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Impact of Advertising on Children (Social) - Coggle Diagram
Impact of Advertising on Children (Social)
The influence of television advertising on children and the impact of stereotyping in such advertising
Effects of TV advertising on children
Valkenburg (2004)-> should distinguish between the intentional and unintentional effects of advertising
Intentional effects are to create greater brand awareness, preference for product
Unintentional effects increase in materialistic attitudes, parent-child conflict, dissatisfaction, unhappiness
Intentional effects
Brand awareness:
Positive correlation found between amount of TV watched and number of logos/characters they recognise
This tested in controlled conditions -> Macklin (1983) -> found 65% 5 year olds recognised cereal brand after seeing one advert
Difficulty to recall
Correlation between ads watched and brands recalled mostly non-significant but significant between 15-18yrs (Ward and Wackman 1971)
Kunkel and Castonguay (2012) -> reasons for age effect in recall: - young children unable to tell difference between ads and programmes - cannot understand persuasive intent
Capabilities mature through normal cognitive development, not experience of advertising
Unintentional effects
Parent-child conflict:
Valkenburg and Cantor (2001) -> parent child conflict arises from 'pester power'
'Pester power' -> when child becomes aware of brand, they pester parents to buy -> causes conflict
Researchers debate whether intentional or unintentional -> pestering may be intentional but conflict is not
Conflict begins early -> Holden (1983) observed 2 year olds purchase requests during 25 min shopping trip
Child requested product 18 times on average, both verbal and non verbal
Dissatisfaction and unhappiness:
TV adverts can unintentionally make children unhappy
Social comparison theory -> when children view 'shiny happy people' who are fulfilled after buying product, children may compare life to this one and become dissatisfied
Adverts often create high expectations
Children's toys marketed in way to answer child's prayers (Dear Santa emails)
Robertson et al (1985) found negative correlation between number of ads watched by boys and level of satisfaction with a toy (6-7 years)
Stereotyping in children's advertising
Boys active and girls passive:
Kunkel and McGrath (2003) -> boys/girls appeared equally in ads but boys more active/aggressive
Macklin and Kolbe (2013) -> little changed since 2003, males more active, females more passive, 64% dominant characters were male
Types of toys:
Blakemore and Centers (2005) found link between types of toys and gender stereotypes
Girls' toys emphasised attractive physical appearance
Boys' toys featured activity, competition, battle and destruction
Language used:
Owen and Padron (2015) -> looked at voiced narratives in ads for action figures for girls (Bratz) and boys (Batman)
Ads aimed at girls -> 'sparkly', 'dreamy'
Ads aimed at boys -> aggressive, power-related language
Effects of gender stereotyping:
SLT (Bandura 1986) suggests roles learned from media models
Girls likely to imitate passive behaviours, especially if model is relatable
Normalises stereotyped behaviour
Racial stereotyping in children's advertising:
African-American characters absent form children's TV ads for long time
Frequency of portrayal increased but presented in stereotyped roles (musician/athlete)
Maher et al (2008) -> 155 children's ads in USA -> 73% African-American/Hispanic minor characters vs 53% Caucasian/Asian
Food advertising and childhood obesity
Halford et al (2004) found obese children recognised food-related ads better than non-obese children
More ads recognised, greater food intake
Gorn and Goldberg (1982) -> showed ads to 5-8 year olds
All watched 30 mins of cartoons with 5 min food ads
One group saw sweets/fizzy drinks, one saw fruit/fruit juice, one saw healthy and control saw none
At end, children offered all food seen, sweets/fizzy drinks group chose these more than others
Birch and Anzman (2010) -> more children exposed to ads, more likely to assess nutritionally unhealthy foods as healthy -> leads to unhealthy eating habits in adulthood
Johnson and Young (2002) on gendered voices in children's advertising
Background and aims
Advertising invades the consciousness of almost everyone
TV as cultural resource for children:
Ads train children in the ways of consumer culture, so they have a powerful role in socialisation
Ads more than ever are a part of children's cultural environment
Ads aimed at children to offer them models for how to act
Some models presented in ads are closely linked to gender, race, ethnicity and class
Gender roles in children's advertising:
There are more male leading characters than female ones (99% to 55%) and the roles portrayed by males and females are gender stereotyped (Thompson and Zerbinos 1995)
In ads aimed at both boys and girls, girls talk less than boys, but take more in ads aimed at girls only (Welch et al 1979)
TV ads as a cultural environment:
In every hour of children's TV in US, 13.26 minutes are advertising
Aims:
Is the language of ads aimed at preschool/early elementary school children scripted differently for boys and girls?
How is gender used as a discourse code to link products to gender roles?
Method
Content analysis
Sample of commercials:
TV cartoons in American channels from 1996, 1997, 1999
Three sources -> commercial networks, independent stations in New England and Nickelodeon
1999 sample added to check differences from earlier samples
1996/7 had 15 30mins programmes, 1999 had 24 30min programmes
Number of ads was 478 (149 1996, 133 1997, 196 1999), 8.2-8.9 per programme
Procedure
Gendered voice:
Male/female voices used for: voice-overs, verb elements, speaking lines, use of word 'power' in ads aimed at boys
Targeting:
Ads grouped into: food, toys, education/public service messages, recreational facilities and video/film promotions
Focus on toy commercials -> 188 of them (146 were different, 22% repeats)
Three categories: ads for boys with boys, ads for girls with girls, ads for boys and girls with both
Voice-overs:
Gender of voice over, whether voice over was gender exaggerated (male aggressive, female high pitched)
Verbs:
Action verb elements
Construction/destruction verb elements
Agency/control verb elements
Limited activity verb elements
Feeling and nurturing verb elements
Results
Gendered voice:
All illustrated gendered voice
78/188 included speaking turns
55% girl oriented and 53% girl/boy included speaking turns
26% boys
21% boy aimed ads included power/powerful 45 times. Used once in girl aimed ads
Targeting:
More boy ads than girls
Few for both
Gender polarisation -> 'Big time action hero'/'Super sonic power crash pit racers' for boys and 'Girl talk'/'Bedtime bottle baby' for girls
Most common -> action figures (37%) posable figures (44%)
Voice overs:
All ads contained voice overs
Male voice over all boy and boy/girl ads
81% girl ads had female voices but also some male
80% gender exaggerated boys and 87% girls
Verb elements:
More nurturing in girl ads
12x more destruction verbs in boys than girls
Action verbs different type but same amount for boys/girls
Control verbs 4 times more common in boy than girl
Conclusions
Implications:
Language that polarises gender continues to be presented to children
Advertisers exaggerate gender in voice overs
Ads present children with language that reinforces stereotypes
Advertisers make not effort to associate girls' toys with power
Strategies to reduce impact of advertising which is aimed at children
Limiting television advertising
Total ban:
In Norway, total ban on advertising for children under 12 years old
UK wants to adopt this
Legal limits:
UK code of broadcast advertising bans ads not for children until a certain time
Children have started watching TV later -> this is ineffective
Self regulation:
US have few regulations
Encourages brands to self regulate
E.g. Mars pledged not to advertise during children's TV
Media literacy interventions
Possible to educate children to be more media savvy
Ads for children designed to appeal primarily to emotions
Cognitive defence:
Children will use knowledge as filter to process ads critically
Strategy is teaching children about purpose of ads and marketing/consumer culture
Affective defence:
Children encouraged to develop critical attitudes towards ads
More cynical children's attitudes towards TV, less vulnerable to persuasive intent of ads
Evaluation
Nature/nurture
Nurture:
Environment will influence impact of adverts
Social environment of ads will influence impact
Upbringing will determine exposure to adverts
Some children taught meaning/reasoning for adverts
Nature:
Some people more gullible towards adverts -> 'pester power'
Gender behaviours may be innate (unlikely)
Interactionist:
Parents may modify child's natural inclination of gender stereotypes
Freewill/determinism
Freewill:
Parents choose whether children watch/don't watch adverts
Parents choose to buy products or not
Ad companies select type of ad they make
Ad companies buy time slots
Soft determinism:
While stereotypes determined by adverts, modified by other social factors (school, parents, etc)
Reductionism/Holism
Reductionist:
If only TV adverts have impact -> reductionist
Lots of types of adverts but not acknowledged
Holistic:
Considering the above as well as TV advertising
Individual/situational
Individual:
Individual characteristics determine what you're more interested in/susceptible to
Situational:
Situation when viewing ads may affect how they are perceived
Living in poverty, more selective
Whether parent also sees advert with child and discourages child from wanting product
Interactionist:
Individual characteristics of parents and pester power situational
Usefulness
Useful:
Legislations put in place
Not useful:
Only TV adverts -> more research needed
Restricted to only those shown during children's shows
Ethical considerations
Not ethical:
Gorn and Goldberg (1982) -> could promote unhealthy eating habits