Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2006, Page 75

SAMLEIKAGERÐ I NÝTSLUMENTANINI HJÁ BØRNUM
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skills (Ward, 1974). Since the central con-
cern of scientific consumer socialization
theory is that of children’s consumer devel-
opment, scarcely any attention has been paid
to how children experience and interpret
consumption in their daily lives. Instead
scientifíc consumer socialization has fo-
cused on examiningchildren’s (lack of) con-
sumer knowledge, abilities, competencies
and understanding of consumption issues.
This has left a gap in the literature on chil-
dren’s consumer behaviour and a mislead-
ing view of what children “do” with con-
sumption. Fortunately, there has proved to
be a slight shift in this “oversight” more re-
cently. Such changes are evident in a very
limited number of studies examining con-
sumption from children’s own perspective
in recent years (e.g. Bannister and Booth,
2005; Bartholomew and O’Donohoe, 2003;
Boden et. al., 2004; Martens et. al., 2004;
Russell and Tyler, 2002; Tufte et. al., 2005).
This paper takes the standpoint that chil-
dren are competent social actors worthy of
study in their own right - not simply inter-
esting to study through the process of so-
cialization. In other words, it is not merely
children’s competencies, abilities and un-
derstanding which are interesting in the con-
text of consumption. Rather, the meanings
that children attribute to consumption in
their cultures are of interest here - a view
supported by Buckingham (2000: 155) who
has argued that:
...it may make little sense to ask whether
chilđren understand the difference between
television programmes and advertisements, or
whether they are able to identify the persuasive
intentions of advertising in isolation. We need
to consider much broader questions about their
experience of consumer culture, and their place
within it.
Therefore, by exaniining children’s lived ex-
periences, we are able to critique perspec-
tives that define consumption as good or
bad, and advertising toward children as
moral or immoral. This critique centres on
the belief that such perspectives unques-
tioningly reproduce simplistic binary oppo-
sites whilst failing in any way to contribute
to a fruitful discussion on consumption in
children’s lives. In contrastto such simplis-
tic characterizations of childhood and con-
sumption, this paper will demonstrate that
consumption is an integral thread in the fab-
ric of social life (Solomon, 1983). There-
fore, consumption can be many things
(good, bad, empowering, disempowering,
facilitating, engendering, socially divisive
to name but a few) at the same time and at
different moments, with a variety of social
actors and within a range of social locations.
This paper will examine consumption in
childhood through one particular, and highly
signifícant, aspect of everyday understand-
ing of oneself and others - identity. It will
examine how children use consumer goods
and consumption references to tell others
about who they are - or wish to be. The focus
will not be on determining whether con-
sumption is good/bad, moral/immoral - con-
sumption is evident in children lives already.
Rather the focus is on how children use con-
sumption in the construction of their iden-
tities.