Conclusion

Abstract

When I opened the Sunday paper yesterday the front page had a large coloured photograph of a little boy on tip-toes peering into a bright red Porsche. Below that was an article about a cross-cultural custody dispute over a black South African boy who had been fostered by a white woman for whom his biological mother had once worked. To the right of that was an advertisement for a charity, which featured three photographs of little Thai girls — in one a girl was screaming, in the seond a girl was begging, and the final image showed three girls smiling beneath a caption proclaiming they could be saved if I sponsored one today. Inside the paper was an article on how the police in North Wales are refusing to allow outside investigators to inquire into the scandal over an alleged 100–200 sex abuse incidents in children’s homes. A few pages after that was an article on the sudden burgeoning of advertisements that use images of embryos and babies; in particular, it discussed the complicated filming of a new television advertisement for a car that portrays 900 infants in rows.