A Quebec low eliminating advertising to children on Quebec TV stations left American border TV stations as the only source of TV commercials for toys and children's cereals. As a result, English-speaking children in Montreal who watch more children's TV on American stations were exposed to more advertising than French-speaking children who watch more children's TV on French-language Quebec stations. This situation facilitated the structuring of a quasi-experimental design comparing the two groups of children. As expected, English-speaking children were able to recognize significantly more toys available in the marketplace and reported having more children's cereals in their homes than did French-speaking children. Correlational analyses within each language group helped confirm the role of exposure to American TV (and hence of the Quebec law) as the probable cause of the observed differences.
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