Children, Media and Marketing

Children and Commercialisation

Children and junk food advertising

Fewer children are being exposed to junk food advertising on TV and child-themed advertising spend has decreased by 41 per cent since the beginning of 2003, the Department of Health announced.

A report, Changes In Food And Drink Advertising And Promotion To Children, shows the prevalence of advertising to children by the food and drink industry. It sets out details of an analysis carried out for the Department of Health on advertising across all media to children from January 2003 to December 2007. The report will form a baseline against which future child-themed advertising can be measured. 

This fall is most notable in TV advertising which fell sharply in 2007 with a drop of 46 per cent compared to 2003. In particular, there was less child-focussed advertising for confectionery, fast food restaurants, non-alcoholic drinks and cereals.

Child-themed advertising spend fell overall (from £103 million in 2003 to £61 million in 2007) - despite an increase in the annual spend on food and drink ads. However, this varied across all media:

• TV - 46 per cent decrease in 2007 compared to 2003;
• Press - 42 per cent increase (national and women's magazines) in 2007 compared to 2003;
• Radio, internet and cinema - a combined increase of 11 per cent in 2007 compared to 2003.
  

Of the types of food being promoted there was a fall in 2007 compared to 2003 in those foods high in fat, salt or sugar being advertised:

• Fast food - 71 per cent decrease.
  
• Confectionery - 62 per cent decrease.
  
• Non-alcoholic drinks - 52 per cent decrease.
  
• Cereal - 37 per cent decrease.
  
• Dairy - 4 per cent increase.
  

Research planned into impact of commercialisation

The UK Government has published  (December 11, 2007) an ambitious Children's Plan in which it speaks of the commercial pressures on children and the need for media literacy.

The government pledges that it "will commission an independent assessment of the overall impact of the commercial world on children’s wellbeing. We will ask the assessors to look into the changing nature and extent of children’s commercial engagement, the impact on their wellbeing and the views of parents and children.

In particular, the assessment will investigate particular areas where exposure to commercialism might be causing harm to children. We hope that this increased evidence base will lead to a stronger consensus about what is acceptable practice for a socially responsible commercial community."

 

The Commercialization of Childhood The think tank Compass has produced (12/12/06) a hard hitting report, The Commercialization of Childhood, which documents how far children are being targeted by marketing and advertising and calls for a campaign to counter the excesses of this trend. 

Compass is launching a campaign to explore this issue and look at what can be done. Potential supporters can sign up by contacting Zoe  More.....  

 

The Archbishop of Canterbury gave an interview to the BBC1 Breakfast show in which he commented on the Compass report.

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Children and Mobile Phones

The Australia Institute, a left-of-centre think tank, has produced a series of discussion papers on the role of advertising and the media in the commercialisation and sexualisation of children.       

 

Their most recent paper, Mobile Phones and the Consumer Kids, argues that mobile phone manufacturers are increasingly devoting special  attention to ‘tweens’ - children aged between six and 13 - in attempts to develop brand loyalty for life.

 

Learn more about their papers Corporate Paedophilia and Letting Children be Children 

    

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Children and TV

Can TV be good for children?

The campaigning group Save Kids’ TV has commissioned a review of the available recent research on the beneficial affects of television in children’s lives.

According to Save Kid's TV there is a significant body of research indicating that children, families and society as a whole gains from the fact that children watch and enjoy television programmes. They learn from them both formally and informally, and they help them discover their place in the world.

“The purpose of the review was to identify and review research which supports the view that children’s television is a potentially beneficial medium; that in certain circumstances it can be a powerful educational tool; that it can inform and inspire; and that it is culturally relevant to today’s children. Many discussions of television’s impact on children focus only on its negative influence in relation to violence and advertising, for example, but it is also important to recognise that television can also have a positive impact.”

The research review was conducted at the University of Westminster Communication and Media Research Institute by Dr Kaoruko Kondo.

Source:

http://www.savekidstv.org.uk/news/can-television-be-good-for-children-by-dr-kaoruko-kondo/

Children and TV Viewing

  BBC's Parenting pages contain some helpful hints by Dr Trisha Macnair on how parents can manage their children's viewing

 

The article looks at  

• the antisocial effects of TV and computer games
• learning the wrong messages and values about life
• the couch-potato problem
• specific risks such as convulsions
• tips for beating the TV  

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Decline in UK Children's TV

Ofcom's annual report on Public Service Broadcasting  has highlighted the decline of children's programmes on ITV, as well as BBC 1 and 2, Channel 4 and Five.  It found viewing of children's programmes on the main terrestrial channels has halved in multi-channel homes since 2002, partly because viewing has migrated to digital channels such as CBeebies.

 

  Viewing of children's programmes on ITV1 has dropped from 12 to six hours a year a household, and from 18 hours to eight hours on BBC1. Children’s output on BBC1 and 2, ITV, Channel 4, Five declined by 11% from 2002 to 2006. In 2006, BBC Two and Five provided the greatest number of hours per year of children’s programming; 1,453 hours and 1,337 hours respectively.

Read more..

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Young People's News Agency

Headliners is a UK-wide news agency producing news, features and comment by young people for everyone.  Through a unique learning through journalism programme, young people aged 8 to 19 research and write stories on issues that are important to them for publication in national and local newspapers, magazines, television and radio. The agency is open to all young people but recruitment is targeted at those who would most benefit from the programme.

 

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Children and Internet

Ofcom has published two interim reports on media literacy among children and adults. Full reports are due in Spring 2010.

Key findings from the Children’s research include:
 
• 29 per cent of children from lower income households either only use the internet at school or do not use it at all, compared to 7 per cent of children from higher income homes.

 

• Some 60 per cent of 12-15s and one third of 8-11s (35 per cent) say they use the internet mostly on their own. One in five (21 per cent) of 5-7s say they use the

internet without an adult in the room.

 

• 25 per cent of 12-15 year olds do not tend to make any checks when visiting new websites (such as padlocks, how up to date the information is, asking whether other people have visited it, known brand) but 12-15 year olds are now more likely to say that their social networking site can only be seen by friends/family than they were in 2008.

 

  The Council of Europe has produced a Handbook on Internet Literacy for children, teachers and parents and a Recommendation (2006) on empowering children and young people in the information society.