The Established and Potential Mediating Variables in the Child's Understanding of Advertising Intent: Towards a Research Agenda

This paper aims to explore in detail the issue of advertising intent, with particular reference to the child. The literature review examines the importance of age, and cognitive and social development in this field, and considers whether or not children can distinguish between television programming and advertising. What the literature review illustrates is that research studies thus far have conflicting viewpoints on these areas. Within the research to date, there are also a number of important issues which do not seem to be addressed. Most notably, there is little research which considers the impact of advertising upon children, from the child's persepctive. This paper thus proposes an exploratory framework which aims to consider the established and potential mediating variables in the child's understanding of advertising intent.