Can Children's TV Really Educate and Entertain?

This article explores trends related to the place of children's television programmes in British culture. The authors review a book on the subject: The Window in the Corner: a half-century of children's television, by Ruth Inglis (Peter Owen, £14.95).

According to the authors, there is a certain nostalgia surrounding "retro" programming, or the remaking of old classics like Bill & Ben and Tom & Jerry. This nostalgia, however, cannot approximate the hype surrounding newer programming like Goohbah (a follow-up to the popular children's programme Teletubbies). They say that "Kids television has come a long way since [the 1947 show] Muffin [the Mule]. It has grown up into a branch of big business; children have embraced multichannel television with a passion; and the old style of teatime scheduling is at a crossroads."

A critical review of Inglis' book, which provides a historical analysis of British children's media consumption, is meant to illustrate this trend. In the words of the authors, "Inglis's sunny belief is that while television has not been an unmixed blessing, it does impart knowledge, it is both entertaining and instructive. 'It does not invade the child's mind to the exclusion of other activities...The 20th-century scaremongers did not accurately foretell the future of television in children's lives. It has a secure place in their daily routines, but not a stranglehold,' she says. But the key theme running through the account is that the genre is now hugely affected by globalisation. Series can sell around the world with customised voice-overs, accompanied by merchandising: soft toys, videos, books, games."

Motivated by the belief that children should have programmes made specifically for them in their own language and culture, producers are in danger of seeing their efforts fall flat in the context of a media- and technology-saavy children's market. For instance, "parents seem almost to have given up trying to control or monitor what their children are watching. They certainly find it hard to direct them to the pure children's programmes, made for them."

Click here for the full article on The Guardian website.