In Children and Television: A Global Perspective, Dafna Lemish uses a narrative style to consider the complexity of the interrelationship between television and children. Her suppositions and divisions of categories are logical and she explores every angle of her subject. However, due to the lack of available research, many of the questions she investigates do not have any current results and thus there are often no conclusions from research for her to base any answers on.

Postgraduates interested in locating gaps in the research regarding children and television will find many suggestions from Lemish’s book. In each chapter, she raises dozens of issues regarding the viewing habits of children including: the interplay between their outside interests and their television choices; the possible conflicts between viewing habits and academic performance; the interpretation of fiction in different geographical contexts; and the variety of hypotheses on the impact of television on children’s social development. While Lemish does review the current literature and compares the results of global research about children and television, for the most part her book poses more questions than answers and highlights areas that need investigation by researchers.

As a medium that is located in the family home, television has been deeply controversial and often accused of having an inappropriate influence. Violence in young people, in particular, has been frequently blamed on the effect of violent television content. It has become almost routine for the media to report on the viewing habits of violent offenders as evidence for their anti-social behaviour, and numerous lawsuits have been aimed at television shows after a copycat crime has taken place. This public opinion is based on numerous social learning studies that have “found that children imitated televised violent behaviour” (74). Studies on the effects of television violence on children tend to be dominated by the arousal theory, which suggests “viewing violence on television generally arouses children and stimulates them to behave violently,” (74). When conducted in the field, experiments on whether television teaches and incites violent behaviour “have not been able to arrive at unified conclusions” (76) mainly because of the question of whether children with already violent tendencies are more attracted to violent programs than less aggressive children.

Given the supposition of the potential behavioural influences of television, numerous programs aimed at healing cultural rifts in communities have met with much success. In particular, New York’s Children’s Television Workshop, which produced the groundbreaking Sesame Street, created television situations that had Latin American, African American, Chinese American, Deaf American and many more stigmatised sub-groups all interacting in a harmonious fashion. Initially, the aim of Sesame Street when it first aired in 1969 was:

[T]o decrease the gap between lower-class children and their peers from middle and higher classes in developing school-readiness skills, with the intention of giving all American children a more equal starting point in the educational system (172)

The show now has versions all around the world, and these are adapted into culturally specific educational themes. In Turkey, mothers were personally addressed on the show to encourage them to improve their literacy, while in China, a section of the show was devoted “to aesthetics deemed missing from the school curricula” (176), and in Russia, the show dealt with “the transition to an open society” (176). A Macedonian version Nash Maalo was “designed to encourage mutual respect and understanding among ethnic Albanians, Macedonians, Romas, and Turkish [children]” (140). The success of that show led to a Cypriot version Gimme6 that gave “positive images of the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot communities” (140).

In the Middle East, two version of Sesame Street were created: the Hebrew Rechov Sumsum and the Arabic Shara’a Simsim. These shows represented the “two-states solution of nations destined to live as neighbours and with two sets of characters speaking in two languages” (139). Studies on the effects of these shows on children concluded that “television does have the potential to challenge negative stereotypes by exposing children through television to the everyday life of their peers on the other side of the conflict” (140). Although the success of Sesame Street in closing the educational gaps in classes has been overtaken by its potential to minimise negative cultural stereotypes, the show remains one of the few children’s shows that has met with approval from both children and educators.

Television is often seen as competing with education and the family as primary socialising tools for children. However, Lemish found that the family itself greatly influences the types and duration of television watched. While much of the research into the viewing habits of families was dominated by studying middle-class families around the world, one study in the USA noted that the working-class families “with little or no control over their [working] schedule … show less concern for the medium” (14) in contrast to “middle and higher-class groups who perceive time as a resource … and try to engage them [their children] in more pre-planned viewing” (19).

In comparing research on global viewing habits, Lemish found that European countries “which are more permissive in parenting style, such as Italy and Sweden, had a higher private ownership of televisions in children’s rooms, higher individual viewing and less parental mediation” (13). In contrast to France and Belgium, “where parenting styles are less permissive, television has been found to be a more integral part of the entire family and viewing took place more often in the presence of other family members” (13). In the USA, Lemish found that parents attempt to “shield their children from a frightening world as it is often represented on television news” (13). However, in Israel “middle-class parents encourage children to be involved in current affairs by offering a role model of regular news watching and by engaging in a discussion of the news during the broadcast” (13).

Patriarchal models of the family tend to dominate the viewing choices with the father being more often in charge of the family’s viewing choices. Traditional gender roles also influenced viewing habits, with men seeing the home (and by extension the entertainment offered by television) “as a place of rest and relaxation” (19), while women generally saw television as “background noise for routine household activities” (17). Lemish also cites research findings that suggest the influence of:

“[T]wo social trends: the historical conception of technology as a male domain, on the one hand, and women’s choice to maintain this balance, on the other hand, by demonstrating “calculated ignorance” regarding technology [such as setting the VCR] to avoid adding another chore to their already abundant number of household responsibilities.” (19)

Television, especially programs and advertising that are aimed at children, continued to present this gender distinction, with ‘boys’ television being characterised by “loud music, sharp “cuts” from one camera shot to another, [and] special audio effects” (45). Television aimed at young girls, on the other hand, was filled with “soft background music, female voices, pastel colours, photographic features such as “fade outs” … and “dissolves” … and gradual changes between camera shots” (45). The male and female gender roles presented on television, while distinct from each other, often gave women, in particular, conflicting messages about femininity and how to behave appropriately and be successful. Lemish uses the example of The Spice Girls and Madonna as female icons admired by young women “for [their] independence, freedom, and control over their lives” (111), while at the same time having “strong reservations, even disgust with the singers’ “whorish” appearance” (111). Lemish see these interpretations of sexy female pop stars as negotiating the virgin/whore dichotomy that still dominates and limits the construction of femininity and female sexuality.

One factor that most influenced children’s interpretation, and indeed tastes, in programs was familiarity with content. Lemish found that children around the world tended to prefer the slick expensive American productions to local shows that were often low budget. Local content also had to compete with daily life and children frequently found flaws in the ability of local programming to accurately reflect their lives and location. Not surprisingly, the dominance of American television led to children believing it to be a rich, strong and violent country. In a study from India, 80% of children interviewed believed that “Americans enjoy a high standard of living, had a powerful media, and advanced technology” (129). A study in Greece found that most children “overestimated the ability of an average American family to allow itself to take an annual vacation in Europe or purchase a luxury car” (129); while in Israel, studies found correlating exaggerated perceptions of American wealth, but also a rather negative perception of American morals. Many interviewees perceived Americans as “the most violent of all people … [and that] they lack self-control and live according to behavioural norms that are not acceptable anywhere else in the world” (130). Children cited fictional action movies starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, as “proof” of the strength of America.

The international dominance and influence of American films and television demonstrates yet again that while television teaches, the lessons it imparts are governed by the wealthy. Even though mediums like the internet now provide more instant access to information, people in developing countries are still unlikely to have a computer in the home, but are highly likely to have access to a television, ensuring that television remains the greatest potential propaganda machine in the world.


Children and Television: A Global Perspective
(2006) By Dafna Lemish
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing
ISBN: 1-4051-4418-1 hardcover
ISBN: 1-4051-4419-X paperback
257pp