GENDER REPRESENTATION IN CHILDREN’S YOUTUBE: PRESENCE OF GENDER-ROLE STEREOTYPES IN ADVERTISEMENTS ON CONTENT WITHIN CHILDREN-DRIVEN YOUTUBE CHANNELS

Abstract

This study examines the three most popular children’s YouTube channels to explore the extent to which advertisements within children’s YouTube content present gender-role stereotypes. Children today are growing up in the digital age, surrounded by media content that has been on, and continues to move onto, streaming services. While media consumption habits may be changing, today children consume more content than ever. Between the ages of 18 months to seven years, children are in the Preoperational Stage of development (Piaget, 1964), during which they begin to understand symbolic function and, therefore, representation. As such, the gender messages that children consume during this time of their lives can have lasting effects on how they perceive their gender’s role in society. Children’s advertisements are especially important to study as the characters in advertisements are often given a product or “reward” which reinforces the behavior they modeled for the viewer. This study is a content analysis of advertisements aimed at children on YouTube conducted to determine the extent of stereotypical gender roles and discuss their possible impacts on young viewers.