Journal
CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION
Volume 27, Issue 5, Pages 438-454Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/15295030903583648
Keywords
Advertising; Childhood Obesity; Food; Digital Games; Play
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Over the last decade, major food corporations have increasingly turned to the World Wide Web to market food to children, largely through interactive product-themed websites and digital games. This paper offers a critical look at the marketing stories, digital environments, and advergames found on two websites marketing sweetened cerealsFrootloops.com and Luckycharms.comto argue that online cereal marketing disciplines the child (as) consumer/commodity through an immersive simulation of cereal marketing narratives. Both Frootloops.com and Luckycharms.com represent cereal as a valued (treasured, magical) item, and reward players not just for consuming/manipulating the desired food item, but also for mastering the marketing narratives/discourses guiding online play. Players are disciplined (through play) into a potentially unhealthy nutritional logic in which the most nutritionally bereft food items are most valuable and the consumptive possibilities are endless.
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