Evaluation of the protagonist-antagonist dichotomy in Spanish television content targeting children

Abstract

Abstract:The goal of this study is to analyse the profile of the protagonist-antagonist dichotomy in all children's television content, of all genres, offered by Spanish television channels. The analysis of protagonist and antagonist characters focuses on variables such as: type and number, age, gender, nationality, skills, relationship between the characters, characterisation, means used to achieve goals, consequences of the action of the antagonist over the antagonist and vice versa. The sample consists of 168 series that were analysed using descriptive content analysis and multivariate analysis. The results showed that over 50% of the series do not have an antagonist and that when there is one the most common type is a single human, which appears in more than 15% of the analysed series, followed by the fantastic creature type, which is present in just 10%. In 80% of the series the skills of the protagonists are social and human, and in 45.24% the exhibited skill is intelligence.