Final Research Paper Rough Draft

    Obesity has become a nationwide epidemic but has also started to occur with children as well. One in three American children is found to be either overweight or obese. Research has indicated that the increase in childhood obesity can be due to many factors such as: social factors, cultural factors, behavioral factors, or even genetic factors, but there is one additional factor the research fails to point. Advertisements displayed during the child's television time plays an important hand in the cause of childhood obesity. Exposure to unhealthy foods through such advertisements can impact the child's purchase requests and the food choices.

    Advertisements can be a good way to introduce and inform the viewers of the new foods that are available to the public. Because today children live in a media-saturated society, they have a tendency to be found in front of some sort of media in electronic recreation mostly being found sitting in front of the television enabling them to be physically inactive.  To link advertisements to obesity, an analysis of the television content should be executed. Arnas; part of the Cukorova University’s faculty of education in Adana, Turkey conducted a two part study to prove that link. Arnas evaluated a sample of children aging three to eight year old for her analysis. One part of her study consisted of a content analysis of the television session the children watched. The study started with a five week analysis of the content of the television sessions between 07.00 hours and 11.30 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. Each weekend different channels were observed and the average time the children spent on those five channels was 121 minutes with television viewing containing 35 minutes worth advertisements. Furthermore, Arnas reported that basically 44.37 percent ads featured were for foods, while 26.05 percent for cleaning supplies, and 9.15 percent for journals or magazines. A grand total of 775 products were introduced in between the show breaks with 347 of those advertisements pertaining to foods. Of those advertised foods 28.35 percent were for candy or chocolate, 23.91 percent were for chips, 12.96 percent were for milk and milk products like cheese and yoghurt, and 11.64% were for breakfast cereals. With this in mind, there were no advertisements, pertaining to the nutritional healthy foods such as vegetables, eggs, fruits, or legumes. Another study on a broader demographic scale between October 2007 and March 2008, was conducted in a collaboration of 13 research groups of the continents: Australia, Asia, Western Europe, South America, and North America. In this study, in addition to the two weekend days being observed, two weekdays were also added between 6:00 hours and 22:00 hours recording for three channels most watched by children. Across all the countries, there was a total of 68,462 advertisements identified in which 18 percent of the ads were for food. Furthermore, of the 18 percent foods, 12 percent of those food ads were for fast food ads, 12 percent were for chocolate or confectionery goods, 9 percent were for low fat dairy products, 8 percent were for full fat airy products, and 8 percent of the ads were for high fat foods and sauces. These advertisement analysis show how much advertisement is directed to the children.

    The purchasing requests of the products that the children saw on television can explain how great of an impact the advertisement had on them. According to Arnas's research, 59.1 percent of the children requested the candies, 50.7 percent requested non-acidic soft drinks such as fruit juice, 33.7 percent of the children requested soft drinks such as Pepsi or Coca Cola, 26.8 percent of them requested milk and or milk related products such cheese or yoghurt, and 5.5 percent of them requested fish and meat products. Another study executed by members of the Department of Intercultural Communication and Management in Copengaen's Business School located in Frederiksberg, Denmark, W Gwozdz and LA Reisch revealed the influence of children advertisements. By utilizing two instruments of measurement; one being choice experiment on children aging from 5 to 10 year old's food knowledge and preferences, and second, a questionnaire on children’s knowledge about and attitudes towards food advertising. These instruments accounted for seven different European countries: Belgium, Italy, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Spain. The choice experiment portion of the study evaluated the children's knowledge and preference for healthy foods and drinks. 10 cards were released containing photos of pairs of one unhealthy food and one healthy food. Right besides each of the two categorized foods, a picture of the child was drawn by an artist without a smile, where the child would draw a happy smile or a sad frown. This signified the child's satisfaction for that particular food. This choice experiment altogether assessed the child's preference and knowledge of the food. The preference was set by drawing the smiley face or frown. Before the start of the experiment, the children were informed as to the definition of a healthy food being something that would not make you sick. Acknowledging this, the child had to draw a second smiley or frown face for the smile of something that won't make them sick and a frown for something that would make them sick. The result of the 334 children tested disclosed the scores of an average of 5.96 out of a maximum of 10 for ‘healthy’ foods and drinks on the knowledge test and 3.82 on the preference test. In short, 92.2 percent of the 334 children could distinguish the healthier food but only 33.2 percent actually preferred the healthier food or drink.


    When advertised such wide range of foods, the interpretation of what the child conceives is the main message of the advertisement plays an important role in determining what they choose to buy. Of the study performed by W Gwozdz and LA Reisch, the second instrument they used to measure the children's knowledge on advertisements. The second instrument used was a children's questionnaire on the response to the advertisements. Again the same system of the smiley face / frown face was used but tweaked by being able to use an expression of the mouth that ranged form 1 (dissatisfaction) to 4 (complete satisfaction). The questionnaire focused on 4 concepts. The first was if the child found advertisement useful. The second dimension asked if the children felt there was credibility in the advertisements and if they ever suspected the meaning of the commercial message. The third critiqued the entertainment factor satisfaction of the advertisement. And the last  but not least, stated the social desirability meaning what do the children do when it is time to eat. The smiley face- frown face system had to be re-tweaked back to the original response of only the smile for agreement and frown for disagreement. The results for this questionnaire were as follows. On the first dimension of the usefulness of the advertisement, the children completely agreed 28.7 percent of the time thinking that the foods advertised are tasty and healthy, 38.6 percent somewhat agreed, 19.1 somewhat disagreed, and 13.3 percent completely disagreed . The children see advertisements as introducing the new foods to them that they may be unaware of. The second dimension of suspicion scored a 35.9 percent full agreement for perceiving that advertised foods are not meant to be consumed, 28.1 somewhat agreed, 19.1 percent somewhat disagreed, and 15.7 completely disagreed. Here the child can somewhat judge that what is being advertised might not be so healthy.  The third dimension of entertainment scored a 16.5 percent that the advertisements were amusing to them, 27.5 percent somewhat agreed, 14.5 somewhat disagreed, and 40.0 disagreed. This is a common thing because usually the child would be waiting for their television show to continue from the periodic commercial breaks. The last factor of social desirability scored a 38.3 percent for proclaiming that the child watches television while eating. 18.6 percent somewhat agreed, 21.9 somewhat disagreed, and 21 percent completely disagreed. According to the statistics, the child does not easily see that the advertisement is rather a persuasive message than informative knowledge for new foods. An advertising executive Alex Bogusky affirms that children are vulnerable and its the adult that "possess a healthy level of judgement and discernment to filter and choose," for the advertised foods (Malefyt annd Morais, pg 126).


    When viewing these advertisements, the way children react in retrospect to the foods presented in the commercials also exhibits the manipulative advertising techniques of the agencies. Arnas's study reveals how the components of the child's behavior changed when exposed to the food advertisements. Over her five week analysis, the results she gathered in response to the food advertisements was that 2.6 percent of the children were non reactive while they shopped with their parents. 13.5 percent of the children identified the foods they saw on television and made commentary about them. 40.3 percent wanted their parents to purchase the foods they saw on the commercial. It even went to an extent that 8.9 percent of the children assessed insisted on buying the product, and when refused started to cry. There is a definite correlation to the behavior exhibited.

    Not only basic food brands take advantage of young consumers, but fast food franchises also don't fall far behind in taking the opportunity. Amy M. Bernhardt, Cara Wilking, Anna M. Adachi-Mejia, Elaina Bergamini, Jill Marijnissen, and James D. Sargent; all researchers from prestigious institutes of the Netherlands and United States; cooperated to conduct a study which observed fast food franchises of McDonald's and Burger King advertisements. Their study was based off of QSRs (Quick Service Restaurant) television advertisements that aired between the one year time period from  July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010. The researchers found that of those 92 QSRs classified, 70 percent attributed to McDonald's franchise, and 29 percent attributed to the Burger King franchise. Of all the channels the QSRs had been retrieved, the researchers unfolded that that of the 25,000 advertisements investigated, 79 percent belonged to children television channels : Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney XD, and Nicktoons. When advertised to kids, fast foods chains focused on the children meals. 62 of the QSRs were for McDonald's Happy Meal, 30 were for Burger King's Kids Meal, and only 3 came from Subway's Fresh Fit for Kids. As seen from the statistics, fast food franchises are indeed starting to target the younger consumers more and more.
    Of the fast food franchise advertisements, the way the advertisements are displayed can provide insight of the clever techniques used by the advertisement agencies to draw attention of the children to their foods. The study conducted by Bernhardt and her colleagues is found useful to disclose those techniques. Analyzing the 92 QSRs, the research team uncovered that more visual branding was involved in the children's meals from the fast food franchises. Food packaging in the children advertisement was 88 percent prevalent than the 23 percent in adult advertisement. Toy premiums or giveaways were displayed 69 percent in children advertisements in vast difference of 1 percent for adult advertisements. Movie tie-ins statistically appeared 55 percent of the time vs. 14 percent in children's vs. adult's advertisements. Interestingly, the script of the children's advertisement carried more emphasis on the movie tie-ins while in adult advertisements, the food taste, price, and portion size were prioritized.





This is pretty much my unpolished draft of my final research essay. But I do want to include further in depth analysis of the world of children food advertisements by:
1. Analyzing the historical change if any in the advertisements
2. Looking if there is Government intervention in placing laws or bans on the way children are advertised to
3. Include my own analysis of the impact of food advertisements on children

Any more ideas on what I can talk about in my research paper will be appreciated. Thanks.



  

Week 12: Outline and Overview of Research Essay

                Basically I decided to have a rough outline for my research essay that will pretty much discuss these things

Paragraph 1: Introduction

Paragraph 2: Give an overall general view of the studies and research I gathered conducted  

Paragraph 3: Explain the effects of the food advertisements

Paragraph 4: Compare the differences of an adult food advertisement and children food advertisement

Paragraph 5: Explain historically the change of children food advertisement

Paragraph 6: Give an example of my own analysis of the food advertisement

Paragraph 7: Conclusion.

One in three American children is found to be either overweight or obese. Children’s poor eating habits can be attributed to the environment the child is in and the eating habits of the family in general, but surprisingly another factor that contributed to overweight and obese children is food advertisements on television. The majority of the food advertisements displayed today consist of foods containing junk foods of high calories, sugars, and fats. These types of diets at such a young age are precursors to diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular problems. There have been many studies conducted that hold that food advertising for children does indeed affect their purchase requests and diets. With the amount of time children spent in front of the television, food industries take advantage and start to make big bucks off the viewers at such a young age. Watching television stations such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and Nicktoons, about 79% of the advertisements played through the commercial break aimed at the children. Specifically fast foods composed the 69% of those ads.  The problem with these ads was that they mentioned some sort of toy giveaway or movie-tie-in promotions to hook their viewers. These advertisements included strong branding.

                With the extensive research I conducted, I came to the conclusion that food advertisements do indeed affect the purchase requests but can also influence the behavior of the child. Not having the junk foods requested, the child begins to throw tantrums and fits until the parent has to give in and buy the junk food.

Children Food Choices

So basically, I wanted to research further into the topic of how children fast food advertising is changing or altering the food choices of children. From the group presentation I did in class, I recall having to compare the food advertisements for the particular McDonald's fast food franchise. There was a distinctive difference in the advertisement of how before the advertisement showcased the happy meals toys for the children and promoted the movie while now these days you still see the toys being promoted but there are also the nutritional tips that come along to promote healthy food choices. In terms of the connection to the popular culture, by researching the topic, the nutritional health aspect can be evaluated for the children foods. As of now, I would say that the society is taking better steps to improving the health of everyone because of the extent of how much obesity has grown and the fact that there are even cases of diabetes being exposed in children. I further need to know more about the distinctive role of the advertisement and the food choice.

Facebook's Message of Connection

            With advancement of technology, we have opened ways to communicate through new mass medias. The popular quote by Marshall McLuhan “the medium is the message,” implicates the impact of the new mass medias on the audience. These new mass media can include blogging, television, and magazines, but the largest impact new mass media can have is through social network sites. Social network sites have become very much popular in our era. Practically anyone with access to an electronic device or computer can be found using the social network sites. Facebook in particular is a perfect example of one of the leading social network sites.  The quote by McLuhan can be expressed through analysis of the Facebook site being used within the educational system.

            Created by Mark Zuckberg on Feburary 2004, Facebook is one of the social network services that has made itself on the list as being one of the newer mass media. Facebook has enabled people to create identities and also be able to make connections with family and friends worldwide. There has been a controversy that Facebook is promoting anti-social behavior but if you consider the many connections people have accomplished through Facebook, such as relationships and friendships, Facebook is anything but anti-social. It allows people to discover others that share common interests and enriches their lives. Therefore, when McLuhan had pointed out the medium, which in this case is Facebook, “is the message,” he refers to the many connections that have followed with the innovation of Facebook.

            When taking a closer look at McLuhan’s quote “medium is the message,” it can be interpreted as the “message is the medium.” With the wide use of Facebook specifically by students, anything can be utilized and transmitted through Facebook. For example, since college students have knowledge that their classmates have a Facebook as well, they can add their classmates to communicate through private messaging for a particular assignment or project. It beats other resources such as emailing because when you don’t have your classmates email or phone number you have a greater chance of finding them on Facebook because its such a popular social network site. Therefore when said the medium is the message

            Another tool that enables Facebook to become the connection is the event creator. When students feel the need to meet up for a project or presentation, they can invite people to the event on Facebook. You can either claim to be present at the meeting, or claim not to go. It beats trying to contact each and everyone of your classmates to inform them of meeting somewhere because you can simply invite all the classmates at once with a click of the button. If someone is not able to make it they can simply click “No” instead of having to call. This enables an entirely new way to interact with people because you do not need to take time out of your schedule to inform about meetings. Because people use Facebook daily, they will see the invite to the event and be able to inform you if they are coming or not.

           

            Furthermore, Facebook has proven to be beneficial to the faculty and professors of educational institutions. By contacting the students through Facebook, the professors can easily learn about their students. With an understanding of the student’s background by looking at the student’s interest, professors can suggest ideas for a particular project. For example, when I was in High School, my teacher had required everyone to join the Honor’s Writing Group on Facebook to discuss possible topics they would want to write about. Students find it more comfortable to access Facebook than any other institutional platform such as Pima’s D2L. In addition, there is more comfort in knowing that your teacher doesn’t need your phone number to contact you and can just message you on Facebook. Furthermore, even when a class has ended, the relationship between the student and professor is still maintained when the student wants to seek advice for their future career or need a recommendation letters as their references when applying for internships or jobs. The medium of Facebook once again builds the “message” of connection.

The Walking Dead TV Series Analysis (Rough Draft)

A television show series that has for a while been of my interest is “The Walking Dead.” Based off of the 2003 black and white comic book series  “The Walking Dead” by the author Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard, this tv series has gained excellent ratings since its first premiered on on October 31, 2010 cable AMC channel. This television series revolves around the plot of events occurring after a zombie apocalypse has occurred. The interesting thing that sets apart this  tv series from any ordinary zombie apocalypse movie or other show is because instead of focusing only on the main idea of survival against the large hoards of zombies, “The Walking Dead” TV series focuses on the elements of emotions and relations.

                                           Originally rated for the viewers to be “TV-14,” the demographics for the audience is “18-49” year olds.  The targeted audience of “The Walking Dead” series can be basically anyone who enjoys zombie flicks or, as a matter of fact, it can be for anyone who enjoys gore.

                                           Analyzing particular episodes and analyzing characters within this series, you can get a better idea of the values or beliefs that this series wants to present. In the first season of the series you find a redneck character named Merle. Merle is seen as a very tough character in this series. We see him being this figure who “doesn’t beg” in front of anyone or in fact even God. In a particular episode, when chained on top of the rooftop, Merle takes the situation into his own hands and saws off his own hand in order to survive from the zombies that were coming towards him. He has this hard shelled personality in him that seeks no help from mankind or God. Further into the series, Merle had also become a villain. Despite Merle being portrayed as someone who was a “bad guy” from the start; by going on a suicide mission in order to kill the Governer, Merle proved the thory that even a bad guy can become a good guy at the end. This character appeals to the audiences who have also had a rough childhood and feel helpless to their own situation. They can change for the better.

                                           Another concept that “The Walking Dead” series examines is the concept of racism. This again is seen through the character of Merle. In the first season, we see T-Dog, the sole African American character in the majority surviving group of white people.  Merle in particular detests T-Dog because he is not white.  The concept of racism is seen when Merle constantly makes T-Dog feel inferior by ordering him around and using the term “nigger.” Later , when T-Dog and Merle got into an argument, you see Merle beat T-Dog and spit on his face. Rick then takes control of the situation by cuffing Merle to the rooftop telling T-Dog to watch over him. When the sudden outbreak of zombies is released and everyone was trying to escape, despite Merle’s attitude towards T-Dog, T-Dog attempted to save Merle. This shows the value that despite the racism that Merle showed towards T-Dog, there was still humanity in him to attempt to save Merle.

                                           The values in the Walking Dead surface when you start to looks into the relationships of the survivors during the crisis of the zombie apocalypse. A particular relation that spawned from the series was of Carol’s. She represents the figure of a perfect wife. Her husband Ed, is a individual who likes to have authority. Carol’s marriage with Ed gives him the authority he wants by him constantly pushing around Carol. For instance, there was this one episode, where Carol was washing the laundry with other two female characters of the series and when she began to open up and joke around with the other two females. This catches Ed’s attention and he tells the ladies to stop conversing and wash the laundry properly. This upsets one of the females who reacts by talking back to Ed. This angers Ed and he tells Carol to come with him. When Carol refuses to do so, this in effect leads to Ed slapping Carol on the face. The by standing character Shayne in response, starts to beat up Ed for his behavior. At the end, Carol still tends to her beaten husband. Throughout the series, you notice that the relation between Ed and Carol is abusive. Regardless the abuse, she still cares for him. In the series, we see Carol cowering in front of Ed but once Ed had died she became more of a braver woman who could stand her ground. The relation with Ed was limiting her and she became a victim of battered wife syndrome. She was so dependent on her husband, that she became entirely submissive.  This uncovers the belief that woman have when they stay in an abusive relation. They think that the abusive husband will change when in fact the woman has changed herself.

Advertisement Tracking Trends

Advertisers these days are constantly attempting to increase their sales and do so by using advertisements. But to the viewer itself, it feels as if each advertisement is endeavoring to fulfill a desire one has. Each and every one of us has had a fantasy to become someone we already are not. These fantasies vary from achieving an physical attractiveness, an adventurous journey or just plain rich.  Advertisers display those fantasies in their advertisements and try to affiliate that particular fantasy to their product. But when those advertisement start to hinder our web surfing, the question of privacy instantly opens up. Because we use the World Wide Web on a daily basis, the many of the sites we use are being tracked through cookies. This enables the advertisers to see what the surfer is interested in , and therefore the advertisements that pop up while surfing are relevant to us. Most of the people don’t even have a clue that they are being tracked. The issue of targeting can be argued as a positive or a negative.  But I feel that there are more cons than pro. It makes an individual vulnerable when someone has access to their personal information. What sites they have been visiting, what they buy, what things they have googled on the web should be something that the individual is only entitled to know. This information can get into the wrong hands and you would have serious problems such as being scammed. The invasion of privacy may destroy opportunities for people who search for jobs or apply for educational institutions. The tracking is no longer limited for companies to reach their customers; it is now accessible by anyone. My main point being that even though internet tracking may make it convenient for buyers to have discounts and coupons on things they continuously buy, I certainly am not willing to give up my privacy for it. 

Unit 1: Advertising Analysis (Poison Control)

Not sure of what I should analyze and tired of looking for latest ads to analyze from on tv, I  decided to google the term “advertisements” and save time from going to waste. At first I saw a picture of a water grenade that caught my eye. Wanting to analyze it further I visited the page, the grenade picture was on, and I saw multiple brilliantly captured ads, and one in particular caught my attention. Considering the fact that I have younger siblings, I could easily relate to this picture. I think it was really clever on the advertiser’s part to use lenticular effect (showing two different images viewed with different angles) to render his point. My initial response to seeing this ad was disbelief. I really couldn’t envision the bottles being something as so contradicting as to the right side of the picture. This ad is really persuasive because of the comparison of an adult’s mindset to a child’s. This picture really illustrates to the audience of the minds of children and how they visualize certain things. People are unaware of the dangers of swallowing these lethal chemicals. According to the National Capital Poison Center stats, 17,622 Children Poison Exposure cases were found in the year of 2012. About 1,691 cases were for cleaners alone. The targeted audience for this ad can be defined to any households who have children, but seeing that mostly these cleaning chemicals are used by females it specifically pertains to Mothers. Because women handle a lot of what happens in a household, they can easily be careless of where they are placing cleaning chemicals. I can easily understand why and how a child might mistake something as so dangerous as cleaning chemicals as something to eat or drink.  What we see as laundry detergent, in a child’s cognizance, is snow. It makes me truly feel like I should be careful as to where I place such cleaning substances.  

Link to the advert I am analyzing: ( 3rd one )
http://www.rsvlts.com/2012/07/19/35-brilliant-advertisements/ 

Stats:
http://www.poison.org/stats/