"Play school" is an icon of Australian children's television and an important part of Australian life--this programme, perhaps more than any other, has taken and continues to take centre stage in our living rooms and social worlds as young children. "Play school" is invested with an enormous amount of cultural capital and hence…

Multicultural education emerged from the political struggles of the 1960s and 1970s and advocated the inclusion of women and ethnic and racial groups in school curricula and children's media. Recently multiculturalism has evolved to include a critical perspective by focusing on stigmatized social identities such as race, class, sexuality,…

Our paper deals with the relationship between sustainability, media advertisements and their effect on children. This topic is highly actual today, as the children of today, who grow up in front of the TV will be the consumers of tomorrow. The perpetual growth of consuming and gathering material goods is not serving the sustainable development.…

This document presents witness testimony and supplemental materials from a Congressional hearing called to examine Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, a cartoon designed to teach children about the danger of substance abuse. Opening statements are included by Senator Joseph Biden, Jr., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and by Senators Strom…

Applies fantasy theme analysis to explain the rhetorical vision that emerges from newspaper and broadcast news coverage of Fred Rogers. Notes that journalists have created a fantasy about Rogers that holds him up as the embodiment of television's potential. Concludes that when journalists do this they step outside their usual role as objective…

This paper argues that the Children's Television Act of 1990 (CTA) required television broadcasters to air educational and informational children's programming, but Federal Communications Commission (FCC) policy did little to clarify the definition of "educational and informational." The paper first examines the historical…

Children's television programs broadcast on Saturday mornings (7:00am-12:00pm) on CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox networks were examined for gender and ethnic representation. For a sample of programs during the 1995/96 television season, raters counted the number of males and females, and the number of Caucasians, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans,…

This paper addresses the role of quality age-appropriate television programming in preschoolers' lives. The paper describes a developmental investigation of preschoolers' knowledge of polite behavior routines and their modeling of host-quest behaviors from a special episode to the television program "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood." The…

A content analysis was conducted of the 12 prime-time television programs most preferred by children and adolescents to determine verbal statements about sexual issues. On average, 29% of interactions on an individual episode referred to sexual issues. Results are discussed concerning adolescents' uses of this input. (SLD)

This study assessed the educational and informational television programming provided by four major networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. Assessed were 29 children's television programs during the 1995-1996 season. Programs were videotaped from 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., a time frame when children are most likely to be in the viewing audience. A content…

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the late 1980s appeared to pursue its own agenda of broadcast deregulation, notwithstanding congressional pressures. The apparent power shift is evident in a case study of the interactions between Congress and the FCC on the subject of children's television. In the early 1970s, the FCC tended to…

Uses the violence of "The Road Runner" cartoon series as a starting point for a mythico-rhetorical analysis of the message system contained in the cartoon. Explores how the cartoon re-enacts the myth of Sisyphus in the context of the post-World War II technological boom. Discusses insights into the meanings of cartoon violence, and into…

Cartoons are generally regarded as "kids' stuff," unworthy of scholarly study. As an aspect of popular culture, television cartoons do not attract scholars who are interested in being part of the "critical elite." Some scholars believe, however, that less time should be spent discussing how TV might be used to teach children…

"Lift Off" is a new, innovative children's television series produced by the Australian Children's Television Foundation that has been well received by young children, parents, critics, and educators. One typical half-hour program is profiled. Questions the claims that "Lift Off" will enrich the lives of a whole age cohort,…

Children's broadcasting in Germany (public and private television as well as radio) is traditionally educational broadcasting that aims to show and explain the world to children, and seeks to motivate them to discover and use their creativity and imagination. It occurs in different types of programs and employs a variety of literary and…