Television

Mainstream research on children and television has tended to define children as more or less 'incompetent' viewers. What children do with television is typically compared with adult norms, and thereby found wanting. Children, it is argues, are unselective, uncritical and unsophiscated viewer. They lack many of the 'skills' which are required to make sense of television and to use it in a responsible and sensible way. Thus, it is argued that hcildren are incapable of distinguishing between television fantasy and reality; that they are unable to identify the essential elements of a narractive or the motications of characters; theat they do not understand the persuasive funcations of advertising; and that they are ignorant about how television is produced.