10 November, 2009
heard on Morning Edition, NPR
Robert Smith
1children are adaptable: Kids paid more attention when the Muppets talked. Louise Gikow Sesame Street: A Celebration- 40 Years of Life on the Street 2009
2. Good Muppets Take Time to Evolve: makers have revelations about their characters as they play them.
3. Change is Unavoidable: Appearance isn't everything; if the characters feel real, kids will follow them through whatever changes they make.
4. C is for Competition: producers changed the show as new shows started vying for the audience's attention.
5. Freshen Up: it started grungy to show kids in cities a world that looked like theirs. As kids in the suburbs and rural areas started watching, too, the street lightened up.
6. Learn from your mistakes: in 1994, the Street world started to sprawl. The changes didn't catch on and so they pulled back to the basics.
7. Keep it simple: in the late 60s, the researchers thought kids needed lots of changes from segment to segment, like a variety show. In time, they got rid of the interruptions and gave longer stories precedence. The 2-4 year old audience enjoyed the calm and predictable nature of the 15 minute story blocks.
8. Push the Envelope: the characters are now no longer all puppets because it's easier to move CGI characters from the show into video games and cell-phone video. Kids don't care what the characters are made of as long as the story is good.
Snuffleupagus divorce
D is for Divorce: Sesame Street Tackles Another Touchy Topic
Jessica Bennett/Tumblr Storyboard 10 December, 2012, Time Magazine
in 1992, Sesame Street produced and tested a storyline about Snuffleupagus' family breaking up. It tested really badly with children and they chose not to air the segment. Susan Scheiner, researcher for Sesame, "We thought this was really revolutionary, and then it was just bad."
Sesame Workshop (formerly Children's Television Workshop) conducted research for two years and debuted 13 minute segment online and as part of multimedia kit "Little Children, Big Challenges: Divorce" in 2012. Abby Cadabby, the fairy-in-training, talks about her family which has parents who have been divorced for a long time. a tool for parents and for children to deal with their emotions about divorce.
"Most viewers may not know it, but Sesame Street was the first show to use empirical research as part of its programming. Now in its 44th season, what that level of research means is that producing shows for Sesame Street can take months, if not years — involving dozens of experts, researchers and psychologists, as well as impeccably sourced advisory teams who are asked to serve as critics. Big Bird as political pawn and Elmo sex scandal aside, it’s a model that’s allowed the show to tackle subjects that, as 30-year Sesame Street veteran Lewis Bernstein puts it, “sometimes you’d think you wouldn’t want to touch with a 10-foot pole”: race, adoption, love, pregnancy, incarceration — even death. When, in the early 1980s, the longtime cast member who played Mr. Hooper died suddenly, Sesame Street faced up to the change — explaining that Mr. Hooper (Will Lee) wouldn’t be returning to the show (or his store). “If we left it unsaid,” the executive producer reasoned at the time, “kids would notice.” Last month, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the show reaired an episode in which Big Bird’s nest is devastated by a storm. “A lot of people want to shield kids from the tougher issues,” says Chrissy Ferraro, a writer on the show. “My feeling is, the more information the kid has, the better.”
“TV can be a very impressive teacher — if it’s done correctly,” says Dorothy Singer, the co-founder, with her husband, of the Family Television Research and Consultation Center at Yale. Of course, there’s lots to it: “Pacing is important, repetition is important, the clarification of ideas is important.”
Where the Spirit of Mr. Rogers Endures
Arielle Bernstein, 31 August, 2016, The Atlantic
"spirit of affirmation persists in excellent children's pop culture, such as recent episodes of SEsame Street, inside out, and Kubo and the Two Strings."
Roger sbrought childre and adults and people from diverse backgrounds and experiences together. In 1969, he and show's African-American policeman Officer Clemmons soaked their feet together in a pool.
"show was a platform to give voice to children: fears, hopes, pains, joy. Every question- big or small- was worthy of respect; every feeling-good or bad- viewed without judgment. Rogers answered questions open-heartedly and directly to the camera." about online advice colums: Like Rogers, they assert that children and grown-ups can be wiser and better when they embrace love and kindness toward one another—and toward themselves, too.
Angry Kid youtube stopmotion show
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/06/20/watching-violence-makes-for-angry-kids-study-shows.html
look for book
Macquarie University Children and Families Research Centre deputy director Dr. Wayne Warburton "Growing Up Fast And Furious: Reviewing The Impacts Of Violent And Sexualised Media On Children"
Citation: (Dr. Maya Gotz,
2014)
Bibliography
Entry:
Dr. Maya
Gotz, D. E. (2014). Emotions in Children's TV: A Few Reminder for Children's
TV Producers on Feelings. International Central Institute for Youth and
Educational Television, Germany. Retrieved March 25, 2017, from
http://www.br-online.de/jugend/izi/english/publication/Reminder_Emotions_in_Childrens-s_TV.pdf
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| p 2 |
Recognise the power of tv: tv is an emotionally intensive experience. Children immerse themselves in the stories, feel with or for the characters, imagine themselves in scenes, and experience the atmosphere of the situation intensively. In this aspect, children experience feelings much more strongly than adults. TV provokes feelings, can be emotionally overwhelming, emotionally enriches, sets emotional links, creates images of how emotions are experienced and expressed,and can improve emotional intelligence. Experienced emotions are what stays in memory. Only if a show was an emotionally pleasant experience will children and adolescents choose it again. Through TV it is possible to come to terms with one's own experiences and smaller psychological wounds. This can promote process of self-healing.(3)
Child's emotional life is almost fully developed by age 3 and they are able to feel and perceive all 8 basic emotions. They still have to learn to master complex emotions, ambivalent feelings, and irony. "As regards television, children and adolescents desire a markedly more honest expression of feelings than they accept for themselves or believe their parents would accept. A clear indication: They look for models and for acceptance of the acting out of emotions. This would help their parents as well in dealing with the emotional world of children in a more honest and sympathetic way. In particular with the disliked emotions of anger and envy.
(p4)
many emotions and accompanying facial expressions are considered universal (e.g. anger, sadness, happiness) ie everyone experiences them since childhood. same facial expressions can be understood in different cultures and also occur in people blind since birth who have never seen them performed.
Love, guilt, shame, envy, and jealousy are more variable in expression than fundamental emotions and often have culturally specific characteristics. (p5)
Fun- children laughing in front of tv is similar in international comparison
children worldwide find these things funny:
… when something looks funny and is bigger than life,
… when expectations are breached,
… when language and meaning are played with,
… when tricks are played on someone,
… when little hero(in)es prevail, …
when justice is done.
preschool and school ages laugh about different things.
when scenes are too complex, when laughter is based on laughing about oneself, irony, or on suffereing of individuals, preschoolers typically don't laugh. school children, in contrast, are often very amused. (p6)
ANGER Anger indicates inwardly that something here really disturbs you. In contrast to fear, the impulse is not used for flight, but for separating oneself from the threat. Anger is a part of the development of the ego and thus a motor for development and autonomy, but can also lead to social problems. Unfortunately, anger as a part of the everyday life is seldom reflected in children’s television. Usually these are merely brief forms of expression of “getting angry” or freaking out angrily. A positive exception: Stikk! (NRK, Norway).
FEAR Fear has an important warning function, and therefore arises immediately in a situation that is judged to be dangerous. It prompts us to activate physical functions as protective mechanisms, in order to defend our boundaries (i.e. ourselves, our goals and our basic needs). 8 Our brain (here: the amygdala) never forgets moments of fear. Once it got activated by a certain stimulus, every further activation leads to neural priming: our future response to a dangerous situation is faster and better. FEAR AND TV: WHAT FRIGHTENS CHILDREN? » Creatures that harm or seek to harm others and that look scary, meaning their appearance differs from what children are used to as “normal.” Note: Characters which give children security (parents, nannies, cuddly toys) should not be associated with fear. Children can come to feel that they are not safe anywhere. » Dangerous situations where characters face a threat like fight scenes, chases, or scenes where someone is trapped. The more desperate a situation or the characters seem to be, the greater the fear.» Real dangers cause fear, because children get aware of possible risks for their own lives. » Serious physical injuries show the cruelty that can be done to living beings. Scenes showing how the injury is inflicted have a particularly shocking effect. Those images can have a long-lasting impact on children and should not be shown to children. 9 Ill. 1-2: 21-year-old Jin from Hong Kong draws a scene from she watched at age 9 and really frightened her Screenshot from Ringu © Toho Company. A QUESTION OF COMBINATION AND PRESENTATION The individual elements of fear cover a huge spectrum. Each fear-inspiring element can be taken to its extreme, and it is possible to combine various qualities. A cruel creature torturing its victim in a hopeless situation is more frightening that the appearance of the creature in a neutral situation. Fear can be intensified even further by various possibilities of staging, for instance, by music and sound design, camera work and lightning.
(p9)
What is quality in terms of handling emotions in children's tv?
Dealing with feelings openly and honestly
promoting prosocial attitudes
responsibility towards the viewers' emotions
Promoting emotional competence: tell stories that foster one's own and other's perception and awareness of emotions. Present the processes of their emergence and ways of communicating about and dealing with the emotions.
Be aware: as a creative professional, your work will always be influenced by your own personal and emotional experience. they are biographically rooted and might refer to your experience from 20, 30 or even 40 years ago and based in a certain (emotional) culture. The task of your professional work is to offer today's children characters and stories that help them to develop emotional competencies and perspectives for their future. It is about their future- not your past.
(p15)
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