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Children as Consumers. Adults ’ concerns toward children ’ s vulnerability Capitalist media colonizing children ’ s consciousness Imposing false ideologies Inculcating materialistic values Therefore, calling for protection, censorship, regulation Relationship between Children and Economy
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Presentation Transcript
Children as Consumers
- Adults’ concerns toward children’s vulnerability
- Capitalist media colonizing children’s consciousness
- Imposing false ideologies
- Inculcating materialistic values
- Therefore, calling for protection, censorship, regulation
- Relationship between Children and Economy
- Wide beliefs about essential nature of childhood (Jordanova)
- Children as in sacred state of life
- Naturally incompatible with the world of commodities
- Economy: Transition from status of child to status of adult
Rise of Child Consumer
- Human society in the past 50 years
- Consumer activity increased (scope and scale)
- Range of consumer goods increased
- Shopping becoming popular
- Availability of opportunities grown
- Intensive marketing focus on children
- Reduced family size
- Increased divorce and single-parents
- Increased disposable household income
- Children with greater purchasing decision
- Quantity of media programs for children (not necessarily in diversity or quality); Now, the Internet
Advertisement, Entertainment and Education
- Blurred difference between entertainment and education
- Educational activities with advertising messages
- Blurred boundaries between content and advertisement
- Meanwhile, widening gap between information-rich and information poor
Market and Children
- Some critics:
- The market as inherently inimical to the true interests and needs of children
- Commercial media as an incitement to consumerism and an exploration of children’s vulnerability
- Other critics”
- Market as an effective means of meeting children’s need
- “What’s good for business is good for kids.”
Critiques of Advertising
- Effects of advertising
- Assumptions of inculcating consumerism and materialistic values
- Accused of creating ‘false needs’
- False ‘consumption ideal’ to overcome dissatisfaction and sense of powerlessness in daily life (irrational fantasies)
- Critiques
- False needs vs. True needs (Commercial vs. Uncontaminated)
- Are children really ‘incompetent’ and ‘irrational’, and thus vulnerable to persuasion?
Evidence from Research- Behaviorist Paradigm
- Much evidence is weak or inconclusive
- Younger children generally unable to remember and understand advertisements
- Advertising is less significant as source of information than other sources such as peers and parents, or visits to the shops
- Making limited contribution to children’s beliefs about the quality of products (eg., nutrition and food)
- Contribution to broader ideologies and values —seem not sustained by available research
- Difficulty in isolating a single factor from potential influences
Evidence from Research- Constructivist Paradigm
- On cognitive processing rather than on effects
- Arguing that attention to advertising is highly selective and interpretations diverse
- At what age to become aware of difference between programs and advertisements?
- Various estimates, but early
- 7-8 well aware of advertisers’ motivation
- Sometimes cynical
- Generally, children are discriminating viewers
- Not necessarily trust advertising
- Attempt to compare with real-life experience
Wise Consumers? (Author’s research)
- Showing skepticism (age 8-12)
- Clearly aware of the persuasive functions
- Claiming to know about the production process and camera tricks
- Asserting fakeness of before-and-after
- Children seem to be equipped with ‘cognitive defenses’
- Will they automatically use the ‘defenses’?
- Critical discourse in research interviews; but still admit being influenced by advertising
Wise Consumers?
- Some children are cynical, but some are ‘fans’ of advertisements (on aesthetic level, independent of product)
- Is the issues really about the opposition between ‘rational’ and ‘emotional’ responses?
- Limitations in isolating advertising from broad consumer culture
Animating Consumers
- Merchandising (toys, T-shirt, theme parks…)
- and trans-media intertextuality (drama, film, games…)
- ‘Cartoon as program-length commercial’
- Even public service TV tied in to generate revenue (e.g., Thomas the Tank Engine, Teletubbies)
- Binary opposition between ‘public’ and ‘commercial’ necessary?
- Children more vulnerable than adults? Highly questionable!
Culture, Commerce, and Childhood
- Assertions Similar to the ‘Death of Childhood’
- Culture
- Pure, Eden-like space, source of positive moral and aesthetic values
- Commerce
- Culture invaded and corrupted by commerce
- Electronic Media
- Undermining traditional (healthier) preoccupation of street play, peer conversation
- Two questions
- Cultural value: ‘Golden Age’ vs. Contemporary television
- The audience: Limited evidence about children (passive audience)
Children and Consumer Culture
- Consumer Culture:
- Modern capitalism: Investing symbolic values in material objects
- Construction of social identity: Acquisition and use of material goods
- Changing Approach (toward youth)
- Now, emphasis on young people’s autonomy and freedom --- Consumer creating their own identity, diversely and innovatively
Toward New Policies
- Seeking to protect children from marketplace vs. Preparing children:
- Education
- Understanding relationship with consumer culture and economic principles
- Legal recognition of children’s right as consumers
- Rights to accurate information, ‘consumer empowerment’
- Examination of children’s cultural needs
- Dialogue with children, rather than simply left to adults
