Technology Encounter to Childhood: A Semiotic Analysis of Children’s Role in TV Advertising

As one of the most important media portals, television transmits many messages to the audience openly and secretly on a daily basis. These messages play a decisive role in shaping consumer tastes and public opinion. In the meantime, children are one of the most important audiences for television programs, especially the advertising genre. Enters and affects their economic and consumption behaviors and those of their parents. Therefore, the present study seeks to semiotically examine the presence of children in television advertising. With a qualitative semiotic approach, this study examines eleven TV commercials in which the child plays the main role. The results of the research showed that children in the context of these advertisements are in a passive and powerless position against the powerful force of technology. The result of this confrontation between the powerless and the powerful is the discipline of children’s bodies, their submission and uniformity through the control and order induced by the media with an emphasis on the transcendental capacity of technological products. What is evident in these advertisements is the forms of training and upbringing of the child for early adulthood.