Date & time: Wednesday 22nd February, 2 – 3.30pm

Location: Middlesex University – College Building, Room C101

Seminar 8: Children & the Media

Dr Jacqueline Harding (Middlesex University) – Children’s TV & Schematic Attraction

This small‐scale case study research investigates two TV shows: Teletubbies and Paw Patrol, questioning how widely embedded schematic signals might be within the shows and investigates children’s responses specifically ‘in the moment’. The interdisciplinary nature of this inquiry highlights the interrelationship between the schematic productions of the printed word, the moving image and real life play. Furthermore, the paper provides an analysis of the comparative element between these three ‘platforms’.

Significantly, semiotic analysis suggests it is inappropriate to separate the systems. This case‐study led approach utilizes a methodological tool (Harding, 2015) and draws on the work of Mihaly Csikszentimihalyi (1991), and Ferre Leavers (1994) regarding scales of involvement and engagement for observing young children’s media interaction. Furthermore, this study explores the embodied responses to schematic representation within TV shows; how children manifest their interest (what might be observable and discernable in their behaviour) and how parents and early years professionals and content producers interpret and understand the nature of the child’s attraction to specific schemas demonstrated in the format. Download the full abstract here.