Funferal

Defending advertising to children

Zeichenzug has a post considering what defences exist for advertising to children. He nails it pretty well, but I thought I’d add something I’d observed in the Irish debate.
Essentially, the strongest argument is, indeed, that exposure to advertising may help to build some skills. However, in the Irish context it was claimed that not to expose children to advertising could be cruel, as the children would be totally at the mercy of advertisers when they got older, without the necessary skills. However, this was coupled with a claim that advertising would not damage children as it had little practical persuasive effect.
Which leads to the point I tried to make in the context of the Irish debate that these two arguments are somewhat incompatible. Or rather that one would need to do some fancy footwork to argue both that real damage could occur to adults from exposure to advertising, and that no restrictions should be made on exposure of children as they will not be harmed.