The Advertising Literacy Education Of Chinese Children In The Symbolized Advertising Era

Human is a kind of animal who always symbolize the world around them.Therefore, to a great extent, the relationship between human and object is constructedby symbols. Object is the combination of material form and symbolic significance inboth the needy primitive society and the affluent consumer society. In the needyprimitive society, both the special object like totem and the daily necessity are givensome symbolic significance by the human. From the foregoing analysis, we canconclude that the symbolic consumption does not merely exist in the affluentconsumer society, and it also exists in the needy primitive society. However, becauseof the difference of the object amount, the proportion of material form and symbolicsignificance contained in the object varies through the various periods of humansociety. The more affluent the society is , the more attention human will pay to thepsychological satisfaction and social identity brought by the symbolic significancecontained in the object.Accordingly,the proportion of symbolic significance containedin the object is very large. On the other hand, the more needy the society is, the moreattention human will pay to the actual function brought by the material form of theobject.Accordingly, the proportion of symbolic significance contained in the object isvery small. Above all, although the symbolic consumption is an everlastingconsumption phenomenon, the extent of its symbolizing varies through differentphases of human society. With the progress of the social productive forces, theamount of the objects becomes larger and larger, and the degree of human symbolicconsumption becomes larger and larger.As the consumer society comes, the extent of human symbolic consumptionbecomes larger. In a sense, human consumption has been symbolized excessively. In the consumer society, all commodities can become symbols, and all symbols canbecome commodities. The causes of this phenomenon are as follows:1. The change ofcontemporary people`s psychological demand; 2. The promotion from the symbolizedadvertising. In the affluent consumer society, human make more and more efforts topursue the psychological satisfaction brought by the symbolic significance containedin the object, so emotional factors have more influence on contemporary consumers`decision-making. Advertising is unable to create consumer`s needs, but it canstimulate consumer`s potential needs. Since contemporary consumers are makingmore and more efforts to pursue the psychological satisfaction brought by thesymbolic significance contained in the object, the contemporary advertising issymbolized. In a word, the contemporary people is living in the symbolizedadvertising era. Symbolized advertising means that the advertising no longerprimarily shows the consumers the objective attribute and function of the commodity,instead it utilizes various ways to convey a kind of symbolic significance, which isendowed to the commodity. By doing this, the advertising increases the functionalvalue of the commodity. Symbolic value is a part of the functional value of thecommodity. What influences the audience is not only the symbolic significanceexpressed by the symbolized advertising but also the various ways the symbolizedadvertising utilizes. The various ways the symbolized advertising utilizes provide theaudience with a huge room to make an explanation, so different individuals can getdifferent significance from the same symbolized advertising. Symbolized advertisinghas a great influence on audience`s consumption decision-making and consumptionbehavior.Besides, it also has a huge influence on audience`s attitude toward life andideology. In the symbolized advertising era, to some extent, contemporary people`sliving environment gradually becomes advertising. We can get this conclusion fromthe following phenomena:1.The information environment offered by mass media has entirely become advertising;2.Advertising media has become all-pervasive.Apparently, it is valuable to make some research on the influence the symbolizedadvertising and the contemporary people`s living environment with advertisingattribute have on Chinese children. Television is the advertising media which is mostpopular with the Chinese children. Besides, television is the most effective media toconvey the various ways used by symbolized advertising. Thereby, to make someeffective research on the influence the symbolized advertising has on Chinesechildren, the researchers are supposed to regard the television advertising as the focusof the research. While the symbolized advertising has some positive influence onchildren, it also has some negative influence on them. The positive influences thesymbolized advertising has on children are mainly as follows:1.It is conductive to theprogress of children`s creative thinking; 2. It contributes to the development ofchildren`s aesthetic capacity. The negative influences the symbolized advertising hason children are primarily as follows: 1.The shift of values: from adoring productivehero to adoring consumption hero; 2.The gender awareness that male is superior tofemale; 3. Strengthening the stratum awareness;4.Promoting the unreasonableconsumption.In order to maximize the positive influence the symbolized advertising has onChinese children and minimize the negative influence, China should launch childrenadvertising literacy education as soon as possible. Advertising literacy is a crucial partof media literacy,so advertising literacy education should be a crucial part of medialiteracy education. Advertising literacy is consisted of 4 parts: 1.The capacity tocriticize advertising; 2.Advertising knowledge; 3.The capacity to utilize advertising;4.The capacity to create advertising. The formation and change of children`sadvertising literacy are influenced by a lot of factors, such as family environment,social culture background, life style, emotional experience and psychological need etc. Among the foregoing factors, family environment is the most important one.Parents` advertising literacy is closely related with the children`s. It is necessary tolaunch advertising literacy education to Chinese children, and the reasons are asfollows: 1.The current Chinese advertising environment is unsafe; 2.Symbolizedadvertising can cause some hidden hurts on children.Chinese children do not always believe what the advertising says, and they havealready gotten some critical awareness as well as some critical capacity to judgewhether the advertising information they get is true or not. When the children growolder, their attitudes towards advertising will become more rational. Nevertheless, inorder to avoid the negative influence the symbolized advertising has on the children,China should make great efforts to launch children advertising literacy education. Theeducational philosophy of the advertising literacy education of Chinese children ismainly as follows: 1.The cultivation of the critical awareness and critical capacityshould be the core of advertising literacy education; 2.Advertising literacy educationshould be a kind of conscious learning through one`s whole life; 3.Advertisingliteracy education should suit the local circumstances and teach students inaccordance with their current advertising literacy. As some countries which areadvanced at media literacy education shows, such as United States, Britain andCanada etc, the major way of media literacy education is school education. Schoolmedia literacy education in China has just began, and its main target is the adultcollege students, so the school media literacy education of Chinese children isdramatically insufficient. An integral media literacy education system is consisted ofschool education, society education and mass media education. School education isthe main way of media literacy, and society education and mass media education arethe subsidiary way of media literacy. It is impossible for China to establish such amedia literacy education system in a short period, because it needs a lot of complicated preparations. However, the advertising literacy education of Chinesechildren has become an urgent problem. To solve this problem, China should toil topromote media literacy education through mass media at first. By doing this, we canarouse the people`s awareness to enhance their media literacy. Apparently, it isconductive to the effective implementation of school media literacy education andsociety education in the future.