Adolescents’ self-reported level of dispositional advertising literacy: how do adolescents resist advertising in the current commercial media environment?

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine adolescents’ (between 12 and 18 years) perceptions of their knowledge and skills related to advertising (i.e. dispositional advertising literacy). More specifically, adolescents’ beliefs about their recognition and understanding of advertising (cognitive facet), their emotional reaction to advertising (affective facet) and their moral evaluation of advertising (moral facet) were investigated together with their beliefs about the way they resist advertising.

Design/methodology/approach

A large-scale survey was conducted, taking information from 2,602 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 years.

Findings

The findings show that adolescents believe they can recognize advertising reasonably well and have a moderate understanding of it. They tend to be negative toward advertising, perceive it as an unfair practice and claim to resist it strongly. In addition, adolescents’ self-reported moral and affective advertising literacy positively affect advertising resistance. Adolescents’ cognitive advertising literacy increases with the number of different media device types owned, and cognitive and moral advertising literacy increase with age.

Originality/value

This study is one of the first to examine adolescents’ beliefs about their dispositional advertising literacy. Most previous studies examined advertising literacy among young children (under 12 years) or adults after exposure to a specific advertising format (i.e. situational advertising literacy), while this study focuses on adolescents’ self-reported levels of cognitive, moral and affective dispositional advertising literacy. In addition, the focus on resistance strategies to examine how adolescents resist advertising is unique.

Citation

De Jans, S., Hudders, L. and Cauberghe, V. (2018), "Adolescents’ self-reported level of dispositional advertising literacy: how do adolescents resist advertising in the current commercial media environment?", Young Consumers, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 402-420. https://doi.org/10.1108/YC-02-2018-00782