Today,
there are all sorts of mediums that are being used to advertise products to persuade
consumers. Television has become one of the main mediums for advertisements.
According to Campbell et al. (2013), “…a single thirty second TV ad can
influence the brand choices of children as young as age two” (p.407). This is
significant to understanding how broadcast infomercials can have a major impact
on the decision making of consumers at an early age. In order to possibly
produce results, there are various tactics used towards genders, adults,
adolescents, children, in countries, ethnicities, cultures and languages. These
kinds of strategies may also effect the development of individuals. My research
focus is to identify what kinds of psychological and sociological effects do
television commercials have on the children to adolescent audiences in the
United States. There were three advertisements that were constant in my
research. One was food advertisements and it’s correlation to obesity. Second, body
commercials and it’s association to body image. Third, toy infomercials and
gender roles/aggression development.
In the
United States, there are now more children and teenagers tuning in to watch
television. According to Campbell et al. (2013),
“children and adolescents influence up to $500 billion a year in family
spending on everything from snacks to care – they are increasingly targeted by
advertisers” (p. 407). This demonstrates the importance the role of children
and adolescents have on consumerism when it comes to family. This also entails how
children possibly perceive what they view as necessary. McNicholas
(2011) found, “children are watching more television now than they were 15
years ago, and exposure to food advertisements has a strong influence on their
food preferences. Research conducted in the 1990s revealed that food
advertisements during children’s peak viewing hours promoted foods of low
nutritional value” (p. 5).
Researchers also found that commercials shown more than once had a major impact
to the experimental group desires. Children watching television correlated with
their parents. Most of the participants also desired food products depending on
the type of setting of the commercial, no matter if the food was artificial or
nutritional (Borzekowski, et al., 2001, p. 45).
With the majority of
children being the audience, there are
beliefs that commercials influences and forms an image about their role in
American society. Peterson (2002) found, “…there
is evidence that African American children and teenagers view more television
than their white counterparts and they are more likely to evaluate television
advertisements as being more realistic and believable...” (p. 304). This is
significant because it demonstrates how much this form of medium has a mental
effect on an audience group of Americans that are classified as the minority.
When it comes to toy ads that target children, there are a
lot of gender-centered messages that are portrayed in television. Larson (2003)
found, that about 600 commercials displayed aggression as a primary form of
expression. The study also demonstrated that an injury of an object/person not
directly caused by a character or fortuitous was the prominent type of
aggression shown in most commercials. Also, when it came to gender, commercials
that included boy with girls revealed significant forms of aggression than
boys-only and girls-only infomercials. However, the race that demonstrated all
forms of aggression in television commercials was white children (Larson, 2003,
p. 73). There have also been studies that suggest girls prefer the product that
is being shown in commercials that are male targeted. Due to most of the toy
commercials demonstrating gender roles like aggression, there is an increase of
aggression development among male children particularly white. There have also
been studies that identify the increase of negative views and importance of
body image from adolescent females viewing television commercials. This study revealed that television
commercials in which involved female images, can have long-lasting and
detrimental effects on the perceptions of what is ideal physically for girls (Hargreaves& Tiggemann, 2003, p. 372).
While there are all sorts of mediums that are influential and
prominently used in today’s society, there are mediums that are targeted to
certain audiences such as television. The majority of advertisements being
viewed today tend to be targeted on children and teenagers. The kind of
advertisements that were dominant in my research was food, body and toys. With
researching these types of advertisements, there were associations that were
presented such as, obesity, negative self-image and aggressiveness. I chose
this topic because I am very interested on how much media effects our mental
and social development. It seems to prove how much television commercials
affect our daily lives more than we can begin to imagine.
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