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Article
Publication date: 29 May 2019

Lisa B. Hurwitz, Heather Montague, Alexis R. Lauricella, Aubry L. Alvarez, Francesca Pietrantonio, Meredith L. Ford and Ellen Wartella

Social cognitive theory suggests that children may have more favorable attitudes toward food products promoted by media characters who are similar to them, in terms of factors…

603

Abstract

Purpose

Social cognitive theory suggests that children may have more favorable attitudes toward food products promoted by media characters who are similar to them, in terms of factors such as age, gender and race-ethnicity. This paper aims to profile the characters in food and beverage websites and apps for children and examine whether the healthfulness of promoted products varies as a function of character background.

Design/methodology/approach

This study includes two parallel content analyses focused on websites and apps that were produced by America’s top selling food and beverage companies.

Findings

There were very few child-targeted websites and apps, but those that existed were replete with media characters. These websites/apps tended to feature media characters with diverse gender, age and racial–ethnic backgrounds. However, marketing featuring adult and male characters promoted particularly unhealthy foods.

Social implications

American food companies, many of whom signed voluntary self-regulatory pledges through the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, should make a more concerted effort to refrain from featuring appealing media characters in child-directed new media marketing. Whether conscious or not, it seems as if food marketers may be leveraging characters to appeal to a wide audience of children of varied demographic backgrounds.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this manuscript is the only research to focus specifically on the demographic profiles (i.e. gender, age and race-ethnicity) of characters in food websites and the nutritional quality of the products they promote. It is also the first to systematically examine media characters in food apps in any capacity.

Details

Young Consumers, vol. 20 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1747-3616

Keywords

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Article
Publication date: 1 September 1997

Jack A. Lesser and Lakshmi K. Thumurluri

Much of human behaviour is viewed as a process, which begins with early childhood experience, and develops into later life emotions, values, beliefs, and behaviours. Described…

562

Abstract

Much of human behaviour is viewed as a process, which begins with early childhood experience, and develops into later life emotions, values, beliefs, and behaviours. Described below, considerable interdisciplinary attention has been given to the role of childhood, and more specifically, to the relevance of different types of parental influence on children as they later become adults. Within marketing, selected scholarly consideration has been devoted to the roles of parents on their children's existing consumer behaviour. The unique contribution of this article is to examine the role of different types of parental influence on later adulthood shopping behaviours.

Details

Management Research News, vol. 20 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0140-9174

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Article
Publication date: 20 November 2009

Daniel Thomas Cook

The purpose of this paper is to offer a selective and necessarily truncated history of the place and use of qualitative approaches in the study of children's consumption in order…

5694

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to offer a selective and necessarily truncated history of the place and use of qualitative approaches in the study of children's consumption in order to provide some depth of understanding regarding differences between and commonalities of approaches employed by academic market researchers, social science researchers and, to a lesser extent, market practitioners.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper examines key research statements about children's consumption beginning in the 1930s to ascertain the underlying conception of the child informing the work.

Findings

It is argued that there has been a displacement of psychologically oriented, developmental conceptions of the child with sociological and anthropological conceptions resulting in an acceptance of the child as a more or less knowing, competent consumer. This shift has become manifest in a rise and acceptance of qualitative research on children's consumer behaviour by social science and marketing academics as well as by market practitioners such as market researchers.

Research limitations/implications

Methods – here qualitative methods – must be seen as enactments of theories about conceptions of the person, rather than simply as neutral tools that uncover extant truths.

Practical implications

Attending to how one “constructs” the child may usefully inform debates about the harmfulness or usefulness of goods and messages directed to children.

Originality/value

This paper helps in understanding the long history of children as consumers, how they have been understood and approached by market and academic researchers interested in consumption and various ways conceptions of ‘the child’ can be used.

Details

Young Consumers, vol. 10 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1747-3616

Keywords

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Article
Publication date: 11 January 2016

Daniel Carter

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to understandings of how documents are experienced by looking to work in reception studies for methodological examples. Based on a…

704

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to understandings of how documents are experienced by looking to work in reception studies for methodological examples. Based on a review of research from literary studies, communication studies and museum studies, it identifies existing approaches and challenges. Specifically, it draws attention to problems cited in relation to small-scale user studies and suggests an alternative approach that focusses on how infrastructures influence experience.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper presents data collected from over a year of ethnographic work at a cultural archive and exhibition space and analyses the implications of infrastructural features such as institutional organization, database structures and the organization of physical space for making available certain modes of reception.

Findings

This research suggests that infrastructure provides a useful perspective on how experiences of documents are influenced by larger systems.

Research limitations/implications

This research was conducted to explore the implications of an alternative research methodology. Based on the ethnographic study presented, it suggests that this approach produces results that warrant further work. However, as it is intended only to be a test case, its scope is limited, and future research following the approach discussed here should more fully engage with specific findings in relation to the experience of documents.

Originality/value

This paper presents an alternative approach to studying the experience of documents that responds to limitations in previous work. The research presented suggests that infrastructures can reveal ways that the experience is shared across contexts, shifting discussions from individuals and objects to technical systems, institutions and social structures.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 72 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

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