Abstract:
In the late 1990s, the controversial debate about child-targeted advertisements was
rekindled as the European Commission considered an outright ban of children's
advertising in the UK. Little academic research had previously been conducted on the
children's advertisements broadcast on British television, while the specific genre of toy
advertisements had been almost entirely neglected.
The aim of this investigation was to offer in-depth analysis of toy advertisements in the
specific context of gender identity formation. The overriding assumption was that
children learn about `appropriate gender behaviour' from observing patterns of gender
stereotypy [sic] in the media, where toy advertisements offer observable models engaged in
(gendered) play activities.
The investigation was organised into the three broad categories, looking at the
interrelationship between the `Text' (advertisements), the `Producer' (advertisers) and the
`Receiver' (children). Initially, a large sample of televised toy advertisements was
collected in the winter of 1996 and analysed using both content and semiotic techniques.
The intention was to build a framework of any gendered patterns within the texts in terms
of production and post-production techniques, as well as themes and product
philosophies. This was followed by a discussion of how advertisement producers
conventionally target the child audience sector.
Ethnographic-style field observations and interviews were then conducted with a group
of children (aged 4- to 11-years) in a bilingual (Welsh/English) school in West Wales. A
selection of toy advertisements was shown to them, and particular attention was paid to
the ways in which they discussed technical production features and gender
representations. As an alternative to oral communication, the children were also
challenged to design their toy advertisements, to assess whether they understood the
construction of advertisement texts sufficiently well to reinterpret the televisual
conventions in the context of a static medium.
