PORTRAYAL OF CHILDREN IN MAGAZINE ADVERTS IN

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International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 3, Issue 10, October -2014ISSN 2278-776399PORTRAYAL OF CHILDREN IN MAGAZINEADVERTS IN NIGERIA: A CONTENT ANALYSISMalizu, Chinonye FaithDepartment of Mass CommunicationNnamdi Azikiwe University, AkwaAwka, NigeriaOkafor, Godson OkwuchukwuDepartment of Mass CommunicationNnamdi Azikiwe University, AkwaAwka, NigeriaOkon-Bassey, Esther NkoyoDepartment of Adult EducationNnamdi Azikiwe University, AkwaAwka, NigeriaAbstract- This study employed the content analysistechnique to examine the portrayal of children in printmedia advertisements in some Nigerian magazines.Children images from four monthly publishedmagazines (True Love, New African, Complete Fashionand Ebony) were collected over a period of one year andcontent analyzed. A series of variables common tosimilar investigations were used to provide a codingscheme. Out of three hundred and forty-five (345)advertisements in the twelve selected editions of themagazines, fifty (50) advertisements portrayingchildren were purposively chosen and content analyzedfor this study. There were two levels of analysis, theindividual level which concerns the character of theadvertisement and the level that deals with theadvertisement as a whole. The study data revealed anunderrepresentation of children and accuracy in theportrayal of children in magazine advertisements inNigeria. It was also discovered that a stereotypical viewof female children is present in magazine advert imagesand this was not only expressed in gender stereotypicaltraits but also in letterform characteristics. This studytherefore recommends an improvement in the portrayalof children in magazine adverts in Nigeria.which are a system of values, ideas and practices with certainfunctions; first, to enable individuals give meaning to thematerial and social world; secondly to provide a code for namingand classifying unambiguously the various aspects of the world;and thirdly to promote communication among the members of acommunity. Advertising deals with these ideas, values andpractices and gives them “cultural form through its signifyingpractices” [3]. These signifying practices provide the words andimages with a meaning that is diffused into the belief systems ofa society as a code for communication.IJOARTIndex Terms- ; Advertisement; Children;Magazine; Content analysis; Advert imagesPortrayal;I. INTRODUCTIONAAdvertising occupies a special position within theeconomic organization of every modern society but it is not justan economic entity [1]. Advert images are actually a reflection ofsociety and therefore portray prevailing cultural ideas, values andattitudes. [2], talked about the concept of ‘social representations’Copyright 2014 SciResPub.Since advertising reaches millions of individuals daily, it hasbecome a target for heavy scrutiny by researchers interested inthe effects of these images on the formation or depiction of asocial group in a stereotypical manner. Children, teenagers,youth and women constitute a very important consumer segmentof most markets. Their consumption habits are unique and theirpurchase decisions are based on popular trends, brand image, useof new technology, flavor of food products, and style. Forinstance, it has been observed that young consumers have apropensity to consume more of confectionaries referred to as(junk food) and prefer them over traditional forms of food. Thischaracteristic is exploited by marketers and advertisers byassociating convenience and a brand image to beverages likeCoke, Fanta, Pepsi, Juice, ice creams etc and confectionaries likecakes, meat/fish pies, burgers, pizzas, and other types of fastfood. The fast food and beverage business sector attaches familyor children’s image and perception of fun, enjoyment andprestige with their products. However, recent articles in severalmarketing and retail industry trade publications have suggestedan increase in the use of children in print advertising and a trendtoward portraying children who appear in print advertisements ina more adult fashion. For example, in two articles in AdWeek’sMarketing Week, the authors described advertising campaignsthat "show smart youngsters who look, talk, and act like scaleddown versions of their baby boom parents" [4] and the "stardivinely dressed kids looking hair-raisingly adorable" [5].Another author of a third article in a trade publication calledStores, wrote, "Kids look different in department store andspecialty store advertising, too. The trend is away from the cute,impish kid and toward a more serious, older-looking, somewhatsophisticated and even elegant child". [5], concluded that theseIJOART

International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 3, Issue 10, October -2014ISSN 2278-7763"hot shot kids with dynamite duds and aristocratic attitudes inviteunfortunate comparison, not [just] with ourselves, but with ourchildren". These referred articles described children whoappeared in adverts for children’s clothing.However, [4], pointed out that "Kids are not only taking on newroles and images in ads for products targeted to them, they arealso playing a bigger role in ads for adult products". One reasongiven for the increased use of children in advertisements aimed atadults is that children are increasingly influencing the buyingdecisions of their parents [4]. It appears from a search of theliterature, however, that there have been no attempts tosystematically explore how children are actually portrayed inadvertising. Searches of the Social Science Subject Index from1976 through 1990, the Business Periodicals Index from 1980through May 1991, and of the Index for Advances in ConsumerResearch for the years 1980 through 1988 revealed no studies onthis topic. A computer search of the PsychInfo data base for theyears 1967 through February 1991 was also conducted andrevealed only one study (North, 1985) similar to the presentstudy. In that study, a content analysis of South Africanconsumer magazines was conducted to determine the useadvertisers made of children and the different roles in which theywere portrayed in advertising illustrations.A number of studies have used content analysis to determine howother populations have been portrayed in print advertisements.African Americans ([6]; [7]; [8]), women ([9]; [10]; [11]; [12]),men [13] and the elderly ([14]; [15]) have all been the subjects ofsuch studies. In general, the purpose of each of these studies wasto identify stereotypes of the population under study and/or todetermine the frequency or accuracy with which the particularpopulation was portrayed. Thus, this study seeks to examinechildren representation in print advertisements in Nigerianmagazines. The Social Learning theory and Cultivation theoryare the theories underpinning this study. Children representationin print advertisements plays a crucial role in informing andeducating the audience about a particular idea, product and/orservice. Different age groups of human beings are represented inprint advertisements including children. The question in thisstudy therefore is: to what extent are children represented inNigerian magazine adverts and how are the children represented?100the cautious advertiser, children rarely offend. Picturing childrenallows advertisers to call up rich, cherished associations:nostalgia, love, the fullness of the future, the comfort of home,pleasures of family life. The use of children is a way to suggestmany of the values that advertisers routinely associate with theirproducts: newness, innocence, energy, rejuvenation, mildness,happiness, protection. Increasingly, corporate image advertisingdraws on images of children to suggest kindness, responsibility,benevolence, and the ordinariness of their concerns.Children play a unique role in advertising because the promiseof betterment for the next generation has proven to be one of themost effective inducements to consume. While the media haverecently focused (with considerable ambivalence) on yuppieparents and their expectations for their children, lower middleclass, working class, and poor parents also have aspiration fortheir children. Parents' potent dreams for a better life findexpression in the purchase of books, toys, clothes - even diapers.Or, as a Fischer Price Marketing executive knowingly put it: Allmothers want the best they can afford for their baby.Motherhood is one thing that transcends all cultures andeconomic barriers.A study analyzing the portrayal of African Americans inmagazine advertisements from 1950-1982 was done by [7], theyfound that although there was a long term rise in the proportionof advertisements that contained African Americans, AfricanAmericans were still under represented in magazineadvertisements. With respect to the portrayal of children, [7]found that fifteen percent of African American advertisements(defined as any advertisement that contained an AfricanAmerican, whether or not a white person was also present in theadvertisement) were represented solely by children whereas only5 percent of white advertisements used only children. Whenchildren were shown with adults, 38% of African Americanchildren were shown under the exclusive supervision of whiteadults and 31% of African American children were shown underadult African American supervision. No white children wereshown under the exclusive supervision of African Americanadults-66% were overseen by adult whites and the remainingone-third were unsupervised.IJOARTThe main objective of this study is to ascertain whether there isthe portrayal of children in print adverts in Nigerian magazines,determine how frequently they are portrayed and how accuratelythey are portrayed. This paper will therefore attempt to presentanswers to the following questions.1.2.3.To what extent do print adverts in the selected magazineuse children in their adverts?How have the print advertisements in selectedmagazines portrayed children?How do magazines reproduce gender stereotype in theportrayal of children in print advertisements?Advertisers like to- use children-and not only in advertisementsfor toys and diapers. Babies are attention grabbers; they areespecially good at catching the eyes of women consumers whoso often constitute the target market. Perhaps most important forCopyright 2014 SciResPub.Content analysis was adopted here. Content analysis has beendefined as ".any technique for making inferences bysystematically and objectively identifying specific characteristicsof messages" [16]. In recent years, the marketing literature haswitnessed a resurgence of this technique for studying the printedrecord. The goal is to summarize a vast amount of verbalinformation in a form that is objective, systematic andquantitative [17]. The advertisements of monthly magazines(True Love, New African, Complete Fashion and Ebony)distributed over a period of six years (2007-2013) wereexamined. The four magazines were purposively selected sincethey constitute the top four in sales according to the latestresearch of RAI Consultants Public Ltd in Abuja, thus attaining awide readership. Three editions of each of the magazines werechosen for this study due to the availability of the hard copies ofthese magazines. Out of three hundred and forty-fiveadvertisements in the twelve selected editions of the magazines,IJOART

International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 3, Issue 10, October -2014ISSN 2278-7763fifty (50) advertisements were purposively chosen for this study.These advertisements were chosen based on the inclusion ofchildren as characters in the advertisement not necessarily as“lead” characters.II. DATAT ANALYSISS/N123456789101112Here comes the most crucial step for your research pu TableOneFrequency Distribution of all the advertisements in theselected MagazineTitle ofEditionsAdver AdveTotalMagazinets withrtsNo. ofChildr witho Advertsenutfor eachChildeditionrenTrue LoveAug./Sept.210122008January 200952732July 200972229Total1459(81 73(100%(19%)%))EbonyApril 200785563August 200874047September743502008Total2138160(100(14%) (86%)%)Complete2012 vol. 42810FashionNo.192012 vol. 432528No.242013 vol. 521517No.30Total748(87 55(100%(13%)%))New AfricanMarch 20072121410114 percent of the entire adverts in Ebony Magazine use child(ren)as the character or one of the characters in their adverts, while 86percent of the adverts do not represent children.Also, 13 percent of the adverts in Complete Fashion Magazineportray children, while the remaining 87 percent of the advertsportray adults.In addition, 12 percent of the entire adverts in New AfricanMagazine represent children, while 88 percent of the advertsportray adults.In sum, only 14 percent (50 adverts) of the entire adverts (345adverts) recorded from the selected magazines over the studyperiod represents children, while the other 86 percent representsadults.The results suggest that children are under-represented in all theprint adverts of the selected magazines, while adults on the otherhand were over-represented in the adverts.IJOARTDecember2007September2008TotalGrand Total of allthe Adverts31821220227(12%)50(88%)86%N 29557(100%)14%N 50The data in figure one shows that 46 percent of the childrenwhose image were used for adverts are female, 22 percent of thechildren are male, while 32 percent were a combination of maleand female children. This suggests that more female children areused in print adverts than male children.100%N 345The data in table one shows that only 19 percent of all theadverts in True Love Magazine during the study period representchildren, while 81 percent represents adults.d printed) in their periodicals and get indexed by number ofsources.Copyright 2014 SciResPub.Figure 1: Sex of ChildrenFigure Two: Placement of AdvertsIJOART

International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 3, Issue 10, October -2014ISSN 2278-7763The data in figure two shows that no advertisement portrayingchildren was placed in the front page of the selected magazines,84 percent of the adverts appeared in the inside pages, 14 percentof the adverts appeared at the back pages, while only 2 percent ofthe adverts were placed at the center pages of the selectedmagazines. This suggests that, magazines through their pageplanning do not give prominence to adverts portraying childrenas most of the adverts were placed in the inside pages of themagazines.102Table five shows that 48 percent of the adverts analyzedwere targeting children, 20 percent had adults as target,while the remaining 32 percent targeted both children andadults.A cross-tabulation of the target audience by the type ofproduct indicated that there are significant differences.When the target is adults the children characters arepresented in advertisements of Home products (more oftenFood in 19% of the ads and Home Equipment in 16% ofthe ads). When the target of the advertisements is children,the advertisements are more often for Personal effectsproducts (mostly Clothes since this is the case for 58% ofthe ads under study).Again, differences in typographic dimensions based on thetarget of the advertisement were examined. This was todetermine the effect of the target group on the displaytypography of each advertisement. The investigationrevealed that the target group has an effect of the choice ofFigure Three: Accuracy of Children Portrayaltypeface and color of the message of each advertisement.Particularly,there was anincreasedThe data in figure three reveals that 94 percent of children used in the advertswere accuratelyportrayedasuse of Script typefacetarget waschildren, while only 6 percent of the adverts portrayed children as adults.whenThisthesuggeststhat childrenmajority (25%)of the when compared withits use when the target was adults (7%) even though theadverts accurately portrayed children.typefaces Sans-Serif was one of the most frequently usedindependent of target group. White is the most commonlyused color in adverts for all the target groups (27% forTable Four: Partners of Children in the Advertschildren and 33% for adults) but there are differences inPartnersFrequencyPercentthe use of Black colored or Multi-colored text. WhenChildren1734%adverts target adults, the Black color is used more whencompared to its use in adverts targeting children. InAdult2346%addition, advertisements with children as target group useNone1020%Multi-colored text in comparison with advertisement ofTotal50100%products targeting adults.IJOARTTable Six: Gender Stereotyping in Print AdvertsTable four shows that 46 percent of the partners in advertsportraying children were adults, 34 percent were children, whileonly 20 percent of the children do not have partners in theadverts. This suggests that a good number of the pictures used inthe adverts were pictures portraying a family life. However, theexistence of a partner differentiated the two categories ofadvertisement. When children were targeted in the adverts,(69%) of the time, the partner of the main character was anotherchild rather than an adult (6%), whereas when adults are thetarget, the partner was more often an adult (34.6%). When itschildren alone (38%) and a child with one or more children aspartners (10%).Table Five: Target Audience of 020%Children and Adult1632%Total50100%Copyright 2014 SciResPub.Frequency PercentAdvert with gender 224%50100%Data in table six shows that more than two-third of thecharacters in the advertisements (76%) were found toreproduce a stereotype (18% masculine and 58%feminine), while only 24 percent of the entire advertsdid not reproduce any stereotypes. These stereotypesappeared in the choice of words, typefaces, font colors,choice of characters, etc. The superiority of the femininestereotypes was more clearly evident when the targetgroup was adults. Consequently, 35% of theadvertisements depicted a character reproducing afeminine stereotype while only 16% of theadvertisements targeting children depicted femininestereotypes. The most common feminine stereotype wasconcerned with a representation of girls as contentIJOART

International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 3, Issue 10, October -2014ISSN 2278-7763(53%) or passive (20%). This is in line with the findingthat girls are more often depicted doing a Passiveactivity in comparison to boys. The advertisements witha masculine or a feminine stereotype were compared onthe basis of their typographic elements. Interestingly, afemale stereotype was accompanied by greater use ofLow case and Bold letters for male stereotype. Therewas also a trend for greater use of Rounded letters incomparison to advertisement with male stereotypes.This study had two levels of analysis, the individuallevel which concerned each character of anadvertisement and another level which dealt with theadvertisement as a whole. In the individual level, it wasinvestigated whether the characteristics of children ascharacters in advertisements targeting either adults orchildren differed. It also examined whether the imagesof children reproduced gender stereotypes. In the secondlevel, the typography display in each ad was analyzedand relationships were found to exist with the targetgroups and the feminine stereotypes. The resultsindicated that children are more often present inadvertisements of Personal products targeting childrenand in advertisements of Home products targetingadults. In addition, when the advert target was children,majority of the ads were for clothing companies andretail stores.103example, the script typeface (like the one used to conveythe Bournvita logo and like the ones used in the ads of thisstudy) may activate “gentleness” associations throughconsistent use on products associated with gentleness.Through the direct route, the typeface may convey theconcept of “thin”, given the delicate style of w

Since advertising reaches millions of individuals daily, it has become a target for heavy scrutiny by researchers interested in the effects of these images on the formation or depiction of a social group in a stereotypical manner. Children, teenagers, youth and women cons

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