Screening Gender on Children's Television: The Views of Producers around the World

Screening Gender on Children’s Television offers readers insights into the transformations taking place in the presentation of gender portrayals in television productions aimed at younger audiences. It goes far beyond a critical analysis of the existing portrayals of gender and culture by sharing media professionals’ action-oriented recommendations for change that would promote gender equity, social diversity and the wellbeing of children. Incorporating the author’s interviews with 135 producers of children’s television from 65 countries, this book discusses the role television plays in the lives of young people and, more specifically, in developing gender identity. It examines how gender images presented to children on television are intertwined with important existential and cultural concerns that occupy the social agenda worldwide, including the promotion of education for girls, prevention of HIV/AIDS and domestic violence and caring for ‘neglected’ boys who lack healthy masculine role models, as well as confronting the pressures of the beauty myth. Screening Gender on Children’s Television also explores how children’s television producers struggle to portray issues such as sex/sexuality and the preservation of local cultures in a profit-driven market which continually strives to reinforce gender segregation. The author documents pro-active attempts by producers to advance social change, illustrating how television can serve to provide positive, empowering images for children around the world. Screening Gender on Children’s Television is an accessible text which will appeal to a wide audience of media practitioners as well as students and scholars. It will be useful on a range of courses, including popular culture, gender, television and media studies. Researchers will also be interested in the breadth of this cross-cultural study and its interviewing methodology.

Table of Contents:
@contents: Selected Contents: List of figures Acknowledgements The Journey: A Preface Chapter 1. Gender representations and their socializing role: What do we already know? Chapter 2. Studying producers of quality television around the globe: Methodological issues Chapter 3. What does gender mean? Understanding gender in cultural context Chapter 4. The big no-no: Sex and sexualities Chapter 5. The segregated workplace and the implied audience Chapter 6. Gender representations in children’s television: Eight working principles for change Chapter 7. Beyond the principles: Concluding notes on changing gender representations References Annotated program and film index Author index Topic index

About the Author :
Dafna Lemish is Professor of Communication at Tel Aviv University and editor of the Journal of Children and Media. Her books include: Children and Television: A Global Perspective (2007); Children and Media at times of Conflict and War (co-edited with Götz, 2007); Media and the Make-Believe Worlds of Children: When Harry Potter Meets Pokémon in Disneyland (with Götz, Aidman, and Moon, 2005).

Review :
What an incredible job of research, and I can't say enough about how well-written it is. The writing style is scholarly but without jargon. It will be accessible to all audiences. I also particularly appreciate the extensive background research and theoretical grounding that guides each chapter. A wonderful book - bravo! - Sharon R. Mazzarella, Professor and Director, School of Communication Studies, James Madison University, USA