This report addresses the problems created by the large volume of current television advertising being directed to children, many of whom naively accept the messages and cannot perceive the selling purpose of television advertising or otherwise comprehend or evaluate it; and recommends that law-making proceedings begin to (1) ban all television…

A cross-cultural content analysis of 2,295 prime-time television ads--859 ads from the United States and 1,436 ads from South Korea--was conducted to examine the differences in the portrayal of older people between U.S. and Korean ads. In two countries, the underrepresentation of older people in ads was found in terms of proportions of the actual…

Examined 136 recent television ads to analyze the treatment of older persons. Results showed a significant absence of the elderly in television commercials. Suggests that educators must become assertive in helping both the older person and advertisers portray older people more positively and realistically. (JAC)

This study examined the impact on children of two deceptive and two non-deceptive 60-second color commericals inserted in a 25-minute film. The ads were rated as deceptive or non-deceptive by attorneys at the Federal Trade Commission. A total of 102 students aged 11 to 13 and 34 students aged 7 viewed the film with the ads inserted. Pre- and…

Public service advertisements, disseminated via the mass media, have been credited with "positive attitudinal effects" in past research, but only certain kinds of such advertisements are really effective. Of the types of appeals used in television commercials--informative, emotional, "establishment" (or status quo), and…

In this survey a sample was taken of kindergarten students, third graders, and sixth graders of both sexes and of varying socioeconomic backgrounds for the purpose of exploring their attitudes toward television commercials. Questions concerning the child's mother's attitude towards commercials, the child's cognition of commercials, and the child's…

This report provides data from a larger study investigating consumer socialization of children which focused on the processes by which children acquire knowledge skills and attitudes related to consumer behavior. The research has utilized two theoretical perspectives: cognitive development and information processing theories. The data reported are…

A study examined the effects of media advertising on the elderly to determine whether they use the media to help combat social disengagement, whether they perceived the elderly as positively portrayed in advertising, whether they perceive their role as consumer as declining, whether television advertising reinforced sex roles, and whether the…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 37 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the role of television in the lives of older homebound individuals; (2) radio wars between Cuba and the United States; (3) the relationship between…

The relationship of older Americans to the new media culture of society is the focus of this Technical Committee Report. The work of two committee-appointed subcommittees on stereotypes and new media technology are explained with a special emphasis on the influence of television. Age stereotyping is examined in prime time television, daytime…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 36 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) content diversity in local television news; (2) advertising influences on consumers' use of evidence; (3) organized labor and the mass media; (4) feminist film…

This study explores children's understanding of television commercials that feature the same primary characters as those in the adjacent program content, a commercial technique known as "host-selling." Responses of children 4 to 5 and 7 to 8 years of age to identical commercials presented in both a host-selling and normal viewing…

In this study, naturalistic patterns of parent-child interaction were unobtrusively observed in supermarkets to describe characteristics of breakfast cereal selection by 516 family units. The interaction sequence was summarized into five dimensions: initiating party, tone of initial message, type of response, type of consequence, and references to…

The purpose of this study was to identify the effect of television advertising on different types of children--specifically, the cognitive responses and extra-product expectations fostered by television commercials in both white and black children. The subjects, 52 middle-class white children and 30 inner-city black children ranging in age from…

Indicates that (1) both younger (four-five years) and older (seven-eight years) children were significantly less likely to discriminate commercial from program content when the host-selling format was viewed, and (2) older children are more favorably influenced by the same commercial content when it is seen in a host-selling presentation than in a…