Setting My Final Question and Flowchart Writeup

Children and Television; Does the way that Fast Food is marketed at children promote an unbalanced diet and a sedentary nature

Flowchart

1) How is fast food advertised at children:
-Scheduling of adverts themselves
-Deconstructing the adverts
--> packaging
-->music
-->actors
-->catchphrases
-Create a theory, and test it through primary research

2) Industry: Avertising Industry, and the effects of Government Legislation
- Restrictions
--> Have these had any impact on sales
=> Have they reduced obesity rates?
-Media Theorists which agree/disagree with the ideas behind these restrictions
-protectionist theory, hypodermic needle, the effects model, problems with the effects model (David Gauntlett),

3) Primary Research

-Viewing Diaries
-->What they watch
-->average watching times
-->adverts in the breaks
--> tick box style to make it easier - will increase likehood of responses

-Activity Diaries
-->How much exercise they get
=>investigating correlation between tv watching and exercise
==> will be displayed in graph form
-Food Diary

=> To investigate the levels of pester power. To see if the snacks and food that they eat are a result of them requesting it or whether the parent has ultimate say

-Questionaires
=PARENTS
--> if they feel their children watch too much tv
--> who chooses what goes into the shopping basket
--> they they feel their children watch too much tv
---> if they feel that tv has a negative influence in their childrens lives
---> what kind of tv shows do they THINK their kids watch

=CHILDREN
-- tick box style
-->favourite shows
--> favourite snacks
--> how they choose theirsnacks

4) Secondary Research
- Internet polls
--> whether they think kids watch too much tv
-Newspaper Clipping
--> analyse content, reliability
-websites
--> theory
--> statistics
--> legislation changes
-books
--> Fast Food is Good For Kids

5) summing up of my research

Statistics on Childrens TV watching habits

http://www.csun.edu/science/health/docs/tv&health.html

Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680

Number of 30-second TV commercials seen in a year by an average child: 20,000

Percentage of 4-6 year-olds who, when asked to choose between watching TV

and spending time with their fathers, preferred television: 54

Percentage of local TV news broadcast time devoted to advertising: 30


There is a high emphasis on television advertising and the amount of television consumed by children a day (4 hours on average). This would give advertisers a lot of opportunity to access children and sell their products.