ETD

A (Subaltern) Space of Their Own: Public Space, Middle-Class Childhood, and Mass Media in Late Capitalism

Public Deposited
Analytics

249 pages

Title
  • A (Subaltern) Space of Their Own: Public Space, Middle-Class Childhood, and Mass Media in Late Capitalism
Date modified
  • 08/21/2025
Creator
Abstract
  • Throughout the 1980s and 1990s children in the United States, especially white and middle class children, lost independent access to many public spaces previously afforded to them. This reduction in children’s independent spatial mobility and encroachment by adults contradicts idealized images of a free-ranging childhood, which persist to this day. In this dissertation, I explore the ways mass media made for children responded to the changing spatial horizons of childhood in the 1980s and 1990s. Drawing from vintage television ads, ad industry trade papers, and popular press articles, I identify three popular fads in children’s mass media that developed during this restructuring of children’s independent spatial mobility: the development of children’s horror literature, the popularity of grotesque and disgusting toys, and depictions of children becoming animate slime. Each of these fads speaks to the anxieties of children regarding the encroachment they suffered throughout the 1980s and 1990s. By examining children’s horror literature as “equipment for living,” I argue that horror literature by R. L. Stine offered children a conservative message, encouraging them to not only accept their encroachment, but also erasing adult responsibility for said encroachment. With regard to the popularity of grotesque and disgusting toys, I argue advertisements for these toys positioned the toy’s play value, the perceived value of a toy while it is being played with by a child, as being able to repulse adults and turn the tables of encroachment. Commercial advertisements for grotesque and disgusting toys achieved this by drawing upon a shallow notion of the carnivalesque inversion of power. Finally, I argue the persistent imagining of children becoming animate slime, such as found in Nickelodeon’s The Secret World of Alex Mack, constituted a rhetorical vision of slime as an enhanced form of childhood. Ultimately, I conclude that fantasy of children becoming slime was ambiguous. While it identified the problem of encroachment, the only solution it offered children, becoming slime and oozing through the metaphorical grasp of their elders, was far from practical. Taken together, my analysis of these fads demonstrates the complex relationships between children, their guardians, media producers, advertisers, and public space.
Administrative Note
Date created
Identifier
Keyword
Language
Resource type
Degree discipline
  • Communication: Rhetoric and Communication
Degree grantor
  • University of Pittsburgh
Degree level
  • Doctoral
Degree name
  • Doctor of Philosophy
Rights statement

MLA citation style (9th ed.)

Brunette, Tyler. A (subaltern) Space of Their Own: Public Space, Middle-class Childhood, and Mass Media In Late Capitalism. . 2019. d-scholarship.pitt.edu/concern/etds/a5b521fc-33c7-4ae7-b027-01004f915b60.

APA citation style (7th ed.)

B. Tyler. (2019). A (Subaltern) Space of Their Own: Public Space, Middle-Class Childhood, and Mass Media in Late Capitalism. https://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/concern/etds/a5b521fc-33c7-4ae7-b027-01004f915b60

Chicago citation style (CMOS 17, author-date)

Brunette, Tyler. A (subaltern) Space of Their Own: Public Space, Middle-Class Childhood, and Mass Media In Late Capitalism. 2019. https://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/concern/etds/a5b521fc-33c7-4ae7-b027-01004f915b60.

Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.

In Collection:
Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
37661_Brunette_Final_ETD.pdf 37661_Brunette_Final_ETD.pdf 2025-08-21 Public Download