Children’s Views and Practices Regarding Online Advertising

This article focuses on children’s relationship with online advertising, a topic which is insufficiently researched. Individual interviews (n=20) were conducted with Swedish children to gain insight into their views and practices regarding advertising on the internet. The interview results are interpreted in relation to de Certeau’s (1984) theory of practices in everyday life, and New dimensions regarding the concept of tactics are highlighted in the conclusion. The results suggest that children have an ambivalent or negative view of online advertising. They report on avoidance tactics used in order to escape advertisements, but they also sometimes find it difficult to cope with advertisements due to their frequent appearance, color and motion. The children also report on their uses of online advertising as entertainment, and the authors stress the need for policymakers to consider whether the regulatory framework for broadcasting could be extended to cover online advertising.