Children’s Associations of Different Character Archetypes in Media with Different Accents

• In Event: Children's and Adolescents' Technology Use to Enhance Cognitive and Educational Outcomes

Abstract

In adult-oriented and child-oriented media, non-native and non-standard accents are associated with negative or stereotypical traits (e.g., Dobrow & Gidney, 1998; Meek, 2006). While accents have been shown to influence media perceptions in adults (e.g., Morales et al., 2012), limited research has investigated this effect in children. The present study aims to explore whether children associate different character archetypes in children’s media with different accents.

During the study, Canadian children aged 5-6 and 9-10 years (N = 31, 39) were introduced to a fictional television program and asked to help select the characters. On each of 12 trials, three digital exemplars of a character were presented. Each exemplar was randomly paired with an audio recording of a short passage spoken by an actor with either a Canadian, British, or Russian accent. Children were asked to select which exemplar should play the character on the television program. The valence of the character was either positive (e.g., firefighter, superhero), negative (e.g., trickster, witch), or neutral (e.g., baker, farmer). For each child, the proportion of characters of each valence (out of 4) being selected for each accent was calculated.

The results of three repeated-measures ANOVAs indicate a significant main effect of character valence on children’s choices for the British accent [F(2, 136) = 4.947, p = .008] and the Russian accent [F(2, 136) = 14.300, p < .001], but not for the Canadian accent (p = .101). In all three models, the main effect of age group was not significant (p-values range from .318 to .535). Collapsing across age groups, children’s choices for each accent type was compared to chance responding (.33). Children selected the Canadian accent significantly more often than chance for positive characters [t(69) = 3.097, p = .003] and the British accent significantly less often than chance for negative characters [t(69) = -2.430, p = .018]. More interestingly, for positive and neutral characters, children selected the Russian accent significantly less often than chance [t(69) = -3.772, p < .001, and t(69) = -3.389, p = .001, respectively]. For negative characters, they selected the Russian accent significantly more often than chance [t(69) = 2.041, p = .045].

These findings suggest that character valence cues children’s accent-related character preferences. Children show a preference for positive characters to speak with Canadian accents, and for negative characters to not speak with British accents. Children show a clear preference regarding characters with Russian accents, deeming this accent to be relatively unsuitable for positive and neutral roles, and particularly desirable for negative characters. These results are consistent with a recent content analysis of accent representation in children’s animated television (blinded for anonymous review), which showed that characters with standard American and British accents are portrayed relatively positively, while non-native accents are less often portrayed, and when they are represented, commonly associated with negative characteristics. Children’s responses in this study may mirror representations in the media they consume. These findings may help to inform the development of children’s media offerings that are more inclusive and less stereotypical.

Authors

• Kathryn Harper, Ryerson University
  Presenting Author

• Sarah Dunnett, Ryerson University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melanie Parasram, Ryerson University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lili Ma, Ryerson University
  Non-Presenting Author