Systems of Regulation of Advertising Aimed at Children in Television

The Children are honest, credulous and vulnerable. These characters have been making them as one of the best baits for commercial advertising. In addition to their purchasing power from their pocket proceeds, they also have a significant effect on their family’s purchases. Also, they provide the future market of a product. This capability led to market of selling products and services to children has become one of the best-selling markets and thus, children are excessively addressed to commercial advertising. For protecting children from these adverse effects of commercial advertising, this is the question that which methods exist for children’s advertising regulation? In the other words, who should regulate the advertising aimed at children and how? Advertising industry? Government? Or both of them? These triple types of regulation are: self-regulation, state regulation and co-regulation. This paper studies these types of regulations in various countries and in the light of the results from this study, examines the situation of regulation of advertising aimed at children in Iran.