Parental Mediation of Children's Viewing in a Changing Television Environment |
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| Authors: | Chava E Tidhar Hanna Levinsohn |
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| Institution: | Israel Educational TV, Tel‐Aviv, Israel, and Louis Guttman Institute of Applied Social Research , Jerusalem, Israel |
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| Abstract: | For 25 years, Israeli television operated as a virtual monopoly, with one single channel shared by Educational TV and the Public Broadcasting Authority. Young viewers were exposed to non‐commercial quality programs primarily geared for children. The introduction of cable television challenges the ways parents control their children's viewing and fills the role of mediators between television and the child. This study is based on two surveys among parents of Israeli children aged 2‐8. The first was conducted with 537 parents in 1989, prior to the introduction of cable TV, and the second with 552 parents who had cable in 1993, when cable TV penetrated half of all Israeli homes. The results indicate that the introduction of cable TV changed strategies of parental control and mediation and parents’ assessment of television's influence on children. Active parental mediation was closely related to the attribution of learning values to children's viewing and to gratifications attributed to educational television broadcasts. Loosening of control and allowance for independent children's viewing was closely related to the attribution of entertainment value to children's viewing and to viewing of cable television. |
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