Something mysterious is happening in the Hundred Acrewood : A cultural policy analysis of TV-commercials intended for children in TV 4 and Kanal 5

The aim of this Masters thesis is to review Swedens unique law against TV-commercials intended for children under twelve years old. The law has to be abided by TV 4, but not by Kanal 5, so the aim is also to compare TV 4 and Kanal 5 and to see in what different ways commercials are shaped in the two channels. The cultural policy analysis is based on our aim and problem. We have also had the terms semiotic and intermediality in mind together with a model made by the researcher in semiotics Roman Jakobson. The model consists of six different communicative functions. The research is founded on TV-commercials recorded from TV 4 and Kanal 5 during four weekends in February 2005. We only analyse the commercials which we think are intended for children, which then means seven different TV-commercials from TV 4 and nineteen different ones from Kanal 5. The results of this study reveal that TV-commercials on TV 4 broke the law thirteen times and that Kanal 5 showed TV-commercials intended for children only during this period of time. TV-commercials are not allowed to directly encourage children under age to buy a product, which the makers of the commercials avoid by instead encouraging them indirectly. The research also reveals that all functions but one were used in the TV-commercials. TV-commercials are also often shaped different depending on what gender the product is intended for.Uppsatsnivå: