A Preliminary Investigation of Adolescents’ Perception of the Role of Internet in Parent Consumer Socialization

The present realm of socialization agents studies is restricted to consumer socialization of children. Lately, several authors have challenged the practice of restricting consumer socialization process to only the adolescent life cycle, and asserted that consumer socialization from the social interaction perspective, should persist throughout one's lifetime. Previous studies have identified four main socialization agents: (1) Family influence — using parents as the proxy for the consumer socialization agent or source of influence; (2) Mass media influence — interface frequency with television, radio and newspaper; (3) School influence — the extent to which consumerism is taught and incorporated in the school curriculum; and (4) Peer influence — the extent to which children interact with their peers in molding the children's consumer socialization outcome. However, the advent of Internet as a form of socialization agent has not been exhaustively explored. Thus, this study examines the impact of mass media, specifically the Internet, as a socialization agent on mothers as perceived by adolescents who are 13 to 17 years old. The empirical findings obtained via face-to-face survey administration and implications of this study are also presented in this write-up