"Cool Hunting" Video Questions

1. What is 'cool-hunting' and how is it done? What theories and methods of media research are the 'cool hunter' using?
'Cool hunting' is searching for a certain trend, personality, or way of entertainment that appeals to the teenage population. It is basically trying to find what 'cool' is, hence the name. Theories the researchers use are studying different teeenage lifestyles by going into their homes and asking them a series of questions. They also pay teens to go to certain events and analyze how they behave and if they appear to like what is being presented in front of them or not.

2. According to the commentators in the video, why do television, music, and fashion corporations want to understand how teenagers think and what they want?
Teenagers are the biggest group of people to market things to. They have a lot of disposable income because they are living at home and don't really have a lot of expenses like adults and working people do. They have money and they don't have anything to do with it so in order for companies to make their money and keep themselves in business they have to learn to appeal to the teenage generation.

3. How do MTV executives and other executives and other programming and marketing decision-makers characterize their relationship to teen culture? Do they say they are creating it or simply reflecting it?
They say that their relationship is out of touch and they have to hire other people they specialize in teenage interest because they themselves are not experts. They hire people to figure out what they want and what appeals to them so they can take it and mass produce it and hopefully sell it to them. They say that they are reflecting it. But in my opinion I think that they are creating it.

4. What is the difference between marketing research and human research, according tot the commentators in the video? What are the goals of each?
They say that there really isn't that big of a difference. When the marketers study how to sell their products or what products to create they are basically doing marketing research on humans, and that research leads to doing research on the actual humans they are studying. They have to get to know what appeals to them in order to be able to find or make something to sell to them.

5. Who is giving the most accurate description of the relationship between teen culture and commercialization, the 'merchants of cool' or their critics? What roles are these institutions playing in the socialization process? Argue for one of these two positions using specific points and examples from the video.
In my opinion I think the critics gave the most accurate description. Simply because they brought both sides of the commercialization process. They gave the negatives and the positives, making it easier to make a decision about agreement or disagreement. These insitutions are playing great roles in the socialization process. They affect how teens act and what they wear and how they talk to each other. They affect behaviors and actions of teens. If they see in their favorite band's music video people smoking pot and drinking and having a great time, they will be more likely to actually go out and do that. People in general, not just teenagers, are very impressionable. If something bad is associated with something good then it will more likely occur. And I'm not necessarily saying all the media is bad but most of it isn't good because they are trying to appeal to teenagers not give them the right choices.