Culture warriors of the left, though, offer a considerably more nuanced — and, thus, more disturbing — critique. According to this line of thought, developed most fully by Cultural Environment Movement founder George Gerbner, media sex and violence are marketing tools employed by global entertainment conglomerates for the sole purpose of turning young people into consumers.

Thus, the enemy isn’t the rage-spewing band Limp Bizkit but, rather, Viacom, whose hugely profitable MTV helps break acts such as Bizkit (built, in part, on a foundation of legal payola doled out by their record company, Seagram’s-owned Interscope) in order to connect the youth market with advertisers. Seen in this light, the Bizkit-inspired violence that marred the end of Woodstock ’99 may have been regrettable — but it was a hell of a marketing tool.

This intriguing alternative to the James Dobson school of media criticism gets an airing this coming Tuesday on PBS’s Frontline, in a one-hour documentary titled The Merchants of Cool, reported and narrated by Douglas Rushkoff — the author of, among other books, Media Virus! Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture (1994).

Rushkoff, with the help of cultural observers such as Mark Crispin Miller and Robert McChesney, takes a hard look at the $150 billion teen market. Targets include the “coolhunters” who hit the streets looking for the next profitable trend, Sprite’s lucrative partnership with the hip-hop scene, and the hardcore rap group Insane Clown Posse — a once-authentic response to market-oriented youth culture who, toward the end of the hour, are seen selling out, appearing on television with professional wrestlers and watching their latest CD rocket up the charts.

“Real life and TV life have begun to blur,” Rushkoff says. “Is the media really reflecting the world of kids, or is it the other way around? The answer is increasingly hard to make out.”

The single biggest flaw of The Merchants of Cool is that it will be seen mainly by Frontline’s elite audience, when it should be required viewing for parents and teenagers everywhere. Of course, that’s not Rushkoff’s fault. And, hey, when is Undressed on anyway?

The Merchants of Cool, a Frontline documentary, will be broadcast on WGBH-TV (Channel 2) this Tuesday, February 27, at 10 p.m.