The CTC community is an association of academics and practitioners from across the world motivated by the development of interdisciplinary and innovative research about children and young people, in order to understand their role in society with regard to consumption.

CTC members are from many and varied disciplines who may have different research interests but who all have a main objective to advance research and increase our knowledge about child and teen consumption issues.

The key functions of the CTC community are:

• to increase the knowledge and understanding of developments in youth consumption practices in society,
• to increase the knowledge and understanding of economic socialization and child development in today’s society,
• to analyse the impact of new marketing technologies and new practices on children and young people’s cultures,
• to facilitate communication with professionals in youth industries and relevant government bodies in order to make them aware of the choices they make and how they might impact on children and young people’s lives,
• to facilitate and encourage more responsible managerial practices with regard to young people.

The Child and Teen Consumption platform has been developed at the request of the CTC community in order to enable on-going contact and communication in between conferences and with the aim of encouraging an interdisciplinary dialogue and debate between researchers and professionals on the topics of children, youth and consumption cultures.

Our goal is to enrich the interdisciplinary exchanges between all CTC members who are interested in and working on the development and evolution of youth consumption cultures, innovation strategies targeting young audiences, online and offline marketing to children, historical perspectives on child and teen consumption, the semiotic analysis of commercial images and messages aimed at young people, etc.

To this end, professionals are invited to become members of the CTC community in order to be aware of any new research being carried out and to exchange information and views with academics and other practitioners on various research topics.

Hosts of CTC conferences are encouraged to make professionals welcome and even to encourage them to participate in the proceedings of the conference.

CTC History

How was CTC created?

The first International Child and Teen Consumption Conference was held in 2004 in Angoulême, France, by the European Centre for Children’s Products (CEPE), a department of the Business Administration Institute (IAE) of the University of Poitiers. The title of the conference was: « Pluridisciplinary Perspectives on Child and Teen Consumption » and it was the result of research carried out by academics from different countries who wished to take the link between children and consumption to a higher level, a topic that was only marginally being dealt with in a few disciplines. The 2004 International Conference welcomed 200 participants including academics, students and professionals from child industries and from 11 different countries.

Because of its success it was decided that the conference should take place every two years and should be hosted by universities in different countries and by academics from different disciplines. Thus, CTC 2006 was held in Denmark at the Copenhagen Business School, CTC 2008 was held in Norway at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research, CTC 2010 was held in Sweden at the Department of Child Studies at Linköping University, CTC 2012 was held in Italy at the IULM University of Milan. CTC 2014 will take place in Edinburgh at the University of Edinburgh Business School from the 9-11 April 2014.

It was at the 2010 conference that the Scientific Committee discussed the need to create a permanent link for the CTC community to be able to maintain contact between conferences and share information, exchange views and ideas, source other academics with a view to developing an international exchange of research information and project development. It was also decided at this time that future CTC conferences would be hosted alternatively by social science/child studies departments and by business and management departments of higher education institutes.

 

Deontology

The CTC community recognizes the importance of ethics and ethical values and should adhere to these values when carrying out their research and in the exchange of academic information and ideas.

 

When using the CTC website, members should abide by the sites rules and ethical values, namely:

• To communicate exact information in a legitimate manner
• To respect the personal and intellectual property rights of other members or third parties
• To show mutual respect for the different disciplinary approaches within each community of reference
• To carry out their research honestly and responsibly
• Not to distribute data or information of a slanderous or offensive nature
• Not to disclose extensive information about member contact details to third parties
• Not to exploit the member contact list for commercial uses

The CTC platform is overseen by a scientific advisory board which monitors the content of the CTC website and the ethical conduct of the CTC members. The CTC Scientific Advisory Board reserves the right to terminate the membership of any member who provides false or improper professional data or who uploads to the site any data or contents that may harm other users or third parties, or violate the rights of others, including any content of a defamatory or offensive nature, or any other content that is contrary to the ethical values of CTC.

The CTC Scientific Advisory Board also reserves the right to reject any content proposed for publication on the site. Under no circumstances will CTC be held liable for any error, omission or inexact information provided by a member.