‘This might be advertising’

Abstract

Advertising is ubiquitous in children's everyday life – and on the Internet. The manifestations of online advertising are not only diverse but also very dynamic, increasingly personalised and therefore challenging for young online users in multiple respects. From the perspectives of both law and media education, the central question arises whether children are able to identify online advertising as such and to understand its intention. A basic understanding of advertising and reliable labelling of advertising material is seen as fundamental requirements for children to identify advertising as such and to be able to handle it appropriately and competently. Concerning the question of advertising literacy, we present findings of an interdisciplinary study in which we investigate the concept of online advertising of primary school age and how they deal with advertising online. The results show how challenging online advertising is for children and at which points they have difficulties in transferring their concept of advertising to online content. Against the background of the study, we discuss the idea of advertising literacy and the methodological challenges about current and future forms of online advertising and persuasive messages.