INTRODUCTION
With the birth of mass media there is an opportunity for mass manipulation especially when this manipulation is directed towards a young generation that absorbs information like a sponge (Pomeranz, 2010). Youth are prime targets of media advertisers because they control a forty billion dollar market on their own, and have the purchasing power to influence a seven hundred billion dollar adult market (Barbaro & Earp, 2008). For this reason, it is important to thoroughly explore if children are being manipulated by media corporations in order to make money. This paper will explore the causes and effects of marketing towards children while focusing on how it is a social problem. Media manipulation is a social problem because “children …show more content…
Ethics is defined as “a branch of philosophy that deals with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions” (Tepperman, Albanese, & Curtis, 2014, p. 63). Firstly, children are exposed to three hundred and sixty degree immersive marketing (Barbaro & Earp, 2008). This means marketers try to get around the child at every aspect and every avenue available. The brand is presented at all points of consumer contact, such as television, video games and the internet, all at the same time. “Immersive marketing is one of the top trends advertisers utilize in 2015” (Lee et al., 2010, p.398). This marketing strategy is great for media companies but severely harms children (Pomeranz, 2010). A child builds attachments to branded characters and using these same characters to sell children products is leveraging the child’s emotions in order to make money, which is ethically wrong (Barbaro & Earp, …show more content…
The GIA “enlists children to be marketers without parent’s permission” (Barbaro & Earp, 2008). The GIA has over “forty thousand secret agents aged from eight years old and their mission is to spy on their girlfriends on behalf of corporations” (Kurg, 2004, para. 2). According to Barbaro and Earp, this is completely unethical because they even use spy cams to watch the girls interact with its client’s products (Barbaro & Earp, 2008). Therefore, the process of targeting young children with media is unethical because of three hundred and sixty degree immersive marketing, ethnographic research and agencies such as the
With the birth of mass media there is an opportunity for mass manipulation especially when this manipulation is directed towards a young generation that absorbs information like a sponge (Pomeranz, 2010). Youth are prime targets of media advertisers because they control a forty billion dollar market on their own, and have the purchasing power to influence a seven hundred billion dollar adult market (Barbaro & Earp, 2008). For this reason, it is important to thoroughly explore if children are being manipulated by media corporations in order to make money. This paper will explore the causes and effects of marketing towards children while focusing on how it is a social problem. Media manipulation is a social problem because “children …show more content…
Ethics is defined as “a branch of philosophy that deals with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions” (Tepperman, Albanese, & Curtis, 2014, p. 63). Firstly, children are exposed to three hundred and sixty degree immersive marketing (Barbaro & Earp, 2008). This means marketers try to get around the child at every aspect and every avenue available. The brand is presented at all points of consumer contact, such as television, video games and the internet, all at the same time. “Immersive marketing is one of the top trends advertisers utilize in 2015” (Lee et al., 2010, p.398). This marketing strategy is great for media companies but severely harms children (Pomeranz, 2010). A child builds attachments to branded characters and using these same characters to sell children products is leveraging the child’s emotions in order to make money, which is ethically wrong (Barbaro & Earp, …show more content…
The GIA “enlists children to be marketers without parent’s permission” (Barbaro & Earp, 2008). The GIA has over “forty thousand secret agents aged from eight years old and their mission is to spy on their girlfriends on behalf of corporations” (Kurg, 2004, para. 2). According to Barbaro and Earp, this is completely unethical because they even use spy cams to watch the girls interact with its client’s products (Barbaro & Earp, 2008). Therefore, the process of targeting young children with media is unethical because of three hundred and sixty degree immersive marketing, ethnographic research and agencies such as the