Articulo_8_EN_Doxa_28

empathy, reiteration and replication of values, rules, behaviours, ideas, ideologies and attitudes inherent in the reference socio-cultural context. This never-ending process (Berger & Luckmann, 1984) is decisive in the initial periods in the life of the social subject as it incorporates the individual into society, into “the subject’s society”. It is at this prime moment when the institution of the family participates in the process as leading player and the transmitter of the future values, ideals, behaviours and rules of the future citizen.

In the case of primary socialisation - socialization during childhood - the main social institutions which act are, together with the family: the reference group, peer groups, school and the mass media (Ferrés, 2010). In non-secular societies, religion is another of the institutions to be taken into consideration. At the instant at which the child goes to school or to nursery, his or her immediate reference culture is mixed with the external culture and reality, represented in peer groups, friends and school (Vásquez & Martínez, 2005). The children note that their family members are not the only ones with authority, but instead there are more rules, values, ideas and worldviews that those acknowledged in the children’s family environment. It is at school where the child will learn to coexist with peer groups and with other structures of authority and power, materialising in the teacher figure and in that of the other children.

In the last 60 years, the family in Spain has altered in structure, shifting from a traditional extended-family model, based on numerous progeny, and with strong religious values and a patriarchal nature, to a highly diverse nuclear-family model: homosexual couples, couples deciding not to have children, single-parent families, single-person homes and multicultural families, due to the growth of the immigrant population starting in the late 1980s. All this means families today are very different in structure, culture, customs and means of socialisation to the families of the Franco regime and earlier (Chacón & Bestard, 2011). In this vein, Gómez and Blanco (2005), in line with Bourdieu (1977), state that families are represented as social bodies perpetuating the “social being”.

As regards the socialisation process and in relation to the subject matter of this paper (that is, advertising), we find how since the 1970s onwards, the mass media has been gaining momentum in Spain as a social actor. Radio and television, in leading position, and the Internet, as today’s great medium, are also deemed to be leading players in contemporary socialization. These media channels are no longer the simple elements for highly intermittent leisure and distraction they were (especially in the origins of Spanish television) and have become essential for the configuration of children’s lifestyles, especially if we include mobile telephones, which are currently considered to be a format for continual, uninterrupted and omnipresent entertainment in their daily activities for many children (Moyer-Gusé, 2010).

Why does this paper focus on studying how families are represented in toy ads? As has been stated, children learn, comprehend and understand reality from the standpoint of the other, not only on their own initiative but also due to outside initiative, in which primary socialization social institutions participate, where the family is one of the institutions with the most influence over the child in the initial stage. The reality, culture, religion, values, worldview and rules of the family are instilled within the boys and girls of this initial reference family or society (Schaffer, 1989). Later other subjects enter the stage who, although not belonging to the children’s most immediate family, are part of their immediate environment, such as peer groups or other relatives (beyond the nuclear family model) such as grandparents, cousins, neighbours, etc. Other factors which influence the contemporary socialization process are informative factors (deriving from the universality of