Advertising to children in Brazilian families: a critical discourse analysis of reception

This article aims to contribute to the understanding of the reception of advertising to children in Brazilian families. The topic of children's advertising has gained importance in recent years because of the civil movements for regulation by-law of advertising to children in Brazil. In view of the various interests at stake, the matter has been the subject of discussion and controversy. Therefore the objective of this paper is to cooperate to the debate, in order to understand the reception of children's advertising in family dynamics. We chose here the focus in the perspective of mothers and fathers. Four semi-structured interviews for the mothers and fathers of children aged between six and 10 years, conducted in two schools in the Distrito Federal, were analyzed. The category ‘appraisal’ was considered for analysis of positions, behaviors and feelings present in the discourse of the parents. The reflections were guided on Critical Discourse Analysis and reveal that advertising to children has been responsible for a determinate disharmony in the family environment, while at the same time strengthen traditional roles of social actors.