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‘Great Minds Start Little’: Unpacking the Baby Einstein Phenomenon

Gothie, Sarah Conrad

Abstract Details

2006, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, Popular Culture.
Baby Einstein Company, a forerunner in the 0-3 children’s video market, has expanded over the past decade from a former teacher’s small, in-home business to a Disney-owned brand with annual sales topping $200 million. The brand has become a watchword in infant development among households with young children thanks to its first and best-known products, enrichment videos bearing titles like Baby Shakespeare, Baby Van Gogh, and Baby Da Vinci. The company, with its implied promise of visual, verbal, and scientific literacy, harnessed metaphor and cultural myth and surmounted parental anxieties about television viewing to become an influential cultural phenomenon. This thesis explores the cultural phenomenon of Baby Einstein Company, including the social context and public relations efforts that facilitated its rise to popularity, how the format and content of the videos accomplish stated goals, issues of representation and consumerist ideology within the texts, how the company’s popularity reflects notions of American middle class childhood and parenting, and finally, the future of the controversial 0-3 digital media market.
Becca Cragin (Advisor)
59 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Gothie, S. C. (2006). ‘Great Minds Start Little’: Unpacking the Baby Einstein Phenomenon [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1162674582

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Gothie, Sarah. ‘Great Minds Start Little’: Unpacking the Baby Einstein Phenomenon. 2006. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1162674582.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Gothie, Sarah. "‘Great Minds Start Little’: Unpacking the Baby Einstein Phenomenon." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1162674582

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)