The role of adults mediating children's TV viewing Excerpts from a presentation by Sophia Wu, Associate Professor, College of Communication, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan. She sees an important role for parents which is not currently being fulfilled based on evidence from her research. The following discussion is based on two separate but related studies that I conducted in Taiwan from 1993 to the present. The amount of viewing was irrelevant to children's TV schema level. Watching more TV did not lead to more TV knowledge.
Cognitive development plays an important role in determining the level of children's TV knowledge.
It seems that those at a higher stage of cognitive development have a better ability to decode TV messages. When young children consume adult fare, they do not necessarily understand it just because they are heavy viewers. Children demonstrate sufficient knowledge in decoding formal convention of TV production such as shots, cuts, and special effects. Children are less competent in understanding the denotative meaning of TV content and even less in understanding the connotation of TV messages. In general, children have greater trouble in decoding the persuasive intent of messages, social stereotyping, media ecology or political ideology.