Kids' story?

It is still only late November, but they are well into their second hour queuing for Santa at the local shopping centre. The priority is to keep the two-year-old under control, but that means ensuring that the five-year-old doesn't lead her into temptation. So Daddy asks the big girl, yet again, to run through what she's going say to Santy. "I want Baby Doc, Baby Born Set . . ." - she suddenly stops, a new idea dawning: "I'll just tell him I want everything that's on ads."

With that sort of impact, it's no wonder that Christmas toy advertising earns RTE more than £1 million. Film-maker Bob Quinn has temporarily stepped down from the RTE Authority in protest at the submission to this economic temptation.

The figures would seem to justify the suggestion that the purpose of children's television is to deliver young viewers to the paying advertisers.

But that's only part of the truth; after all, most of the revenue of The Irish Times comes from advertising. Perhaps you could say the newspaper's economic "purpose" is to deliver a certain audience to those advertisers, but that analysis might not get you very far in understanding the specifics of the paper's editorial content.

What's on children's television also reflects other realities: the requirement on some broadcasters to provide "public service"; the prices demanded by various distributors in international markets; the calibre of professional talent that can be attracted to the field; and changes in the broader cultural climate, specifically those which have led to a light-hearted, matter-of-fact approach to screen violence and to jokey, self-conscious and reference-packed narratives.

The blurring of lines which has seen a sophisticated adult cartoon, The Simpsons, marketed as kids' television (the BBC even shows it on Sunday mornings) has also seen programmes that are made just for kids adopting and extending its fast-paced, free-and-easy storytelling techniques. In the process, arguably, young children have been left behind.

"Story is our only boat for sailing on the river of time."

This quote, from science-fiction writer Ursula Le Guin, is a poetic variation on what psychologists have long said, and the history of cultures confirms: that stories are the way people make sense of their existence and their surroundings. The importance of fairytales in children's development is, by now, a truism.

Yet nowadays, children who rarely have a fairytale read or told to them may be watching Earthworm Jim or Felix the Cat - cartoons that are fast, clever and very funny for older viewers, full of verbal and visual references to films; of stories that are turned on their heads; of mocking tributes to heroism and of "metafictional" moments when characters step out of the narrative altogether. In a sense, they represent - in terms of wit and technique - the best of what children's TV-makers have to offer. But the storylines, such as they are, may make reconstructing the time sequence in Pulp Fiction look like, well, child's play.

"What's going on here?" you might ask the child staring happily at such a programme.

Shrug. "I dunno."

Some people might say this is nothing new. Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons, long the mainstay of children's-time television, also play witty games with characters, stories and allusions. But most of those Warners Brothers classics were originally made for adult or mixed audiences, being shown, for example, before the feature film in a cinema in the 1950s.

What's worse, many of the children's programmes that do contain stable characters and comprehensible, beginning-middle-end narratives are grotesque, unimaginative shoot-em-ups. Many experts are concerned about the effects of violence in children's television, suggesting that it desensitises children and makes them more prone to aggression.

Then they are the programmes that are little more than tie-ins to other, expensive products. Two of the most popular kids' shows, Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Brothers, are based on video games.

In fairness to Ireland's national broadcaster, there is little programming for children on RTE that is grossly inappropriate - though some items are likely to be lost on younger viewers.

However, RTE, through its part ownership of Cablelink, is partly responsible for the delivery of TCC (formerly The Children's Channel) to Dublin viewers. Up until last year, TCC offered a number of intelligent and appropriate morning programmes for very young viewers - mostly repeats of low-tech, easy-going British programmes from the 1970s.

Then, with scarcely a murmur, these moved to a satellite station not offered by Cablelink. TCC's schedule was taken over by old Batman episodes, Dennis the Menace, Earthworm Jim, Gravedale High (a spooky cartoon variation on a teen soap-comedy), Gigantor etc - not to mention an incredible array of toy advertising. Indeed, there is not a single programme suitable for pre-schoolers anywhere in the TCC schedule. They, it seems, are not an audience worth delivering to advertisers.

The Center for Media Education, a US-based organisation, has developed a checklist to assess children's programmes for violence. The more questions you can answer "yes" about a particular programme, "the greater the risk for most children", the centre says. Try it out on some of the most popular kids' programmes:

1. Are there many violent interactions in the programme? 2. Are the heroes and villains valued for their combat abilities? 3. Are close-ups, special effects or music used in the programme? 4. Are weapons like guns or knives used? 5. Is violence used to resolve the conflict? 6. Do the characters have a good reason for using violence? 7. Do the "good" guys go unpunished for using violence? 8. Do the "bad" guys go unpunished for using violence? 9. Are the victims' injuries and their pain and suffering not shown? 10. Are some things that happen in the violent scenes funny? 11. Do children think the villains and super-heroes are "cool"? 12. Do children imitate the fighting when they play or re-enact the action with toys based on characters from the programme?

next week

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