As an important part of children’s lives,cartoons play an important role in their growth and development.The ability of cartoons to interact and work with children is dependent on their choices.For children to develop from watching cartoons they need to choose cartoons that they enjoy and that are developmentally appropriate for them.In previous research,children have often been the subject of study.In recent years,as researchers have shifted their perceptions of children and advocated for education from the child’s perspective,the ’child’s perspective’ has become a new direction for child-centred research.Children’s preference for cartoons is an important indicator of the function of cartoons and requires a bottom-up child perspective,yet there is a lack of research exploring the characteristics of children’s favourite cartoons from a child perspective.Therefore,the researcher believes that it is necessary to explore the characteristics of children’s preferred cartoons from the children’s perspective.In this paper,four children were selected as case studies,and a combination of observation,interviews,work analysis and photo-quotes were used to explore the characteristics of children’s favourite cartoons by immersing them in their lives.By using a mosaic of integrated methods,this study hopes to collect children’s perceptions of cartoons and compare them to the content of the cartoons as a way of analysing and summarising what children see as the characteristics of good cartoons.This will provide parents with suggestions on how to choose suitable cartoons for their children while satisfying their preferences,and also provide some references for cartoon creation and management.This study focuses on case studies,which cannot confirm the overall picture,but can provide some new ideas for understanding children.The findings of the study revealed that children’s main concerns in choosing cartoons are,cartoon content,cartoon characters and cartoon music.In terms of cartoon content,children were mainly concerned with plot,narrative techniques,images and meaning.They like the combination of real and fantasy,repetition and change in the plot;they like the dramatic narrative structure based on conflict,the combination of vertical and horizontal narrative style and the limited knowledge of the narrative perspective;they like colourful and bright pictures,scenes with fantasy style and sudden changes in the camera;in terms of meaning,children seek the moral meaning of "no evil is too good to be true" and the moral meaning of "no evil is too good to be true".In terms of connotation,children seek the moral connotation of "evil does not overpower evil" and the ideal connotation of "happiness" and "transcending reality".In terms of characters,the main focus is on characterisation and character language.They prefer positive,one-dimensional characters and characters with "decorative" features,and they like characters’ language with characteristics of deviance,exaggeration,sudden change and repetition.In terms of cartoon music,they prefer upbeat,simple and repetitive melodies.When we look at the parents’ criteria for choosing cartoons for their children from the children’s perspective,we find that the parents’ criteria for choosing cartoons in terms of character language,cartoon music and plot genre match the children’s preferences.However,the choice of colours,characterisation,narrative features and the meaning sought in the cartoons differed from children’s preferences.The study found that it is the parents who ignore the subjectivity of the children and pay less attention to their interests when choosing cartoons,and that there is a rush to educate children and an excessive focus on the educational aspect of cartoons.This is due to the influence of parents’ perceptions of education and their misconceptions about cartoons.Parents can make efforts in the following areas when choosing cartoons in the future.At the awareness level: update the concept of education and listen to children’s voices;correctly understand the value of cartoons.At the practical level: choose cartoons that are easy for children to understand,choose cartoons with fantasy content,choose cartoons with colours and lines that highlight the main character,choose cartoons with concrete character motivations,choose cartoons with dualistic characters,choose cartoons of the "repetition" type,choose cartoons that use a limited knowledge narrative The animated films that use a limited viewpoint,and the music that complements the content.Suggestions for the creation of cartoons: we hope that the creators will pay attention to research on the psychological characteristics of children and to pre-research for the creation of cartoons.Suggestions for the management of cartoons are: to establish a grading system and to establish a mechanism for evaluating the audience of cartoons. |