecondBite, Australia Day and the 20thMan Fund. 

He is co-author of four books, including Hands on Health Promotion and his latest Recipes for a Great Life, written with chef Gabriel Gate.

Abstract: Advertising to Death

Childhood obesity, binge drinking and tobacco related illnesses are all examples of the great commercial successes of the 20th and 21st centuries. These commercial successes have been fuelled by advertising that not only normalises unhealthy behaviours but shapes our culture to make these behaviours to be special and desirable. The result - a lot of profit and a lot of avoidable death, suffering and disability.

Dr Wendy Varney

Wendy Varney is a freelance writer and academic who did her PhD thesis on the social shaping of children's toys. She has published numerous articles on the commodification of toys and play, as well as giving papers at a several overseas conferences on the topic. She has worked as a journalist and was a contributor to Sharon Beder's book This Little Kiddy Went to Market.

Abstract: Marketing toys to children
It was once thought that toys were the tools of children's play but, with increased commodifcation of childhood, many toys nowadays are used as marketing tools by which chlldren can be trained in product identification, brand loyalty and fast-paced consumerism. The full influence of this is seen not in toys alone but in the synergistic interplay between the toys and other products which seek to promote or be promoted. Parental influence is largely eclipsed by corporate and marketing influences and the ubiquity of new forms of media that are also used for product promotion.

Dr Wayne Warburton
Dr Wayne Warburton is a lecturer in developmental psychology with the Department of Psychology and is the Deputy Director of the Children and Families Research Centre at Macquarie University (Sydney).

Wayne is also a registered psychologist, and represents the interests of consumers as a member of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman’s governing council. He has a number of publications in scientific journals and books, primarily on topics around aggressive behaviour. Wayne is currently researching the development of aggressive thought patterns in children from violent homes, the thought processes underlying domestic violence and child abuse, the pro-social and anti-social effects of various media, and the comparative effects of violent music and violent visual media.