Blog 6: Children and Advertising

Should children learn about advertising in school and if so, what do teachers need to understand about the way in which children engage with advertising?

Research has found that contemporary children are growing up watching some form of electronic media daily (Cooke 2002) thus being exposed to advertising due to it increasingly being accessed by children via television and other media (Gunter, Oates & Blades 2005). Livingstone and Helsper (2006) found that ‘there is evidence that children of all ages are affected by advertising’ (Banaji 2010: 63) and that children are ‘more vulnerable […] to the effects of media ' (Banaji 2010: 63). Advertising to children is surrounded by controversy, with it often being suggested that children ‘need protecting from the effects of advertising in general or from the advertising of particular product’ (Gunter et al 2005: 2) however, Himmelweit et al. (1958), believes that advertising empowers children as consumers in a changing (increasingly globalised) economy (Himmelweit et al. 1958 as cited in craft 2012).

As a trainee teacher, the controversy’s need to be considered for use of adverts in the 21^st century classroom. I feel that adverts although can be seen as harmful or impose a negative influence on children, they can serve a useful purpose within the literacy context. They allow children to explore their personal preferences and develop items of interest to them however, Gunter et al 2005) argue that this can lead to ‘pester power’, meaning that they persist asking parents for inappropriate or expensive items. IN the classroom adverts can be used as a valuable resource as a tool for writing with a particular focus on persuasive texts. Adverts are seen as an invasive medium that effectively influence consumers in their own home (Gunter et al 2005), but do children know or understand the full impact of what they are viewing. Blackburn (2008) suggests that it is important for pupils to interpret what they see thus needing a repertoire of knowledge surrounding advertising vocabulary, intentions and purpose.

Word count: 306

Bibliography

                                                                                                               

Banaji, S. (2010) ‘Analysing Advertisements in the Classroom’ in Bazelgette, C. (Ed) Teaching Media in Primary Schools. London: SAGE

Blackburn, B. (2008) ‘Literacy from A to Z’ New York: Eye on Education

Craft, A. (2012) ‘Childhood in a digital age: creative challenges for educational futures’ in London Review of Education, 10 (2), pp. 173-190.

Gunter, B., Oates, C. & Blades, M. (2005) ‘Advertising to Children on TV’ New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp1 – 13

Livingstone, S. & Helsper, E. (2006) ‘Does advertising literacy mediate the effacts of advertising on children? A critical examination of two linked research literatures in relation to obesity and food choice’, in Journal of Communication, 56 (3) pp.560-584