| Nowadays Television has become the dominant forms of contemporary media, an unavoidable ecological phenomena of early life.This study first investigated the relationship between very young children and television by reviewing studies on television viewing of children under 3 and television programmes for them, along with analysis for characteristics of psychological development of infants and toddlers,all of which contributed to building an overview of what kind of audience are they,as well as the basic principles of television programmes for them. Then the author chose the well-known infant-direct television programme "Baby Einstein" series for a case study.A text analysis of four sample programmes,and an observation of viewing responses of 20 children aged 18 to 36 months were conducted for drawing elements of creating high quality programmes from three aspects——the characteristics of very young children's physical and mental development,content and formal features of the programme,and viewing assessment.In order to intergrate those successful experiences into young children's TV programming practice in China, the author interviewed children's television programme producers to find out the present situation and the main problems of domestic programme production for very young children.Firstly,the text analysis combined with focus group interview of 4 graduated students majored in preschool education indicated that,accurate understanding of the very young children's physical and mental development characteristics and the integration of recreational,educational and cultural elements all contributed to the success of Baby Einstein.However,content analysis also showed that the programme were deficient in emotional and social content.Secondly,the observation analysis revealed that,children paid focused and sustained attention to the chosen episode,and their responses were very diverse, including parasocial interaction,cognitive responses,pleasure,interactions between child and the co-viewing parents,which fully proved that children of 18 to 36 months are active audiences.The visual and audio signs of the episode were consistent with children's expierence and ability that they could accept and understood.The episode depicted animals in playful activities and toys,in favor of children's recognition to the program and child-television interaction as well as child-parent interaction.Thirdly,the interview of domestic children's television producers found that,due to China's social and economic development level,and the dilemma that children's channels of each province rushed out while little of them have clear narrowcast system,the living space for infants and toldders' television programmes is very limited.There was a gap between the their programming ideas and practice,the lack of efforts to learn about young children,and difficulties to create an in-depth dialogue for programme producing groups and pre-school education experts,which resulted in the majority of programmes' absence of educational guidelines and accurate understanding of very young children's physical and mental development characteristics.Based on these results,this study summarized the spirit of producing good television programmes for infants and toddlers.For one,these programmes should be regarded as a cultural and educational service for early age.With the proposition in "Transfer of social heritage",the programmes make for the infants and toddlers' world ecologically and playfully.For another,these programmes should become young audience's "mirror" and "window".The design and dissemination of programme information should be in accord with very young children's psychological and human needs,and give them more chances for expression and interaction.Finally,the author considered how to break the current barriers of very young children's television programmes communication and change the ideas for developing those TV productions,then made appropriate recommendations. |
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