Children as Players on an Adult Stage: Representation of Boys and Girls on Israeli Prime Time Reality Television Programmes

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session III
  In Interactive Paper Session: Children, Adolescents, and the Media Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Modern society views childhood as a unique phase in a person’s life, with children being recognized as a separate population having particular needs). Nevertheless, the dividing line between childhood and adulthood has become blurred since the mid-20th Century, in what Neil Postmancalled “the disappearance of childhood,” in part because of the emergence of a type of television which creates an artificial identity between children and adult worlds.
We chose two programmes as test cases: Junior Master Chef and Music School which were broadcast on Israel’s second commercial channel during 2011 and 2012. We conducted a structural-qualitative analysis following Gabaton (2001), deriving major theme-based categories reflecting the girls’ and boys’ world as opposed to that of adults. The study gave us new insights about the role of children on the small screen, as well as reflecting the changes in relations between children and adults in the Israeli family and society as a whole.

Authors

• Dalia Liran Alper, Communication School

• shelly geffen, The Communications School College of Administration