How Children's Television and Advertising is Affected by the Media
The media is a means of mass communication, such as newspapers,
magazines, radio or television. Communicating is generally what
advertising is all about and explains the direct link between both
advertising and the media. Advertising is a public promotion of a
product or service. Advertising is everywhere and it is estimated that
an average child sees approximately 40,000 advertisements a year on TV
alone. The types of adverts aimed at children aren’t always positive
and the media has been blamed for childhood problems such as anorexia
as well as obesity.
Advertising is affected by the media greatly, as the majority of
advertising is done by the media. However, it would be wrong to say
they are dependent on each other. Before commercial advertising began
in Britain in 1955, products and services were still advertised. The
method used were signs painted on the walls of buildings, or posters
being displayed. The earliest advertisement discovered dated back to
the 3000s BC.
Without the media, advertising would not be as successful because the
methods used today are effective. The main forms of advertising are
television, radio, newspapers and the Internet. Children are more
likely to take notice of television advertisements rather than the
radio or newspapers. This is because advertisements are bright, have
music or sound, and are attractive to children. The advertisements
aimed at children are also on at times when children are most likely
to be watching television, for example after school. Television and
advertising are also more linked together than other methods of
medium. Television advertising will promote TV programmes aimed at
children, or advertise toys and games related to programmes on the
channel that will appeal to children. However, the problem with
television for advertisers is the introduction of the remote control
and VCRs, which allows people to change channels easily or edit the
adverts out.
Advertising is a great way of promoting products and services but is
there too much advertising aimed at children?
Advertising is as old as civilization itself. They are forever interconnected. If one changes then so does the other. So as our society evolved dramatically by the influence of technology and social media, so did the way we advertised. With the power of technology, advertising gained the ability to be everywhere at once. These locations ranged from billboards, to projector screens that hang from skyscrapers, to even in your homes in the form of commercials. The evolution of advertising in the modern world is both somewhat disturbing and innovative at the same time.
According to Mark Dolliver, “foods account for 39 percent of TV advertising seen by 2-7 year olds, 95 percent of that seen by 8-19s and 92 percent of that seen by 13-17s.On a typical day, the 2-7 year olds are exposed to 4:51 minutes of food commercials.” (Dolliver, 2007. p.1) Dolliver used statistics to show much how children are seeing these commercials. Throughout the rest of the article he talks about the increasing amounts of time that children spend watching television and the types of foods that are being advertised. Depending on the family dynamic in the household, children could be watching more television than the statistics that Dolliver presents in his study. This is what would be characterized as the advertisement of obesity in todays society. Before televisions were made, there were print advertisements that contributed to the purchasing of junk or fast foods like the 1956 Canada Dry Ginger Ale Print Ad. Although for 1956, there is not a lot of information about the obesity epidemic, it contributes to how powerful advertisements can be. These advertisements whether it is from the 1950s or if it is from today, largely influence the food quality that children are wanting or expecting. When children are exposed to television advertisements about unhealthy products in large quantities, they are more susceptible to the risk of obesity. Television
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 ...
I know it can be hard but try to remember when we were kids how much we all loved to wake up early on Saturday morning, sneak to the T.V., and watch our favorite cartoons. We loved to do this not only so that we could see our favorite characters go through troublesome dilemmas each episode, but also that we could see what was new on the market and try to convince our parents to spare a few dollars and buy it. This tactic has been used from years upon years and will likely continue occurring for the simple reason that it works. Businessmen in the marketing know that kids will see the latest and greatest thing and insist to their parent that they must have it. And with a little persistence and maybe a temper tantrum or two, they usually get it. Sometime commercials will appeal to not only the child, but also to parents because they can see the new toys that they are able to buy for their kids. Because there is always a constant demand for new toys, there will always be a entrepreneur trying to make money by creating a product, and market it in the way of commercialization. It is a never ending cycle which will always occur as long as there is T.V. because it is how they make their money.
During the 20th century, the literacy rate in America has begun to fall at an alarming rate. A factor contributing to the problems in the literacy rate includes children’s exposure to television which has resulted in a shortened attention span during other activities. Today, children are less active because of technology such as television and video gaming and, as a result more children are suffering from obesity.
How does advertising affect childhood obesity? First, let’s define advertising. Advertising is a way for one to call public attention to a product, service, or need. When advertising a product, the idea is to create an interest or need in the consumer, to purchase the product. Recently, obesity has hit the United States in great numbers.
The advertising is a method of communication that has a big purpose which is to persuade the audience to buy their products .Today, advertising is very remarkable and has an essential role in community.as it tends to impact on children specially. In addition, nowadays, the children are watching too much television and use the social media than previous years. Therefore, they see more advertising. Besides, although there are some good impacts of advertising on young minds, the researchers shown that, the advertising can also have several bad influences on children, particularly, if parents are incautious and do not increase the awareness of their children about the importance of money.
Beales III, J. Howard, and Robert Kulick. Does Advertising On Television Cause Childhood Obesity? A Longitudinal Analysis. Journal Of Public Policy & Marketing 32.2 (2013): 185-194. Business Source Complete. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
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.
Children can be influenced and impacted in many ways whether it is from their parents, peers, and even strangers. One thing many people don’t realize is that many children, nowadays, are actually being influenced by the media, meaning they are being affected by different media sources, such as television and the internet. The question is whether the sources of media, television and the internet has a positive effect or a negative effect on children, and which source of media has a bigger effect.
Advertisements became hugely popular when they were carried over to commercial television in the late 1940s and early 1950s (Campbell and Thomas, 2014). At present time, advertisements are all around us. Thousands of advertisements are going on around the world every second. In just the USA, the average American child watches over 40,000 commercial ads a year.
Advertising has had a powerful impact on today’s children. From songs, to logos. to characters, advertisers keep in mind their audiences. Competition is the force which causes advertisers to target children. Children are targeted through the catch phrases. animated characters, and toys in these competitive advertisements.
Advertising has influenced teenagers in a profound way. The influence of advertising has affected teenagers in a way they are persistently exposed to by means of television programs, articles in magazines, product endorsement ads, and through the internet. Although teenagers are excessively exposed, how they perceive and process advertisements ultimately determines how they are influenced. With that said, the perception towards advertisements can be amalgamated between reality and fantasy, which evidently has both negative and positive impacts. Advertisers strategically capitalize on what is trending in youth culture, which makes teenagers most pervasive to wanting to fit in.
Advertising can mean many different things in today’s world. When advertising first was developed it was done by would of mouth and the classic flyer or poster, which is the traditional media. Then it moved up to using broadcast media such as radio to help capture a bigger audience. After that it moved towards the television where an even bigger audience could be reached. Lastly companies started to realize the shear amount of traffic that was generated by the Internet.
Television advertisement takes an important part of everyday human's life. Everyday millions of people in America and the world watches Television and advertisements. Television advertisements are very common these days. They appear in public where a lot of people can hear and watch. For example, commercials tend to appear on the radio, foot ball game where a lot of people are watching, and in on television. Advertisement is seen many times especially on television. Television is the most efficient way for business industries to use to take advantage of showing advertisement.