Children's understanding of advertising in two media: Television and the Internet

For the past 30 years scholars in a variety of disciplines have studied children's understanding and use of advertising. Most of this research has come from a public policy perspective and has centered on the question of whether or not children understand the selling intent of advertising. If children did not conceive or recognize that advertising is a persuasive form of communication, then advertising to them would be considered unfair, in a legal sense. The bulk of the research in this area has been conducted to ascertain children's level of understanding of television advertising. However, in recent years new communications technologies, especially the Internet, have presented advertisers with new channels to reach consumers. These consumers include children. The same questions that were addressed about children and television advertising are now being re-examined in the context of children and Internet advertising.;The purpose of this research was three-fold: first, to validate the findings from previous studies on children's understanding of television advertising; second, to test children's understanding of Internet advertising to see whether that understanding of advertising is media specific; and third, to provide researchers with a framework for understanding the developmental differences between older and younger children in the understanding, processing, and use of advertising.;This research reports the findings from a study conducted in the spring of 2000 in which first- and third-graders were interviewed about their use and understanding. This report provides a strong developmental framework for examining children's understanding of advertising.