ABSTRACT

In chapters three and four, the research into children’s understanding of advertisements was discussed. In chapter three, young children’s attention and memory for advertisements, whether they could distinguish between advertisements and programs, and the early recognition of brand names was considered. Chapter four looked at more advanced forms of understanding, in particular children’s recognition of the persuasive nature of television advertising as well as their attitudes toward advertising. In both chapters, many of the results from the research into children’s understanding were summarised, and it was pointed out that there has not been much agreement about when children achieve different levels of awareness. As was pointed out, most of the research into children’s understanding of advertising has been conducted without any theoretical framework.