Kids and Subliminal Messages in the Media
Jhoana Hernandez
AP English Literature and Composition
May 29, 2013
Fire Paper
Subliminal messages and perception is the mind control where an individual or group of individuals can be controlled without their awareness. Subliminal messages since at least the 5th century B.C. The early Greeks created the science of theodicy as a way of influencing people by infusing pieces of mind- persuading data into sentences where people can be manipulated by the language they use. This is a way for people to keep control of others or a group of individuals without them noticing. This has now become worse because companies now target women`s and teen girls more than before. The influence of media on children extends into how they view themselves, others and their behavior.
Subliminal messages would not exist if social media would not be evolving as fast as it is. It’s impossible to reject and hide from this new forms and media. The media could be used as a positive way but unfortunately there is always that one person who wants to be in control. These people are the wants that want to make money regardless they way they do it. The first subliminal message was done by the researcher named James Vicary where his goal was to make people want popcorn and coke by flashing "eat popcorn" and "drink Coke" very briefly one screen during a movie. The results where that the sales of popcorn went up by ”57.5% and the sales of Coke rose by 18.1%.”.(Romtin.H, 2013).
As a cause of the experiment scientific researchers, government officials, and consumers in general, felt that the use of subliminal messages was immoral and unacceptable. Experts were never able to prove that subliminal messages worked, the controversy that Vicary`s report created soon died. After time had pass the phenomenon had die until a professor at the University of Western Ontario, conducted a great deal of research on subliminal perception and discovered that subliminal messages were being used in many advertisements. The most common types of hidden messages were either sex images, or images of violence and self destruction.
Advertising is now full of images, symbols, colors, words and body language that send of hidden messages related to consumers cultural background and personal experiences. To create credibility they use actors in white smocks because in many societies consumers associate white smocks with doctors. Some products in which subliminal messages have been used as beer products, beverages, tobacco products, and music that end up having an effect on people’s behavior. There has been many studies conducted to determinate the effect of subliminal messages on people`s behavior.
The people been affected the most by subliminal messages are young adolescent kids and adolescents’. Many adolescents are influenced by the powerful advertisement they see on social media. The media knows there target, and advertisements target adolescents more profoundly and frequently. They are influence by the powerful advertising they see on social media sites , and it strongly influences their buying habits which is why companies focus so much on having their advertisements on TV, radio, movies, etc. Many of them are not aware that they are individually targeted because sites in the internet keep track of their habits and demographics.
We are all susceptible to the message the messages we see in the media, but the influence of media on children is particularly powerful. Many of our basic beliefs are formed in our early years and the media can hold sway if not monitored and regulated by adults "They reported that even 10-year-olds do not fully understand the purpose of the presented advertisement" (Egermann & Kopiez, 2006). From this we can assume that for kids the subliminal messages are not defined which gives companies an advantage because like that they can influence them to buy their products and influence their behavior without them noticing.
Kids and adolescents use the media in many ways that they do not realize all the effects that it has on their lives, and behavior. Theses social media sites offer adolescence new ways to access communications and entertainment without them noticing the long term effects. "Teens rank the media as the leading source of information about sex, second only to school sex education programs".(Ford-Jones,2003) Media has created programs where teens get interested because they do not feel comfortable talking to their parents which could be seen as good thing. But in reality the media is using topics like this to capture teens and kids attention when those kids might be too young to understand the consequences of having sex.
Sometimes you can see the impact of media right away, but most of the time the impact is not so immediate or obvious. It might occur slowly as children see and hear certain messages over and over. Kids spend more hours on the media than any other person, "... they spend more time watching videos on their mobile devices than aim other group-seven hours and forty eight minutes per month, compared with five hours and twenty minutes for adults aged 25-34. (Pham, 2013). Because teens and younger kids spend more time watching TV, playing games which all involve advertisements and commercials they are suitable to see them more than once. This cause them to be influence, to believe something or buy something without noticing why in reality they want it or think the way they do.
The development stage of a child plays a role in the effect of commercials. Young children do not understand the concept of sales pitch. Kids tend to believe what they are told and may even assume that they are deprived if they do not have advertised products. "A number of studies have documented that children under the age of eight years are developmentally unable to understand the difference between advertising and regular programming". (Ford-Jones, 2003). Because subliminal messages are created with a great power, kids learn to believe that doing drugs, having sex and to be violent is right.
With subliminal messages kids begging to create ideas about themselves and the people they surround them when they might not be correct or appropriate. According to an article ,”Women are portrayed frequently in a condescending manner that affects children`s attitudes about sex’. (fFord-Jones, 2003). We can see how subliminal messages can have an impact on the way young kids create a perception on gender roles based on what they might see in the media. This advertisements are not technically wrong but they cause for kids to grow up with a mentality where kids are seen as the boss of a job and women as inferior.
The media has significant potential for providing children and youth with access to educational information, and could be compared with a huge home library. However, the lack of editorial standards limits the media credibility as a source of information. According to pedriatrics, "by the end of the first year of a child`s life, there should be ground rules for television viewing and healthy viewing habits should be established in the second year of life". When parents enforce their rules on their kids when it comes to the amount of media at a early age, the kids are going to be more active not letting them been be influence by the media. Subliminal messages are not able to be that powerful if kids are less expose to them, which is a parents job to monitored.
Subliminal messages want to target kids and adolescents because they do not understand what they are, but if parents and families help them understand thing will be different. According to pediatrics "families should be encourage to explore media together and discuss their education value".(Ford-Jones,2003). Kids and adolescents who spend time watching a TV show with their parents or family members are less likely to be victims of been influence by subliminal messages. Parents have the responsibility to help their kids understand what media is trying to tell them and that everything they see on TV,internet,heard on music or see in movies are true.
Having parents understand and be aware of subliminal messages its a necessary step to help young kids and adolescents understand what a subliminal message is. According to an article by pediatrics "parents can help children differentiate between fantasy and reality, particularly when it comes to sex, violence and advertising". Having kids understand and see what the media might be trying to tell them is not something to do, which is why parents need to see and understand that letting their kids watch for example TV or play video games for numerous amount of time could end up affecting them. When parents are there watching TV with their kids and see that there is a lot of violence is going on , they could simple turn off the TV.
We obviously cant obviously turn or prohibit our kids to use the media because its something essential in our lives either as adults or kids. There are many benefits of having the Internet, games, social networks, etc but explaining it to our kids at a young age can solve many problems.Subliminal messages wont disappear either, they are necessary for companies to have a job because they help them sell those products that are hard to sell because people already know that they either not healthy for them, or they might be too violent to watch.
The difficulties with this topic will be that many parents are not aware of this issue. We need to expose it to our community and the kids itself They need to understand that what they see in TV is not always the true, they need to differentiate what is the media trying to tell them. The government and other organizations need to openly oppose against companies that only s point is to advertise to kids and teenagers to buy junk food because at the end we do have a great percentage of kids that suffer from obesity at a really young age all cause to the amount of junk food that they consume because its wide available to them.
The governments responsibility and the people above them need to make sure first that the media that is going to be expose to kids and the rest rest of the world has a limit on what they are exposing to them. Many kids as we know get their information from the media such the Internet, music and many other stuff. Wouldn't we want to become one our kids to be intellectually prepare to go to college and create a better future for them. This is hard to have when we have kids watching movies or TV shows that have racial subliminal messages on them and when they go out their to college they find themselves struggling to make connections with other people because of what the have learnt previously.
Subliminal messages are never going to disappear because its something that has become almost essential to peoples life. What we could so and should do is use them for a positive way. We should use them to inform young kids about problems affecting the world such as global warming, gang killing , pollution, children suffering hunger and topics that will help our society develop and become stronger. They could help us be more conscious of the things we do and believe in if we understand the power of a subliminal message and how we change our behavior because of it.