Journal of Financial Therapy, 15(1), 26-42.

Financial inclusion has focused primarily on the accessibility of financial social services. However, it is important to note that individual financial practices not only require the opportunity to access financial structures, but also confidence in their accessibility to engage in and utilize such services. Individuals facing difficult life situations often encounter challenges in financial activities due to limited resources and a need for more skills.

Children are a significant consumer group and active users of digital platforms. This dissertation aims to explore concerns related to advertising ethics in relation to children as consumers in digital environments and how children navigate contemporary digital commercial environments. To examine macro-level ethical concerns that advertisements (re)produce societal stereotypes, girls’ portrayals in fifteen contemporary fast fashion advertisements available on the public Facebook pages of Nordic fast fashion companies H&M, Lindex, Kappahl, and Gina Tricot were analysed by using visual discourse analysis. Advertisements addressing buyers of teenage girls’ clothing in Finland, available from January 2019 to June 2020, were examined. Moreover, to examine ethical concerns regarding the privacy invasiveness of contemporary advertising formats, eight (N = 38) focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted to explore children’s perspectives on online profiling and targeted advertisements and their privacy negotiation practices in the digital commercial context.