Using data from an ethnographic-style study of children aged 4?11, this paper considers the way that advertisements become absorbed and appropriated into broader and traditional forms of children's symbolic culture. The paper shows that children take on and relate to media imagery in much the same way as they relate to traditional playground culture of mythology, chants, games and jokes. The principle behind this is Halliday's (1978) observation that children communicate primarily with a desire to participate in social situations rather than for information. Children relate to television not so much in terms of the information value of what they see on it, but in relation to the way it allows them to join in, be party to common knowledge, to be in on the latest thing. This is an active process but, we argue, not in the way prescribed by the active audience trend in cultural studies. Television imagery and representations come to form part of a symbolic landscape of prestige, knowledge and points of reference of which children must have knowledge if they are not to be excluded from group membership, or at least lose prestige
Chandler, D., Griffiths, M. (2000). Gender-Differentiated Production Features in Toy Commercials. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 44 (3), 503-520.Twenty years ago researchers found that quite apart from the manifest content of television commercials aimed at children, certain formal features showed a marked tendency to vary according to the sex of the target consumers: in particular certain post-production features (transitions and voice-overs). The current study involved a content analysis of formal features in 117 toy advertisements broadcast on British television. Statistically significant differences were found for the same features and also for camera work.Peer reviewe
This study presents a comparative study of the free‐time activity preferences of 9‐ to 11‐year‐old children in the UK and USA, as drawn by them in art workshops. Six themes emerged relating to sport, outdoor play, family/peers, media, special occasions and other (indefinable) activities. The children’s talk about their drawings revealed additional preferences for ‘obsessive hobbies’, ‘doing nothing’, relationships with others, and the local environment. Whilst the emergent patterns displayed strong cross‐cultural similarities in free‐time activity choices and participation, as well as compliance with the conventional construction of ‘childhood’, the findings were context‐specific and locally inflected.
Griffiths, M. (2005). Children drawing toy commercials: re-imagining television production features. Visual Communication. 4(1), pp.21-37. RAE2008Using a selection of toy commercials that were designed and drawn (as part of a small-scale research study) by a sample of primary school children between the ages of 7 and 11 years, this article aims to demonstrate and carefully analyse the extent to which young children understand and appreciate the visual appearance and functions of technical production features in televised toy commercials. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which the sample children demonstrated their understanding of technical production features (especially ?camera? angles and shot sizes), advertisement layout and the overall composition of a meaningful ?text?. The children?s advertisement designs or ?texts? are also cross-matched with their televised counterparts (where appropriate), to further demonstrate the audience?s levels of understanding and appreciation.Peer reviewe
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