Limitations of Creativity: Social Control over Advertising in the Context of Children's Information Security

The article deals with the conflict between the social institution of advertising and the information security of children. The sociological aspects of the conflict under consideration are associated with the transformation of media influences in general and advertising information in particular, with children's vulnerability to advertising influences that force them to consume. Children, according to the author, act as a non-target audience of such advertising, which most often does not correspond to public ideas about decency, but, with the public nature of the distribution of advertising, children are its forced consumers. It is also noted that the growing mediatization of the living space requires the improvement of the mechanism of social control over advertising, including expert councils under the antimonopoly authority. An attempt is made to analyze the existing state of public control over advertising, which primarily requires additional qualification due to its ambiguity in terms of public morality. For this purpose, the research of quantitative indicators of expert councils' activities in all 84 territorial administrations of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia is carried out. The research was based on information materials posted on the official websites of Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service. The composition of the expert councils was evaluated as an indicator of the effectiveness and quality of decisions they make. Also, when considering the existing mechanism of social control over advertising, the provisions of normative acts regulating the information sphere to protect children from harmful information and advertising turnover were compared. The insufficiency of social control carried out by expert councils as bodies of public control is stated. The insufficiency is expressed in the inadequacy of the composition of the councils, extremely rare meetings, inattention to informing the public about the activities of the Federal Antimonopoly Service and expert councils on advertising, the closed nature of the activities of the councils, the lack of opportunities to join the council or public monitoring of the work of the councils.

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