YouTube has become the number-one outlet for children’s programming and video entertainment (Ahn, 2022). In Sweden, children spend several hours a day on the platform (Statens medieråd, 2021:58). 60 % of children aged 9–12, and 80% of Swedish teenagers follow a YouTuber or influencer (ibid:83). This form of micro-celebrity constitutes an important part of children’s media culture and everyday life, contributing to commodification and commercialisation of childhood. YouTubers are not only singers, gamers or entertainers, they are “promotional intermediaries” (Jaakkola, 2020:239). Youtubers make a living from advertising products through sponsoring agreements (influencer marketing), or from advertising their own products and brands, in the form of merchandise (“merch”).

Even though the YouTuber is a widely popular phenomenon, we still know surprisingly little of it from a child perspective. There is a lack of in-depth knowledge on how the child audience perceives and engages with Youtubers as commercial actors (Jaakkola, 2020). In light of this, the aim of the present paper is to further our understanding of how children appropriate sponsored content and merch within the context of the para-social relation between child and Youtuber.

To study children’s appropriation of sponsored content and merch among Youtubers, we draw from an interview study with 19 Swedish children aged 10-13. The results reveal how children’s meaning-making mainly centered around the relevance or irrelevance of this media content within the context of their everyday lives, and their moral economy (Silverstone, 1994) was an integrated part of their discussions. Children also expressed how they engaged in financial and moral support in order to enable Youtubers’ content creation, for instance by purchasing merch or sponsored products, hence positioning themselves as active agents within the commercial media logic.

References

Ahn, R. J. (2022). Exploration of parental advertising literacy and parental mediation: Influencer marketing of media character toy and merchandise. Journal of Advertising, 51(1), 107-115.

Jaakkola, M. (2020). From vernacularized commercialism to kidbait: Toy review videos on YouTube and the problematics of the mash-up genre. Journal of Children and Media, 14(2), 237-254.

Silverstone, R. (1994). Television and everyday life. London: Routledge.

Statens medieråd (2021). Ungar & medier 2021 En statistisk undersökning av ungas medievanor och attityder till medieanvändning. [Young people & media 2021 A statistical survey of young people's media habits and attitudes towards media use.]  Availible at https://www.statensmedierad.se/rapporter-och-analyser/material-rapporter-ochanalyser/ungar--medier-2021