Presented Ph.D. dissertation is the first comprehensive study of theoretical and practical issues directly related to the protection of children from harmful information influence in the field of advertising, within which the challenges of harmful information in the field of advertising, improvement of regulatory requirements for advertising activity in this part, improvement of administrative procedures for the protection of children.
The author analyzed and improved definitions of concepts «harmful information», «administrative and legal defence of the rights and legitimate interests of children from harmful information in the field of advertising», «administrative and legal protection of children from harmful information in the field of advertising», «offenses in the field of advertisiment related to the negative information impact on children». The classification of harmful information has been improved and expanded, taking into account the peculiarities of the content of individual varieties of such an information.
Harmful information in the advertising sphere is suggested to be comprised of inappropriate advertising (advertising that is prohibited to be distributed to children) and information in the advertising field that could harm the development of children (which include, but is not limited to, ads that promote gender stereotypes; consumer-promoting advertising; advertising that contains nudity, pictures of copulation; naturalistic images or captions; obscene ads; unhealthy lifestyle promotions, etc.).
The content of administrative information offenses is investigated (in particular, the elements of their composition are analyzed), as well as the necessity to mark out their certain type – «offenses in the field of advertising related to negative information influence on children» is substantiated.
The system of public administration entities entitled to exercise control over the adherence to advertising legislation and administrative procedures for protecting children from the harmful effects of advertising have been analyzed and qualitatively improved, namely, in terms of substantiating the appropriateness of assigning administrative functions to the National Council of Ukraine for Television and Radio Broadcasting related to administrative responsibility regulation.
The role of self-regulated organizations in the system of protecting children from the harmful effects of advertising is addressed and their perspective in Ukraine is outlined. A small influence of self-regulated organizations on the advertising industry as a whole was found, in particular due to the low level of self-regulated organizations’ consolidation. It its turn, this has led to the conclusion that it is inappropriate to separate acts of self-regulated organizations into a full-fledged group of acts within the framework of the legal protection system for protecting children from harmful advertising.
The author evaluated the content of the basic rights of the child in the field of advertising, which determine the security and protective activities of the state, and emphasized the problem of understanding the category of «interest» in the context of the implementation of research objectives. In this regard, it is reasonable to recognize and apply the criteria of the child’s legitimate interests in advertising as criteria by which certain interests of the child should be classified as interests that are subject to defence and protection through administrative and legal means.
Through the examination of further development, the concept of administrative and legal defence and protection, the characteristic of administrative responsibility for the informational influence on the child offenses in the field of advertising, have also been suggested. The list of interfering administrative legal relations has been expanded by including administrative legal relations in the sphere of ensuring the protection of children from the harmful effects of advertising. The author is of opinion that subjects of this group of legal relations should be comprised of: subjects of public administration; subjects of advertising activity; entities empowered to address public administration entities with a complaint/submission; self-regulated bodies. The object of such relations is defined as the actions of the subject of advertising, aimed at satisfying the legitimate interests of the child, which are to restore the conditions for the exercise of her/his right to normal physical, psychological and moral development, and to restore information legal order in the field of advertising.
