Day 065 - 09 Dec 94 - Page 25

     
     1   MS. STEEL:  It is actually over the page.
     2
     3   MR. RAMPTON:  Maybe so.  I will read on in that case:  "Several
     4        implications may be drawn from these findings:  First,
     5        exposure to TV advertising does not make children more
     6        cognitively or mentally susceptible to persuasion. The
     7        behavioural effects data indicate that children are
     8        persuaded by commercials - but this, after all, is the
     9        purpose of advertising.  There is no evidence to support
    10        the fear that this persuasion has any lasting cognitive
    11        effects on children.
    12
    13        "Second, children's increasingly negative expressed
    14        attitudes", and the word "expressed" is in italics,
    15         "toward TV advertising do not mean much.  Most adults say
    16        they themselves dislike TV advertising, but study after
    17        study (or a sample pantry check) shows that the same adults
    18        continue to be influenced by it.  Children are no
    19        different; they merely acquire an adult-like attitude
    20        against TV advertising as a social institution, an attitude
         which bears little relationship to advertising's actual
    22        effects.
    23
    24        "The final implication is more of an admonition; some TV
    25        commercials may be deceptive to children, but most are
    26        not.  This is certainly true in the US, and is probably
    27        true in Australia.  Arguments against TV advertising to
    28        children based on charges of generalized deception and
    29        youthful gullibility are simply not supported by the
    30        evidence".
    31
    32        Thus far, Ms. Dibb, do you agree with that sentence that
    33        I have last read?
    34        A.  I do not know who is putting forward -- I am not
    35        putting forward the arguments against TV advertising to
    36        children.  My arguments are not based on what it says
    37        there, "charges of generalized deception and youthful
    38        gullibility".
    39
    40   Q.   Forgive me, Ms. Dibb.  Sometimes I interrupt by accident,
         but this time on purpose:  You come here to this court as
    42        an expert on the effects of advertising on children.
    43        I know what you tell us, and I know this is not part of
    44        your thesis, that TV advertising to children constitutes
    45        general deception and an attack on their youthful
    46        gullibility.  What I want you to tell us, please, as an
    47        expert, is whether you agree with the proposition that such
    48        charges against TV advertising to children are simply not
    49        supported by the evidence?
    50        A.  But the influence of advertising, as you have read out 
    51        above here, very clearly states how those operate.  Maybe 
    52        it is then saying you do not have to be deceived, and I am 
    53        unclear what the word "deceived" means in this context.  It
    54        does not give a definition here.  "Youthful gullibility",
    55        again, it is using a word which is, perhaps, an extension
    56        of what it is already saying.  It is saying that children
    57        do not have the same critical faculties as adults.
    58
    59        Now by using the words "deception" and "gullibility" here,
    60        the point that I would like to make is that there is an