Television, music, and film all heavily influence the children who view them. Children have a bad habit of repeating everything they see and hear. This unsurprisingly enough applies to advertising as well. Kids want to bring there favorite cartoons home and play have them be a part of there lives. Advertisers know this well. Well enough that the goal of these cartoons at times is neither to entertain nor educate but to sell toys and merchandise. The best example of this is the Transformers franchise. Introducing a plethora of new characters every week for the next series of toys to be based on. Ohh look the main character saved the day with a new gadget, there is a new toy coming show casing the Hero with his new device.
"Many student don't want to believe they have been manipulated" This will lead to them falling into the same traps again and again. To avoid a trap you need to be aware the trap exists. A similar practice in my opinion is television programs that only exist for the sake of there own existence. The plot never progresses and there is no end of the story in sight, the show revolves around maintaining a status quo and will continue to recycle the same scenarios until viewership drops enough for the show to be canceled. Personally a story with no hope of ending is rather boring.