Many discussions of television.s impact on children focus only on negative effects, such as the influences of
violent television or persuasive
advertising (e. g., John, 1999; Kunkel,
2001; Wilson, et al., 1997). Such research is certainly important, and has
had a critical impact on policy and
legislation in the United States. However, it is equally important to recognise that not all effects of television
are negative.
Often, far less attention has been paid
to the positive effects that educational
television programmes can hold. Yet,
if we believe that children can learn
negative lessons from television, then
it stands to reason that they can learn
positive lessons, too. The same medium through which children learn
product information in commercials
should also allow them to learn
science concepts in an educational
programme. And the same medium
that can influence children to act
more aggressively should also be able
to motivate them to co-operate with
a friend.
In fact, research has shown that all of
these propositions are true: Just as
prosocial content from educational
television programmes. Afterwards,
drawing upon research conducted
with a wide variety of television
series, I will discuss some of the
production features that producers
can build into their programmes to
make them as educationally effective
as possible. (Interested readers can
find greatly expanded discussions of
all of these issues in Fisch, 2004.)
- Children¹s learning from television
- 4 pg
