Reading summary for Child development in Media

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Children and Media: A Global Perspective, First Edition. Dafna Lemish. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Companion Website: www.wiley.com/go/lemish/childrenandmedia

Media and Individual Development

Television consumed much of viewers’ time when in the 1950s it entered the lives of children in many Euro-American societies and gradually spread from there. Coined by scholars as the displacement effect, this intervention in children’s leisure culture aroused public and academic debate over the question: Does watching television displace other important activities such as reading, doing homework, or playing outdoors? Notably, at the time, this and associated ques- tions were stated primarily in negative terms: Does watching television take away important time that should be better devoted to activities that foster cognitive development (e.g., reading, homework); physical development (e.g., outdoor activity, sports); and social development (playing with other children, participating in social events)?

Today, it is almost impossible to study even the possibility of such displacement effect, as television has become a fact of life and an integral part of children’s lives worldwide. This situation is all the more the case with the spread of the internet and the dramatic growth in access by even very young children to mobile media.1

Several comprehensive studies examined the initial introduction of television in the UK, USA, and Canada as well as under special conditions, such as during major television strikes or while voluntarily giving up television for a while.2 These studies arrived at similar conclusions: the introduction of television was found to lead to significant changes in children’s allocation of time and the organization of activities outside the home. However, following a short period of a “novelty effect” of television, most of the changes in children’s daily schedules where not related to time devoted to homework, playing with friends, reading, or sleeping, but to use of other media.

Lemish, D. (2015). Children and media : A global perspective. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from sfsu on 2020-11-30 12:52:44.

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39Media and Individual Development

Why were some media-related activities affected more than others? This question can be answered by the following four principles of the displacement effect:3

1. Functional similarity: According to this principle, children only give up activities that basically fulfill similar but less effective television functions (e.g., viewing cartoons replaced to a large degree reading comic books and going to the movies, especially for younger children). This was not the case for older children, as going to the movies gratifies many social needs that television cannot fulfill for them. Similarly, activities perceived to have functions that differ from television were not affected by its introduction. For example, most children studied preferred playing with other children to watching television (n.b., this finding was repeated 40 years later in another comprehensive study of 12 European countries).4 And, reading newspapers did not diminish among older children, as it was perceived by them to be a source of information, while television mainly served entertainment needs.

2. Marginal fringe activities: Activities perceived as marginal and unstructured are replaced by organized and structured activities. This principle assumes that children make time to watch television at the expense of activities without set time boundaries and those perceived by them to be incidental, such as “hanging out” or “going out” for no particular planned reason. In short, television seems to replace idle time, when the child feels they are doing “nothing.” On the other hand, free playtime was not replaced by television; perhaps because it was perceived by children to be central and meaningful in their lives.

3. Transformation: The use of other mass media is transformed into more specific, goal-oriented uses with much less overlap with television. This principle assumes that instead of competing with television, media that preceded it needed to readjust in order to survive. In turn, succeeding in such adaptation provided them with a renewed right to exist. For example, radio found new ways to satisfy listeners’ audio needs in ways that differ from those provided by television (e.g., an emphasis on music and news, interactive call-in programs, and more specialized programming directed to different audiences). While central in children’s lives before the advent of television, radio became secondary for some, as it faded into the background. Yet in doing so radio became a more personal medium, providing a pre-teen girl or teenage boy with a source of com- forting solitude during moody times and time/space to be with their personal thoughts. Similarly, print media changed significantly for children. Many fiction books reproduced or even imitated stories that appeared on popular television programs; there was growth in consumption of non-fiction books; and new magazines designed for audiences with specific interests came into being.

4. Physical and psychological proximity: Activities are more likely to be displaced if they occupy the same physical space (e.g., living room) as television, but provide less satisfaction than viewing does (e.g., doing homework). This prin- ciple is probably the weakest of the four, as it is based on very little empirical evidence and lacks well-established theoretical foundations.

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40 Children and Media

Contrary to expectations and common belief, there is no substantial evidence that television has displaced reading books. We can only speculate why this should be so. One line of reasoning proposed is that books fulfill a wide variety of functions for children beyond the content and process of decoding the written text. Indeed, reading involves a different context of use that allows for privacy, personal pacing, lingering, and provides a very different mental and emotional experience to watch- ing television. Furthermore, some argue that just as children really did not read a lot before the age of television, they continue not to read a lot today. While this may be true for childhood in general, some children read more than others and girls read more than boys. Neither trend seems related to television. The phenomenal success of the Harry Potter books, as well as other series such as the Twilight Saga and the more recent adaptation of children’s print culture to technological changes (e.g., e-books, digital apps, multi-media storytelling) suggest that reading main- tains its unique place among leisure activities, one that has not been eroded by screen culture.5

Above and beyond these conclusions, television may be providing a satisfying alternative when children feel the approach of boredom, as a television set allows for zapping between various channels and pre-recorded programs, with the option of viewing this or another program. This leads us to ask if children today are more impatient and, if so, does this state of mind affect their behavior? Though we lack substantial empirical evidence, the advent of the internet and extensive use of mobile media suggest that studying these questions is even more acute as media content and activities are constantly available at the touch of the fingertips, and children seem to be always “on.” One such study included an extensive survey of adolescents, and was conducted in the large cities of Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo. It revealed a complicated relationship between media use and three types of internet connectedness: Adolescents using the internet mainly for communication (e.g., IM, email) and entertainment (e.g., gaming, downloading music) were watching televi- sion more than peers who used the internet more for information and school-related research. The latter, as well as a third type of internet connectedness, for expression and group participation (e.g., blogging, online shopping), read newspapers more frequently. Radio listening, on the other hand, correlated with a higher level of inter- net connectedness for all three types. Thus, this study suggests that internet use does not necessarily displace other media, rather, complicated uses evolve, depending on the adolescents’ main internet use.6 Similarly, another analysis based on the same survey data found that Asian adolescents used their mobile devices as an extension of rather than replacement for internet activities. This finding provides additional evidence for the “more-the-more” dynamic, according to which newer media complement uses of older media in the same content area.7

Answering additional questions regarding “displacement” could provide us with important insights into the place and impact of digital culture on children, as well as adults: Are media displacing social life? Is family life affected by their constant use? And what about formal schooling – does constant media use displace some or even many important formal learning activities?

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41Media and Individual Development

While children’s media-related enjoyment is taken for granted by many people, including parents, its use remains a source of anxiety for many. Are they spending too much time with media at the expense of other activities? Are they exposed to harmful content? Are they wasting their time? Television, for example, has been referred to, pejoratively, by such provocative names as “gum for the eyes,” “talking wall paper,” “electronic babysitter,” and “boob tube.” Similarly, children are often described as “addicted” to television, to the internet, or to Facebook activities. The metaphor of addiction is employed by some critics to describe common character- istics of children’s media activities: they use media as a way to reduce tension, pain, or anxiety; media-related activities encourage more media-related activities; they lose sense of self-control and time while engaged with media; they arrange their daily schedule around their constant media use; and they miss them when they are taken away. As much as this metaphor seems to encapsulate the essence of the populist argument, there is no research evidence to support such claims, particularly none that present any of the physical consequences of addiction to substances or habits. Furthermore, just as other psychological and behavioral addictions (e.g., gambling, shopping) affect but a small proportion of society, so, too, is addiction to media a rare phenomenon, and when present it is probably related to other mental disorders. As a metaphor, the term “addiction” refers to heavy media consumption. However, even heavy media use is not necessarily addictive, particularly according to approaches that understand children’s media use to be an active process motivated by needs and interpreted according to personal abilities and capacities.8

Nevertheless, television viewing, internet surfing, and video-game playing are often portrayed as mindless activities by some critics. According to this perspective, children sit in front of a screen of some sorts and expect to be entertained. No one challenges them, so goes the argument, to remember what they access, to analyze it critically, or even to pay full attention to it. However, as we will demonstrate in this chapter, children are not the passive media users claimed in the populist notion. Rather, research confirms that even when they are “only” consuming (and not pro- ducing) media content, they choose to engage with it in a variety of active ways, including managing their attention to the various contents; making meanings out of their messages; analyzing and criticizing what they are exposed to; and selectively remembering bits and pieces of it.

Developmental Theories

“Reading” audio-visual texts, a concept borrowed from the cultural studies approach to media, refers to the process of making meaning of mediated messages and relating them to various other meaning systems available in everyday life. This activity requires users to employ a variety of cognitive strategies related to thought and perception. Thus, in this regard, researchers direct their studies to questions such as: What attracts children to a particular medium? What do they understand in such

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42 Children and Media

reading experiences? How do they make sense of information? What do they remember? How do they relate these experiences to their everyday knowledge?

The underlying premise of various approaches that focus on the interaction of the individual child with the media is that children’s cognitive, emotional, and social skills develop over time. This premise is based on an assumption adopted from developmental psychological theories: Children make meaning out of media and engage in production activities with the skills and tools acquired with age and experience.9 As children grow and mature, their interests, tastes, as well as interac- tions with the media, change dramatically, and so does what they take with them from the experience. Accordingly, the “meaning” children, as well as adults, make of media content can be understood as residing neither in the particular program, website, or game nor as an independent creation in the child’s head, but rather it is produced in the interaction between the child and the medium.

A sub-set of this general field of study asks what change over time means for children’s development and how can it be studied appropriately? Here we under- stand that age differences in and of themselves are but a descriptive variable: Surely we can notice that 10-year-olds have a much better understanding of a televised narrative or a Wikipedia entry than do five-year-olds, but why is this so? What are the psychological, physiological, social, environmental, and other processes that explain the meaning of age differences?

Various psychological theories that deal with human development are based on the concept of stage. The key to stage theories is the understanding of stage as a unique period of development, with each stage typified by its own special behavioral and cognitive characteristics. According to psychological research, all individuals progress through the same stages in a fixed chronological order, although genetic and/or envi- ronmental factors can accelerate or slow down the speed of transition from one stage to another. Stages are perceived to be hierarchical, as well as integrative. What this means is that more advanced stages are based on earlier ones and advancement results in a “re-organizing” of the various cognitive skills. Furthermore, these stages are also perceived as universal: though children grow up in very different cultures and environments and possess very different genetic maps, they seem to proceed through the same stages in the same order. In other words, such a development process has been found to hold true, at least in general terms, for Charudet who is watching television in his house-boat on the Chao Phraya river in Thailand, for Manuel who is watching it in a community center in the Cordillera mountains of Peru, and Dominique who is watching television in a small apartment in Paris, France. In summary, the concept of stage is a theoretical means of organizing, in an integrative manner, various characteristics of children’s thinking and behaviors within particular age groups, above and beyond individual and cultural differences.

Jean Piaget’s psychological stage theory has been applied the most widely in studies of media and children, as it focuses on cognitive development.10 Piaget demarcated four major stages, each characterized by development of different mental structures called schemas. An overview of Piaget’s theory can be stated as follows: During the first two years, the baby-toddler matures through the sensory-motor stage, during

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43Media and Individual Development

which time mental schemas are shaped by the infant’s senses and actions. Applying Piaget’s stage theory to television, for example, suggests that a baby learns about the television-mediated world through such actions as touching the screen when a favorite puppet appears, clapping hands to the music, or by playing with the power button. These sensory-motor experiences are gradually integrated within the child’s developing understanding of television and social reality. Thus, the child under- stands that puppets on television feel very differently when touched on a screen compared to a favorite stuffed animal cuddled in the crib; that a screen can be turned on and off at will, yet a caregiver who returned to their home does not return at the press of a button.

The pre-operational stage, which occurs between two to seven years of age, is characterized mainly by the acquisition of language. No longer dependent solely on sensory-motor experiences of the “here and now,” the youngster is allowed the space to develop representational thought. For example, the child is able to think and talk about experiences both viewed on a screen and occurring outside the viewing situation.

During the concrete operational stage, around seven to 12 years of age, schemas develop that enable the child to engage in mental transformations in interactions with the concrete world. Now a child is able to see, mentally, an object from the perspective of another person and to understand, for example, that the amount of liquid does not change when placed in containers of a different shape and size. Such mental transformations are crucial for understanding many of television’s codes and conventions that require filling in gaps in storylines (e.g., what happens after seeing the driver lose control of the car and the quick camera cut to the next scene when the driver is lying unconscious in a hospital bed); or to understand the meaning of close-ups (e.g., the ability to understand that the quivering mouth on the screen is part of the face of the driver’s daughter sitting by his hospital bed).

Finally, according to Piaget and his followers, from about the age of 12 and upward, a young adolescent maturing in the stage of formal operations develops capabilities of abstract, logical thought, unrestricted by mental operations related solely to the concrete world. From now on, youths are assumed to be able to understand televi- sion content from a mature cognitive point of view, in a manner similar to adults, although clearly their life experience, interests, and emotional world continue to differ greatly from those of adults.

Cognitive skills developed through these stages are applied by children to the mediated worlds just as they are to other aspects of their lives. These skills shape the meanings children make of the content and forms of what they see and hear in various media texts. In turn, accessing media content becomes an opportunity, like other experiences in the child’s everyday life, to develop and practice a variety of cognitive skills, some of which are specific to each medium, though many are applicable to all realms of life.

While the application of Piaget’s cognitive stage theory has made significant contributions to the study of children and television, the tremendous growth in the area of neuroscience and brain research is also starting to inform research in the area

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44 Children and Media

of cognitive processing of information from media. We fully expect that these studies will enrich our understanding of the meaning of age-related development and its application to the study of children and media.

At the same time, it is important to point out that the implications of media use for the emotional, social, and moral aspects of children’s stage development continue to be studied, as we shall see later in this book. What is appropriate for us to say at this time is that some child development researchers are challenging the explanatory power of the key Piagetian concept of stage, with its emphasis on cognitive develop- ment, and proposing the inclusion of a greater emphasis on the social contexts in which children grow up and the different ways in which they interact with their envi- ronments over time.11 For example, the unicef Communicating with Children project12 focuses on three major age groupings, while acknowledging fluidity between and variability within each. In summarizing the literature in this area in general terms, the authors suggested that a child’s early years (which occur from birth until the start of formal schooling ‒ around the age of six in most societies) are character- ized by potentially very positive interaction with loving adults and siblings. In addition to the development of cognitive skills and language described above, there is also gradual awareness of one’s own and others’ emotions, and learning to express and control them; the gradual development of separation and autonomy; and development of collaborative play, helping, and pro-social behaviors. These earliest years are considered one of the most critical times in human development as they establish the foundations of all learning that comes after.

Continuing on with this more inclusive stage theory, the authors argue that during middle years (roughly age seven to 11), children gradually develop into more independent human beings with an emerging sense of their own self and capacities to explore and make sense of the world around them. In addition to using more sophisticated language and learning a tremendous amount of new information and skills, they also acquire knowledge about the world and the people in it. They grad- ually break free from an egocentric perspective of life in which they assume they are at the center of the world, and learn to put themselves in the shoes of others. They are curious and develop social skills and friendships, as well as become more prone and receptive to a host of exclusion practices, such as gender and race stereotyping, bullying, and victimization. They explore their environment in a more independent manner but continue to be prone to accidents. They can assume more responsibility for their behavior, gradually delay gratification, and learn tasks that develop self-confidence and independence.

The early adolescent years (from around age 11 to 14) and, indeed, the full adolescent period that follows are believed by many to be a potentially stormy and stressful period when young people are handling simultaneously physical, social, emotional, and cognitive changes. This is the time of transition to adulthood when adolescents may experience frequent mood swings and aggressive emo- tional outbursts. They are often torn between rational thought and irrational risk taking, between adult responsibility and childish mischief. Hormonal and physical changes associated with puberty, as well as a growing attraction and interest in sex

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45Media and Individual Development

and intimate relationships, bring about the development of couples and the onset of sexual experiences in societies that permit it. Depending on their culture, adolescents may rely more on friends than family. Friends can help define their identity and enable them to engage in a variety of connecting and separating behaviors. We will explore in Chapter 6, for example, how this development is manifest in adolescents’ social networking. Peer pressure plays a central role in decision making and behavioral patterns. Expectations of autonomy, individualism, and self-reliance are often encouraged in Euro-American societies, but can also be a source of conflict between adolescents and their families. In contrast, in more traditional societies, where a more collective view of society and conformity for adolescents is the norm, such values are less likely to be in place, and as a result adolescence may be a less turbulent, stressful period of life for both the adolescent and his or her family.

We can see, then, that the nature of childhood and adolescence is very much culturally constructed and that growth into adulthood takes different forms in different societies. Cultural differences play a very significant role in constructing what it means to be a child and an adolescent at different stages of development and requires that our understanding of the role of media in their lives be culturally specific too.

What is clearly shared by all cultures, though, is the fact that while growing up, children and adolescents continue to need loving and empathic adults who provide guidance, serve as positive role models, set clear boundaries and expectations, and guide them to make the best choices. All children and adolescents need to feel loved and safe, to develop positive feelings about themselves and others, to feel good about new experiences and learning, to develop resilience, and to have the entire range of their emotions understood and respected.

Despite these current trends in the study of children’s development, the rich tradition of applying cognitive stage theory to the study of children and screen culture, specifically, requires that we focus some attention to it. Many of the findings can be easily transferred to a discussion of accessing other forms of televised content, regardless of its delivery form: on the screen of a television, computer, tablet or mobile phone; as a broadcast program, downloaded video, or on YouTube. We refer in this book to all of these by the generic term “television” or “screen.” Let us turn now to consider some of these specific skills.

Attention to and Comprehension of Screen Content

What do children attend to on the screen and how is this attention related to content comprehension? Clearly, the child needs to demonstrate some form of attention to television as a necessary condition for the initiation of any thought-related processes. However, understanding this process is complicated, as “attention” to television is not easily defined. Is attention to television measured by the visual orientation of the child’s eyes toward the operating screen, even if he or she may be daydreaming or otherwise disengaged? Does it require a visual fixation on a particular element on the screen to indicate active interest? And what about the

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46 Children and Media

preschooler who is playing with building-blocks on the rug in front of the television and who glances occasionally at it following an audio cue, such as a loud siren, a familiar commercial, or a child’s giggle?

One leading research approach applied to study these questions assumes that attention to the screen is fundamentally reactive; that is, attention is controlled by external elements of the medium to which the child reacts. According to this research approach, younger viewers are particularly attracted to television’s formal features, such as visual elements (e.g., camera movements, sharp cuts from one angle to another, slow or fast motion, and the like), as well as audio ones (e.g., unusual noises, music, sound effects). Accordingly, this approach assumes two central characteristics: First, the direction of influence is from the screen to the child; and second, motivation for viewing the programs themselves and the viewing experience of children are of minimal interest as children are perceived as passive reactors attracted to the television set due to the nature of its appealing audio-visual language.

While there is very little empirical evidence for this approach, it has been adopted wholeheartedly by many anti-television advocates, is cited extensively in popular publications, and assigned provocative titles.13 Such writers see television viewing as a terribly dangerous, addictive “drug” that should be eliminated from children’s lives, a passive, reactive behavior devoid of active cognitive processes.

In contrast, the alternative approach – active attention – applied by other researchers assumes that attention to the screen is an active form of behavior undertaken by children.14 Instead of viewing attention as a passive reaction to the screen, they argue that children’s attention to television can be understood as an active cognitive integration between the viewer, the television content, and the environment within which it is viewed. It is shaped by existing cognitive schemas based on past experi- ences in the world, including those gained from television. Thus, understanding content at any given moment involves an active process of applying strategies needed to comprehend that content.

Development of attention to audio-visual content

Attention to television develops from birth. Newborns of a few weeks have been observed reacting to sounds coming from the television set by stopping their feeding and turning their heads toward it. Babies continue to be dependent mostly on audio cues in directing their attention to television for few seconds at a time during their first few months of life. Particularly attractive content, such as commercials, peppy musical openings of programs, and programs designed for the very young, are capable of holding their attention for much longer stretches of time. This fact has not escaped the eye of entrepreneurs and, consequently, there is a booming market of video programs, computer games and mobile applications designed for viewing and interacting by this very, very young audience of “viewers in diapers.”15

Home observation of babies as well as reports from caregivers suggest that from the age of a few months babies will often stop their activities, move to the music, clap

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47Media and Individual Development

their hands, make happy gurgling sounds, toddle toward the television set, and point at objects and characters on it. Preference for familiar content, viewed with pleasure over and over again, intensifies during the second year of life. In a relatively short span of just a few years at the beginning of the new millennium, we have become accustomed to seeing infants and toddlers in high chairs and car seats playing skillfully with mobile technology, fully attentive for relatively long stretches of time.

Attention to the screen continues to grow as a function of the child’s development, personality, and environment. The ability to sustain interest in screen content for longer stretches of time and the capacity to manage attention to the screen as well as to competing activities is gradually strengthened and modified. By the age of six, attention to the screen can be sustained for long periods of time and remains so until adolescence, when a decline in television viewing occurs as part of the many changes taking place in youth’s physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and environmental realms of life.

Television channels specializing in preschool audiences offer multi-platform content and activities to complement their programming and engage young children and parents. More specifically, the tablet is thought to have revolutionized the market of infants and toddlers as manipulating it through touch is both intuitive and simple, even for clumsy little fingers. This has created an interesting situation. On the one hand, in 2013 the American Academy of Pediatrics reaffirmed its recommendation, made in 1999, that there should be no screen time for children under two years of age. At the time this book is being written, several researchers have stated that, at a minimum, babies under the age of two do not benefit from screen media, while other researchers have argued that screen media are potentially harmful to babies’ cognitive and physical development.16 On the other hand, it appears that parents’ views and behaviors are quite different from those of the American Academy of Pediatrics, as its recommendation seems to be very unrealistic in today’s screen-saturated environ- ment, with early use of mobile media undergoing a dramatic rise.17

The extant research on various aspects of early exposure to screens will be discussed throughout the book, but there is still very scarce research on the effects of mere exposure to screens on the development of the very youngest of our children. Despite the passion with which both sides of the argument present their pro or con positions in various public discussions over the impact of audio-visual stimulation on brain development, motor-development, or long-term deficiencies (such as attention and autistic disorders), these have yet to be supported by systematic research.18

Relationship between attention to television and comprehension

As noted above, the reactive approach to television assumes that attention to the screen is an antecedent condition to any process of comprehension of its content; that is, attending to television leads to its comprehension. Critics of television argue that attention to the fast tempo of television is mostly reflexive and immediate; it

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48 Children and Media

does not allow children the necessary conditions to reflect over contents or organize mental processes. Thus, comprehension and memory of screen content is under- stood to be superficial in nature, according to this approach.

In contrast, the active approach to children’s attention to television under- stands relationships between attention and comprehension quite differently. Children are assumed to be active viewers whose attention to the screen is motivated by attempts to understand it. Researchers have found that children are able to devote selective attention to television, inquire about the content viewed, decode new information with the assistance of the cognitive skills avail- able to them at the time, and use television content to refine and develop new skills. This approach assumes that television content contributes to two key processes important in children’s development, defined by Piaget as assimilation and accommodation: They assimilate comprehensible television knowledge into existing mental skills and accommodate these skills by refining them according to knowledge newly acquired via television. Thus, the active approach sees relation- ships between children and television as reciprocal. Attention does not necessarily cause comprehension, but comprehension can shape to a large degree attention directed to the screen. While television conveys particular messages, understanding them (or ignoring them) is dependent to a large degree on the particular social, cognitive, and emotional needs of the individual child’s personality and their personal development.

Thus, it seems reasonable to claim that the more viewing and social experience attained by the child the greater the chances that he or she will be attentive to and gain more from viewing television. This interactive process between child and television content has been conceptualized through the acronym AIME (Amount of Invested Mental Effort).19 AIME portrays a process through which the child evaluates television content as easy or difficult for understanding, as familiar or novel, as important or negligible. In assessment of this process, the child determines the amount of mental effort needed to process the information. For example, if the child perceives a particular behavior or situation to be very familiar to him or her, the amount of AIME as well as attention to television will be lowered. However, if it is perceived as new and intriguing, the amount of AIME will increase. Furthermore, when children are offered challenging and appealing television content to view, they demonstrate active involvement and a higher degree of AIME.

As children grow older they learn to associate particular formal features of televi- sion with specific genres, and their viewing expectations develop according to their interest in a particular genre. They learn to distinguish between programs directed to adults and those aimed at children; between commercials and programs; between comedies and action-adventure programs. And, they learn to allocate their attention according to their interests and to activate those thinking schemas that are more appropriate to the particular genre.

Further, children develop clear distinctions between “boys’” and “girls’” programs or commercials and attach clear gender meanings to them, based on formal features alone, regardless of program content or product advertised. They distinguish

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49Media and Individual Development

commercials aimed specifically and stereotypically at boys by the fact that they are typically characterized by loud music, sharp “cuts” from one camera shot to the other, special audio effects, intensive activity level, and blue and metallic colors. In contrast, commercials aimed at girls have soft background music, female voices, pastel colors heavy on the “pink” side, photographic features such as fade outs (pictures fading out into blackness) and dissolves (pictures dissolving into other pictures), and gradual changes between camera shots rather than sharp “cuts”.20

Individual children differ in attention and comprehension, but such differences also exist within each child’s varying viewing experiences, in different social con- texts due to the availability of alternative activities, and according to their internal motivations at different points in time. Clearly then, attention to television pro- grams is not a mechanistic, casual process dictated by a mesmerizing screen that is received by a passive manipulated child-viewer. Rather, viewing screen content by children is a much more complex, active, and reciprocal process.

Development of Viewing Preferences

The worldwide availability of particular television program genres, on the one hand, and the generally universal course of development of children, on the other, result in quite predictable viewing preferences of children that change as they move from one stage of development to the next. As beginning-viewers, babies and toddlers seem to attend more closely to programs designed for them, through features that can include peppy music, sound effects, animation, lively pacing that is not overwhelming, humor and noises of laughter, as well as female and children’s voices. They also seem to react to content that makes immediate sense to them: short verbal outputs, smiling faces, loveable animals, as well as pleasing colors and shapes. Teletubbies is a good example. Produced by the BBC and first broadcast in 1997, the program quickly became a hit among young viewers and has been marketed in over 60 countries. The four colorful, cheerful, and energetic characters move and behave like toddlers, use minimalist language, repetitive behaviors, and utterances. They are situated in a world that combines open green natural spaces and a modernistic dwelling. Research conducted in Australia, Germany, Israel, Norway, the UK, and the USA found evidence of the program’s popularity among babies and toddlers that included high levels of attention and active viewing behaviors such as singing, dancing, pointing, imitating, speaking back to the television, and generally reacting enthusiastically with great joy.21

As toddlers grow into preschoolers, they gradually become more interested in comprehensible narratives and in diverse magazine-like formats. Sesame Street, produced originally by the Children’s Television Workshop in New York (later to be re-named Sesame Workshop), is by far the most acclaimed and researched exemplar of programming for this age group, worldwide. Later, in Chapter 3, we will discuss this television phenomenon; for now, however, it is appropriate simply to note that the program’s “quilted” magazine format combines segments of animation, puppetry,

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documentaries, and drama designed with the understanding that preschoolers’ attention and viewing preferences develop gradually. Such a format allows each child opportunities to interact with the program according to his or her individual needs and abilities. Many countries have developed special, locally produced programs targeted for this age group with similar considerations in mind.

Children start developing preferences for more fast-paced programs and compli- cated content around the age of five or six, and gradually disassociate themselves from clearly educational and “safe” preschool programs. Individual preferences start to emerge and take shape for a specific animation series, a favorite Disney movie, family-type comedies, or soap operas (or telenovelas, as they are named in many parts of the world that import them from Latin America). In addition to watching specific channels targeted for them, children gradually move to what has been dubbed by the television industry “family” fare – comedies, dramas, quiz shows, reality TV, sports, music, and movie channels that are aimed at a wide and diverse audience which shares interest in a common denominator. Here, it should be noted that the range of program options varies greatly between different regions of the world, as well as within them, due in large part to economic and technological differences.

The most pronounced differences in taste already very evident at this young age are associated with gender. The development of “gender-appropriate” behavior, typical of socialization processes that take place in most societies, results in behavioral compatibility in relation to media choices, as well. Here, boys seem to outgrow the more slow-paced educational programs at a much younger age than girls, and they demonstrate a growing preference for action-oriented animations that so strongly dominate the screens of children’s television around the world. Boys seem to be attracted more than girls to action, aggressive and dangerous fantasies, sports, as well as programs featuring male heroic characters. Girls, on their part, continue to prefer programs with storylines about human relationships, friendships, and feelings that take place in non-aggressive settings. Thus, while transitioning to viewing teen soaps and family dramas and comedies, they continue to watch and enjoy many educational programs for a much longer period than do boys.

This clear gendered division of preferences continues throughout the school years and seems to be resistant to major changes taking place around the world with regard to gender equality and socialization processes of gender roles.22 We will continue to discuss aspects of gender throughout this book as it interacts with several important aspects of children’s media use and leisure culture.

As children move through elementary and middle school years, they gradually experiment with the entire range of television genres, including those specifically not intended for them – such as violent movies and pornographic material. Many remain generally disinterested in programs that are based predominantly on “talking heads”; that is, programs that feature adults talking about issues framed as solely of concern to adults and conducted in a language that is mostly inaccessible and unap- pealing to children – such as current events, political or cultural discussions, and most news programs (with the exception of particularly attractive news items that

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include violent or otherwise unusual and stimulating scenes). We will return to a discussion of the role of news in children’s lives in Chapter 5.

As in many other areas of their lives, children develop individual tastes based on the variety of content available to them. Furthermore, they are capable of expressing their preferences as well as articulating their reasoning for selecting particular programs, games, or websites. On the other hand, we, the adults in their lives, may not always approve of their selections and tastes or even understand the reasons for their attraction to such programs or contents.

Development of Fantasy–Reality Distinction

The ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality on the screen is one of the pri- mary differences between children’s and adults’ thought processes. While “television reality” is a complex and multi-dimensional concept, we refer here specifically to the degree of factuality of the mediated reality. Scholars interested in this phenomenon attempt to answer such questions as: When are children able to determine that people and events presented on television exist beyond the screen; that they are real people representing themselves or actors playing a role; that events depicted on the screen are happening in the outside world or created according to a script? When do children understand that television is not a “magic window” to the real world? Studies of social realism focus on children’s answers to these as well as other questions: Are the people, places, and events on television similar to the ones familiar to us from the real world? Are they believable? Is it probable that events depicted in fictional programs will take place? Is knowledge acquired through viewing television applicable in real life?

Researchers have found that, in most cases, children are not systematically instructed in developing such distinctions; rather they develop them on their own as they mature, gain experience, and come to understand the real world, and as their knowledge of television expands. As they mature, children’s perception of television as a “magic window” is gradually replaced by a growing understanding that televi- sion reality is not quite like the everyday reality in which they live. According to researchers, an important turning point in the development of these understandings occurs around the age of eight; that is, at the beginning of the concrete-operational stage, according to cognitive development theories.

More specifically, researchers employ the following five criteria in studying children’s ability to make reality–fantasy distinctions:

1. Constructedness: The degree to which children understand that the screen world is a product of some sort of construction and that all television content, including news and documentaries, are a fabrication, to some degree, in comparison to reality outside it.

2. Physical actuality: The degree to which children evaluate the reality of television based on their perceptions of the person or event actually existing outside of the screen world.

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3. Possibility: The degree to which children evaluate the reality of television based on their perception of whether events portrayed are possible in the reality familiar to them beyond the screen.

4. Probability: The degree to which children evaluate the reality of television based on their perception of whether it is probable that it represents something that could happen beyond the screen, even if it is possible. For example, it is possible that one family would experience all the intensive events happening in the life of one television-family and solve them in similar ways; however, our life-expe- rience suggests that it is not very probable that this would be the case.

5. Formal features: The degree to which children understand the formal features of television as “cues” to what may be real or fictitious. For example, older child- viewers understand that an unedited series of pictures of a war scene followed by a medium-range camera shot of an adult seated in a studio behind a desk and who seems to be talking seriously indicates a “real” news report, while a col- orful, animated scene of talking animals using children’s voices and with background music is “unreal.”

We can organize the above criteria in a complementary manner, as follows: While internal cues (within the medium itself ) direct viewers to evaluate its realism, external cues enable viewers to make comparisons between their knowledge of the world and their experience within it with regard to the television content. Generally speaking, it seems that younger children are more heavily dependent on the internal criteria (e.g., animation is “imaginary” because it is drawn and does not use live actors). As they mature, children learn to incorporate external criteria as their knowledge of the world expands (e.g., a specific animation series can be much more realistic in content then many programs employing live actors). No wonder, then, that by the age of 12, respondents will answer much like adults to research questions, such as: “What do you mean by ‘real’”? or, “real in what sense?”23

The development of genre distinction

Distinguishing between television fantasy and reality involves capabilities to identify and differentiate between different television genres. Television programs are mostly designed according to well-defined formulas. Each formula has its own production codes and conventions of typified storylines (e.g., characters, locations, photographic techniques, pace, and soundtracks). Such format molds are filled in with content from diverse cultures and with diverse qualities. Furthermore, beyond being an aggregate of common characteristics, genres can also be understood as an aggregate of viewers’ expectations. For example, when a program is identified as “news,” the viewer will apply a very different set of expectations toward its degree of realism in comparison to expectations applied to a program such as science fiction identified as “fantasy.”

Children learn to associate program characteristics with genres along a continuum from those perceived to be the most “real” to the most “unreal”: “Real” programs

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deal with what is happening in the world – such as news and documentaries; “realistic” programs, a median category, are narratives and characters that, potentially, could take place but are being played by actors, such as situation comedies and soap operas; and “unreal” genres are mainly narratives with characters that are not taking place in the world and – to the best of the child’s current knowledge – could not happen; such as science fiction, fantasy movies, or animal animation. As children grow older, they learn the formal features associated with each particular genre and develop specific expectations with regard to the degree of realism the program will represent.

Children of kindergarten age, around five to six years, are already capable of defining the two ends of the continuum: News is “real” and animation is “imaginary.” An excerpt from an interview I had with Amy, a six-year-old North American girl, in relation to a situation comedy illustrates this developing ability. The series, Full House, deals with three girls who lost their mother and who are being raised by their father, his best friend, and their uncle. Amy attempted to explain to me why the news is different from Full House, her favorite situation comedy:24

Amy: Because Full House comes with real people and they make it up, and the Full House is very silly.

Interviewer: They make it up? Amy: Uh, huh. Interviewer: So Full House is like real people on television? Amy: Yeah, yeah. They’re like real people, but they are silly. It is almost like

the news, but it is not. Interviewer: It is almost, but it’s not? I see. So the real people are silly and the news

are real people and they are not silly? I see. That’s interesting. Amy: And cartoons are pretend stuff.

According to this young girl, animation programs are at the imaginary end of a continuum of programs. Comedies are located at the center of the continuum, as they include real people who are acting “silly,” while the news is about serious real people.

Children in the concrete operational stage come up with alternative ways of dividing programs. For example, there are “good” versus “bad,” or programs that are “for children” versus those that are “for grownups.” Or, they may organize them according to perceived content. For example, a family situation comedy could be grouped with an educational program, because both convey messages of concern and love for family members. An action-adventure program and an animation program could be understood to be of a similar genre, because both have shooting in them. A commercial for a food product, news program, and math instructional program are perceived as educational, because they all “teach things.”

In this regard, commercials are a very difficult genre for children to understand, since they intentionally blur distinctions between real and imaginary and, as well, employ a range of audio-visual means to sell children products. Studies on children in various countries growing up in an environment with commercial television sug- gest that they can already identify commercial breaks as a separate genre at a very young age, often as early as three years old. The children learn to identify those cues

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that indicate a transition between a program and a commercial (e.g., a logo, sign, or sound effect that is repeated regularly). However, their ability to explain this genre develops much more gradually, as does their ability to distinguish between their attitude toward the product in comparison with their attitude toward the commercial for that product (i.e., a commercially literate person may like a product, but not the commercial advertising it, and vice versa; that is, enjoying a commercial is not necessarily an indication that the product is enjoyable as well).

As they start elementary school, children may develop an understanding of commercials’ “persuasive intent”; that is, while they can discern that the intention is to sell products, they may not identify the tactics of manipulation employed in the text. Thus, they continue to trust commercial statements as being “real,” have difficulty identifying indirect advertising present in much of commercial television programs, and do not understand the economic processes that drive the television industry.25

Interestingly, research evidence suggests that it is doubtful if many adults understand these complicated issues either. Analyses of what scholars refer to as advertising literacy explain that this is due to the need for use of seven cognitive understandings:26 Advertising (1) is different from other media content, (2) has a paying source, (3) has an intended audience, (4) has a selling intent, (5) has persuasive intent, (6) makes use of persuasive tactics, and (7) has a bias in comparison to the actual product. Overall, such understandings may be insufficient in and of themselves as advertising literacy also involves the capacities to apply critical skills to the ubiquitous commercial culture infusing children’s lives, tens and even hundreds of times daily. We will return to this topic in Chapter 4.

The importance of distinguishing between screen fantasy and reality

Clearly, then, distinguishing between various forms of fantasy and reality on the screen and sorting television programs into genres is not a simple, objective, or clear-cut task. Indeed, children continue to be confused by realistic genres, as do many adults as they mature as viewers. Furthermore, new challenges are posed to viewers as the media environment changes. Consider the following extensive list of examples: Realistic movies incorporate segments of animation or documentaries; news reports include reconstructions of past events and employ dramatization features; docu-dramas combine use of real places and people together with actors and fictitious dialogue; commercials incorporate scientific information to create infomercials; news and entertainment are combined to create infotainment; educational programs integrate entertainment features to form edutainment; and there are reality shows, talent competitions, police investigations, and matchmaking programs. All these phenomena that appear in many localized forms around the world purpose- fully blur genres through the use of “reality” formal features (e.g., rough camera moves and the pretense of no editing; no music or soundtracks; “ordinary” people rather than professional actors; out-of studio settings; intimate moments of display of intense emotion).

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All these genres continue to challenge the ability of young as well as older and more experienced viewers to define and understand television’s “reality.” In addition, the ability to access a mixture of genres through personal tailoring of viewing sched- ules complicates this even further, as the clear characteristics and nature of a certain broadcast or cable channel disappear (e.g., history channel, news channel, or family movies channel). All of these developments require re-examination of criteria used by viewers to evaluate screen reality.

Finally, cultural experience plays an important role in young viewers’ socializa- tion as they mature and develop their own particular perspective on reality. Since the development of the distinction between fantasy and reality on television is shaped by life experiences on and outside the screen, the nature of such experiences is bound to shape this skill. Thus, seemingly independent cognitive skills are very much culturally dependent. For example, while animals portrayed with a human soul may be perceived as an imaginary feature of an animation program by Paola, raised in the Catholic culture of Italy, this may seem perfectly reasonable to Kumar of Hindi faith in India who believes in the reincarnation of human souls in animals. Similarly, a dramatic series on the Jewish Holocaust may be understood as imaginary fiction by José in Mexico, but is very real and relevant to Dana raised in Israel, whose grandparents are holocaust survivors. Yuji in Japan may think that life in outer space seems completely in the realm of fantasy, while for Marina in Russia, whose parents are scientists, it may be perceived as quite real. And dramas describing the lives of the very rich make complete sense to Kevin from a higher social class US family but may seem to be completely fictional to Tomaselli from the poor classes of Botswana. These are just a few of the examples that demonstrate the role of cultural context in perception of television reality as similar to or different from actual reality. As with the case of gender, the important role of culture, too, will be addressed throughout the book.

The development of understanding of television characters

Imagine the social world of a child in your own neighborhood. What kind of people and professions does he or she meet on an everyday basis? It is safe to assume that most children around the world have firsthand encounters with family members, teachers, salespeople, perhaps medical professionals, bus or taxi drivers. They may have an occasional encounter with other professionals, depending on their personal life circumstances. But most of the adult professional world is quite inaccessible to them (as it is to most adults, too). Television, thus, becomes a very convenient, non-threatening way to come in contact with roles beyond our everyday lives, particularly in relation to high-status and stereotyped roles that appear in dramatic genres, such as eloquent lawyers, tough law enforcers, brilliant surgeons, glorious celebrities, vile Mafia leaders, promiscuous students, to name just a few of the types of people who become a part of our viewing lives and who most of us never meet in real life.

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Meeting these varied characters portrayed on the screen raises many value-related issues for children, as well as adults, as they compare themselves with fictional tele- vision characters: Who am I? Am I similar or different from them? Are they good or bad? Am I good or bad in comparison? Do I want to be like them? If so, how, can I change my behavior or appearance to be more like them? Answers to such questions become part of the process of self-definition and learning about one’s place in society. Media characters, thus, can serve as role models for identification and imi- tation, as well as be a resource for learning about the world. It is therefore important for us to understand how children perceive media characters and their behaviors.

We recall from an earlier discussion that a cognitive schema is a structure for organizing knowledge related to a particular idea or term (e.g., criminal, singer). A schema may be shaped by knowledge acquired through firsthand experience as well as through mediating sources, such as other people and the media. In turn, schemas have implications for understanding how new information is processed. For example, schema regarding gender differences shape the ways we attend differ- ently to content that involves female and male characters, the ways we process and remember content, the ways we perceive it to be relevant to us, and our evaluation of and preferences for the characters themselves.

Following what we already know about cognitive development, we can surmise that as children mature their understanding of media characters changes dramatically. Younger children are more dependent on external appearance in evaluating characters. Accordingly, they tend to equate the unfamiliar look of a foreigner as well as unattractive body and facial characteristics with negative personality qualities, thus perceiving an ugly person as mean. However, as they mature, they gradually assign more importance to internal personality traits as well as circumstantial explanations to characters’ motivations and behaviors. But, like adults, they remain highly influ- enced by social expectations and those stereotypes engrained deeply in different societies that are emphasized all too frequently in commercial television. Indeed, many people continue throughout their lifetime to be wary of characters – on tele- vision as well as in real life – who look very different from them (e.g., persons of a different race, disabled people, people who wear a non-conforming clothing style), as well as those perceived to diverge from culturally dominant beauty standards (e.g., overweight people, those with non-proportionate facial features, or some manner of deformity).

The development of moral judgment

While very helpful in understanding general trends in the development of human thinking, cognitive developmental theories alone are often unable to provide us with a comprehensive and satisfactory understanding of thinking, behaviors, and emo- tions. Clearly, many of the issues involved with children’s maturing (deficient, according to some approaches) cognitive abilities remain unresolved during adult

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years. So how large is the gap between adults and children, and are children really as “deficient” as some persons assume? One additional body of theory that can assist us in understanding this aspect of relations between media and children is the adaptation of developmental theory to the realm of moral judgment, in general, and its particular application to children’s viewing of television.

Media are a central source for developing moral judgment as they present many tales about human conduct. For example, understanding the motivations for violent behaviors and their implications for victims is crucial in application of moral judgment by viewers. Thus, adults will usually apply moral criteria differently with regard to a person who purposefully aims to hurt others for personal gain compared to someone forced to behave violently in order to save a loved one. That is, we apply different criteria to acts of violence that seem to us to be random and unjustified compared to acts that in other societies might be perceived as justified or even sacred (e.g., acts of violence by military forces in some countries or those committed under the guise of preserving “family honor” in others). Do children apply these same processes and criteria?

The way children judge television characters and their behaviors is central to the development of their understanding. Again, developmental researchers claim that children’s moral and cognitive development are similar across the globe, as each child progresses through specific stages in a fixed order, with each stage being fundamentally different from the previous one. Similarly, moral judgment is under- stood to develop through the combined development of skills, cognitive schemas, and experience.27 As very young children have yet to internalize cognitive standards that define what is “right, good” or “wrong, bad,” they are highly dependent on external reinforcements that teach them what their society perceives as “right” or “wrong.” Thus, it is through socialization within their social settings, including the media, that children learn from an early age via imitation, as well as by acting on a desire to please their caregivers, the difference between “right” and “wrong.” If caregivers respond positively to a child’s actions, the child works out that this must mean it was the “right” thing to do. And, as they view a program, they will often seek guidance in this process, as when they ask questions such as: “those green characters – are they good or bad?” in attempting to understand the world in clear “good and bad” terms.

As they move to the concrete-operational stage, around the age of seven or eight, children gradually become more able to exercise moral judgment autono- mously and to use it as a tool to evaluate human behaviors. In doing so, they apply their emerging understanding of behavioral motivation to their judgment. Thus, the same behavior will be evaluated as good or bad according to the motivation behind it or the circumstances in which it occurs. Gradually, they also learn to experience the world in less dichotomous terms. So, television characters, much like real-life ones, are neither good nor bad, but rather complicated beings who behave in appropriate or inappropriate ways in different situations and within complex cultural norms.

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Identification with Media Characters

Why is it at all important to dwell on how children evaluate and understand screen characters? Let us start with three related answers: First, screen characters are the focus of identification, imitation, and idolization. Second, screen characters serve as behavioral role models for children to imitate. But above all, it is because screen characters provide children with the raw materials with which to learn, grow, experience, feel, strengthen their inner world and self-image, and just deal with everyday life.28

Many viewers, both children and adults, develop emotional relationships with television characters. We care about them, we want to get closer to them, we are curious about their lives. Identification with television characters can take various forms.29 Viewers (particularly younger ones) may feel a similarity between themselves and a character, due to sharing the same gender, ethnic origin, age, or appearance. The character may manifest the same values and worldview, and, even subconsciously, the child may perceive him to be from the same class and educational level. Younger children may identify with children or animals that are smaller or in subordinate positions, representing their own powerless position. Often the child-viewer shares the same perspective as a television character they admire, and lives “through” the same experiences with the character. In this way the character serves to reaffirm the child’s sense of self-worth; manifest similar beliefs, attitudes, and worldview; and serve as a role model for possible suitable (or unsuitable) behaviors in situations relevant to his or her life.

The child may also be involved in a form of wishful identification – when she seeks to be “like” or to “behave like” the media character. The child may imagine exchanging places with the subject of identification and feel, during the viewing, that things that happen to the character are happening, or could happen, to him, too. In this way the child exchanges her role as a viewer with the role of the character in the program, thus becoming someone else for a short, often intense, period of time.

Related to identification – yet not quite the same – is “para-social interaction.” Here, viewers feel that they know the television characters so well that they engage in imaginary interpersonal relationships with them. Para-social interactions are often formed during an extended period of viewing (e.g., actor appearing in a multi- year dramatic or soap opera series; a leading role in a magazine television format; a singer on MTV). In forming such an interaction, a younger viewer, as well as an adult, comes to feel that s/he knows the character’s personality, behaviors, tastes, and relationships with others, and cares about the character as if s/he was a close friend. The child may seek advice from the character’s role, wish to be part of his/her social world, and engage in a close friendly relationship with him/her. Para-social relation- ships may provide a deep sense of personal and social satisfaction and encourage loyalty to the program. One possible implication of such a relationship is that children (as well as adults) may treat the actors, and the character they play, as one and the same person. Thus, it is not uncommon for actors to receive comments, gifts, reprimands, and requests directed to the character they portray.

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Of particular interest is adolescents’ involvement with entertainment celebrities. This widely popular and familiar worldwide phenomenon raises interesting questions about relationships or associations between such involvement and atti- tudes, behavior, self-esteem, and identity development. A study of adolescents in Singapore, for example, found that reporting a sense of intimacy with celebrities was associated with consumption of related media content, much like the development of interpersonal relationships in the non-mediated world. While depending on a host of variables, such involvement was associated with both positive as well as negative consequences for adolescents’ wellbeing and level of materialism. For example, low self-esteem was reinforced by such relationships, particularly among adolescents who demonstrated borderline tendencies for various pathologies. Similarly, adolescents with lower academic scores tended to report a higher level of intense personal feelings toward their idols.30

Studies conducted in several countries found gender to be the most predictable characteristic of identification – both similar and wishful – as well as of para-social interaction with television characters among children. Boys of all ages almost exclu- sively identify with male figures, while girls identify mostly with females but also with males, particularly during their earlier years. Two complementary explanations for this finding have been proposed: First, to date, television continues to purvey a much wider range of male roles with which children can identify than female roles. The latter are still restricted both in absolute numbers as well as in diversity of personal- ities, roles, settings, and plot lines. This holds true for television all over the world, with a general ratio of two male characters for every single female one.31 Second, as a general rule, our societies are much more tolerant toward girls who adopt more typical “male” styles of behavior and appearance than of boys who adopt a typical “girly” style. Thus, the general rule of thumb supported by research evidence is that there is a better chance of girls watching television programs designed for boys and featuring male protagonists than vice versa. This conclusion is well known – and indeed utilized – in the commercial domain of the children’s television industry, where there is a clear desire to invest resources in developing “boy” genres. While this is the case worldwide, several recent successful productions with global appeal featuring independent child-female protagonists have challenged this producers’ rule.32

The personality traits that determine the degree of attractiveness of television characters to children reflect, in large degree, the norms and expectations from males and females in most cultures. For example, researchers found that children of all ages wish to identify with winners, even when their behaviors were evaluated as negative. For boys, this is expressed mainly through characters that excel physically and are very active. Both boys and girls value intelligence as a central characteristic that singles out male characters with whom they identify. However, unsurprisingly, this is not true when girls are asked to explain the reasons for the appeal of their favorite female characters: The reasons cited refer, primarily, to their attractive appearances. It seems that girls growing up in many societies today have internalized quite successfully the importance of beauty assigned to female appearance in many societies. Indeed, they are unlikely to see many examples of ambitious, intelligent

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women on programs they watch as such women are deemed to be less attractive and thus are often sanctioned from appearing on television. Similarly, boys still grow up to believe that manhood is defined by action, physical force, and intelligence superiority. We will return to this important finding in Chapter 5.

Based on our discussion so far, it is easy to see how identification with screen characters may be related to imitation of their behaviors. The underlining assumption is that the viewer comes to place herself in the character’s shoes – so to speak – playing the character’s role, and even internalizing, usually unknowingly, the value system that the character represents. This raises many important questions: Are there any particular personality characteristics that might predict imitation of negative behaviors (e.g., violence, lying) and others that predict imitation of positive behaviors (e.g., mutual aid, sharing)? Do specific personality characteristics lead to particular kinds of behavior patterns (e.g., physical force and violent behavior; physical attraction and sexual behavior)? We will discuss these and other questions related to imitation of behaviors portrayed on television at length in Chapter 4.

Children’s Fear Reactions

Media offer children a variety of emotional experiences. Children observe charac- ters’ emotional reactions and learn about emotional situations and behaviors, and they experience a whole range of emotions themselves, including excitement, love, thrills, sadness, and longing. Fear reaction is one form of children’s emotional involvement with the screen that has been studied systematically (see also the discussion in relation to parental mediation in Chapter 1). Much audio-visual content, across genres, can instigate fear and anxiety in viewers of all ages: dangerous situations, injuries, bodily distortions, characters’ own fearful reactions, and more. Children may express their fear not only during the viewing situation, but also way beyond it – in nightmares, distress, and situations that are associated with the televised scene. Some traumatizing screen moments stay with them for many years and may affect their understandings and behavior in the real world.

Investigation into children’s processing and reactions to such experiences raises many ethical issues. Since clearly we should not intervene in children’s viewing habits by intentionally presenting them with scary material in order to study their reactions to it, we need to find ways to study such influences when they occur spontaneously as a result of children’s own viewing – by choice or coincidence. Alternatively, we can study such reactions in retrospect, in reconstructing scenarios whereby, as adults, they recollect memories of exposure to frightening media stimulus and their enduring reactions to them.33 An international study of young people’s recollection of scary memories they carry with them from their childhood television and film viewing suggests that the majority of them have very clear and detailed stories to tell. The most commonly mentioned moments were triggered by viewing scary fiction (animated, realistic, science fiction, horror) that left a lasting impression. Many were able to relate in words and drawings the exact scene engraved in their memories, such

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that the researchers could identify the original text to which they referred, compare the scene with the memory, and confirm the similarity in great detail.34 This and the previous studies revealed that the vast majority of adults studied could describe such experiences, relating the effects they had on their bedtime behaviors, for example. The participants also reported on their childhood coping mechanisms – behavioral as well as cognitive – as well as on avoidance strategies from additional exposure.

As in other phenomena discussed so far, children’s development is central to understanding their fear reactions. Contrary to what might be expected, children do not become less easily frightened as they mature. Instead, what seems to happen is that some stimuli that bothered them in the past produce less fear, but other stimuli that never elicited reactions in the past become problematic. For example, pre-operational children up to the age of seven to eight are scared of animals; the dark; supernatural forces such as ghosts, witches and monsters; and things that look anomalous or move unexpectedly. These anxieties are largely replaced by fear of personal injury, as well as fear of injury or death of loved ones, in the concrete-operational stage. Adolescents continue to worry about themselves, but also develop fear reactions with regard to political, economic, and global issues. Concrete screen stimuli (what we see and hear on the screen) decreasingly evoke fear as children mature with more abstract concepts gradually taking their place, such as the ability to understand the meaning and implications of dangers.

For example, preschool children might be more afraid of something that looks dangerous, physically, but in fact is not threatening, rather than something that does not look dangerous, but may in fact be so. Such reactions are reversed during school-age years. No wonder, then, that young children react more fearfully to imaginary programs (e.g., cartoons, monsters) than to real dangers (e.g., news reports about an anticipated natural disaster). Such behavior, too, can be explained by applying lessons from developmental psychology: In order to develop anxiety about certain kinds of complicated threats presented on the screen, children require life experience, capabilities to distinguish between what is real and imaginary as well as to think in abstract terms, and knowledge about actual events such as the spread of a new plague, threats of nuclear disaster, or global warming.35

However, here, too, we cannot ignore the relevance of social context to children’s fear reactions to television content. Reactions to news reports about wars and terror- ist events is a particular case in point. Unfortunately, recent events have provided many opportunities to study this aspect more closely. Reactions to news of the Gulf War in 1991 among children in both Europe and the USA, who felt relatively removed from the situation, were quite mixed. However, reactions to the bombing of the Twin Towers in New York in 2001, the war in Iraq since 2003, as well as to terrorist attacks by suicide bombers in Israel, were both more dramatic and pro- duced stronger reactions. The growing intensity of live news coverage of the events, particularly when the coverage “drives it home” by presenting the danger as more relevant and immediate, seems to result in an increase in fear reactions among children, as well as a host of additional emotions, such as anger, frustration, a sense of helplessness, and despair.36

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Discussions among scholars and producers of television news for children pro- duced a set of recommendations for production at a time of war. These recommen- dations call for them to be attentive to children’s cognitive needs for information and interpretation, as well as to their affective needs by recognizing their fears and con- cerns, and assisting them in emotion management.37 We will discuss other aspects of televised war coverage and children’s political notions of the world in Chapter 5.

Television, Imagination, and Creativity

What are the effects of television viewing on children’s fantasy worlds? Some critics accuse television of “killing” children’s imagination by imposing on them a limited range of narratives, characters, and ideas about the world. Indeed, several early research studies found negative relationships between television viewing and chil- dren’s scores on a variety of creative tasks (e.g., thinking, problem solving, and writing abilities), thus concurring with the popular belief that heavy television use, particularly of a violent nature, impedes development of children’s creative abilities. Furthermore, a series of studies found that children raised in communities without television rated higher on tests of creativity in comparison with children of similar background and life circumstances raised with it. These studies were conducted during a period when researchers were still able to find non-television societies that do not differ from the general population (e.g., those refraining from television for ideological or religious reasons; or the very poor and homeless). Today, however, it is difficult to find such societies and nearly impossible to reconstruct them. Thus, though these findings remain unverified, they continue to fuel and inspire a lively debate about the possibility that a causal negative relationship does exist between television viewing and creativity and imagination (i.e., that television viewing impedes the development of creativity in children).38

Another line of investigation focused on how television stories differ in comparison to other forms of stories as stimuli of children’s creativity and imagination. For example, one hypothesis claims that a televised version of a story stimulates fewer creative ideas, storylines, and problem-solving solutions than repetitive verbal storytelling (as in audio or print forms). Here the working assumption is that the attractiveness of the visual aspects of television – dubbed the visual superiority effect – is confounded by the advantages of the auditory-verbal track for comprehension. Put simply, listening to a story on the radio may better stimulate the ability to create new storylines, characters, and events than viewing it on television.39 This finding begs the question of universality since these studies have been conducted primarily in the USA and Europe. For example, will children growing up in a more orally oriented culture (e.g., traditional societies, ultra-religious groups, homes that refrain from watching television for ideological reasons) as opposed to visually oriented cultures (e.g., those heavily dependent on screen culture) perform differently on these tasks, simply because they have been raised to prioritize particular sets of mental skills over others?

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The role of television as a stimulant of fantasy play (interchangeably termed pre- tend, make-believe, or imaginative play) is another area of research. Many of these studies assume that television viewing may displace free play, particularly among young children who normally are expected to engage in such play. The accumulated research in this area suggests that, ultimately, the types of content children watch are more important in determining outcomes of fantasy and imaginative play than the quantity of time spent viewing. For example, viewing fantasy-violence on television may inhibit or take the place of imaginative play, while educational programming that encourages pro-social behaviors designed to stimulate fantasy play may actually encourage it. Critics of commercial television argue that most of the programs appearing on commercial stations encourage passive viewing rather than active thinking and imagination, and rarely provide opportunities for young children to engage in creative imaginative play, presumed to be essential for their development.40

In contrast, there are many rich descriptions in ethnographic case studies and anec- dotal reports that illustrate potential connections between media texts as stimuli for children’s imagination and play. Some examples are: Embracing Ernie from Sesame Street as an imaginary companion in the USA; playing Batman or Dragon Ball Z games in Germany; imitating Power Rangers or playing out the roles of friends in Neighbors in the UK; aspiring to be like a member of the Spice Girls pop group or a Pokémon Master in Israel; imagining meeting friends from the Mongol television series in South Korea; to name just a few.41 All of these media contents were found to leave media traces in children’s stories, play, and artwork. They were used by children to construct their make-believe worlds and in doing so to express their desires through imagined play within those worlds. Further, children were found to borrow from settings seen on television (e.g., a space station, a jungle, even a television studio); objects (e.g., a vehicle, a piece of furniture, a building); characters (e.g., an animated super hero, a celebrity, a protagonist), customs (e.g., a cape, a mask, an accessory); narratives (e.g., action-adventure, soap opera, situation comedy); and specific information (e.g., name of places, characters, events, scientific inventions, medical treatments) and integrate them in their imagined and/or wished-for stories for themselves. Take, for example, this story told by Omer, a nine-year-old Israeli boy, in an interview setting. Omer is describing a drawing he has made of his make-believe world:

This world is only mine … here I am the ruler. I can do whatever I want. Everything is allowed. I am wearing a suit. The red-cloak is like Superman’s. The green are my hands so that I can climb on everything like Spiderman, those blue things in my hands are my fire laser-ray weapons. The red is a belt like Pokémon’s. The purple are my flying boots, and the horns I took from Batman’s mask. I am the master and I also have a sword, like in Star Wars.

He continues with his story, combining a host of media sources, unrelated to the original superpowers, including books – new and old classics:

There is a carpet and a bed and lots of things for training … like in the Olympics. Also Pokémon figures, a huge Pikachu … In this world there are good people and bad

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people, and also a school in a castle, like Hogwarts school in Harry Potter, that I have already graduated from … In the middle of my world there is a mystery island like Jules Verne’s, with lots of whales, like Moby Dick. When I am asleep I dream about the powers of television heroes, and I added a bit from my own imagination…

Omer “slips into” the various super powers, as one slips on a dress, including the special skills he possesses as the master (Star Wars) and those he has learned at the school of magic (Harry Potter). He goes out armed for adventures in a world where the good and the bad co-exist, as on the famous Treasure Island or in the fight with Moby Dick. Omer adopts the status of the media character (i.e., being a graduate of the school of magic and being the master), as well as the special skills and weapons of superheroes.

Omer’s story is but one illustration of the intense inter-relationship between media culture and children’s fantasy worlds as expressed in their everyday lives. However, while we recognize that children do use media content in their fantasy play, many questions remain unanswered; for example: What is the frequency of media’s contribution to fantasy play? Is play induced from a non-screen-related source more or less imaginative (e.g., a book, a story told by an adult, a theater play)? Does it make sense to deliberate, as researchers, about whether one kind of imagina- tive play is of higher quality and more desired than the other?

A Conceptual and Methodological Reflection

This is a very good point at which to stop our review and reflect on some of the conceptual and methodological issues involved in studying children and media as discussed in the first two chapters. We will use the recent section on television, imagination, and creativity as an illustration of a much wider debate. The accumu- lating body of knowledge that claims that, overall, the negative effects of media on children’s creativity, imagination, and fantasy play are stronger than its positive effects has largely emerged from the research tradition of media effects. These studies of children and television embrace developmental theories in cognitive psychology that center on the individual child. Accordingly, this approach views children as being in the process of “becoming” an adult. Their abilities and skills are tested and measured in comparison to the ideal model of the adult thinker. This approach has been named “the deficiency model” as it assumes that the child is “deficient” in comparison with the adult. It is a research paradigm with roots in various stimulus- response models whose goal is to find correlations between television content and fantasy activity. Research that applies this approach has been conducted primarily through experimental designs, where children are brought into a study setting and presented with various tasks. In most cases, such studies quantify pre-defined fantasy activities. Thus, the researcher counts the number of times the child behaves in specific manner, for example, says something aloud, sings a song, dresses up, or re-arranges furniture.

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The major strength of studies conducted in the effects tradition is that they can isolate and control the issues selected for study and place each child in a comparable situation. For example, they can control the kind of televisual material to which the child is exposed during the experiment, the skills tested, the toys available in the room, and the order of activities. Researchers assume that such a context has a greater chance of attaining more specific as well as causal explanations. For example, they can determine that a specific educational program elicits a certain activity while a violent program does not. Many questions can be raised regarding the type of activities selected for coding and the researcher’s value judgments attached to them (e.g., is it “good” when the child dresses up as a princess after having been read a story, but “not good” if she dresses up like a princess she saw on television?). Reservations can also be made regarding the suitability of the unnatural experi- mental setting for eliciting and observing fantasy-related activities.

In correlational studies, another often applied research format, home-viewing behaviors are measured through responses to questionnaires and correlated with other cognitive skills. The major strength of this research method is its ability to examine long-term, accumulative influences of viewing television on a very large number of children and so be able to offer insights that can be generalized to other situations.

In contrast to these two approaches, naturalistic or ethnographic studies observe children in their own familiar settings as they express or articulate their inner worlds in play, drawing, and/or talk. Such studies are of a smaller scale, but take place in more natural environments, such as children’s homes, playgrounds, and schools, where children engage in and reveal fantasy and creative behaviors more spontane- ously. Researchers who apply the ethnographic approach do not test the children, rather they observe as well as talk with them, and try to make sense of what they do and say. Rather than seeing children as in the process of “becoming” adults, these researchers focus on seeing children as a “being” in their own right, at each individual stage of their development. Rather than perceiving children as “deficient” in comparison to adults, they treat them simply as different from one another.

These ethnographic studies have emerged from a very different research tradition to the positivist-based approach summarized above. Here children are presumed to act in meaningful ways that express their own perspectives, worldviews, and self-image. This approach argues that children are often underestimated by experi- mental research that is psychologically oriented, and, more specifically, that the significance that television has for children’s fantasy worlds can hardly be encapsu- lated in studies conducted through experiments in unfamiliar settings. In contrast, scholars working in the naturalistic–ethnographic tradition approach children as socially competent, autonomous individuals who actively make sense of and indeed construct and express meanings as they interact with the world around them. They do not assume that what is perceived as central or important in a television program for adults is not necessarily the same thing for children. Thus the comparison with adults as a central criterion to evaluating children’s comprehension or creativity is perceived as misleading. Referred to colloquially as the qualitative method, this

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tradition focuses on meanings media have for children and what children do with media, rather than on how children’s comprehension is deficient in comparison to adults and what media do to children.

Furthermore, qualitative researchers argue that the effects approach is misguided because it assumes that a television story has one clear, true, deep structure that needs to be understood for mature comprehension of the story. This assumption prevents the possibility of exposing alternative interpretations of it. Evaluating characters, judging their morality, or identifying with them is ground, often deeply, in the social context of the child. If we pursue this criticism further, we can appre- ciate its possible epistemological implications: understanding texts is by definition, a contextualized experience. Any attempt to enforce one “correct” interpretation, one possible “meaning,” for example, an imagined adult view, is misleading. Adults, too, just like children, have a gender, a race, a social class, a religion, a culture, a political view. Adults, too, live in very diverse cultures all over the world. Accordingly there is not, nor should there be, one ideal adult-comprehension model.

This brief characterization of various research traditions employed by scholars in studying media and children relations raises a number of questions that we should consider as we assess the studies and discussions of other issues in this book. For example: Is it possible to see these two approaches as complementary rather than competitive? Can we integrate the knowledge gained from both traditions into a fuller and more comprehensible understanding of the role of media in children’s lives? Can we accept that children lack the skills and knowledge that adults have developed as they mature and at the same time respect the meaning children produce from media in their own right? Can we consider each child’s individual development and at the same time integrate our understanding of this development as embedded in complicated social contexts? Can we employ experimental, correla- tional, as well as ethnographic methods as appropriate to our research questions, and combine the results of all approaches to create a more comprehensive under- standing of children?

Notes

1. Common Sense Media, 2013. 2. In the UK: Himmelweit, Oppenheim, & Vince, 1958; in the USA: Schramm, Lyle, &

Parker, 1961; and in Canada: Williams, 1986. 3. Offered by Neuman, 1991. 4. Livingstone & Bovill, 2001. 5. Tilley, 2013. 6. Jung, Lin, & Kim, 2012. 7. Lin, Zhang, Jung, & Kim, 2013. 8. Messenger Davies, 1989; Smith, 1986. 9. Valkenburg, 2004; Van Evra, 2004. 10. Piaget, 1969; Piaget & Inhelder, 1969. 11. Casper & Theilheimer, 2009; Trawick-Smith, 2006.

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12. Kolucki & Lemish, 2011, pp. 13‒23. Brief excerpts reprinted with permission. 13. Mander, 1978; Winn, 1977. 14. Anderson & Field, 1986; Anderson & Lorch, 1983; Bickham, Wright, & Huston, 2001. 15. Lemish, 1987. 16. Christakis, 2010. 17. Common Sense Media, 2013. 18. Huizinga, Nikkelen, & Valkenburg, 2013. 19. Salomon, 1981. 20. Lemish, 2010. 21. See issue 12(2) of TelevIZIon, 1999, devoted to research on the Teletubbies. 22. Lemish, 2010. 23. The discussion in this section has been informed by Chandler, 1997; Dorr, 1983; Fitch,

Huston, & Wright, 1993; Hawkins, 1977; and Messenger Davies, 1997. 24. From transcripts in Lemish, 1997. 25. Hansen, Rasmussen, Martensen, & Tufte, 2002; Lemish, 1997; Valkenburg & Cantor, 2002. 26. Buijzen, Rozendaal & van Reijmersdal, 2013, p. 275. 27. Theories of moral development are heavily influenced by Kohlberg, 1984, as well as by

the feminist critic of his work, originally voiced by Gilligan, 1982. As applied to televi- sion, see Collins, 1983, and Rosenkoetter, 2001.

28. Götz, Lemish, Aidman, & Moon, 2005. 29. Hoffner, 1996; Hoffner & Cantor, 1991; Raviv, Bar-Tal, Raviv, & Ben-Horin, 1996. 30. Chia & Poo, 2009. 31. Götz & Lemish, 2012. 32. Lemish, 2010. 33. Harrison & Cantor, 1999; Cantor, 2004. 34. Lemish & Alon-Tirosh, forthcoming. 35. Cantor 1994; 1996; 2001; 2002. 36. See with regard to the Gulf War of 1991, Cantor, Mares, & Oliver, 1993; Hoffner &

Haefner, 1993; and Wober & Young, 1993. With regard to the Twin Towers, see Smith & Moyer-Guse, 2006; and Walma van der Molen & Konjin, 2007. With regard to everyday news reporting, see Smith & Wilson, 2000; 2002.

37. International Central Institute for Youth and Educational Television (IZI), 2004. 38. MacBeth, 1996. Most notable opponents of television in this area are the Singers, see for

example, Singer, 1993; Singer & Singer, 1976; 1981; 1983. 39. Greenfield & Beagles-Roos, 1988; Greenfield, Farrer, & Beagles-Roos, 1986; Rolandelli,

1989. 40. Valkenberg & Van der Voort, 1994. 41. Quoted in Götz, Lemish, Aidman, & Moon, 2005, pp. 5–6.

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