Young children were able to learn the contents of television literacy curricula and to apply them in discussions about television reality, but such learning did not seem to mediate television's impact on social attitudes.Much of what children watch on television-both programs (11, 31, 32) and commercials (2, 7)-has not been produced with their welfare or their parents' values in mind. Research indicates that children's attitudes, behavior, and knowledge are influenced by this content (16, 17,30). But while there has been increasing consumer/viewer activism regarding television for children, there is little evidence that TV content will be altered in significant ways in the near future.Thus another approach has been undertaken to modify some of television's effect-to make children more critical evaluators of its content. The work reported here represents an effort to achieve this goal by (a) conducting research to determine what would constitute critical evaluation skills in young children uis-a-ois entertainment programming, (b) developing curricula to teach these skills, and (c) evaluating the extent to which children learned the content of the curricula, applied it to their reasoning about television programs, and used it to mediate between exposure to selected content and the effects of that content.When we began this project in 1974, we knew little about the audience factors that determine what kinds of content influence which viewers and to what extent. Some research, mostly dealing with adults, suggested that the effects of exposure to the information presented by a mass medium could be modified by the abilities to devalue the source of information, to assess the motivations for presenting any information, and to perceive the degree of reality intended (3,8, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20). The studies were few in number, focusing mostly on adults and looking at the impact of live speakers, live models, written communications, and filmed messages rather than of television. Thus we began our project by attempting to identify the information, attitudes, attentional processes, and reasoning processes which seemed to lead some viewers to a more critical evaluation of television content. This work, conducted over two years, involved about 100 black, Puerto Rican, and white adolescents and adults and more than 100 black and white elementary school children.This work, and that of others, guided our curriculum development into four potentially important areas, some of which are similar to those identified earlier with adults and some of which have shown up in work subsequent to ours. The first aim was to decrease the degree to which children perceived the programs they watch as real (4, 5, 22, 24). The second was to increase children's tendencies and abilities to compare television content with information from other sources (6, 10, 13, 23). The third goal was to diminish the credibility children ascribed to television through teaching about the industry's economic goals, about production, and about other legitimate sources o...

Televised role portrayals and interracial interactions, as sources of vicarious experience, contribute to the development of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination among children. The first section of this article reviews the amount and nature of racial/ethnic content on television, including limited portrayals of racial/ethnic groups and of interracial/ethnic interaction. The second section focuses on theoretical models that help explain television's role in the development, maintenance, and modification of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. The third section addresses research on the effects of television in altering stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination, with particular attention given to media intervention programs specifically designed to address these issues (Sesame Street and Different and the Same). This article concludes with a discussion of suggestions for future research.Almost all children have a television, with 97% living in households with a VCR and 74% having access to cable or satellite television (Rideout, Foehr, Roberts, & Brodie, 1999). The most recent statistics suggest that children watch almost 3 hr per day of television (Rideout et al., 1999). As a "window on the world" television can be seen as a vehicle for providing children and youth with experiences and information otherwise not available to them, their families or communities. In the case of race relations, television is indeed a key socializing agent. Both non-Hispanic Whites and African Americans are most likely to live in a neighborhood in which most residents are of the same ethnic group (

The authors propose that television, while entertaining children, also socializes them. To support this conclusion they review the literature regarding effects of television content on aggressive and prosocial behavior and social attitudes. The structure of the television industry is examined and economic factors are found to outweigh concern for the public in the choice of programming. To increase the beneficial role of television, the authors argue there must be greater diversity of broadcast content and more parental direction of children's exposure to it.

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