TV is a convenient scapegoat for all the ills that befall children but new research suggests that watching too much television and parents not talking to their children can’t be blamed for speech and language problems.
A survey for the Communcation Trust was carried out to explore perceptions about children’s speech and language development, and finds that parents and too much TV are wrongly being blamed.
Senior Lecturer in Childhood and Youth Studies at The Open University, Dr Mary Jane Kehily’s, own research found that “children used television as a cultural resource to think with and talk with. Far from being passive and mindless, children view television actively and critically engage with what they watch.”
“It’s not uncommon for television to get a bad press,” she says. “The ‘box’ in the corner of the room carries so many negative associations – frequently regarded as a mindless activity, and generally cast in a bad-for-you kind of light, TV is charged with making couch potatoes of us all.
“Stereotypes of that brand of human spud are ever-present in British comedy. The family most dedicated to the box, The Royle Family, exist as potent reminders that watching too much television places you in the underclass rather than the middle-class. Laughed at, rather than laughing with, excess TV drains these unfortunates of their critical faculties. Watching television and laughing about people who watch television, we collude in an elaborate joke; they have become lazy, stupid and fat – but we’re not like that.
“Just when you thought that this negative view of television couldn’t sink much lower, along comes a new survey to drag the reputation of the box into the sea-bed. Polling 6,000 people, the Communication Trust found that one in six blamed excessive TV watching for children’s speech and language problems. 2,500 people thought that parents did not talk to their children enough.”
Cultural resource
Dr Kehily says, from a sociological perspective, television, like other media forms, has always been a vehicle for adult concerns and anxieties and can spark a ‘moral panic’. In fact, television viewing may have positive and life-enhancing effects upon children, she explains, but that contrary expert opinion doesn’t make the news.
Her own research reveals positive benefits in the way children interact with television. She says: “In my own research at The Open University with children in the 11 to 15 age range, I found that children used television as a cultural resource to think with and talk with. Far from being passive and mindless, children view television actively and critically engage with what they watch.
“The young people I studied over the course of two years, used television as a framework for discussing issues that concerned them and had a bearing upon their everyday lives. Plots from the soaps, TV characters and dramatic serialisations became the subject of scrutiny and were used like roadmaps to explore the terrain they were travelling. Through television, these young people explored family relations, sexuality and gender identity and would frequently juxtapose their own experiences with media constructions. In some cases, television enabled teenagers to speak about sensitive issues that may have otherwise been taboo with the peer group. In such discussions children think about matters of morality and responsibility, actively negotiating what they think and how they feel while also considering what others think of them.
“My study concluded that television, like other popular cultural forms, should be seen within a broad social context as an influential, mass produced and publicly shared media form that speaks to children in particular ways and enables them to talk back. Not a ringing endorsement of television as good-for-you, but an acknowledgement that there may be social benefits for children and particularly for peer group relations.”
Dr Mary Jane Kehily is a Senior Lecturer in Childhood and Youth Studies at The Open University. Her book, Sexuality, Gender and Schooling, Shifting Agendas in Social Learning was published by Routledge, 2002.
Useful links
