Advertising and Violence: Concepts and Perspectives (Routledge Advances in Management and Business Studies) by Nora J. Rifon & Marla B Royne & Les Carlson

Author:Nora J. Rifon & Marla B Royne & Les Carlson [Rifon, Nora J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317477709
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2014-12-18T08:00:00+00:00

PART V

SPECIAL CONCERNS FOR CHILDREN

10

Violence Is in the Ads, Too

Should Television Advertisements Be Rated?

Marla B. Royne and Alexa K. Fox

With 98% of U.S. households owning at least one television set, 60% of homes subscribing to cable television (PTC 2012a), and a growing number of households subscribing to satellite and wireless services (Desrochers and Holt 2007), children are increasingly being exposed to television programs and advertisements. Total television advertising expenditures grew from an estimated $29 billion in 1990 (U.S. Census Bureau 2006) to nearly $80 billion in 2012 (Goetzl 2013), and children ages 2 to 11 view about 25,600 advertisements per year (Desrochers and Holt 2007). At the same time, studies have long suggested that parents are concerned about the negative effects that advertising can have on their children (Grossbart and Crosby 1984; Laczniak, Muehling, and Carlson 1995).

In the early 2000s, most television sets began to come equipped with a V-chip, a device that can block designated television programs based on their content ratings. However, because television advertisements are not rated, the V-chip is unable to block commercials (TV Parental Guidelines 2012), meaning that children can still be exposed to violence in television ads. This is particularly troubling, considering that researchers have found positive associations between media violence and aggressive behaviors (i.e., Anderson and Bushman 2002; Lewis, Watson, and Tay 2007), and that a significant amount of television ads targeted at children age 12 and younger contain violent content (Shanahan, Hermans, and Hyman 2003).

Further, more than 105,000 Americans were injured or killed during a firearm-related incident in 2010 (Institute of Medicine 2013). These alarming statistics, along with widely publicized violent incidents such as school shootings in Chardon, Ohio, and Newtown, Connecticut, have led to increased public concern about violence. It is particularly disconcerting to note that young adults and even children are committing a number of these violent acts, especially because children view about 150,000 acts of violence on television by age 18 (Statistic Brain 2012). Given these findings, as well as a significant increase in violent media in recent years (Rifon, Royne, and Carlson 2010), it may be time to reevaluate the need for a television advertising rating system. Hence, the purpose of this chapter is to explore this issue. In doing so, we review research on violence in advertising and its effects on children. We then report results from an exploratory study to begin to understand how children feel about content in advertisements that are aired during programs they watch. We conclude with recommendations for advertisers and policymakers with regard to regulating television commercials.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.