Skye
Stewart
Advanced
Mass Communication Theory
Blog
Post #2
April 11,
2016
Room: Studying Television as a Beneficial Tool for
Children
With an increase
in television entertainment programs and channels on television, TV can be an important educational tool for children.
Television viewing by children is typically seen as a negative activity in
modern-day society, as this form of media can show violence and crime at times,
for example. There are many children television programs and other TV programs
that serve as positive influences to viewers, though. Television can teach
audiences of all ages about educational concepts, socialization and interactions
with others, and topics and ideas never encountered before.
This is evident in
a recent 2015 film. As seen in Room, Jack
and his mother Joy, also known as Ma, are held captive in what they like to
call Room, a small room which consists of a bedroom, a wardrobe, a bath tub,
and small kitchenette, if it can even be called that. Jack, a five
year-old boy, thought that nothing else
existed in the world besides what was present inside of Room. He believed that
Room was all the world was with him, his mother, and Old Nick (Jack’s
biological “father” and the man who kept them captive for longer than Jack’s
five years of life) living in it.
Jack was able to watch TV, but TV was just TV.
Jack was told that what was on TV wasn’t real. At his age, Jack understood this
and learned that Room was all the world had to offer. Jack used what he knew
from TV to make sense of the world. In the film, he expressed this
understanding of the world:
“There’s Room, then outer space, with all the
TV planets, then heaven. Plant is real, but not trees. Spiders are real, and
one time the mosquito that was sucking my blood. But squirrels are dogs are
just TV, except Lucky. He’s my dog who might come some day. Monsters are too
big to be real, and the sea. TV persons are flat and made of colors. But me and
you are real” (Guiney & Gross, 2015).
When Joy first
decided that she was going to try and get them out of Room, she used television
to try and get Jack to understand what the world was like. She told him now
that he was five, he would be able to understand that TV was what real life was
like outside of Room. Jack was in disbelief, but he slowly started to use TV
and the shows he watched to understand. He asked if certain things were real
and tried hard to understand the difference between real and cartoons.
Children can educate themselves on a number of
topics and ideas by watching television. Plenty of critics are quick to judge
television and its educational value regarding children viewing various TV
shows. While it’s true that television-viewing time should be limited by parents
or guardians, it is also true that many children TV shows were made for
entertainment purposes, as well as educational purposes (Irwin, 2006). Children’s’
television programs leave room open for imagination and allow its audience to
answer questions and think about what’s coming next. Television allows children
to educate themselves through memorization skills. A family and consumer
sciences professor at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Julie Jones-Branch
stated, “The typical educational programs are pretty good in terms of
non-violent, educational content. However, most of the learning that children
get from these shows is in the form of rote memorization, as the focus is on
one or two objectives per program that loop so children can see them again and again”
(Irwin, 2006). Jones-Branch also went on to express that parents can help
educate their children through television if they ask about why things happened
on the show the way they did or ask them to explain what they saw. Because of
this, TV can help children comprehend detailed concepts and the ability to
understand words and numbers in a knowledgeable way (Irwin, 2006). In Room, Jack used TV to eventually educate
himself on what the world had to offer. When Jack first stepped foot outside of
Room and into the world, he used what he knew from TV to put TV world and the
real world together to educate himself on realness of different people, places,
and things. Throughout the movie, he
expresses that everything in the world is always changing and nothing really
ever stays the same.
For children, TV can also be used to learn about
how to interact and socialize with others. For his five years, Jack only had Ma
and sometimes Old Nick to communicate with. When they were set free, he did a
reasonably great job at communicating with others, though. At first he was
scared of talking to doctors or his grandparents, but he was mostly shy. He learned
how to communicate with them from seeing different relationships play out on
television. He was able to see how others express their feelings, understand
each other, and learn.
According to Jennifer Pepper, who wrote an
article for Fergus News Express, younger children do start to learn about
others by watching television. A limit on watching is good, but there are
benefits. She stated, “With advancing age, they become more sensitive to such
nuances as well as the implications of characters’ actions” (Pepper, 2011). In
relating to the film, this is how Jack was able to learn. He might not have
known it at the time, but TV taught him plenty about understanding others’
feelings and emotions and how to communicate with them.
Lastly, children can benefit and learn about
new educational topics and ideas they have never encountered before by watching
TV shows. Jack said, “The world’s like all TV planets on at the same time, so I
don’t know which way to look and listen. There’s doors and… more doors. And behind
all the doors, there’s another inside, and another outside” (Guiney &
Gross, 2015). Of course his Ma was able to teach him about what a door was or
what a toilet was, for example, but a lot of things Jack had to learn from
scratch. He had to match real life with TV life to find out what is real or
not. In the movie, he wasn’t even sure that dogs were real until he eventually
met one. He knew what they looked like from TV, but he didn’t know that they
actually existed outside of Room.
On the
Social Effects of Television by James
D. Halloran provided information from a study on television viewing that
stated, “…the same message can be used in different ways by different people”
(Halloran). In other words, different
cultures and groups of people can interpret concepts and ideas differently
while watching different television programs.
TV is an open book and audiences all around the
world can learn from what they happen to be watching. This is how Jack learned.
He used what he was able to watch on TV to learn more about the world him, to
learn what dogs are, and how people greet each other, for example. There are so
many concepts he was learning while watching TV, regardless if he realized it
or not. To him, actors were people that he was seeing, people other then his
own mother. TV provided him with education that he would only have gotten from
his Ma, who couldn’t teach him about everything in the entire world.
In conclusion, children watching television
isn’t always a bad things. Television provides children with educational
concepts that are learned in school. It teaches them how others communicate and
it even teaches children about big ideas they might one day encounter. As seen
in Room, TV can be a successful and
beneficial educational tool.
References
Guiney,
E. & David Gross (Producer), & Abrahamson, L. (Director). (2015). Room (Motion
picture). Canada: A24.
Halloran,
J. D. On the Social Effects of Television.
(pp. 384-388).
Irwin, S.
(2006, July 21). Tuned in or zoned out? Lincoln
Journal Star. Retrieved from
http://journalstar.com/lifestyles/relationships-and-special-occasions/baby/tuned-in-or-zoned-out/article_5363fae9-25d6-58e8-b1d9-ddd13b29af93.html
Pepper,
J. (2011, August 30). Children and television viewing: how concerned should we
be?
Fergus-Elora
News Express. Retrieved from http://www.southwesternontario.ca/fergus-elora-news-express/
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