Little Brother By Cory Doctorow

With the development of new technological advancements, it allows children and young people access to new possibilities in free flow of information, social engagement with networking sites, and global activism (Share 126). However, there are many influencing factors that interfere their decisions to become active meaning makers. The hegemonic norm shapes and constructs children and childhood, in a sense that it fabricates stories that are often unrealistic and becomes naturalized in society. In the novel, Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, he emphasizes the role of dominant institutions that fabricate ideologies and stereotypes and shapes epistemologies through media and its messages, which mold together the beliefs, values, and lifestyles to a dominant common culture. It
This essay will critically analyze contemporary children’s culture, while emphasizing the influencing factors that relate to the novel, with regards to Jeff Share’s article on, Young Children and Critical Media Literacy and Pepi Leistyna’s article on, What’s So Real and New about Reality TV?. Secondly, this essay will incorporate ideas of both articles to specify how social construction is portrayed in Little Brother, in order to determine whether or not if Doctorow’s novel is a legitimate text for problematizing the factors within contemporary children’s culture. Finally, the essay will conclude by highlighting the alternative acts of resistance that is depicted in Little Brother, which raises the importance to challenge the so-called democratic society, the media, and the hegemonic