Jean Kilbourne

Jean Kilbourne
Born January 4, 1943 (1943-01-04) (age 69)
Alma mater Wellesley College
Website
JeanKilbourne.com

Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D. (born January 4, 1943) is a feminist author, speaker, and filmmaker who is internationally recognized for her work on the image of women in advertising and her critical studies of alcohol and tobacco advertising.[1] She is also credited with introducing the idea of educating about media literacy as a way to prevent problems she viewed as originating from mass media advertising campaigns. She also lectures about the topic,[2] and her documentaries based on these lectures are viewed around the world.[3]

She is a graduate of Wellesley College and holds a doctorate in education from Boston University, as well as an honorary doctorate from Westfield State College, for her “research [and] insights [that] lead us from consumerism to consciousness.”[4] According to Susan Faludi, “Jean Kilbourne’s work is pioneering and crucial to the dialogue of one of the most underexplored, yet most powerful, realms of American culture—advertising. We owe her a great debt.”[5]

Contents

History and academics

In the late 1960s, Jean Kilbourne began her exploration of the connection between advertising and several public health issues,[6] including violence against women, eating disorders,[7] and addiction,[8] and launched a movement to promote media literacy as a way to prevent these problems. A radical and original idea at the time, this approach is now mainstream and an integral part of most prevention programs.[9]

Kilbourne has spoken at about half of the colleges and universities in the U.S. She is frequently a keynote speaker at a wide range of conferences,[10] including those focusing on addictions and public health, violence against women, and media literacy.[11]

In 1993, Jean Kilbourne was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to the National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. She has been interviewed by many major news sources such as Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times, and has been featured on hundreds of television and radio programs including The Today Show, 20/20, All Things Considered, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.[12]

Works

Kilbourne’s work links the power of images in the media with current public health problems, such as eating disorders, violence, and drug and alcohol addiction.[13] Through her lectures, films, and articles, many of her original ideas and concepts have become mainstream. These include the concepts of the tyranny of the beauty ideal, the connection between the objectification of women and violence, the themes of liberation and weight control exploited in tobacco advertising aimed at women, the targeting of alcoholics by the alcohol industry, addiction as a love affair, and many others.

Kilbourne has served as an advisor to two Surgeons General. Kilbourne holds an honorary position as Senior Scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women.[14] She has served as an advisor or board member to many organizations, including ACME (Action Coalition for Media Education), the Media Education Foundation, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, NEDA (the National Eating Disorders Association), and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

Documentaries

Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women series (Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women, Still Killing Us Softly, Killing Us Softly 3, and "Killing Us Softly 4"').

Complete filmography:

[15] [16] [17]

Publications

Kilbourne is the author (with Diane E. Levin) of So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids (Ballantine, 2008). Her book, Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel (originally published as Deadly Persuasion by Simon & Schuster in 1999) won the Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in Psychology.[18] She has written many articles, including editorials in The New York Times, USA Today and The Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association, and has contributed chapters to many books.

Awards and honors

She has twice received the Lecturer of the Year award from the National Association for Campus Activities and was once named one of the three most popular speakers on campuses by The New York Times Magazine. She was profiled in Feminists Who Changed America 1963–1975 and was one of twenty-one journalists, media activists, and educators included in Reclaim the Media’s “Media Heroes” pack of trading cards. She received a most unusual tribute in 2004 when an all-female rock band in Canada named itself Kilbourne in her honor. While awarding Kilbourne the WIN (Women’s Image Now) Award, the representative from the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) said, “No one in the world has done more to improve the image of women in the media than Jean Kilbourne.” Mary Pipher, the author of Reviving Ophelia, has called Kilbourne “our best, most compassionate teacher.”[19]

[20]

References

  1. ^ Signorielli, Nancy, ed. “Jean Kilbourne.” Women in Communications. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996.
  2. ^ Jean Kilbourne Official Site. http://www.jeankilbourne.com
  3. ^ Media Education Foundation. http://www.mediaed.org
  4. ^ Jean Kilbourne Official Site. http://www.jeankilbourne.com
  5. ^ Killing Us Softly III DVD listing. California Newsreel. http://newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0051
  6. ^ Kilbourne, Jean. “Media Education and Public Health.” Telemedium, The Journal of Media Literacy Vol. 44, no. 2. Fall 1998: 3–4.
  7. ^ Fallon, Pat and Melanie Katzman, Susan Wooley, eds. “Advertising and the Obsession with Thinness." Feminist Perspectives on Eating Disorders. Guilford Publications: NY. 1993.
  8. ^ Roth, Paula, ed. “The Spirit of the Czar: Selling Addictions to Women.” Alcohol and Drugs are Women’s Issues. Metuchen: Women’s Action Alliance/Scarecrow Press, 1991.
  9. ^ Signorielli, Nancy, ed. “Jean Kilbourne.” Women in Communications. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996.
  10. ^ "tgif + a (s)hero giveaway!" Dr. Brene Brown. http://www.ordinarycourage.com/my-blog/2010/4/23/tgif-a-shero-giveaway.html
  11. ^ Jean Kilbourne Official Site. http://www.jeankilbourne.com
  12. ^ Jean Kilbourne Official Site. http://www.jeankilbourne.com
  13. ^ "Tribute to Jean Kilbourne." Life After Cigarettes. http://lifeaftercigarettes.com/featured/tribute-to-dr-jean-kilbourne/
  14. ^ "Jean Kilbourne, Senior Scholar." Wellesley Centers for Women. http://www.wcwonline.org/content/view/988/214/
  15. ^ Jean Kilbourne Official Site. http://www.jeankilbourne.com
  16. ^ Media Education Foundation. http://www.mediaed.org
  17. ^ Cambridge Documentary Films. http://www.cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org
  18. ^ Women in Psychology's Distinguished Publication Award. http://www.awpsych.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63:distinguished-publication-award&catid=60:awards&Itemid=99
  19. ^ Pipher, Mary in Kilbourne, J. Can't buy my love: How advertising changes the way we think and feel. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1999: p13.
  20. ^ Jean Kilbourne Official Site. http://www.jeankilbourne.com

External links