Lapsed ja tarbimisühiskond: Eesti lapsevanemate käsitlused

Date

2005

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Abstract

Description

There has been no research on the topics related to parents' opinions on their children's consuming habits in Estonia before. Marketing that targets children is as a whole a new branch of study in Estonia on account of which the present BA thesis can be seen as conceptional. Therefore almost half of this paper is dedicated to giving an overview of earlier thoretical treatments and research. The empirical part of my work consists of conclusions made on the qualitative text analysis of in-depth interviews with 11 parents and describes their viewpoints. From one side it was necessary to study parents' standpoints for practical reasons. The questions how to protect children or how to regulate marketing that is targeted on children are relevant for Estonian society and regarding the increasing pressure of marketing, become even more relevant in due time. That is where the parents have an important role, for they largely shape the consuming habits of children and the formal methods of any kind (laws or the code of ethics of marketing) are never effective enough to protect children. The results of the present work can also be used to compile materials and lectures for parents. On the other hand, different articles on marketing for children express certain broader attitudes towards consuming culture that is more widely a subject of social way of thinking. For adults, children's position is special and describing children works as an indicator of a wider social thinking. One of the main focuses in this work is the parents' view on the position of subjects that are placed in the triangle of child, marketing and the parent. In general, there dominated a pattern where marketing was seen as manipulative and hazardous for children. At the same time, it was not regarded as a serious problem because of the important protective-pedagogical influence of parents. The effect of marketing is also described in a rather simplified manner, it seems that the prototypes of advertising are the washing powder commercials produced for Eastern European market. Therefore parents might not even consider the typical complicated marketing materials as direct advertisements. Secondly this paper focuses on perceptions of the symbolic values of consumption and opportunities to cope with cognitive tensions when the parents' resources were limited (in the state of deprivation). Empirical results brought forth dominating pattern of “rational” consumption, parents admitted unfilled needs of their children but as a rule these were seen as unimportant and marginal. In general there is the detectable ambivalence in viewpoints, which were influenced by strong cognition of social norms and overall scarce awareness. Parents with higher tensions showed more considered and protective attitudes. This topic certainly needs further research in Estonia, especially with an aim to draw representative conclusions.

Keywords

H Social Sciences (General), bakalaureusetööd

Citation