In my master's thesis, I analysed the social and economic values in selected children's picture
books, two foreign and one Slovenian, and examined the representation of female characters
in Barbie picture books, in which mainly girl characters appear, and Lego picture books, in
which mainly boy characters are depicted. In commercial picture books, the strong influence
of the pop industry and pop culture can be felt, setting new standards worldwide for the
deliberate ideological unification and sexualization of children. The social values that I looked
for in the selected literature are friendship, solidarity, empathy, etc. and economic values such
as self-interest, competition, consumerism and financial success, which are associated with
specific socialization; individualism, materialism, consumer identity, status and prestige, based
on success and the number of followers on (a)social networks, increase in self-esteem based
on appearance, improvement of status in society, fame, in short, it is an epidemic of narcissism.
In the study, I have presented five methods of manipulation of ideology with the associated
strategies of symbolic fabrication and the discrepancies between quotations and figurative
representations in children’s literature.
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