Call for papers 2025 Volume 9(1) Publication: first semester of 2025
Children facing consumption, consumerism, and advertising: consumers or "consumables"?
Deadline for article submissions: february 15, 2025
Consumption is an ancient phenomenon, even though it has taken on different dimensions, forms, and meanings over time. Today, it can be described as universal, multifaceted, and multidimensional. Childhood and adolescence came into the focus of consumerism when their value changed in the productive system, their sentimentalization turned them into a metaphor, and investing in them became a bet on the future (Zelizer). Historically, children also have experience as economic actors, whether as workers or as individuals who have acquired, exchanged, and collected products (Schor).
Marketing and advertising, due to their own growth needs, have played a decisive role in transforming children into autonomous and capable consumers, which represents a paradox.
New consumption practices in childhood and adolescence have raised concerns and distrust among adults regarding the type of consumption that children and adolescents may engage in and, in some cases, the processes of early adultification linked to the consumption of fashion products.
From their own perspective, consumption in childhood and adolescence is directly related to identity construction. Therefore, it is connected with the degree of attachment to the community of belonging, which requires mutual identification processes through fashion articles or brand consumption, which, to a certain extent, affect peer relationships.
This brief outline presents us a complex panorama, where the novelty lies in the presence of children and adolescents in various fields of consumption, favored by the rise of the Internet and, above all, by the use of apps, purchases through digital platforms, or the commercialization of messages from child influencers.
In this monograph, Sociedad e Infancias aims to place the debate in a broad context, considering the different facets of forms of consumption and the stimulation of consumption in today's society. It seeks to address issues such as the consideration of children as vulnerable or incompetent consumers, their supposed inability to make consumption decisions, or the effects of adultism disguised under the appearance of their full acceptance as actors in the current consumerist model.
Open call with no deadline for other sections:
- Miscellaneous
- Reviews
- Other contributions
Submissions: Contributions written in Spanish, Portuguese, and English will be accepted.
Guidelines for authors: https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/SOCI/about/submissions
Submission method: registration on the journal's website http://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/SOCI
Contact: Journal's Secretariat: sociedadeinfancia@ucm.es
Sociedad e Infancias thanks all those who, as authors, reviewers, or advisors of the journal, are contributing to making it a reference for childhood studies, especially in the Ibero-American sphere.
