Rossetti Chi Lam Ng
#301035829
2008 spring
CMNS 428-Media Analysis Project Group
Media and Education
Media design project 1
18th February,2008
Nowadays, many scholars argue that whether media such as TV and Internet are helpful to children’s learning. Although we do no have any concrete information or details that prove media have a bad or good way to educate the children, but I believe that media do affect children in their daily lives.
Since image is a powerful tool, somehow I believe that advertisements are more powerful than TV and Internet which will affect children perspective by time to time. Maybe many people will not pay attention to the advertisements; in fact, they are around us everyday in everywhere. We have seen many advertisements not only through TV or print media, but also billboards and Internet. We may somehow accept or instilled some notion unconsciously. However, advertisement is just a tool for advertisers in order to promote and sell their products. The main purpose of advertisements is to convince people to consume; advertisers may try to instill improper perspectives in order to achieve their goals. In this case, children will be the easiest group to be influenced. Since most of the parents need to work these days, children will have more time to spend with different media alone. They do not have enough ability to define and analyze those advertisements in their everyday lives; they will be the easiest group to convince.
In these recent years, there are a lot of children having a health problem such as obesity because they have absorb too much fat, sugar and chemical materials in their food. In this case, many people will doubt that if they have somehow affected by the advertisement that appeal them.
In the advertisement of Skittles, the advertiser uses a colorful rainbow and sky as a background to match with the product which can also catch the children’s attention. The image creates a colorful, fun and innocent concept to children. With the description of “Original fruit” on the Skittles’ bag, it may probably instill the improper concept to children. Since they may think fruit is healthy, and they will think the candies in original fruit is also healthy, they will trust the ad and eat the candies just like fruit in daily lives. In fact, those candies are not natural; they contain many different chemical materials such as food pigment. Those chemical materials will harm children’s health and children may have cancer with excess chemical pigments.
Moreover, with the slogan “ Taste the rainbow” will give an amazing and interesting feeling to children. They will be curious of the taste of the rainbow or they will believe that the rainbow is able to tasted. It is only a commercial technique to catch children’s attention to persuade them to try it. However, children may have a wrong understanding of the actual rainbow. Since children do not have enough ability to separate the real and virtual life, they may think fruit is colorful and colorful food will be healthy. Then they will have a partiality of food, which only eat food in a vivid color that they think is healthy.
Different with the Skittle’s ad, the ad of Krispy Kream does not have a colorful and animated background to attract children. The advertiser uses the actual products and the slogan “ 0grms fat” and “100% delicious think about Krispy Kreme” to persuade consumer to consume. With the actual images of donuts, it may build up a wrong perspective that Krispy Kreme’s donuts are indeed no fat and healthy. However, again children do not have the knowledge that donuts contain high portion of sugar which will eventually become fat in the human bodies. Furthermore, with the slogan “100% delicious think about Krispy Kreme”, which sort of educate children that only products from Krispy Kreme are delicious. Then they may not want to eat except food from Krispy Kreme.
The image of the fires is also appealing to children. Again, with the vivid yellow and red color on the container, it will attract children’s attention. From the animation of children that the advertiser designed on the packing, children may somehow educated or they will connote that fries is friendly and appealing to them which they should eat more. Nevertheless, fries is a type of junk food which is not healthy. Although it is made by potatoes, fries contains a lot of oil and salt. Eating too much of fries or junk food with leads to obesity.
In these decades, obesity or other health problem of children is being a concern in many countries. Children tend to have partiality of food. While many people is arguing that whether media such as TV, Internet and magazine can be an informal entertainment-education to children that can have a more interactive and motivating way for learning, we may also focus on the children’s health problem. Teaching children to have healthy bodies is also a way of learning. Usually when people are arguing whether those media having a positive or negative impact on children, they somehow have omit the advertisement in those media. Indeed, advertisement is one of the important elements in media industry. Advertisements are placed no only in different broadcasting and print media, but also in everywhere such as billboards from shopping malls and public transportation. I agree that people should concern if children are educated properly either in formal or informal way of education system. However, I also think that people should take care of the advertisements as well. Since advertisements appear everywhere, it may be the easiest way to get children’s attention and where they learn. The main purpose of advertisement is to promote and persuade people to consume; sometimes advertisers will encode certain different complicated ideas together. While children do not have enough ability to decode those advertisements correctly, they may decode and have improper understanding of the ads. In a way, children will be educated inappropriately by the advertisements. Therefore, advertisements will be a barrier for children to learn and understand the actual world. (991 words)