Recent study: Ethical concerns in digital advertising to children as consumers (Srivastava)
The study scrutinised the portrayal of girls in fifteen advertisements found on the public Facebook pages of fast fashion companies (H&M, Lindex, Kappahl, and Gina Tricot). An ethical concern was that they sustained stereotypical ideas of girls (e.g., girls are caring and mainly interested in their appearance), either cogently or subtly. These findings can be used by, for example, corporations and advocacy groups.
The study also used eight focus group discussions with 38 children aged 13–16 in the Finnish capital area to explore their perspectives on contemporary digital marketing practices such as online profiling and targeted advertisements.
Children’s main ethical concerns were that targeted advertisements may encourage over-consumption, online data gathering processes are opaque, online profiling is privacy invasive, refusing online data collection is challenging because privacy terms are cryptic, and online targeting can limit their choices and perspectives.
In contrast, some children found contemporary digital marketing practices unproblematic because they did not regard online profiling as privacy invasive, found targeted advertisements helpful, and considered the monitoring of their previous online activities as ‘normal’.
When navigating contemporary commercial digital environments, children adopted some practices (like controlling the information given specifically for commercial profiling, accepting mandatory cookies whenever possible, and so on) that helped them protect their online commercial privacy, at least to some extent.
In contrast, certain practices made them vulnerable to digital commercial surveillance.
These results indicate that most children are not oblivious to the ethical concerns surrounding contemporary online advertising formats, and some also take possible steps to counter them. However, various societal actors need to support children better so that children’s rights as citizens in digital environments can be upheld.
For instance, the study found that children’s knowledge of cookies, online data movements and privacy protection mechanisms can be enhanced. Media literacy educators in Finland can use these findings. Moreover, the study identified the challenges children face in protecting their online commercial privacy.
These results can be used by regulators to improve privacy regulations and make corporations more accountable for ensuring children’s privacy. The finding that children deem online data collection processes opaque can be used by advocacy groups. They can urge corporations to demystify these processes.
The dissertation was funded by: The Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland, Ģֱ’s Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, and the Ellen and Artturi Nyyssönen Foundation.
Sonali Srivastava, MSocSc, defends her doctoral dissertation in sociology “Advertising ethics and children as consumers in digital environments” on 17 May 2024 at 12:00 in S212. Her opponent is Professor Sirkku Kotilainen (University of Tampere) and the Custos is Professor Terhi-Anna Wilska (Ģֱ).
Publication:
Sonali Srivastava, MSocSc, is a doctoral researcher at the Ģֱ.
Further information: sonali.s.srivastava@jyu.fi 044-2061697
