Seeing Themselves: Cultural Identity and New Zealand Produced Children's Television

<p>The New Zealand television environment is a complex one, and its ability to instil a sense of 'cultural identity' for New Zealand viewers has been regularly debated. Local children's programming is an area that can sometimes be overlooked in these important discussions. Children's programming in New Zealand is almost entirely publicly funded and is therefore legislatively tied to 'reflecting' cultural identity for a New Zealand child audience. This raises questions about how cultural identity is defined and understood within this industry, especially considering the inherent differences between a child audience and adult programme makers. These questions are engaged with through an examination of how cultural identity is discussed by funders, producers and audiences of four locally produced television brands: What Now?, Sticky TV, Studio 2 and Pukana. This thesis considers cultural identity to be a social construction that is both fluid and, in a New Zealand context, tied to certain expectations of 'New Zealandness'. This fluidity is examined through a discourse analysis of how funders, producers and audiences talk about each programme as well as cultural identity, in order to examine similarities and differences in how each group conceptualises this important funding concept. The argument is formed that cultural identity is understood in different terms: for children cultural identity is foremost about belonging to and 'seeing themselves' in a larger community of New Zealand children, while programme makers are concerned with the problematic notion of 'reflecting' "kids' worlds".</p>

Seeing Themselves: Cultural Identity and New Zealand Produced Children's Television

<p>The New Zealand television environment is a complex one, and its ability to instil a sense of 'cultural identity' for New Zealand viewers has been regularly debated. Local children's programming is an area that can sometimes be overlooked in these important discussions. Children's programming in New Zealand is almost entirely publicly funded and is therefore legislatively tied to 'reflecting' cultural identity for a New Zealand child audience. This raises questions about how cultural identity is defined and understood within this industry, especially considering the inherent differences between a child audience and adult programme makers. These questions are engaged with through an examination of how cultural identity is discussed by funders, producers and audiences of four locally produced television brands: What Now?, Sticky TV, Studio 2 and Pukana. This thesis considers cultural identity to be a social construction that is both fluid and, in a New Zealand context, tied to certain expectations of 'New Zealandness'. This fluidity is examined through a discourse analysis of how funders, producers and audiences talk about each programme as well as cultural identity, in order to examine similarities and differences in how each group conceptualises this important funding concept. The argument is formed that cultural identity is understood in different terms: for children cultural identity is foremost about belonging to and 'seeing themselves' in a larger community of New Zealand children, while programme makers are concerned with the problematic notion of 'reflecting' "kids' worlds".</p>

Kindness Media Rapidly Inspires Viewers and Increases Happiness, Calm, Gratitude, and Generosity in a Healthcare Setting

Background and Objectives: Stress is a ubiquitous aspect of modern life that affects both mental and physical health. Clinical care settings can be particularly stressful for both patients and providers. Kindness and compassion are buffers for the negative effects of stress, likely through strengthening positive interpersonal connection. In previous laboratory-based studies, simply watching kindness media uplifts (elevates) viewers, increases altruism, and promotes connection to others. The objective of the present study is to examine whether kindness media can affect viewers in a real-world, pediatric healthcare setting.Methods: Parents and staff in a pediatric dental clinic were studied. Study days were randomized for viewers to watch either original kindness media or the standard televised children’s programming that the clinic shows. Participants scored self-rated pre-media emotions in a survey, watched either media type for 8 min, and then completed the survey. All participants were informed that they would receive a gift card for their participation. After completion of the survey, participants were asked if they wanted to keep the card or donate it to a family in need.Results: Fifty (50) participants completed the study; 28 were parents and 22 were staff. In comparison to viewers of children’s programming, participants who watched kindness media had significant increases in feeling happy, calmer, more grateful, and less irritated (p &lt; 0.05), with trends observed in feeling more optimistic and less anxious. Kindness media caused marked increases in viewers’ reports of feeling inspired, moved, or touched (p &lt; 0.001). No change was observed in self-reported compassion, although baseline levels were self-rated as very high. People who watched kindness media were also more generous, with 85% donating their honoraria compared to 54% of Standard viewers (p = 0.03).Conclusions: Kindness media can increase positive emotions and promote generosity in a healthcare setting.

Next Generation Programming Design for Chinese Kids’ Education

With the comparative analysis of children's programming games/toys, this paper explores the design of children's programming for Chinese kids’ education. This research has the following four contributions: 1. designing children's programming games with Chinese characteristics; 2. strengthening interaction to increase children's interest; 3. avoiding visual impairment to children; 4. designing children's programming games/toys based on artificial Intelligence. These make use of the existing children's programming environment, design programming tool for Chinese children. In addition, this study has designed the basic functions and opened them to GitHub, which is expected to attract more study and work together to create a more better kid programming tool.

Television advertising’s influence on parents’ gift-giving perceptions

Purpose This study aims to examine factors, beyond child requests, that influence parents’ perceptions of the most important gifts to give their children by assessing the influence of television advertising on children’s programming. Design/methodology/approach Using agenda-setting as a theoretical and methodological template, a content analysis of 7,860 commercials in children’s programming was compared using a questionnaire to 143 parents of 240 children to test the transfer of salience between advertising and parents’ perceptions. The study also examined the role of child purchase requests in this relationship. Findings The product categories that most prevalently advertised on children’s television had a significant relationship with the product categories that parents perceived to be the most important to give their children as gifts. Furthermore, the results indicate that this relationship was not contingent upon parental advertising mediation or child product requests. Research limitations/implications The results are limited to a single broadcast market during the Christmas season. Strategically, the research suggests that advertising through children’s television programming may be an effective way to directly inform parents’ gift-giving consideration sets, and this target and outlet should be strategically evaluated in subsequent campaign decisions about the marketing mix. Originality/value The findings add new insights to the gift-giving literature, indicating that advertising in children’s programming may be an alternative direct influence on parents’ perceptions. This research also extends research on advertising agenda setting into the new context of commercial advertising of consumer products.