The Negative Impacts Of Using Children In TV Advertisements: An Essay.

Students are expected to undertake 10 hours of study for this subject each week in order to achieve the subject learning outcomes. The 10 hours of study will involve lectures, tutorials, engagement in the subject Moodle and private study.

At the end of this subject students will be able to:

1. Apply contemporary concepts and perspectives to critique practices, text, images and representations
2. Apply educational philosophies and theory to develop critical questions for practitioner enquiry and reflection
3. Document ideas and understandings consistent with current concepts, perspectives and approaches in a professional manner.

Topic: Reflective practice

• What is reflective practice?
• Critical reflection on practice
• Reflective process – On practice and in practice
• Reflective practice as participatory research
• Reflective practice and quality improvement
• Cultural reflection
• Building learning communities

Challenging your assumptions – Your tutor will display a number of statements about reflective practice. They will ask you to move to the area that most reflects your view. Those who are undecided go to the middle of the room. Participants put forward their views to the small groups and then to the whole group. Participants are given an opportunity to shift their position after listening to the other groups.

• Professional Conversation

o Discuss how you could create or strengthen a culture of critical reflection in an early childhood setting.

o Discuss the type of activities that would be best undertaken collaboratively by members of a community of practice.

o Discuss what the advantages for young children are when educators work in a community of practice

Reflect on your own philosophy about children. How do these images impact your pedagogical beliefs and what you do in practice?

o To what extent do you see your image of the child as a reflection of the time and place in which the children you are with are growing up?

o Choose a children’s book and discuss the images of the child or children in the book. Include family and society aspects. Consider when and where the book was written. Reflect and comment on other discussions.

o Choose an image of children devastated by war and write a post. How would you discuss this with a child in a formal setting? What implications could the images have for children from a socio-cultural perspective?

o How are images of children connected with the key idea of relationships?

• Professional Conversation

o What are the ethical implications of the images of children we see frequently in various media? What images of children should we present to children?

The following report discusses about the importance of the negative impacts of engaging the children in the television advertisements of the various brands. Many international brands have been using the children for preparing their advertisements. These advertisements are shown on the different television channels for their marketing purposes. However, very recently, some critics have said that the idea of using the children for the advertisements is not at all a good idea. It is because the various organizations prepare their advertisement contents in a manner that it bears a negative impact on the society (Boyland & Halford, 2013). The negative impacts are also felt on the child development and pedagogy as well. The various brands use the different images for their television advertisements. These images are not all good for the overall development of the children. The analysis of the different images and its impacts on the human minds will be discussed in this section.

The various concerns and worries have been raised by the different agencies advocating for the mental health of the children (Owen et al., 2013). The well being of the children is the ultimate thing that they want to take care of. It has been reported by some agencies that the different images used in the television advertisements and sometimes these things have the sexualized elements. The media is most of the times trying to exploit the health of the children by making them appear in the different advertisements (Boyland & Halford, 2013). When the children are exposed to the sexualized elements, they tend to adopt the various sexual behaviors. One of these sexual behaviors is seen in the Huggies jeans advertisements. It might happen that the children are not being able to find the proper elements they need on the internet. These makes them see the different television advertisements that are really detrimental for their health (Joo et al., 2013).  

It has been studied and found that the children intend to copy all the things that they get to see in front of them (Zigmond et al., 2013). This is why it is better not to use the children for these purposes. All the children will surely follow the environment that has been created around. So it is better to create an environment around that will be give them good lessons. It can be said on this context that the images that have been selected reflected various types of things that should not be reflected through the children. The four images will have to be analyzed in this context and the most important things will have to be found out for the betterment of the well-being of the children (Joo et al., 2013)

Many parents have actively protested against this television advertisement. This advertisement had been created for the television and the many parents got very much angry with the content of this advert (Boyland & Halford, 2013). Many people are of the opinion that this advert has been sexualized in a large manner. This video advertisement had been posted in a new advertisement campaign in Israel. The name of this campaign was ‘The Most Important Item in the Wardrobe’. In this video advert, it has been shown the children are dancing around and they are giving much striking poses that do not fit into the category of the children (Johnson, 2012). The children were posing with the fashionable and designer tops and the denim-print huggies nappies. This has been the main reason for the degradation of the society at a large extent (Zigmond et al., 2013).

Creating a culture of critical reflection in early childhood settings

As a matter of fact, it can be said that this advert may have been just very much funny for most of the people. While some people have raised their voices because they have found some elements in it that are beyond the funny things and can be deemed with some sinister meanings. The complaints came in from the parents that this advert was not perfectly appropriate for the children (Boyland & Halford, 2013). It was said that the little girls in this advert were imitating the adult lady models. The ‘sexy’ tag could be attached to the poses that they were giving. This is why the parents wanted to stop the telecast of this advert. In this section the child development and pedagogical section could be described as one of the biggest issues. The pedagogical factor will be badly hampered since the sexual tag will be ingrained within the mindsets of the children. The parents should opt to keep their children away from these sorts of the adverts to engage them in the good things (Johnson, 2012). If the children get familiar with these things it will surely have a negative impact on the minds of the children. Their future activities will center on these sorts of adverts. They might be influenced by these things as well. There is almost contradictory connection between this image and the childhood pedagogy largely as it will degrade the thinking power of the children.

This second image shows the advertisement for the Barbie dolls. This can be highly related to the gender biasness. The Barbie dolls have seriously affected the gender perceptions all over the world (Joo et al., 2013). The persona of the Barbie doll shows the focus on shopping and such womanly things. This is why these advertisements can be very much gender biased indeed. The popularity of these Barbie dolls began to increase with the time. The fact of child development and pedagogy will have to be discussed in this section regarding the image. The little girls will have an adverse impact on their minds (Joo et al., 2013). The thought that they will have to stay like the mannequins and housewives will be deepened within their minds. This is why they will also tend to neglect their studies and begin to give up their aspirations of doing the jobs (Boyland & Halford, 2013). The little girls generally get involved in such adverts very quickly and they use to imitate all the things that are shown on the television screen. Their growth in the education will be halted by this issue.  The purpose of teaching the students with the early childhood education will not be served in this scenario indeed,

In this way it can be said according to the footprints of the different scholars that the Barbie dolls have been restrained from doing the tough things just because it is a girl. This is simply a gender based issue (Martins & Harrison, 2012). On the other hand, some of the experts have opined that the Barbie dolls have been presented with various professions like the Presidential candidates, fashion designers, NASCAR drivers, pilots and many other things. This is the manner in which the Barbie dolls have been presented and the tag of gender is very much with it. It has also been said that the influence of the Barbie dolls have an influence that is mainly destabilizing (Johnson, 2012). In this manner, it can be said that the use of the Barbie dolls can leave an adverse effect on the minds of the children. This is why the parents should focus on this fact and make their students understand the wrong effects of these dolls (Joo et al., 2013).

Collaborative activities in a community of practice

The third picture or image is about the transformers advertisement. This image entirely deals with the boy and his desire to become the superhero. However, in this real life, no superheroes exist (Livingstone, 2013). This is the ultimate truth of life. This is completely a stereotypical connection with the boys. The miraculous activities that the different characters perform on the television screen are the dreams of some children (Miryala, 2015). These boys are completely into these adverts. They try to imitate all the things that the different characters of the Transformers series do. It has been seen in certain cases that the children have lost their lives as well while imitating these stunts (Miryala, 2015). According to the scholars, the children pedagogy is very badly hampered. The actual growth of the little boys is not perceived at all (Livingstone, 2013). The parents of the little boys should understand that the children should not get engaged in these matters. This third picture also describes about the urge of the young boys to be dominant in all the matters. This can sometimes be harmful for their pedagogical development as well. It will impact negatively on their minds since they will always look to deviate from their studies and will not feel to show respect to their elders (Livingstone, 2013). This is an example of the impact of these commercial adverts on their pedagogical development. The young boys should be taught about the importance of the studies in their lives along with the showing of the respect (Miryala, 2015). The contrasts can be noticed as the adverts would deviate the minds of the young children largely from their education.

This television advertisement seems to the fact that McDonalds Company is using the different toys and favorite things of the children to attract them to eat the various unhealthy foods (Scully et al., 2016). The children in the current times are very much attracted to the use unhealthy foods. According to the scholars, it has been found that most of the young boys suffer from the various diseases related to digestion from a very young age (Roberts et al., 2012). Their liver is highly affected because of this practice of theirs. The fourth image also has some connection with the pedagogical development of the young children. If the companies opt to use the children for their adverts on the food items, this will surely have a negative impact. The young students will forget the things taught to them regarding health and hygiene (Scully et al., 2016). They will continue to eat those foods and their health and well-being will be disturbed. Their growth will be halted by the impact of these things (Miryala, 2015). This is why the young children should not be used in these kinds of commercial adverts. These contrasting issues should be highlighted to the parents so they can take the effective steps in this context indeed.

As described by the several scholars, the importance of the early childhood development or pedagogy is huge (Adams et al., 2012). It has been said the children are able to identify the adverts and programs separately. The children always try to imitate the different things shown in the different adverts. This is why it becomes very risky when the organizations telecast some advertisements that have some morally degradable stuff in it (Folkvord et al., 2016). The children do not have the proper understanding of making critical analysis of these advertisements since they have not developed the proper idea of the inherent elements. The social evils are increasing gradually because of these things only (Hedges & Cullen, 2012).

Advantages for young children when educators work in a community of practice

As per the critics, it can be said the role of the guardians of the young boys and girls is huge. The children are very easily attracted to the things shown in the adverts. As the MacDonald advert attracts the children shows the toys, they are attracted to it and they demand those things from their parents (Rozendaal, Opree & Buijzen, 2016). They do not have any option left but to provide them with that. This affects their physical well-being. The Barbie and Transformers adverts have different underpinnings on both the young girls and boys respectively (Hedges & Cullen, 2012). The Barbie advert stresses on the girls being the mannequins or the housekeepers. On the contrary, the Transformers advert stresses on the little boy to be powerful, self-confident and very much aggressive. These are completely different things. Lastly, the advert of Huggies jeans can be brought into the discussion and it can be said that this television advertisement will have adverse impacts on the minds of the little girls. They might get tempted to dress or act like those adult models as they tend to imitate these things.

Conclusion 

As per the above discussion, it can be concluded that the impact of the television advertisements is sometimes very much negative on the minds of the little boys and girls. The parents will have to be very much cautious when they sit in front of the television and see those adverts with their children. The four images have been analyzed and it has been found that these adverts have different impacts on the minds of the students. This is why it is the responsibility of the parents to keep their children away from these adverts on TV. Otherwise, the child development will be highly impacted as well. They must keep these things in their minds and proceed by thinking about these things particularly indeed.

References

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Boyland, E. J., & Halford, J. C. (2013). Television advertising and branding. Effects on eating behaviour and food preferences in children. Appetite, 62, 236-241.

Fletcher, R., & Nielsen, M. (2012). Product-based television and young children's pretend play in Australia. Journal of Children and Media, 6(1), 5-17.

Folkvord, F., Anschütz, D. J., Boyland, E., Kelly, B., & Buijzen, M. (2016). Food advertising and eating behavior in children. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 9, 26-31.

Hedges, H., & Cullen, J. (2012). Participatory learning theories: A framework for early childhood pedagogy. Early Child Development and Care, 182(7), 921-940.

Johnson, F. L. (2012). Imaging in advertising: Verbal and visual codes of commerce. Routledge.

Joo, M., Wilbur, K. C., Cowgill, B., & Zhu, Y. (2013). Television advertising and online search. Management Science, 60(1), 56-73.

Livingstone, S. (2013). Making sense of television: The psychology of audience interpretation. Routledge.

Martins, N., & Harrison, K. (2012). Racial and gender differences in the relationship between children’s television use and self-esteem: A longitudinal panel study. Communication Research, 39(3), 338-357.

Miryala, R. (2015). Advertisements’ effect on food habits of children–an empirical study.

Owen, L., Lewis, C., Auty, S., & Buijzen, M. (2013). Is children's understanding of nontraditional advertising comparable to their understanding of television advertising?. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 32(2), 195-206.

Roberts, M., Pettigrew, S., Chapman, K., Miller, C., & Quester, P. (2012). Compliance with children’s television food advertising regulations in Australia. BMC Public Health, 12(1), 846.

Rozendaal, E., Opree, S. J., & Buijzen, M. (2016). Development and validation of a survey instrument to measure children's advertising literacy. Media Psychology, 19(1), 72-100.

Scully, P., Macken, A., Leddin, D., Cullen, W., Dunne, C., & Gorman, C. O. (2015). Food and beverage advertising during children’s television programming. Irish Journal of Medical Science (1971-), 184(1), 207-212.

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