ABSTRACT
Our ability to interpret and ‘read’ the commercials that appear on television begins at a very early age and primary school children are considered an important market for advertisers, especially within children’s programmes. Commercials, of course, are primarily about selling a product and this, rather than educational considerations, governs a maker’s choice of content and the overall presentation. In this chapter, Jenny Lewin-Jones and Barbara Mitra report on their study of the content of advertisements selectively recorded from two British television channels (CiTV and Channel Five) during the period December 2006 to August 2007. They also discuss the findings of interviews carried out with 15 primary aged children (9 boys and 6 girls) who were shown a mixture of advertisements and asked to comment on gender roles and behaviour. Nine parents were asked about their own perceptions of gender roles and to reflect on the advertisements viewed by their children. The study gives reason to feel concern about the continued use of gender stereotyping in TV commercials in order to sell products to children and, moreover, the way in which such advertisements might result in children thinking and behaving in stereotypical ways.
