Adolescent bystanders' perspectives of aggression in the online versus school environments.

Researchers' understanding of bystanders' perspectives in the cyber-environment fails to take young people's perceptions into account and remains imperfect. Interventions encouraging adolescents to help targets of cyber-aggression are therefore typically based upon traditional school-based aggression research. Twenty-four in-depth interviews with Australian 13-16 year-olds revealed two themes that reflect how young bystanders perceive differences between aggression online and at school. The physical presence theme suggests that young bystanders struggle to determine online intentions in the absence of body language, leading to hesitancy in reactions and furthermore make it easier for them to ignore online transgressions and avoid becoming involved. The authority theme indicates young bystanders perceive that, compared to the school environment, the online environment lacks clearly established rules, authority figures and formal reporting mechanisms. These differences indicate that unique strategies should be developed to encourage young bystanders to intervene in cyber-aggression situations.

Children's understanding of the selling versus persuasive intent of junk food advertising: implications for regulation.

Evidence suggests that until 8 years of age most children are cognitively incapable of appreciating the commercial purpose of television advertising and are particularly vulnerable to its persuasive techniques. After this age most children begin to describe the 'selling' intent of advertising and it is widely assumed this equips them with sufficient cognitive defences to protect against advertisers' persuasion attempts. However, much of the previous literature has been criticised for failing to differentiate between children's awareness of 'selling' versus 'persuasive' intent, the latter representing a more sophisticated understanding and superior cognitive defence. Unfortunately there is little literature to suggest at what age awareness of 'persuasive intent' emerges; our aim was to address this important issue. Children (n = 594) were recruited from each grade from Pre-primary (4-5 years) to Grade 7 (11-12 years) from ten primary schools in Perth, Western Australia and exposed to a McDonald's television advertisement. Understanding the purpose of television advertising was assessed both nonverbally (picture indication) and verbally (small discussion groups of 3-4), with particular distinction made between selling versus persuasive intent. Consistent with previous literature, a majority of children described the 'selling' intent of television advertising by 7-8 years both nonverbally and verbally, increasing to 90% by 11-12 years. Awareness of 'persuasive' intent emerged slowly as a function of age but even by our oldest age-group was only 40%. Vulnerability to television advertising may persist until children are far older than previously thought. These findings have important implications regarding the debate surrounding regulation of junk food (and other) advertising aimed at children.