Childrens Television Commercials: Analyzing the Representation of Fam

Children's Television Commercials: Analyzing the Representation of Family The assignment requires children’s commercials to be studied to find how these commercials are coded to give meaning to a representation of ‘the family’. However, before this can be tackled the concept of representation must be discussed as well as clarifying what exactly is meant by ‘children’s commercials’. The assignment is open to many interpretations as to what constitutes a children’s commercial. A commercial aimed at children, especially young children, must have an appeal to both child and parent alike, as it is most likely the parent who will be purchasing any of the items desired. There is a crucial interplay within commercials between selling the item to the child whilst also selling the product to the parent. When identifying children’s commercials it is advisable to look beyond the most obvious choice of toys or ‘fun’ food to all the commercials involving ‘the family’ which a child may be exp osed to. Commercials are specifically placed to gain the maximum exposure to the optimum audience for their product, so any commercial shown during children’s viewing time must have some relevance for a child. Another point to be addressed is how is a child defined. In this essay, the definition of a child from the Oxford Dictionary of Current English is taken in a modified form. The definition is a â€Å"young human being below the age of puberty† (1996, 141), but in this essay, because puberty occurs at different stages in different people, a child is taken to be of primary school age. Yet further complexity is added when personal taste is taken into account. A child of five will want very different things than a ten-year-old child, it is hard to judge wh... ...ising children, which is then used to sell the product. Bibliography Bignell, J. (1997) Media Semiotics: An Introduction. Manchester University Press: Manchester. Chandler, D. (2002) Semiotics: the Basics. Routledge: London. Goldman, R. (1998) Reading Ads Socially. Routledge: London. Gunter, B. and McAleer, J. (1997) Children and Television. Routledge: London. Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D., Pratt, G., and Watts, M. (2000) The Dictionary of Human Geography, 4th Edition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Kaufman, G. (1999) The Portrayal of Men’s Family Roles in Television Commercials. [WWW document] http:/www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2294/1999_Sept/58469479/p1/article. jhtml?term=gender+role+advertising Spivak, G. (1988) ‘Can the Subaltern speak?’ in Nelson, C. and Grossberg, L. (eds) Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Macmillan: London. Children's Television Commercials: Analyzing the Representation of Fam Children's Television Commercials: Analyzing the Representation of Family The assignment requires children’s commercials to be studied to find how these commercials are coded to give meaning to a representation of ‘the family’. However, before this can be tackled the concept of representation must be discussed as well as clarifying what exactly is meant by ‘children’s commercials’. The assignment is open to many interpretations as to what constitutes a children’s commercial. A commercial aimed at children, especially young children, must have an appeal to both child and parent alike, as it is most likely the parent who will be purchasing any of the items desired. There is a crucial interplay within commercials between selling the item to the child whilst also selling the product to the parent. When identifying children’s commercials it is advisable to look beyond the most obvious choice of toys or ‘fun’ food to all the commercials involving ‘the family’ which a child may be exp osed to. Commercials are specifically placed to gain the maximum exposure to the optimum audience for their product, so any commercial shown during children’s viewing time must have some relevance for a child. Another point to be addressed is how is a child defined. In this essay, the definition of a child from the Oxford Dictionary of Current English is taken in a modified form. The definition is a â€Å"young human being below the age of puberty† (1996, 141), but in this essay, because puberty occurs at different stages in different people, a child is taken to be of primary school age. Yet further complexity is added when personal taste is taken into account. A child of five will want very different things than a ten-year-old child, it is hard to judge wh... ...ising children, which is then used to sell the product. Bibliography Bignell, J. (1997) Media Semiotics: An Introduction. Manchester University Press: Manchester. Chandler, D. (2002) Semiotics: the Basics. Routledge: London. Goldman, R. (1998) Reading Ads Socially. Routledge: London. Gunter, B. and McAleer, J. (1997) Children and Television. Routledge: London. Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D., Pratt, G., and Watts, M. (2000) The Dictionary of Human Geography, 4th Edition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Kaufman, G. (1999) The Portrayal of Men’s Family Roles in Television Commercials. [WWW document] http:/www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2294/1999_Sept/58469479/p1/article. jhtml?term=gender+role+advertising Spivak, G. (1988) ‘Can the Subaltern speak?’ in Nelson, C. and Grossberg, L. (eds) Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Macmillan: London.