07.11.07
Writing Superheroes: Thirteenth Post (Media Descriptions)
The “media summaries” in the book were not great and raised some real concerns. They occasionally had inaccurate or misleading information, which is frustrating, and they also sometimes cited a different version of the media story than the children did (for example, they summarized the movie version of the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” rather than the cartoon the kids were watching each week). I also found it frustrating that all the media summaries were written by research assistants, rather than by Dyson herself. This reinforced to me the image (accurate or not, I have no idea) that Dyson herself didn’t actually watch or learn much first-hand about the media that the kids were writing about and playing at. That’s extremely frustrating and has heavily colored my reactions to this book.