Among many other aspects, humans are eminently visual beings. Certain estimations calculate more than 90% of the information we receive is visual. Así las cosas, esta información es todavía más importante cuando aún no se ha desarrollado un pensamiento crítico, como sucede, en principio, durante la infancia. If we add to it that, in a year, a child spends more time watching TV than in the classroom, we see the present importance of visual education. Researchers of the University of Granada (UGR), aware of this situation, analyse the images of children’s stories and cartoons, revealing the values they instil.
The first part of the study was focused on the analysis of 300 children’s stories, published in Spain by national publishing houses and created for an audience under 8 years in age. Although at that age many children can not read yet, stories are designed to be read by an adult and seen by minors. “This is the period when people do learn more through images”, admits Jesús Pertíñez López, coordinator of the project. Through an analysis of the illustrations according to their shapes, colours, textures and techniques, the researchers revealed the differences between written and visual language.
After analysing the images, the researchers asked 300 students from public and private schools of Granada about the perceptions they call to mind. “We perceived a big difference between what the tale wants to tell with words and what children perceive from pictures”, Pertíñez points out. “The difference comes from the fact that the images from stories are still anchored in stereotypes, they have not developed with society”, he concludes. Although in most cases the stories are set in the context in which children live, illustrators tend to reproduce certain clichés.
Stereotypes
Thus, the father is usually represented with a moustache and glasses (an icon indicating intelligence), or reading a newspaper if he is at home, the mother is depicted as a housewife and the prototype of teacher is old-fashioned for what children see in the class. “Illustrators do not consider a non-white man to be the protagonist, even though multiculturalism is a palpable fact, especially in public schools”, Pertíñez says. However, texts do not specify what each character does, how they are dressed or which their ethnic features are. According to the researcher, these prejudices are part of the culture of the illustrator, who repeats them in an acritical way.
Whereas publishing houses, which have every kind of advisers at their disposal, have paid careful attention to the pedagogical sense of texts, illustrations only depend on draughtsmen’s criteria. They usually have an education in Fine Arts, where insist on drawing according to the reality of the child. But, instead of reflecting variety, the images of these stories follow an illustration pattern “for children” repeating certain non-innocent conceptions, using watercolours to provide a “softer” sensation, and where ‘bad’ characters are full of edges whereas ‘good ones’ are rounded.
Fantasy and TV
According to the study of the UGR, the fantastic world of tales is changing. The classic witches and goblins are scarce in pages published nowadays. Fantasy appears intermingled with children’s everyday world, whose experiences are more urban and are more influenced by television. For this reason, after concluding this study, both Pertíñez and Carmen Hidalgo, collaborator in the project, decided to extend it to the cartoons broadcasted in public channels.
Although there is a wide variety of contents, programmers´ criteria usually includes any cartoon program in the space “for children”, and so they are broadcasted in children’s time (such as ‘Dragon Ball’ or ‘The Simpsons’). However, it seems like children´s habits of TV consumption are changing, as their favourite program is now ‘Ana y los Siete’ and, from seven years old, they prefer ‘Los Serrano’ and ‘Big Brother’ to ‘Los Lunnis’ or ‘La Banda’.
The second part of the study, which has already started, will follow the scheme applied to children’s stories: they will analyse the images according to the same methodology, and the researchers will discuss it after with students of schools of Granada to observe their interpretations. After analysing the cartoons broadcasted in public TV, the researchers intend to extend the project to child thematic channels, as there is where cartoons that will set the standard are released, and analyse the advertising inserted in children’s programs too, which uses animation without any kind of educational filter. The project is financed by the Ministry for Science and Technology and, most of it by the European Union through the FEDER funds.
Reference:
Prof Jesús Pertíñez López. Faculty of Fine Arts. University of Granada.
Phone number. 958242919 E-mail. jplopez@ugr.es
Web: http://www.sofresam.com/datsem.htm (data at the 1st of October of audiences of Sofres)