Fleming (1996: 7)

Young children in Western societies are born into commercial environments where anything and everything can be viewed as a saleable commodity. Advertisers acknowledge the potential of this previously ‘untapped’ sector of the consumer market and aim to create ‘consumers for life’ by capturing attention and imagination in infancy. Advertising images permeate society to an extent where they might be taken-for-granted and ‘naturalised’. It is important to consider, however, whether such well-crafted images contribute to the formation of gender concepts and the establishment of self-image. One of the main intentions of advertisements is to make the audience react and relate to the images and to their overriding commercial messages, so it is possible that such frameworks of address and appeal might contribute, either consciously or subconsciously, to identity formation. It is also arguable that children have become part of the sales process in that toys, gender and childhood can all be described as ‘commodified’ in the context of (toy) advertisements.

A cynical stance might posit that ‘pester power’ is now the marketer’s most effective weapon in the relentless pursuit for capital gain, where children are viewed as innocent and exploitable devices to extract money from the pockets of a nation’s parents. However, it would seem that the situation is more complicated and that advertising offers more than observable goods. It is arguable that advertising images also offer a sense of identity to their so-called target audiences in the form of observable behaviour patterns and in the social connotations of prestige and status often attached to ownership of the product. Children actively construct themselves perhaps more observably than any other members of society because they must work to build an understanding of how their worlds are arranged, thereby developing schemata to clarify their positions. Throughout this process of construction, certain (media) representations may be either accepted or rejected by them and feed back into their sense of identity.

Self-identity consists of any number of interlocking factors that include language, culture and nation. In the context of this investigation, gender was selected as the main focal point in the whole process of self-formation because it is perhaps more significant than other factors during childhood. Indeed, one could argue that gender identities and perceptions lie at the very core of existence defining who we are and how we should behave. Gender-role conformity tends be equated with social acceptance which can be seen as a powerful ‘need’ during childhood. It is also arguable that children’s understanding of gender is an integral aspect of how they come to understand and make sense of the world and their place in it and, by association, the images frequently utilised in the mass media.

One of the ways that gender manifests itself is through observable behaviour patterns. Advertisements were selected because gender stereotypes are arguably more prevalent in this genre than in any other. In this context, gender models are presented as naturalised in terms of exhibiting so-called ‘appropriate gender behaviour’. One should question whether young children recognise the existence of such gender models and whether they accept or reject them. Indeed, one wonders whether the social worlds of boys and girls are as polarised as the famously constructed worlds of Barbie and Action Man.

One of the reasons toys were selected as a basis for investigating gender identity is the fact that toy-products tend to be highly prescriptive in terms of intended user, while ‘play’ is seen as an integral part of the maturation process. The main stipulation of toy-play would appear to be that of ‘gender appropriateness’, where it has traditionally been seen as ‘inappropriate’ for boys to play with dolls or for girls to play with cars. While much research has been conducted on children’s advertising in general, many investigators omitted toy advertisements from their samples (cf. Winick et al. 1973). The main objection to studying toy advertisements would appear to be based on the rationale that their occurrences within advertisement segments are too infrequent and seasonally dependent to deem them a consistent ‘influence’ on the developing attitudes of young children.

However, the assumption in this investigation is that the sheer concentration of toy advertisements in the two-month period leading up to Christmas is particularly significant in terms of ‘channelling’ children’s thoughts towards procuring so-called ‘desired’ goods. These goods then invariably occupy the child’s ‘space’ (home and bedroom) for periods of time far longer than the actual sales period, perhaps inadvertently perpetuating the play-patterns demonstrated within the advertisement texts. This enduring transference from advertisement to home and the subsequent prolonged existence of the products within a child’s life are simply not possible with the other child-targeted products such as breakfast cereals and snack foods, where physical existence is fleeting and memories fade rapidly. There is something altogether more concrete and tangible about the purchase of toys that arguably makes the process of advertising somehow more ‘real’ and personalised. It is important not to dismiss toy advertising as something that only happens once-a-year but to begin questioning the potential long-term impact that the advertisement texts may have on young children in terms of stylised play patterns.

Television advertisements are said to have ‘high salience’ (cf. Huston et al., 1984) and can be difficult for young children to decode but simultaneously draw fascinated gazes because of the colours, action and ‘noise’. Advertisements might also be described as miniature ‘snap shots’ of society in the sense that they contain highly stylised representations of certain definable ‘types’ of people. Encouraging young children to respond to (gender in) advertisements is perhaps the most effective way of asking them to respond to (gender in) their own societies. An added dimension to encouraging children to respond to (gender in) toy advertisements is that they are able to comment on (gender in) their own ‘exclusive’ social ‘bubbles’. From such a standpoint, it may arguably be possible to determine young children’s levels of understanding about the purposes and intentions of advertisements, as well as whether they perceive themselves in the same way that they are perceived by advertisers.

This investigation hinged on the main theoretical assumption that there is an important interaction between the three elements of text (advertisement), producer (advertiser) and receiver (child), perhaps illustrated best in diagrammatic form:

Before one can actively set about investigating the interrelationship between the elements of Text-Producer-Receiver, it is vital to anchor one’s research in a series of distinctive research issues. It is inevitable that the pursuit of answers to these questions will have a powerful influence on the overall shape and direction of the investigation, so it is important to clarify what they are from the outset. In this way, the reader can appreciate more easily the thread of the argument.

This investigation was designed to be exhaustive in the sense that multiple techniques were utilised to address many different (yet interrelated) perspectives concerning children’s televised toy advertisements. Consequently, five major research issues were formulated, as follows, which will be discussed in detail in the closing chapter of this investigation:

1. How can gender be located in the media and in ‘childhood’, and is it possible to construct a framework or model of how gender is manifested in society?
2. Are there any distinctive (gendered) patterns in the use of technical production features in advertisement texts?
3. Do certain technical production features carry gender connotations?
4. Is gender the primary consideration for advertisers?
5. Do young children understand the technical production features and gender representations employed in televised toy advertisements?

This investigation is structured in such a way that children’s toy advertisements will be considered on progressively deeper levels. Chapter Two begins by setting the scene and attempting to consolidate the diverse yet intertwined issues of ‘gender’, ‘advertising’ and ‘children’. When addressing ‘gender’, the two major stances of cognitive development and social learning theory are briefly introduced and explained, before the socially generated notion of ‘appropriate gender behaviour’ is considered. This then leads to an analysis of how gender tends to be depicted in both adult-and child-targeted advertisements, and the functions that stereotypes serve within society in general and advertising in particular. In addition, the more contemporary perspectives of ‘gender performativity’ will be introduced to illustrate that the concept of gender is now frequently ‘problematised’ in academic debate.

In order to contextualise the interpretation of advertisements within the specific domain of toys, gendered play is discussed. For a toy advertisement to ‘connect’ with a child of a given gender, it is arguable that it should present scenarios appropriate to the experiences of the child where the images and behaviours seen should ‘tally’ with what they have come to understand. In this respect, an insight into play types and functions is necessary and this is followed by a consideration of children’s gendered toy choices and differential play styles. Indeed, it is possible to argue that children make their own gendered judgements and that these tend to be reinforced by their peer groups and immediate family. Essentially, Chapter Two is designed to offer some insight into Research Issue 1. Finally, the ways in which children are thought to interpret the mass media are considered with an initial introduction to the established theories of audience reception, followed by other ‘effects’ considerations and issues such as attention, genre recognition, comprehension and recall.

Many of the methodologies used in past research investigations have been ‘blinkered’ in the sense that they have tended to be limited to a single approach, offering only a narrow perspective on the issue at hand. That is to say, the integral content of a media text may have been considered in detail but no mention is made of audience reception, or vice-versa. The aim of this investigation was to consider a given sample of advertisements from as many perspectives as possible and this is demonstrated by the varied selection of methodologies employed. The selected methodologies for this investigation needed to fulfil the requirements for analysing both ‘text’ and ‘receiver’ or ‘audience’. Chapter Three introduces each of these in turn, beginning with the quantitative textual approach of content analysis as a means of constructing a formal framework to be treated as a starting point and as a description of ‘what is there’. This is then followed by a brief introduction to the complex perspective of semiotics that tends to be a more qualitative and subjective means of suggesting how the structural features of (advertisement) texts arguably carry certain (gender) connotations. Content analysis was considered an appropriate tool for approaching Research Issue 2, while semiotic analysis was considered more suited to Research Issue 3.

The choice of methodology then moves away from textual focus to consider the perceptions of audience members. Field observations and interviews were considered to be the most effective approaches to establish both an understanding of the audience ‘subjects’ and a high level of mutual acquaintance between investigator and children. Using an ethnographic-style approach within a classroom environment, it was hoped that insight would be gained into how the children in the sample negotiated media texts, and how their individual personalities and the group demographics might add to a meaningful deconstruction of conversations.

Two different means of communication were considered within the confines of this investigation – ‘talk’ and ‘art’. This dual approach is arguably vital because while the majority of research conducted in the field relies on the child’s ability to express themselves orally there is no guarantee that sufficient linguistic competence has been achieved. A basic form of (commentative) discourse analysis was deemed the most appropriate way of organising the children’s conversations, but it is also emphasised that one needs to be cautious when interpreting what is said. Four particularly important influences are considered in the context of this investigation – situation, topic, participants and individual factors – which can all effect the direction and content of the conversational flow. ‘Art’ as a means of communication is then discussed in some detail, with analysis of gender representations/targeting in children’s drawings and the ways in which it is possible for children to reinterpret televisual images within their pictures (cf. Research Issue 5).

The analysis of a substantial sample of children’s toy advertisements then begins in earnest. Chapter Four provides a detailed analysis of content with close attention given to production and camerawork techniques, post-production and editing techniques, and other variables such as setting and music. The aim of this analysis was to construct a framework, as mentioned previously, and to determine whether or not any observable differences in gender construction were evident (either immediately or on a more subtle level) within ‘typical’ toy advertisements. This leads neatly to a semiotic analysis of the same advertisement sample in Chapter Five, where formulae are developed as a means of defining a ‘typical’ girl’s advertisement and a ‘typical’ boy’s advertisement. These emergent patterns are compared before being considered in the context of semiotic ‘codes’. The sample of advertisements as a whole is summarised in terms of code categories that describe the narrative structures involved in the production of gendered sales messages. A particularly interesting comparison is then made of the products that are identical in concept but marketed very differently depending on the gender of the target audience.

While the preceding chapters focus on the ‘text’, Chapter Six considers the ‘producer’ perspective and attempts to address Research Issue 4. This is perhaps the most neglected angle in the field because it is difficult to gain access to the people concerned. However, I succeeded in organising an interview with an advertising executive and also spoke with a number of ‘creatives’ and television producers in order to gain insight into how they approach the construction of an advertisement text. The position of the toy company is also considered, with a brief discussion of how they tend to follow traditional gender stereotyped modes of address and presentation even within the so-called new medium of Internet advertising.

Chapter Seven considers the ways in which the intended audiences receive the advertising texts (Research Issue 5). Focusing on production features and gender representations, it refers to responses made during a video workshop in which a sample of ten toy advertisements was shown to the children in my sample primary school, together with a workshop in which the children designed their own toy advertisements on paper. Both of the exercises clearly demonstrate that the children were extremely observant, perceptive and even sometimes quite cynical in their negotiation of the advertisement texts.

Finally, Chapter Eight attempts to draw together the findings from the perspectives of ‘text’, ‘producer’ and ‘receiver’, emphasising the careful planning and construction involved in the production of children’s advertisement texts, together with insight into how the target audiences negotiate an understanding of what might be happening on the screen. The five key research issues will be considered in relation to the emergent findings in each chapter, with the main intention of ascertaining where the children seem to stand in relation to advertisements and the gender stereotypes depicted within them. The implications of the research will also be reviewed and further research exercises will be suggested.