Brand-Made Children in New Zealand: an Interactionist Perspective on Children’S Use of Social Media for Interacting with Consumer Brands
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Brand-Made Children in New Zealand: An Interactionist Perspective on Children’s Use of Social Media for Interacting with Consumer Brands Katharine Jones A thesis submitted to Auckland University of Technology in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) 2015 School of Business and Law Abstract This research set out to explore how children’s use of social media affects their interactions with consumer brands. The research goals were formulated to find out how children’s use of social media helps them to interact with brands, to learn about brands, how such use interacts with other sources of brand information, and how social media use shapes children’s relationships with consumer brands. This topic is interesting because of the fact that social media platforms are showing massive, global growth in the numbers of people of all ages using such platforms to communicate with each other. Such communications include people sharing information with each other, and it is known that people share market-related information such as talking about brands, forming brand preferences, and joining brand communities. Such social exchanges might offer opportunities for brands to participate. Based in an interactionist perspective, this study used thematic analysis to code children’s qualitative interview data for major themes relating to their use of social media for brand interactions. Themes were transformed into a source code which was applied to the dataset, so subsequent line-by-line analysis could be undertaken. This research reveals that eleven to fourteen year old children use processes when interacting with consumer brands on social media. The processes consist of three big conditions, and these are knowing, reacting, and deciding. Each of these conditions has two smaller, interactive conditions attached to them. Knowing has identifying and noticing; reacting has describing and evaluating; and deciding has watching and relating. The combinations of bigger and smaller conditions are salient, because such combinations explain how children are interacting with brands on social media. These findings have theoretical value for academic marketing scholars in the emerging area of children’s social media use. These findings have value for parents and educators, seeking to understand aspects of children’s social media use, especially with how children are using social media as a source of market-related information. These findings also have value for business marketers seeking insights into how the next generation of consumers are using social media to interact with brands. 2 Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................ 2 Attestation of Authorship ......................................................................................... 11 List of Figures ............................................................................................................ 12 List of Tables .............................................................................................................. 13 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... 14 Chapter One .............................................................................................. 15 1.0 Background to this Research .............................................................................. 15 1.1 Locating this research ..................................................................................... 18 1.2 Research problem ............................................................................................ 19 1.2.1 Research objectives and research questions ............................................ 20 1.2.2 Researcher’s values (reflexivity) ............................................................. 21 1.3 Definitions ......................................................................................................... 27 Table 1.0 Social Media applications, terms and definitions ........................... 30 1.4 Research methodology ..................................................................................... 31 1.4.1 Analysis ................................................................................................... 34 1.5 Delimitations..................................................................................................... 35 Figure 1.0 Chapter outline and main focus – Chapters Two to Six ............. 37 1.6 Outline of this Thesis ....................................................................................... 38 1.7 Contribution to knowledge ............................................................................. 41 1.8 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 42 Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 43 2.0 Children becoming consumers ....................................................................... 43 2.1 Psychological-cognitive development: explaining how children become consumers ............................................................................................................... 46 2.1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................. 46 3 2.1.2 Children’s consumer socialisation ........................................................... 47 2.1.3 Information processing theories and the development of memory structures .......................................................................................................... 50 2.1.4 Children forming brand representations .................................................. 51 2.1.5 Conclusion .............................................................................................. 59 2.2 Children becoming consumers: developing interactive relationships with brands ..................................................................................................................... 61 2.2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................. 61 2.2.2 Children understanding brand meaning and symbolism ......................... 62 2.2.3 Children relating to brands ...................................................................... 66 2.2.4 Children developing feelings for consumer brands ................................. 70 2.2.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 75 2.3 Children becoming consumers: a social context ............................................... 77 2.3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................. 77 2.3.2 Family as a socialisation agent ................................................................ 79 2.3.3 Peers as socialisation agents .................................................................... 83 2.3.4 Television and other mass media as socialisation agents ........................ 85 2.3.5 Television’s role in children’s social learning ........................................ 86 2.3.6 New format television advertising: reality shows as socialisation agents .......................................................................................................................... 91 2.3.7 Children’s understanding of the persuasive intent of television advertising ........................................................................................................ 93 2.3.8 Children’s responses to television advertising ........................................ 98 2.3.9 Unintended consequences of television advertising .............................. 100 2.4 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 101 Chapter Three ......................................................................................... 106 3.0 Children and social media ................................................................................ 106 4 3.1 Understanding social media (social network sites; or SNS) ....................... 108 3.1.1 Children’s social media participation. ................................................... 110 3.1.2 Children’s social media behaviour ........................................................ 110 3.1.3 Children using social media for identity formation ............................... 112 3.1.4 Children creating social media content ................................................. 115 3.1.5 Children participating in social media – a uses and gratifications perspective ...................................................................................................... 116 3.2 Children’s social media relationships ...................................................... 118 3.2.1 Social capital in children’s social media relationships .......................... 118 3.2.2 Social exchanges in children’s social media relationships .................... 119 3.2.3 Symmetric and asymmetric connections in children’s social media relationships .................................................................................................... 120 3.3 Children’s brand interactions on social media. ....................................... 124 3.3.1 User-generated content and children’s brand interactions .................... 125 3.3.2 Children’s