Blog 5- Children and advertising

Children are bombard by advertisements wherever they go and increasingly they are permeating into the public and private spaces where children learn and play (Beder, Varney & Gosden, 2009). Advertisements for children are increasing, but television is still the most predominant platform in which they are shown (Gunter, Oates, & Blades, 2005). Advertising to children is a highly topical issue as many are concerned that advertising is exploiting children (Buckingham, 1993).  Young (1986) characterizes the situation as the ‘child-as-innocent and advertiser-as-seducer’ (cited in Buckingham, 1993). Advertisements start to influence children as young as two and children up to five years old cannot distinguish what happens on television from reality (Beder et al. 2009). Dorr (1986) states that children do not become aware of the motivations of advertisers until the age of eight (cited in Buckingham, 1993), however, Young (2010) claims that whilst eight year olds may start to recognize the intentions of advertising, they are still heavily influenced  up until the age of twelve. Therefore children should learn about advertisements in school, as children are especially influenced by them, so it is important that they are shown how adverts can entice and deliberately target specific audiences to help children understand and be able to utilize this knowledge in order to be protected from the intentions of adverts.

Advertisements are causing children to become huge consumers, with $28 billion being spent by children aged twelve or under in the United States during 2000. Adverts are enticing children to possess products, which is leading them to pester their parents to buy on their behalf (Gunter, Oates & Blades, 2005). Advertisements do not only encourage people to buy things they do not even need or want, it is also instilling materialistic values into our society. A concern for children in particular is that advertisements are convincing us that our identity is reflected by what we consume and buy (Buckingham, 1993). Crucially, having beautiful models in advertisements causes huge pressures on young people as they feel they have to conform to certain ideals of beauty which are not achievable (Gunter, Oates & Blades, 2005). Therefore it is important that children are taught about advertisements in school, so that they can start to become protected from the power that adverts can have, and so that children start to realise that their identity is not based on what they consume, but on who they are as a person. It is important that teachers highlight to children that adverts sensationalize products and people so that they are aware that certain products may not make them change into a different person or give them superpowers, in order to protect them false claims.

Bibliography:

Beder, S., Varney, W., & Gosden, R. (2009). This little kiddy went to market: The corporate assault on children. London: Pluto Press.

Buckingham, D. (1993) Children Talking Television: The making of television literacy. London: The Falmer Press.

Gunter, B. Oates, C. & Blades, M. (2005) Advertising to Children on TV New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 

Young, B. (2010) ‘Children and Advertising’. In  Marshall, D. (Ed.)  Understanding children as consumers. London: Sage Publications.