1. Character merchandising will be processed by children at the peripheral level, aka heuristic persuasion processing, as it is a message that relies heavily on emotional attachment and source attractiveness. These appeals rely on moderate levels of consumer attention and low motivation to process the message. The persuasive message is not presented in a rational argument the consumer must cognitively analyze but rather it is presented through an attractive character that children either know or can easily attach to that is aimed at generating a positive emotional association with the brand. Product placement will be processed at the automatic level, aka automatic persuasion processing, because consumers are generally unaware that they are being targeted by a persuasive message. The brand is integrated seamlessly into media content so that children do not know it is placed their intentionally as a marketing strategy. The implicit nature of product placement relies on the consumer to devote no explicit attention to the advertised brand and rather make a subconscious positive association. Children exposed to product placement do not need to be motivated or cognitively able to process the message as it is designed for implicit brand memory. 2. Rozendaal et al. emphasize the crucial difference between conceptual knowledge of advertising and attitudinal knowledge. The study showed that being conceptually literate (recognizing and understanding an advertising message) does not increase advertising defenses in children. Therefore, interventions will most likely be ineffective as children will not use the knowledge they have when faced with a persuasive message. Moreover, most messages aimed at children are processed at the per... ... middle of paper ... ...& adolescent medicine, 153(11), 1184-1189. Veldhuis, J., Konijn, E. A., & Seidell, J. C. (2012). Weight information labels on media models reduce body dissatisfaction in adolescent girls. Journal of Adolescent Health, 50(6), 600-606. Matsuba, M. K. (2006). Searching for self and relationships online.CyberPsychology & Behavior, 9(3), 275-284. Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2007). Preadolescents' and adolescents' online communication and their closeness to friends. Developmental psychology,43(2), 267. Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2008). Adolescents' Identity Experiments on the Internet Consequences for Social Competence and Self-Concept Unity.Communication Research, 35(2), 208-231. Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2009). Social consequences of the internet for adolescents a decade of research. Current Directions in Psychological Science,18(1), 1-5.
Staples’ Article “What Adolescents miss when we let them grow up in cyberspace” explains how children are constantly living their lives through cyberspace such as email, chatroom, and instant messages, causing them to “miss” essential real-life social development skills when they grow up in “cyberspace” that would be vital to them when they enter adulthood. There are many examples, however the three most significant examples that support this idea is: Research is supporting that continuous use of cyberspace is isolating young socially connected people;Staples uses Prof.Robert Kraut a researcher at Carnegie Mellon university idea that people let real-world relationship get replaced by the ones made in cyberspace; and Staples’
Any agency that uses children for marketing schemes spend hundreds of billions dollars each year world wide persuading and manipulating consumer’s lifestyles that lead to overindulgence and squandering. Three articles uncover a social problem that advertising companies need to report about. In his research piece “Kid Kustomers” Eric Schlosser considers the reasons for the number of parents that allow their children to consume such harmful foods such as ‘McDonalds’. McDonalds is food that is meant to be fast and not meant to be a regular diet. Advertising exploits children’s needs for the wealth of their enterprise, creating false solutions, covering facts about their food and deceiving children’s insecurities. It contains dissatisfaction that leads to over consumption. Children are particularly vulnerable to this sort of manipulation, American Psychological Association article, “Youth Oriented Advertising” reveals the facts upon the statics on consumers in the food industries. The relationship that encourages young children to adapt towards food marketing schemes, make them more vulnerable to other schemes, such as, advertising towards clothing, toys and cars. Article writer of “The relationship between cartoon trade character recognition and attitude toward product category in young children”, Richard Mizerski, discusses a sample that was given to children ages three to six years old, about how advertising incurs young children that are attracted too certain objects or products on the market.
2. Previous Research: There is a debate as to whether Internet use has a positive or negative impact in our social lives. One study found that for 40% of the college students in their sample, the Internet had been instrumental in the formation of new friendships. Moreover, 7% of their sample had used the Internet to find a romantic partner. The participants in the study claimed that one of the main benefits of communicating through the Internet was reduced social anxiety and shyness (Knox, 2001). In another study, there was evidence that lonely individuals were more likely to use email and the Internet in order to stay connected with others—in theory, giving them a healthier social life—however, evidence showed that heavy use had a negative social impact (Morahan-Martin, 2003). Finally, another study found that individuals comfortable or regularly involved in social gatherings reported more positive effects from Internet use than shy individuals less involved in their community (Kraut, 2002).
Have you ever seen an advertisement for a product and could immediately relate to the subject or the product in that advertisement? Companies that sell products are always trying to find new and interesting ways to get buyers and get people’s attention. It has become a part of our society today to always have products being shown to them. As claimed in Elizabeth Thoman’s essay Rise of the Image Culture: Re-Imagining the American Dream, “…advertising offered instructions on how to dress, how to behave, how to appear to others in order to gain approval and avoid rejection”. This statement is true because most of the time buyers are persuaded by ads for certain products.
Media is infamous for having a tremendous effect on teenage girls. The mass media have long been criticized for presenting unrealistic appearance ideals that contribute to the development of negative body image for many women and girls (Harrison & Hefner, 2006). Whether it’s the influence on their choice of friends, school, or their self image, media has played an important role in affecting those decisions. A growing number of experimental studies have demonstrated a causal link between acute exposure to "thin-ideal" images (i.e., images of impossibly thin and attractive female beauty) and increased body dissatisfaction (Hargreaves & Tiggemann, 2003). It has recently been brought up that media influences girls in preadolescence, which is highly likely since most young girls idolize Barbie (Rintala & Mustajoki, 1992). “Were Barbie a flesh-and-blood woman, her waist would be 39% smaller than that of anorexic patients, and her body weight would be so low that she would not be able to menstruate” (Rintala & Mustajoki, 1992). Most young girls wish that they could look like Barbie when they grew up, but if they knew the reality of having her measurements their perceptions would probably change. Children frequently fantasize about who they will be, what they will do, and how they will look when they grow into adulthood.
The internet has been very instrumental in how society is engaging in many forms of social connections. Because of social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and video portals such as YouTube, the internet is among the most common activity of young people. Not only are children gaining access to other forms of communication, they can become devastated by it as well. Not all sites that children and adolescents have access to on the web are conducive to a healthy environment and therefore they become vulnerable to the perception of others. Because of a limited capacity to self-regulate and heightened susceptibility, children and adolescence allow social media to shape their image of self. The pressure of taking the right pictures, at the right place, at the right time, having hair and makeup flawless, with the right people, are pressures that individuals subject themselves to even more so in recent years. This occurrence is an application of
Commercials make the viewer think about the product being advertised. Because of the amount of television children watch throughout the week, it allows the children to be exposed to the information over and over again. Per year, children are known to view thousands of fast food commercials. On a daily basis, a teen will usually view five advertisements and a child aged six to eleven will see around four advertisements (Burger Battles 4). Businesses use this strategy to “speak directly to children” (Ruskin 3). Although the big businesses in the fast ...
Various electronics are frequently used to go on pointless websites, such as Twitter and Facebook, which ruin society’s social abilities. More and more people use social media on the internet as a communication source. This does not apply merely to kids and teens, but adults as well. Using these sorts of websites as a way of communicating causes many individuals’ social skills to decrease. A plethora of children and teens would rather stay inside and interact with their friends through the internet than go hang out with them. Before technology people were not afraid to go up to a random person and talk to them. Now many friendships form through the internet and these friendships are not genuine. When these “friends” meet in person, they find nothing to talk about. For example, I remember after watching Perks of being a Wallflower, a movie taking place in the early nineties, my friends and I discussed how all the characters communicated in person and during hanging out they played games and talked. Now...
This world has become immersed in online media from socializing on networking sites to seeking information on search engines. People of all ages have become reliant on online media, but the most engaged users are the younger, more easily impacted generations. Although there are many positive uses for online media, there are many negative uses as well. Unfortunately, it is all too easy for these negative effects to impede upon the perceptions of adolescents. Some countries have been trying to reduce this effect by expelling the inappropriate content of online media ("Influence on Children Media...”). However, in the United States, children are thrown in the waves, expected to stay afloat in this massive sea, but many are being dragged under the surface by the nefarious temptations media creates. Content that is not appropriate for the young, growing minds of children are easily accessible; a myriad of devices may be used to access this material, all at the click of a button. Without adult content filters on online media, adolescents of various ages are exposed to dangerous conceptions. A world of pornography, violence, and public humiliation lay in the user’s fingertips.
I find it disconcerting that teens live much of their lives in a virtual society. “Growing Up Online”, barely scratches the surface of the breadth and depth to which technology permeates modern society. Teens continue to struggle for independence and self-identification, but with less face-to-face interaction than in the past. Many view e-communication as reaching out to the masses.
The textbook used in class (Huffman, 2002) describes that “advertising has numerous” methods to hook the individual into “buying their products and services.” The advertising. company surrounds a particular candidate such as a child and immediately sinks their teeth into the child’s mind to manipulate the child into desiring their products. Through TV, cartoons and magazine ads, children are hit by one subliminal message after another. They are shown how this product will improve their status by making them the envy of all their friends.
Children between four and eight don’t recognize that ads are paid commercials intended to convince them into buying something. Children see about 6,000 advertis...
Across America in homes, schools, and businesses, sits advertisers' mass marketing tool, the television, usurping freedoms from children and their parents and changing American culture. Virtually an entire nation has surrendered itself wholesale to a medium for selling. Advertisers, within the constraints of the law, use their thirty-second commercials to target America's youth to be the decision-makers, convincing their parents to buy the advertised toys, foods, drinks, clothes, and other products. Inherent in this targeting, especially of the very young, are the advertisers; fostering the youth's loyalty to brands, creating among the children a loss of individuality and self-sufficiency, denying them the ability to explore and create but instead often encouraging poor health habits. The children demanding advertiser's products are influencing economic hardships in many families today. These children, targeted by advertisers, are so vulnerable to trickery, are so mentally and emotionally unable to understand reality because they lack the cognitive reasoning skills needed to be skeptical of advertisements. Children spend thousands of hours captivated by various advertising tactics and do not understand their subtleties.
“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses” (Thinkexist, 2010). The mass media, including news, movies, magazines, music, or other entertainment source has become a part of daily life for many people. As the quote mentions mass media and its power are capable of influencing people’s mind and behavior. Contents in the media introduced to young people make it difficult for them to distinguish between what is real and what is not, as a result stimulating confusion and blind imitation. The mass media plays an important role in the increase of violence, sexual activity, and risky behaviors among teenagers.
“The Effects of Social Network Sites on Adolescents’ Social and Academic Development: Current Issues and Controversies.” Journal of the American Society for the Science and Technology, 62(8): 1435-1445. Web. 2011.