Does Advertising Literacy Mediate the Effects of Advertising on Children? A Critical Examination of Two Linked Research Literatures in Relation to Obesity and Food Choice
Sonia Livingstone & Ellen J. Helsper
Food Advertising and Marketing Directed at Children and Adolescents in the US
Mary Story and Simone French
Childrens Understanding of Advertising Intent
Margaret-Anne Lawlor and Andrea Prothero
These articles have a slight overlap in content, and I felt that these articles are best discussed together.
Livingstone quotes Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, where his system of the pre-operational, concrete operational and formal operational child as a major influence on the characterization behind the stages of media literacy – reinforcing that the relationship between children’s age and their developing media and advertising literacy is well established. Also crucial to advertising literacy is the ability to distinguish advertisements from programs and the ability to recognize the persuasive intent underlying advertising. This is supported by Lawlor and Prothero, whose research found a sample of respondents aged between eight and nine years of age to have a remarkably sophisticated knowledge and understanding of advertising intent, as well as displaying an awareness and insight into advertising beyond and over the advertisers intent.
However, Livingstone and Helsper concludes that advertising literacy (relative to age and cognitive development) does not affect the effectiveness of advertising, as all age groups continue to be persuaded by advertising regardless of advertising literacy, and critiques the available academic literature, refuting the assumption that younger children are more susceptible to advertising compared to older children. Story and French also conclude that respondents aged 8-10 have the cognitive ability and media savvy to process the advertising, but do not do so.
They question the correlation between the level of literacy and level of effects, citing a lack of consistent evidence to support the commonly accepted status quo of children with a lower level of media literacy are more susceptible to the effects of advertising.
Story and French found reason to question further research into a correlation between the amounts of advertising a child is exposed to relative to his/her weight, and expressed concern about the levels of media and advertising exposure children had in the US. They were particularly concerned about the increased presence of advertising in schools, and drew comparisons between advertising used by food companies and the advertising used in the tobacco industry.
Together, Story, French, Livingstone, Helsper, Lawlor and Prothero all come to a general conclusion that advertising literacy does not equal advertising imperviousness. Livingstone and Helsper extend the hypothesis that the younger demographic (pre-operational children) are engaged with the advertising content due to their lower level of literacy, and the older demographic (concrete and formal operational children) are engaged in advertising strategies that their increased levels of literacy allow. This “dual process models of persuasion” argument contains an insight that could prove far more useful than the blanket assumption of the single process marketing model.
Story, Livingstone, Helsper et al all found cues to continued research into several assumed correlations, disproving the accepted assumptions and questioning some of the research methodology applied. They suggest interesting niches and gaps in the current body of knowledge, such as Story and French mentioning studies that follow associations between hours of televisions watched and the prevalence of obesity in children, and suggesting the need to research the possible relationship between “exposure to food advertising, eating behaviours and obesity”.
Livingstone and Helsper also suggest reducing focus on media literacy and concentrating on refuting the persuasion of marketing. I believe that increased education in media literacy and countering the persuasion of marketing should go together. Instead of countering with pure contrarian rhetoric, increasing awareness of intent which is already inherent in younger children and using that knowledge to point out facts that contest advertising claims is a more efficient means of contesting the ubiquity of food advertising.
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