Abstract
Television is a strong media form that can have significant influence to the minds of the minors. Behavioral and psychological effects of television have been documented in research studies, but what is most significant is how literature reviews demonstrated the impact of television shows in the communication of minors and their mindsets. Television, in its various media forms, has the ability to influence behavior and may result in persuasive effects in the use of words and other forms of communication in order to attract its viewers, especially the minors. As the young audience is exposed to television in its various forms, this paper has the purpose of researching how this population perceives the messages they receive through television communications. Considering the vast forms of media used in communication through television shows and commercials, this paper aims to explore the effects of how the media uses words and present messages to persuade its viewers. This paper will also describe how communication in television can affect the mindsets, views and perspectives of minors.
Methodology
The research will use the qualitative method of gathering information regarding the subject matter involving how television affects communications in minors. Various literature reviews are gathered about the different media forms that are used in television communication, while demonstrating the behavioral and psychological effects to its minor audiences. The research method will also collect from different scholarly sources research studies that underpin how television use words in presenting persuasive messages to the audience and how it can impact their mindset and perspectives. This paper will collate and summarize relevant studies, scholarly reports, and literature reviews about the effects of television in general to the communication in minors.
Literature Review
Scholars are becoming more interested about how media affects behavior. Biagi (2015) cited the hypodermic needle theory providing that ideas from the media were in direct causal relation to behavior. The theory postulates that the media could inject ideas into people the way liquids are injected through a needle. While this theory was disproved, many literature reviews link television to positive and negative behavioral and psychological changes. The exploratory study conducted by Myrtek, Scharff, Brugner and Muller (1996) shows that schoolboys with high television consumption read fewer books and show diminished activities outside home with the tendency to do less school-related homework and reduced interest in hobbies. Biagi (2015) cited similar link between school performance and television viewing by pointing out the research study of the National Institute of Mental Health in 1981 demonstrating the link between poor school performance with television viewing as well. The study suggests the consistent relationship between viewing time and achievement among children. Minors who spent more than six hours watching television shows scored up to eight times lower than those who spend less time watching television. Other negative effects of media among children include the exposure to sexual, violent and aggressive behaviors. According to Scharrer (2008) even if actual aggression is not displayed, the minimum repeat exposure to violence can cause emotional responses to actual violence in a person's own life. The use of violence and aggression in media advertising can reinforce negative behavior.
Television has a positive effect on children behavior and psychological state. Advertising, for instance, can affect the behavior of minors by the constant warning about the dangers of drinking too much alcohol and smoking, as well as drinking and driving. Commercials can also affect the developmental stages of children. Children tend to learn words and phrases from what they see and hear on television commercials and shows that helps in their language development. According to Canadian Paediatric Society (2003), young children do not understand the concept of sales pitch. They believe what they see and hear on the television. Most research studies demonstrate the fact that the more children spend watching television, the more they are influenced by it.
The nature of television as a media is described by Buonanno (2008) in three concepts, namely as a metaphor of channels, language and environment. The construct of television as a metaphor of channel coincides with the channeling and conveying of experiences in symbolic materials, while television as a metaphor of language focuses on the grammar and media aesthetics and influences perceptions, comprehension and emotional reaction of the audiences. Television as a metaphor of environment involves the conception of media as a set of contexts with specific structural characteristics which is different for each medium that transcend those with the same content and language-related components. The impact of media to children may be explained by the psychophysiological study involving the brain and media communication. Media scholars focus their study on the link between media content and the supposed effects of media exposure in a simple stimulus-response manner. This approach theorizes about media communication and the way its content is transmitted through media channels. The model of communication (Appendix A) involving the sender, message, channel and receiver were used to establish the concept of media effects to linkages betweeen the stimulus, which consist of the sender and the message, and the response or effect (Dill, 2013).
Media psychology is integrated in the study of the effects of media communication to people where basic motivational processes are used using the brain's systems to influence the way media content is mentally processed as well as the specific media content that individuals are drawn to seek out. Media communication can draw out the cognitive and affective state that people experience as a result of internal and external stimuli and this can lead to biological and physiological changes after media exposure along with vagaries of cognitive and affective experience. Potter (2012) explains the four physiological processes that are important in analyzing the media effects. It involves the perceptual processes, automatic survival mechanism, sexual mechanism and neurophysiological processes (Appendix B). These are significant in the media influences because the human body monitors the environment for meaningful informaiton through the five senses namely sight, touch, sound, taste and smell. The brain is always paying attention on stimulus from the environment and reacts to it accordingly. In addition, the television images also present more quickly for the minor viewers to reflect and analyze them, thus minor audiences tend to accept them the flow coming from the media images.
Media messages are a constant part of our environment that produce stimuli to which the brain reacts. They affect the brain’s arousal processes and adaptation. When the media presents the same patterns of stimuli repeatedly, the brain accommodates by requiring the stimuli to be stronger over time to evoke the same response. While the brain sort through the stimuli and makes sense of them, social media scholars explain that the media can alter some of the brain's natural processes among minors. Children usually need to organize the confusing arrays of sensory stimuli that they receive. They need time and reflection to take more challenges and oftentimes fail to undertake deep reflection about the media messages. Moreover, media can also alter the brain functioning by activating more the right brain which is holistic, global and simultaneous in contrast to the left brain which is linear, analytic and sequential (Healy, 1990). Children engaged in television viewing tend to conceptualize the media messages in a more global perception, instead of being more analytic.
Minors have a unique way of perceiving media communications. Within the advertising context, children need to have a declarative knowledge which involves the knowledge about the advertised product and the knowledge about advertising. They need to acquire procedural knowledge to exercise elaborate cognitive responses to process the advertising messages. Researches suggest that children do not understand the symbolic nature of television until they reach the preschool years. It usually takes more years before children learn to discriminate with the program content. During infancy, salient features of television like movement and sound effects drive attention but as the child ages, he becomes less influenced by them and able to pay better attention to informative features like the narratives and dialogues (Kirkorian, Wartella and Anderson, 2008). Very young children are usually not motivated to form a reasoned opinion when the advertisement is personally relevant to them. Observations from research studies show that emotional reaction dominate reasons in this situation (Brucks, Goldberg and Armstrong, 1986).
It can be noted that advertising strategies consist of embedding products in several program contents like in the films, video games, print ads and online ads as a stealth marketing technique. Calvert (2008) note that this approach in television communication makes minors under the age of eight more vulnerable due to their lack of cognitive skills in understanding the persuasive intent of television and online advertisements. The perceptions of many scholars regarding the effects of television on children involve the certainty and conviction that television plays an important causal role in expanding children's view of the world, decreased their reading behavior, increased their propensity towards engagement in sex stereotyping, decrease their physical activities and developing excessive materialism (Turow, 1985). Kapoor (2003) made an analysis on the role of cognition among children affecting their perception about television understanding and concludes that young children are usually deficient in understanding the purpose of television advertising. High attribution with age is given in terms of the recognition of television commercials and their persuasive intent.
Young children are identified to be more disadvantaged in viewing advertisements that are too complex to understand at their age and stage of development. Literature studies also show that children between the age of 5 and 12 learn to inter-relate their understanding of fantasy, morality and economics. When the child reaches the pre-school years, they learn to identify television commercials and distinguish them from other forms of television programs, but this does not necessarily translates into a clear understanding about the difference between entertainment and selling intent. Thus, young children knew that they are watching something different than a programme but they are not aware that the intent of the commercial is to invite purchase of products or service. Studies involving verbal and non-verbal measures in television commercials reveal that children are able to distinguish ads from television programs with some insights into the advertiser's intent (Bijmolt and Claassen, n.d.). The results with respect to verbal measures were not as conclusive, however, and the percentage of children who understand the television ad is significantly lower.
On the other hand, literature reviews also describe the educational value of media communication among children. Al-Harbi (2014) explains the importance of early learning in a child's language development involving receptive and linguistic skills. Children exposure to media at a younger age is important as language seeps into the child's mind unconsciously. Environmental influences play a critical role in children language development and the acquisition of day to day experiences contribute to the child's learning process. Evidence shows that exposure to language on television programs or commercials lead to the development of passive vocabularies and interaction can transform them as active vocabularies. Many behaviorists declare that language is a verbal behavior. They postulate that the mind is a blank state and the impressions created from the environment, such as media exposure, can fill it (Chomsky, 2006). Zimmerman, et al. (2009) emphasize that listening only expands the reservoir of passive vocabulary and children usually understand words but are not actively used in speech. It is through interaction that make the passive vocabularies active. Television programs and commercials are identified to have an influence in developing children's linguistic competence through media interaction.
Media literacy is viewed as a critical aspect of balancing media exposure to children. Children has less real world experience and they can be susceptible to the harmful effects of media communications owing to the lack of the ability to reflect on media messages. Minors lack comprehension and mature cognitive process that will help them make good evaluation of the degree of fantasy in portrayals or the degree of credibility delivered by the media message (Potter, 2016). With media literacy, children become more aware of both the intended and unintended media messages. This allows children learn to think critically about the media messages introduced to them and learn to understand the differences between different visual media forms. Media literacy is described by Heins and Cho (2003) as an alternative to media cencorship, which is introduced usually in schools and by the parents to the children.
Results
Scholarly reports and literature reviews have been consistent in identifying the role of cognitive comprehension involving the impact of the media communication in minors or children. There is a significant emergence of the conceptual framework involving cognitive comprehension that relate researches on how television advertising affect children. Many commercials use both verbal and non-verbal cues to communicate persuasive intent among minors who are more susceptible to believe what they see from the media exposure. Children who are below the pre-school are unable to distinguish between commercial and television programming and they are considered to have an enourmous purchasing power because of their ability to persuade their parents to purchase a particular brand or product they see from the television advertisements (Shah, 2010). Media messages are easily integrated to the child's mind because their brain is more sensitive to stimuli with less discriminatory perceptions. Because of this susceptibility, media communication has a strong influence in creating behavioral and psychological effects among minors and their perceptions.
A high correlation between the length of television viewing and poor school performance is also identified thereby showing the psychological and behavioral effects of television among minors. Children are also exposed to the risk of developing aggression, sexual behavior and violence with research studies supporting media exposure to these behavior will reinforce negative psychological and behavioral development among children. Considering the vulnerability of young children to media communication, advertisers usually take advantage of using non-verbal and verbal communication process on embedding products to children preferences as part of their marketing techniques. Children usually cannot identify the persuasive intent of television commercials in selling their products. Even as the child reaches the preschool age where they can identify between a television program and commercials, they are still unable to process the difference between selling intent and entertainment in media communications.
Television and commercials as a form of media communications have positive effect in terms of reinforcement on the child’s language and learning development. Children has the ability to learn from their environment and they usually acquire passive vocabulary that becomes active upon reinforcements from media exposure. Because language is identified as a verbal behavior, its development is also influenced by the child’s experiences and exposure to media communication. Television has no doubt a significant impact to children behavioral, psychological, moral and language development which requires the need for media literacy for guidance among children with respect to media exposure. Children exposure to new experiences and learning opportunities will help facilitate cognitive comprehension and television in whatever form of media will have a significant effect in children learning process (Robinson, Cotton and Schulz, 2014).
References
Al-Harbi, S.S. (2014). The Influence of Media in Children’s Language Development. Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology. 5(1):2015.
Biagi, S. (2015). Media/Impact: An Introduction to Mass Media. Connecticut: Cengage Learning.
Bijmolt, H.A. and Claassen, W. (n.d.). Children’s Understanding of TV Advertising:
Effects of Age, Gender and Parental Influence. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.114.9318&rep=rep1&type=pdf.
Brucks, M., Goldberg, M.E. and Armstrong, G.M. (1986). Children's Cognitive Responses to Advertising. Advances in Consumer Research. 13:650-654.
Buonanno, M. (2008). The Age of Television: Experiences and Theories. Chicago: Intellect Ltd.
Calvert, S.L. (2008). Children as Consumers: Advertising and Marketing. Future of Children. 18(1). 205-234.
Canadian Paediatric Society (2003). Impact of media use on children and youth. Paediatrics & Child Health. 8(5): 301–306.
Chomsky, N. (2006). Language and Mind (3th ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Dill, K.E. (2013). The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Healy, J.M. (1990). Endangered minds: Why Children Don't Think and What We Can Do About It. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Heins, M. and Cho, C. (2003). Media Literacy: An Alternative to Censorship. New York: Free Expression Policy Project.
Kapoor, N. (2003). Television Advertising And Consumer Response: Children Buying Behaviour. New Delhi: Mittal Publications.
Kirkorian, H.L., Wartella, E.A., and Anderson, D.R. (2008). Media and Young Children's Learning. The Future of Children. 18(1): 39-61.
Potter, W.J. (2012). Media Effects. California: Sage Publications.
Potter, W.J. (2016). Media Literacy. Eighth Edition. Singapore: Sage Publications.
Robinson, L., Cotton, S.R. and Schulz, J. (2014). Communication and Information Technologies Annual: Doing and Being Digital: Mediated Childhoods. UK: Emerald Group Publishing.
Scharrer, E. (2008). Media Exposure and Sensitivity to Violence in News Reports: Evidence of Desensitization. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. 85(2): 291-310.
Shah, A. (2010). Children as Consumers. Retrieved from http://www.globalissues.org/article/237/children-as-consumers.
Turow, J. (1985). The Effects of Television on Children: What the Experts Believe. Communication Research Reports. 2(1):149-155.
Zimmerman, F.J., et al. (2009). Associations between media viewing and language development in children under age 2 years. Journal of Pediatrics. 151:364-368.
Appendix
Appendix A
The perceptual process is relative to the human brain processes that helps people orient about their environment. The process is automatic and it can possibly trigger additional automatic response or the conscious attention on how we think we should respond. The automatic survival mechanism provides for the fight and flight response for survival. The sexual mechanism provides for the on-going survival of the human species and the media's continual stream of messages often present visual images of attractive sexual objects that generate attention and pleasure. The neurophysiological processes involves the brain's electrical processes where the media influence consists of repetition of messages and their forms.
Appendix B
