How the media may be making the COVID-19 mental health epidemic worse
This article originally appeared on The Conversation
Since the pandemic began, anxiety rates in the U.S. have tripled; the rate of depression has quadrupled. Now research is suggesting the media is part of the problem. Constantly watching and reading news about COVID-19 may be hazardous for your mental health.
We are professors who study the psychological effects on people caught up in crisis, violence and natural disasters. COVID-19 surely qualifies as a crisis, and our survey of more than 1,500 U.S. adults clearly showed that those experiencing the most media exposure about the pandemic had more stress and depression.
It’s understandable. The intimations of death and suffering, and the images of overwhelmed hospitals and intubated patients can be terrifying. COVID-19 has created an infodemic; members of the public are overwhelmed with more information than they can manage. And much of that information, especially online, includes disturbing rumors, conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated statements that confuse, mislead and frighten.
Stress worse for some than others
A June 2020 study of 5,412 U.S. adults says 40% of respondents reported struggling with mental health or substance use issues. This finding did not address whether respondents had COVID-19. Since then, some people who had COVID-19 are now reporting mental health issues that appeared within 90 days after their illness subsided.
Taking care of a relative or friend with the virus might result in mental health problems, and even just knowing someone with COVID-19 can be stressful. And if a family member or friend dies from it, anxiety and depression often follow the grief. This is even more likely if the individual dies alone – or if a memorial isn’t possible because of the pandemic.
Essential workers, from hospitals to grocery stores, have a higher risk for COVID-related mental health problems. This is particularly true for health care workers caring for patients who ultimately died from the virus.
Black and Hispanic adults also report more mental health issues, including substance abuse and thoughts of suicide. Having access to fewer resources and experiencing the systemic racism running through much of U.S. health care may be two of the factors. The COVID-19 pandemic also intersected with episodes of police violence toward Black Americans. This alone may have exacerbated mental health problems.
Children, young adults and college students also show comparatively worse mental health reactions. This could be due to the disconnect they feel, brought on by the isolation from peers, the loss of support from teachers and the disappearance of daily structure.
Setting limits essential
Staying informed is critical, of course. But monitor how much media you’re consuming, and assess how it affects you. If you are constantly worrying, feeling overwhelmed, or having difficulty sleeping, you may be taking in too much COVID media. If this is happening to you, take a break from the news and do other things to help calm your mind.
Parents should frequently check in with children to see how they are affected. Listening to and validating their concerns – and then providing honest responses to their questions – can be enormously helpful. If a child is having difficulty talking about it, the adult can start with open-ended questions (“How do you feel about what is happening?”). Reassure children that everything is being done to protect them and discuss ways to stay safe: Wear a mask, socially distance, wash hands.
Finally, you can model and encourage good coping skills for your children. Remind young people that good things are still happening in the world. Work together to list healthy ways to cope with COVID-19 stress. Then do them. These activities will help your children cope – and it will be good for you too.
Associate Professor of Communication and Public Health, University of Missouri-Columbia
University of Tennessee, College of Social Work, University of Tennessee
This article originally appeared on The Conversation
Avoiding Mental Health Stigmatizations & Encouraging Help Seeking Through Entertainment Media
Mass media have the power to shape our perceptions, attitudes and beliefs toward certain groups, issues and individuals. For better or worse, most forms of media, including entertainment media, serve as primary sources of information for many viewers, influencing our understanding of those around us and in turn, our future behaviors and actions.
Unfortunately, for those struggling with mental illness, the depictions of characters with mental health issues often focus on negative and extreme stereotypical traits that portray these individuals as a danger to society and themselves. These depictions are not only inaccurate and unrepresentative of the millions of people worldwide who face mental health challenges, but they also reinforce preconceived stigmatizations which can lead to diminished self-esteem and social exclusion.
Mental health professionals are often portrayed as odd, unhelpful, unrelatable and/or unavailable, which can have major consequences on those affected by mental illness. These negative portrayals can interfere with help seeking behaviors and prevent individuals from receiving treatment due to factors such as fear, shame, embarrassment and discrimination. A startling two-thirds of individuals with a mental health disorder never seek professional help.
Too often, entertainment programs portray mental illness as something that destroys lives and fail to show viewers that mental illness is common and treatable. By depicting treatment and recovery, the media can help normalize mental health issues, fight stigma, offer hope, and connect viewers with resources for themselves or loved ones.
In a survey commissioned by the mental health organization Mind, based in the UK, findings showed that after seeing a news report or drama involving a character with mental health challenges, more than half of the respondents expressed that it had improved their understanding of mental health issues and a quarter said it had inspired them to start a conversation about mental health. Furthermore, out of the respondents affected by mental health issues, one third were encouraged to seek professional help and get assistance.
Several other studies have highlighted the power of the media to reduce stigma, increase understanding of mental health and increase help-seeking behaviors. For example, one study found that participants who watched a film depicting an accurate portrayal of an individual with schizophrenia, were less likely to endorse stigmatizing attitudes toward individuals with the illness compared to participants who saw an inaccurate portrayal of schizophrenia. Another study found that having a strong relationship to the main character of a television series who had obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) was associated with lower OCD stereotypes and greater willingness to seek and disclose mental health treatment specifically among participants with a mental illness.
It is clear that the media have the power to influence our perceptions, attitudes and beliefs about individuals living with mental illness and also to help those affected. Therefore, it is in the best interest of millions of viewers and their loved ones for content creators to portray characters with a mental illness accurately and positively.
Here are some actionable insights for storytellers:
Avoid perpetuating stereotypes about mental illness that may be stigmatizing and harmful.
Avoid including stigmatizing language in scripts, such as “crazy,” “psycho,” “looney,” “wacko,” etc.
Avoid making mental illness the defining feature of a character’s personality.
Introduce likeable and relatable characters who also might happen to encounter mental health challenges.
Portray doctors and therapists as helpful and supportive rather than incompetent or unavailable.
Model help-seeking behaviors such as talking to therapists, talking to trusted friends/adults and calling/texting helplines.
Model help-seeking behaviors not only for serious or diagnosable problems but also for common challenges such as stress, divorce and death.
Show supporting cast characters modeling supportive behaviors and describing options for seeking help.
Insert message of mental health treatment, hope and recovery.
Vicki Harrison, MSW
Program Director, Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing
Stanford Psychiatry Center for Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing
Adrianna Ruggiero
Senior Research Coordinator for CSS
Anna, 14
How do you and your family interact with media and technology?
Lately, the biggest use of technology is using Zoom on the laptop, and my sister and I mostly use Netflix and other social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. My parents mostly use technology to watch TV and Korean dramas. We use technology much more than our parents.
How do your parents feel about you using media?
When we were little, they limited our use of technology in terms of time, but now they are open to me using any kind of social media. When I tell my parents that my friends aren’t allowed to use certain platforms, they find it weird because they believe we should be able to use them if we want to. They trust that I’m not doing anything bad, but sometimes they worry that it’ll be a distraction from school.
How do you and your friends interact with media/technology?
My friends and I use TikTok the most. We send each other TikToks, and the screen time is really bad because of it. When I start watching it, it’s hard to stop watching.
Do you have different views towards media use than your parents?
Even though my parents use social media, they don’t view it as something that is necessary. I find it an easy way to interact with my friends. TikTok allows me to see what influencers and other celebrities are doing, and most people I know around me feel that way too.
What is your favorite and least favorite thing about media and technology?
When I’m bored, it’s something that I can do, and I can spend a lot of time on it for entertainment. It’s really fun to see a variety of things. A bad thing I guess is that people get bullied through social media, and it’s kind of hard to prevent it.
Is there anything else you don’t like about social media?
Not really.
Do you think you use the media too much?
Definitely too much, but when I try to limit it, I end up failing. It’s kind of hard to control it.
Have you ever felt the need or want to get away from technology?
Yeah, I thought about it, but I never did it. I think it would be nice, but I never actually tried it.
How did you feel about this interview?
It was interesting to talk about my media use because I never really think about the things you asked me. It made me think a lot about how the media is really affecting me.
Interviewed by: Yejin Ban, UCLA Student
Joshua, 18
Media Consumption: 10 hours per day (school and leisure)
How are you using media during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Well, it has definitely increased because when I was on campus at UCLA, I would spend most free time hanging out with friends on campus, but now I have to interact with friends through social media — Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat — and my YouTube time has gone up a lot. Just overall an increase in social media use.
How many hours a day do you use digital technology?
I would say a good chunk of my time. Most of my day — at least 10 hours a day on-screen, which includes school and everything else. For school-related activities, at least 6 hours school because I have coding which is online, and I can’t do any of it on paper. For personal use, probably 4 hours.
What are some social media channels that you use? What are their purposes? What are some pros and cons about each?
I am on Instagram a lot. I usually see what people post and what they are up to. But most of the time I’m on TikTok because it’s so addictive. The scrolling option is really addicting. I don’t know if it’s a pro or con but it consumes a lot of my time. More than I would like it to. So I would say probably 3 out of my 4hours — if I spend 4 hours a day — would be on TikTok because you get that addictive scrolling. It’s not the same with Instagram because TikTok allows you to see 6-second videos and you scroll and get hooked on something else again and again. I first got into TikTok at the start of quarantine because I wanted to feel more connected to people. And it's just another outlet to do that.
Do you try to limit your media use? How?
Since I’ve been at home, I know I’ve had too much screen time so I am trying to limit my time for both personal and school use because I do not want to ruin my eyes. Most of the time, I try to cut down my personal use because I can’t help my school-related stuff. I try to cut off my TikTok time as much as I can. On the TikTok app, a guide pops up every so often and says “You’ve been on here for a while. You probably need to get some rest,” which is helpful. I do have notifications on YouTube for if you watch for too long (1 hour) or if it’s your bedtime. For TikTok, I don’t have anything set up, which tells me how much time I’ve been on it. So 3 hours can go by and I wouldn’t notice. So I should probably set up an alarm now that I think about it.
When did you get your first phone? What type of phone was it?
This was back in the day, so I was probably 8-years-old; 2010. It was a BlackBerry. It was one of those that had a wheel on it with the plastic keyboard. So there wasn't much functionality to it. I just played a game where you bounced the ball and hit stuff. I didn’t really contact anyone with it besides my parents because my peers did not have phones at that age. For smartphones, I got my first one in 2013/14. I did more than press plastic keyboards.
How did your parents regulate your technology usage growing up?
Once I came to college, funny enough, they encouraged me to install an app. I forgot what it was called but it basically tracks your location. So wherever I would go, they would monitor where I was at. So I guess they were paranoid of how much freedom I had in college. But before that, in high school, they would monitor messages without me knowing. So I thought that was kind of weird. I don’t think they cared about the content. They didn’t give me murder games but as long as it was within a reasonable range, they won’t care about what I was playing. In terms of screen time, they were responsible parents and limited my screen time when I was on my PS3 or tablet or phone.
Have you been influenced by ads you saw on social media?
I noticed that after I looked something up, they had popped up for that thing I looked up. So whenever I see ads, it's for something that I’ve already seen or looked up so I don’t really pay much attention to them. I actually installed an ad skipper for YouTube. So every time a skip ads button pops up, this ad skipper automatically clicks it so I don’t have to deal with clicking it, so I don’t even watch the ads.
How do you feel about big companies taking your data and feeding it to advertisers?
I think it’s kind of creepy and more annoying than anything. I’ve seen these things and looked it up and it’s just really annoying.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
I like how many different perspectives I get to see. Not so much from Instagram and Snapchat because the media you consume is based on who you follow. But TikTok is personalized to you in a way that it gives you content that you like but not necessarily [have] seen before. So I like that I get to see a lot of different people that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen because I don’t follow them.
Do you have any thoughts on Facebook?
Before college, I thought that Facebook was only for old people. But now that I’m in college, I realize the importance of it. Because for the Dragon Boat Team, we really utilize all the features such as Facebook messaging, announcements, and discussions. So I like how all of that is intertwined with one another and we could create events on Facebook and send reminders to people. I don’t really use the Facebook platform for anything other than that. But I have been using Facebook messenger a lot more recently. I use it as my main source of communication with people.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?
I appreciate those messages that pop up for TikTok. I haven’t put something in my settings where it's like I only want an hour of screen time. So I appreciate those messages from TikTok saying you probably spend too much time on this app and it’s probably time for you to go to bed.
Do you think screentime is bad before going to bed?
I think it might be for some but for me, it's kind of a routine now. It’s my routine so it gets me in the mood to sleep. I try not to let social media dictate sleep, but it often does if I’m hooked on the content. Especially TikTok when it seems like there’s an endless void of content to go through, as opposed to YouTube. When a video ends, after you watched for 40 minutes, you kind of know it’s time for you to go to bed. But for TikTok, there’s no sense of direction or time. So it’s kind of difficult to dictate when I sleep when I am on TikTok, but for other apps, I feel like it’s fine.
When the notification pops up, what do you do?
For YouTube, I know that I’ve been on there for one hour, so I should probably get off, but for TikTok, it doesn’t tell you a certain time. It feels like it's only been 5 minutes. So I feel like I could do it for a little bit more. [With YouTube] usually, I disregard the message, but I do keep it on my mind so I get off a couple of minutes later.
Interviewed by: Quynh Vo, UCLA Student
Anna, 13
How do you and your family interact with technology?
We usually watch something together in our parents’ room or sometimes we text on the phone.
On your own time for fun, how do you use digital media?
I watch YouTube, call my friends, and read comics. I call my friends every day from morning until night.
Are there any rules around media use in the house?
On the weekends, mommy makes us start playing only at 9 or 10 in the morning. That is when we are allowed to start. And then we have to stop at 9 or 10 at night to do something else. She tells us to get off our computers and phones, and if we don’t then she will yell at us.
How do you use social media?
I use Discord. I barely use Instagram and Twitter. I use Discord the most to call and text friends. If one of our friends wants to stream their homework for help or stream YouTube or Netflix. I also did Secret Santa. One of my best friends had a bunch of mutuals on Twitter and I was invited and we all gathered together. I was part of the organizing. Everyone filled out a form and everyone had to fill it out to match people depending on what they wanted and what they could make. It was pretty hectic but I got through. It was pretty cool.
How has your media usage changed during the Covid-19 pandemic?
Before I was only on Discord for an hour a day but now I’m on it every day at every hour.
How do you feel about celebrity influencers online?
I only watch them when they pop up on my recommendations. Some of them are kind of problematic. They get into scandals. They’re just people who I watch, not really role models. They say “don’t wear this, it will make you look fat.” It’s sad and mean. All those girls, especially models. You just have to be like them — shave, no body hair, have a thin face, and have all this stuff appearance-wise. It’s sad.
What lessons have you learned from Covid-19?
Be more aware of your surroundings and follow the rules.
Interviewed by: Adela Tran, UCLA Student
Mia, 18
Media Consumption: 2 hours a day (4-5 if not at work)
Favorite Media/Technology: TikTok
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
We use WhatsApp, since my dad lives far away in Lebanon this is the only way I can speak with him freely. Other than that, none of my siblings live together so we FaceTime and keep in contact mostly through there especially because of COVID.
How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?
We mostly text over iMessage, not as much as we used to talk in high school but that is probably because everyone works now or is busy in college. Oh, we also all use Insta (Instagram), we comment on each other's pictures and support each other on there.
What do you use media for?
I mostly use media to keep in touch with my family, like my dad and siblings. Or occasionally I will drop an Instagram picture to let everybody know I’m still doing well and I still exist, mostly because everyone else is still using that. Snapchat is dead now so I don’t use that and Twitter is something I will occasionally use. Oh, and I watch Netflix a lot - does that count?
What is your favorite/least favorite component of media/technology?
My favorite thing is talking to my family that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to talk to. Also seeing what my friends from high school are up to this past year, and being able to entertain myself on TikTok for hours. My least favorite thing is that it feels like a competition. We are always competing to post the best pictures and see whose life looks the most glamorous. It sounds weird but you kind of want to have the most likes and the most comments, to know people still care or are interested. You also compare yourself on media because since everyone posts their best pictures you only see that side of them and you constantly feel like you’re not good enough. Or maybe that is just me.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?
I want the people who create media to know about vulnerable people on their sites. And yeah they aren't responsible for people’s mental health or anything but maybe put some disclaimers? Like younger kids use their sites and it would be helpful to include that not everything is real - or that could be the parents’ job. Maybe they should make the age requirement stricter because you just have to say what year you were born and anyone can do that.
What media are you using more now because of COVID-19?
Because of COVID-19, I stopped going to school so I mostly stay off my computer and only use it for Netflix. On my phone, I use TikTok a lot. Like for hours, but other than that social media is a little toxic so it’s best to just not scroll through Instagram or anything for hours. But TikTok is funny, I am so grateful for it.
Interviewed by: Rassile Jamaleddine, UCLA 4th Year Student
Mia, 15
Media Consumption: 6 hours a day on phone and computer
Favorite Media/Technology: TikTok on her iPhone
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
Every day my mom uses her Apple Watch to count her steps when she goes on runs and hikes. My dad uses his Alexa as an alarm to wake him up for work every day. I use technology in many ways. I set alarms to remind me to feed my puppy 3 times a day and I watch TikToks when I’m bored. My sister uses technology every day as well by using her laptop for school and she also uses her Apple Watch when going on walks. As a family, we always watch TV in the living room together sometimes.
How do you and your friends interact with media/technology?
My friends and I communicate by Snapchatting each other and sending text messages throughout the day. I also send many TikToks to a lot of my best friends and send funny pictures. We also FaceTime almost once a week by using our phones. We send many snaps to each other almost like a vlog daily about how the day went or what we did that day. With some of my friends, I also have streaks which are when you send a snap — a picture on Snapchat every day — and eventually, you earn a streak.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
My least favorite thing about media/technology is how toxic it can be at times. Women and men tend to compare themselves to celebrities or social media influencers and that can be a very toxic environment. It can also lead to anxiety and depression, I know this because it has also given me much anxiety seeing other people's better lifestyles and just better appearance which can make your self-esteem very low. I have had a few anxiety attacks because of my appearance and comparing myself. It can also be very exhausting to post pictures on Instagram because of the pressure of the anxiety of everyone looking at your picture and judging you and the amount of life or comments can determine how popular you are to some people and overall it is extremely toxic. I have stopped posting and sometimes deleted Instagram to get less anxiety.
What do you use media for?
I use the media for a lot of things, I like to use Pinterest for room decor ideas. I love YouTubers who promote healthy lifestyles and give mental health advice. I like to watch ASMR youtube videos and breathing exercises when things are stressing me out and I can't sleep. I also use Twitter to catch up on the latest news of everything that is going on. I use TikTok for fun entertainment with quick videos that are very fun. I use Instagram to see what everyone is posting and sometimes can get news about new music or other things. I use Snapchat to communicate with people. It's the same thing as messages but more fun.
How are you using media during the COVID-19 pandemic?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I use my phone for alarms and entertainment. I also use my computer daily for Zoom and to do homework. I use my TV to watch YouTube videos after school. I also use my Apple Watch when going on runs. I also use my phone to look up Apple News.
What media has been helping you stay busy/calm during this difficult time?
During this difficult time, my Calm app has helped me stay calm and relaxed and although TikTok is a fun app it can also be very helpful. It can reassure that people are going through this as well.
Have you learned anything about how you use media and technology because of COVID?
I never realized how much I rely on it by using technology for alarms or music and because of how much my screen time has increased. It's also made me realize how many hours a day I use my phone and how helpful it can be daily.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/ play/ interact with to know?
I would ask Emma Chamberlain to make more videos on meditation and mindfulness. Her videos help me a lot and I wish she focused more on mental health. I also wish she did more fashion videos because I love her style.
Interviewed by: Natali Delgadillo, UCLA Student
Maya, 15
Media Consumption: 7 hours and 48 minutes daily average
At what age did you first start using these devices
I shared an iPad with my sister starting age 5 and got my own iPhone when I was 9.
What are your most-used apps and which is your favorite?
Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat are my favorite. I would say my most favorite is TikTok.
Why is that one your favorite?
The TikTok algorithm brings up videos that have to do with my interest without me even having to search anything. It is a way I have formed some of my favorite friendships. If I meet someone at a party and we make a TikTok together that basically makes us best friends.
Are there any negative parts of TikTok that comes to mind when you think about it?
People like to post videos that have to do with their music taste, clothes, hobbies, or opinions and sometimes this causes a divide among classmates, and cyberbullying is common with the app.
I see Instagram is your second most used app. What can you tell me about your use of it?
I mostly just follow celebrity figures, school friends, animal accounts, and a couple of weight-loss accounts to motivate me.
What do you and your friends usually use Instagram for?
I love the app because it allows me to know what my friends are up to. I mostly just post because if I don’t then people will get bored and unfollow me. I only have two posts right now though because I stared at them for so long that I started thinking I looked weird so I deleted them, and they barely got any likes anyway.
Can you tell me any reasons you have to believe that Instagram can be problematic?
People usually talk behind each other’s backs about their Instagram posts, and a couple of times other students have anonymously made accounts aimed toward posting unwanted pictures or things about other students in the class. Anytime I take a picture my friends force me to delete it, crop them out, or even photoshop them.
Do you ever buy the stuff you see on one of your social media accounts?
Not that much because I have to use my mom’s money to online shop so I can’t do it too much but my friends and I have a few times. Like there is a TikTok dancer named Charli D’Amelio who has a Dunkin Donuts signature drink named after her, and we have all gotten it and posted pictures of it even though I hated the taste of it.
Does social media impact your productivity?
I do spend a lot of time on my phone. I’m pretty addicted to it and I have put settings on TikTok and Instagram so it locks me out after I have used each of them for three hours to try to limit my time on it, but I always end up changing the settings to use the apps again until late at night.
Does the social media you use get monitored in any other way by one of your parents?
My mom used to slightly monitor my phone use when I was 12-13, just to make sure nothing dangerous was going on, but now that I’m in high school my mom does not take part in any kind of monitoring or control of how much I use technology.
Interviewed by: Melanie Aghayane, UCLA 4th Year Student
Audrey, 8
Favorite Media/Technology: Roblox & YouTube
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
I like how my family always texts each other and I’m able to text my sisters whenever I want. I like to play Roblox with my older sisters and watch scary movies with them.
How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?
A lot of my friends play Roblox so we talk about it during school. I don’t text my friends because we all don’t have our own cell phones. We like to just talk about the games we play in person at school.
What do you use media for?
I like watching YouTube videos like unboxing videos because I want to see how the toys look before I buy them because I will be sad if the toy doesn't look how I imagined. I like watching YouTube prank videos because they’re funny.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
My favorite thing about technology is Roblox because, in the game, I can dress up my character to whatever I want it to be. I can buy pretty accessories and jewelry to make myself pretty. I can also dress up my character to whatever I want and change the color of my hair to pink. The thing that I don’t like is that sometimes people can be mean online and scam me in Roblox.
What media are you using more now because of the coronavirus (COVID- 19)?
Roblox
Where do you get most of your information to learn more about the coronavirus (e.g., news, internet, parents, etc.)?
Sometimes on TikTok, there are videos about COVID. But my parents and sister usually tell me about COVID.
What lessons have you learned from COVID-19?
I learned how to use Zoom. Online learning isn’t that fun because I don’t get to see my teacher or friends in person.
Interviewed by: Evelyn Xiong, UCLA 4th Year Student
Madison, 18
Media Consumption: 4-5 Hours per day
Favorite Media/Technology: TikTok and Instagram
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
My family and I use iMessage to communicate, and my mom uses Instagram and Facebook, but my dad doesn’t use any. We used to use an app called Life360 to know each other’s locations, but now we just use Find my Friends since we all have iPhones.
How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?
We all use most of the social media platforms, the most popular being TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. We always message each other using various apps, but mostly with iMessage. We send each other funny videos and posts all the time through the direct messaging features on the app. Some of the videos and posts are very relatable and bring us small bursts of happiness.
What do you use media for?
Primarily out of boredom, or when we are simply procrastinating schoolwork or other work. It’s a great source of endless entertainment. We don’t really have any other need for it other than communication and staying in touch/contact with our friends/peers.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
My least favorite thing would definitely be how toxic the social media community is. As funny as it can be at times, there’s also an extreme level of toxicity that exceeds cyberbullying. Some people are so cruel and have no regard for others and it can so sad to read some people’s comments as “trolls” can be ruthless. There’s no way to put a stop to it either which sucks.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?
Try and do whatever you can to limit the cyberbullying and trolling online, as it can really be detrimental to the mental health of a lot of users. The internet can turn from a helpful and resourceful place into a toxic one real quick.
What media are you using more now because of the coronavirus (COVID-19)?
Definitely TikTok and some streaming platforms. Boredom has been at an all-time high, so anything to cure that boredom is what I look for, and that includes streaming and binge-watching shows, as well as any funny videos from creators I like.
Where do you get most of your information to learn more about the coronavirus (e.g., news, internet, parents, etc.)?
Honestly, TikTok has a lot of doctors and medical health experts, so they provide a good amount of information, but I also check the news and I make sure not to watch any biased news networks.
What media has been helping you stay busy/calm during this difficult time?
Like I mentioned earlier, TikTok has been great, as well as streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu have helped cure a lot of boredom, as well as provided me with mindless entertainment.
What lessons have you learned from COVID-19?
The biggest thing I learned isn’t even media-related, but a huge takeaway I got was to not take any time I spent with my friends and family for granted. I really miss not being able to see or hang out with them a lot, so going forward I will cherish our time together much more.
Have you learned anything about how you use media and technology because of COVID-19?
I didn’t learn much but I realized how difficult it can be to put the phone down, as well as how much control social media has over our lives. We may not realize it but social media has a huge grasp on our daily online interactions, internet usage, and is a pivotal part of our culture. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops over this decade.
Interviewed by: Christian Beltran, UCLA 3rd Year Student
Ivan, 17
Media Consumption: Around 5 hours a day
Favorite Media/Technology: Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
Through the social media app Instagram, I sometimes find relatable videos or videos that I would like to share with my mother and/or the rest of my family and it ultimately serves as a bonding experience at times.
How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?
I interact with my peers through social media apps like Instagram and Snapchat, where we send each other funny videos, or news involving what’s going on in our surroundings. It serves as a way to bring us closer together through the videos, or simply to inform ourselves of what’s going on in the world.
What do you use media for?
I use media in order to learn about global and local events, as well as to distract myself with what’s going on in the world around me. It’s a good escape from reality if one can find funny videos online.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
My favorite thing about social media is how much it can bring people closer together through entertainment. For example, I’m able to bond more with my friends because of funny videos, or through a political discussion based on a post that we find on the internet. However, this very thing that brings people together has the potential to tear people apart because of the dangers of abusing social media.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?
One thing I want the people who created social media to understand is the impact of social media on people’s everyday lives. For some people, it is their only form of taking in information, and if their platform is full of conspiracies, it’s ultimately going to cause some sort of danger to society. Additionally, it’s difficult to measure the dangers it poses to young and vulnerable minds.
What media are you using more now because of the coronavirus (COVID-19)?
I’m using Instagram more as a result of the global pandemic because it’s the platform where I have most of my friends on and it’s the most convenient way I have to understand what’s going on in their lives and if they’re doing ok. Additionally, I use Instagram to find information about how the coronavirus is doing on both a national and local scale.
Where do you get most of your information to learn more about the coronavirus?
I get most of my information about the coronavirus from the governors of California and the mayor of LA, as well as from news channels such as CNN and MSNBC.
What media has been helping you stay busy/stay calm during this difficult time?
Through the use of Instagram and discord, I’m able to converse with my friends, sometimes all day long and I find myself being busy and focusing on my relationships with them during this difficult time. Additionally, Tik Tok is a good way to distract me because of how personalized one’s experience is.
What lessons have you learned from COVID-19?
From this pandemic, I’ve learned to not take any experience I have with any person for granted, because we never know when something can change within their lives or our own. I also understood and found a new way to process my emotions that I didn’t have before.
Have you learned anything about how you use media and technology because of COVID-19?
I’ve learned that I have to rely more on media because of the pandemic because I no longer have other people as a new source outlet and have to seek information out on my own.
Interviewed by: Brandon Le, UCLA 3rd Year Transfer Student
How to Achieve Authentic Racial Diversity in Hollywood Media
When I was younger, between the ages of 2 to 9 years old, there were only a few Black characters with whom I genuinely connected. Of course, I found great examples of characters who shared my identity in Rugrats’ precocious Suzie Carmichael and The Proud Family’s spunky Penny Proud, among others. However, I knew what to expect as the general unspoken rule: the characters who shared my racial identity would not appear as the active protagonists in my favourite shows. The hours that I spent watching TV after school often left me feeling disappointed and hungry for the well-rounded experiences that I saw conveyed in stories about characters with other racial identities.
As I got older, the children’s media landscape began to include more Black characters who were not only present but were also richly-developed and thoughtfully portrayed. I learned about the power of these media representations first-hand in 2009, when The Princess and the Frog premiered. Princess Tiana appeared on-screen as an ambitious, hard-working, resilient Black woman and changed my world. For the very first time, I saw myself fully represented in a daring and capable being who actively pursued her own happy ending. For the very first time, I imagined myself as an adult who could overcome any challenge and achieve my biggest dreams. Soaring eagerly upon the winds of change that Tiana brought about, for the next few years I spent every waking hour telling anyone who would listen about the deep beauty that I found in Tiana’s dreams. Throughout elementary and high school, I collected every film-related book, incessantly researched the film’s development, and made a hobby out of setting and achieving big goals to ensure that I could keep pace with Tiana’s signature brand of ambition. With every stellar grade that I achieved, I was rewarded with the internal glow that I imagined Tiana felt when she got her restaurant. “Almost There” became my mantra and my anthem.
My relationship with Princess Tiana is far from unique. Across the country, children are discovering, identifying with, and learning from the characters that they encounter as they spend over 4 hours each day watching TV, playing video games, and browsing websites. During these impactful hours, children are both constructing their identities and learning how to perceive others, particularly those from social groups with which they have little contact. Indeed, the inclusion of racially diverse characters in children’s media has increased over the past 2 decades. A recent report that I co-authored with the Toronto-based Children’s Media Lab revealed that between 2018 and 2019, 49% of animated characters on Canadian children’s television shows were depicted as people of colour; an increase from the estimate of 35% that was given one year earlier in a report which focused on both live-action and animated programs. Although these changes should be commended, since kids and teens are now engaging with media more than ever before, it is crucial to move beyond simply including racially diverse characters in stories. It is time for content creators to authentically portray racially diverse characters, as this will foster a genuine appreciation for diverse identities and inclusion.
When storytellers develop narratives, characters, and worlds that support well-rounded depictions of race, they create standout content that will reach wide audiences and inspire generations of viewers to live and breathe the social harmony for which our society hungers.
Authentic Representations of Race Strengthen Kids
While there are many real-life resources that children use to shape their identities, media offers children something truly unique: the opportunity to see themselves and their cultures represented in fantasy. When Princess Tiana entered my life in 2009, not only did she inspire me to imagine myself as a talented, resourceful leader who could deftly navigate life’s unexpected bayou adventures; she also showed me that I could accomplish these things while embracing my ethnic and racial identities. As Disney’s first African American princess, she pulled me off of my couch and into her lively world so that I could become the protagonist of my own life. The long-term impacts of media characters on children are well-documented beyond my experience.
One study revealed that for children whose racial identities were misrepresented in media, watching television was linked to decreases in self-esteem due to an absence of characters who positively reflected their identities. Other studies have revealed that negative representations of Latinx and Black characters lead viewers to feel ashamed and less positive about their social groups. In a landmark study, researchers found that Indigenous American adults who saw stereotypical representations of their cultures felt less positive about their identities, and predicted that they would achieve less in the future than those who did not see the stereotypical representations.
The inclusion of authentic, racially diverse characters is particularly impactful for children who are members of underrepresented groups. Seeing characters who not only look like them but who also share their experiences can help them to absorb positive messages that boost their self-esteem. Additionally, when children who are not from underrepresented groups see these rich characters portrayed, they may learn how to respect and empathize with individuals from other racial groups.
Authentic Representations Create Excellent Content
A list of the top-grossing films of 2019 in the US shows that authenticity sells. Many of the films that appear on the list, such as Frozen 2 and The Lion King, were created by production and development teams that travelled to the countries that appeared in their films and learned about the cultures that they depicted.
Lived experiences are particularly crucial when depicting characters from diverse racial groups. Acclaimed films such as the Oscar-winning and high-earning Black Panther and Pixar’s animated Soul (which has already been nominated for 2 Golden Globes and received 3 trophies from the Critics Choice Super Awards) were developed by directors, producers, and writers who shared their characters’ identities and experiences. As a result, they captured nuances that made the films deeply resonate with diverse audiences which, in turn, enabled the films to become blockbusters.
Films and television shows that feature authentic representations of race also stand out because they depict dynamic, three-dimensional characters that defy common tropes. This is important because children more strongly remember and connect with characters who have well-rounded and relatable qualities. In fact, many leading resources that offer tips for developing compelling stories advocate for the creation of detailed characters who have believable desires and fleshed out personality traits. When racially diverse characters are depicted as dynamic individuals who both inhabit and shape their worlds, they easily captivate viewers with their enduring appeal and attract a loyal fan base.
Authentic Representations Evoke Change
While it is crucial for all children to see themselves represented on the screen, creating characters through which viewers can also hear themselves, see their diverse abilities portrayed, and embrace their unique personalities can also dismantle harmful racial stereotypes and biases. A recent analysis of contemporary media showed that Black characters are often portrayed as unemployed and aggressive individuals. Other findings were that Latinx characters tend to be portrayed as individuals who are unintelligent and short-tempered; East Asian characters are often portrayed as characters who fulfill the “Model Minority” stereotype; and Arabic characters are often portrayed as criminals. While inauthentic representations persist, research shows that positive, authentic representations of people of colour can make public attitudes towards these groups more positive.
With the exciting possibility of making an enduring impact across the media landscape, content creators have an opportunity to transform films, TV shows, and video games into powerful catalysts for positive social change.
Actionable Insights
Encourage writers, directors, artists, and other industry professionals who have diverse racial identities to share their authentic stories.
When representing racially diverse characters, consult with as many individuals who share characters’ races, cultures, and experiences as you can. Since no single experience will apply to all individuals from a given racial group, consult with diverse experts at every stage of content development and production.
Create racially diverse main characters who have a variety of personality traits, quirks, abilities, appearances, and conflicts that make them relatable and able to stand on their own.
Hire voice actors who share characters’ racial identities. Many talented voice actors are aware of the impact that authentic representations have on young audiences, and are eager to work on projects that champion authentic stories.
Hold frequent user testing and focus group sessions with members of the racial group that you are depicting, to ensure that your characters and stories are respectful and resonate with your target audience.
The compelling strength that Tiana brought to my world through her well-developed personality ignited my decision to become a children’s media consultant: a role that has enabled me to watch and contribute to the trend of increasing authentic diversity in media by supporting industry leaders. During and beyond Black History Month, I celebrate and acknowledge storytellers’ efforts to authentically represent racially diverse characters so that their stories can be remembered and relished long after the credits roll. While we have trends yet to change, I truly do believe that we are almost there.
Josanne Buchanan, BSc.
Children’s Media Consultant at OK Play / Research Assistant at Children’s Media Lab
School Closures, Stay-At-Home Orders, and Screen Time
The Importance of Educational Television Programs to Children’s Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic
We’ve all been there…whether it’s with your own child, a younger sibling, or the kid you are babysitting, we have sighed in exasperation while handing over our cell phones or turning on the TV so we can do our daily tasks without distractions. Turning to media as a form of a modern day “babysitter” is all too common when caregivers are in a pinch and need a last resort to keep kids busy and happy. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, more parents and siblings are working from home while their young children attempt remote schooling and look for ways to fend off the boredom of quarantine.
Unsurprisingly, there has been a substantial increase in total TV usage in the US since the beginning of the pandemic, with daytime TV viewing for kids (ages 6 to 11) and teens (ages 12-17) both increasing around 300% on average. Throughout COVID, kids have been using media as their primary source of entertainment, information, social connection, and education. Young children and teens say their use of media is mostly due to boredom and other options being inaccessible to them. This is especially true of TV consumption, particularly for preschoolers who have less autonomy in manipulating technology but can passively sit in front of a television screen. As quarantine has stretched on, the attitudes of parents about limiting screen time, social media usage, and engagement with online entertainment in general have eased considerably, with many entirely giving up on trying to regulate their children’s media habits. How many hours a day your child is watching TV is less of a concern when you are trying to work from home and juggle the demands on your attention around the household. Now, with young children spending more time on screens during the day than ever before, it is the responsibility of adults and content creators to ensure that the programming available to children is approached with an understanding that the content is central to life as a kid during the pandemic.
Another area of a typical child’s daily life that has been drastically altered by the coronavirus is education and schooling. School closures and the rapid shift to remote learning have created gaps in access to social and educational resources, rendering many children vulnerable and struggling at home. Numerous K-12 schools and school districts, for example the Los Angeles United School District, have recently announced plans to remain closed for in-person instruction until January 2021. Educators have projected that students who remain enrolled in school this fall without in-person instruction will lose 3-4 months of learning, even with access to an average quality of remote instruction. The outlook is bleaker for those with connection to low-quality remote instruction or even none at all. As a result, glaring inconsistencies in educational availability and quality, both with regard to resources of schools and in the home, have made the gross inequities in the US education system difficult to ignore. With this in mind, what steps can be taken to facilitate the continued learning and development of children and teens during quarantine?
Here is the basis of what we know so far: (1) school-aged children are spending significantly more time watching daytime TV and (2) many children will not have access to in-person schooling this fall, which will result in unequal and exacerbated learning gaps. So, what if stations started broadcasting high quality educational media content created for children of specific age groups more frequently during the day while parents are busy working? Would this make the increased time children are spending watching TV during the pandemic worthwhile, by simultaneously increasing their opportunities for learning? As it turns out, the answer is yes!
Media technologies have positive effects on the social and cognitive abilities of children, provided that media content is developmentally appropriate and emphasizes active engagement. For example, engagement with PBS educational media content resulted in academic improvements across the disciplines, including English language arts, mathematics, and science. Additionally, popular educational programs such as Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues have been shown to improve academic achievement and school readiness of children. These educational TV shows designed around a narrative curriculum are successful in teaching children intended lessons about both cognitive and social skills. Storytelling is a crucial medium for children to keep learning through the pandemic, but it is the nature of the content that they are watching which determines which, if any, educational gains they are making.
The opportunity for learning through educational media is not limited to academic lessons, but also applies to the development of social skills. This provides a promising avenue to teach children about new norms and expectations during the COVID outbreak, such as wearing a mask in public and using hand sanitizer. Another feature of educational media that is well suited to the pandemic, is that it has been found to be most effective when it encourages children to be active rather than passive viewers, creating a connection between on- and off-screen activities. This connection could be established through supplemental activities inspired by the narrative of the media content, such as completing a hands-on, creative project or by encouraging outdoor exploration after watching an episode. Such activities and active engagement with media in general are not only beneficial to children’s academic learning through educational media, but also to the facilitation of enriching off-screen activities that can be done in the home during the current period of quarantine.
Actionable Insights
Here are some actionable insights for children’s content creators during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep kids who are unable to attend in-person classes learning by capitalizing on the large increase of TV viewing among children during quarantine:
Keep in mind that school-aged children are spending upwards of 3 times the amount of hours watching TV since the pandemic. Developmentally appropriate television content is even more important now that kids are spending more time at home in front of screens.
Don’t rely on parents to monitor and regulate children’s media habits during the pandemic. Ensure that the options available to them are high quality and support active engagement from the viewer.
Educational programming is successful in teaching viewers intended lessons, both related to cognitive and social gains. This suggests that new norms and conventions surrounding COVID-19 can be effectively taught to children through television content. Focus on incorporating simple language and easily understood examples when featuring the pandemic in storylines. Click here for our child-friendly COVID-19 Lexicon.
Children who watch educational television programs have greater academic success and higher levels of school readiness than those who do not. Therefore, incorporate educational content into narratives to keep kids learning during school shutdowns. This has the potential to help combat learning loss associated with remote instruction.
Educational programming should engage children with both the world on-screen and off-screen. Create opportunities for children to connect the narrative they are watching on-screen with the world they are living in.
Emily Raich
CSS Intern
How the Pandemic Can Teach Kids About Compassion
What if this crisis became an opportunity for children to deepen their sense of care?
As a homebound parent with a preschooler, I’ve felt an array of emotions over the past few months during the coronavirus pandemic. I’ve felt sadness and worry about how many people are becoming ill, while being confounded by trying to juggle homeschooling and my own work responsibilities.
But I’ve also felt a great deal of gratitude for the kindnesses that have punctuated so many of my days lately, like when a neighbor left herbs from her garden at my gate or when a faraway friend whom I haven’t heard from in years sent text messages of love.
These positive experiences have affirmed to me that when times are difficult, our common human response is not to show reckless disregard of others but to show compassion.
We often assume that emergencies automatically lead to panic, but research consistently shows that people tend to act in solidarity and turn toward each other with a sense of togetherness. They volunteer, donate supplies, and spread goodwill, strengthening social bonds and helping everyone be resilient together.
“Affiliative, supportive, prosocial behaviors are more common, where widespread sickness and debility evoke acts of mutual aid among members of a community in crisis,” explains Steven Taylor, professor and clinical psychologist at the University of British Columbia, in his book The Psychology of Pandemics.
Compassion—noticing others suffering and being motivated to provide relief to them—grows early on in life. Five-month-old babies prefer helpers over hinderers. When babies between eight and 10 months old see people bump their knees or hurt their fingers, they already show the seeds of empathy with facial expressions, vocalizations, and gestures that reflect concern and a desire to understand others’ distress. By 14 months old, toddlers help others by handing them objects out of reach.
How can parents help their children realize their instinctual capacity for compassion during the coronavirus pandemic? Scientists have suggested three ways that children develop compassion that are relevant to these times.
1. Show compassion to kids so they experience receiving it
During the pandemic, many of our children are feeling uncertainty and upheaval, just like us parents. They miss school, their friends, and playing sports like they did before. For young children who don’t have the breadth of words to express their worries and fears, or older children who don’t have the emotional agility to get through tough moments, it can be overwhelming.
As a result, our kids may be irritable or have more meltdowns and tantrums than usual. But rather than seeing children as uncooperative, parents can consider whether their behavior is simply an indication that they might be suffering, too.
If we offer children warmth and tenderness when their routines are turned upside down, we can soothe them in their own time of need. Parents can extend compassion by making space to help their children become better aware of and process their feelings. Acknowledging and being sensitive to our children’s emotions can act as a salve and help them to see that this moment of hardship will eventually pass.
Parents can also frequently talk to their children about all the members of their extended family and broader community who have cared for them both recently and in the past. For example, parents can tell and retell their children stories of neighbors who brought gift baskets after their pet died or dropped off dinners when a grandparent was in the hospital. These conversations serve to remind children that they are connected to a network of people who are a generous source of compassion from which they can draw strength during times of suffering.
Receiving compassion offers kids a firsthand experience of what it feels like.
2. Teach kids to practice self-compassion
In turn, just as children receive compassion from parents, they can also learn to offer it to themselves.
When children are having a hard time during the pandemic, parents can encourage them to listen and respond to their bodies and minds with greater awareness, acceptance, and kindness. For example, parents of older children can teach them to take self-compassion breaks to handle stressful moments.
For younger children, this might mean guiding them to first pause and notice their tense muscles, rapid heartbeats, and racing thoughts. Ask them to recognize that they’re having a moment of hardship and children all over the world are having these kinds of moments, too. Teach them to breathe deeply from their bellies and offer themselves words of tenderness like “May I feel calm.”
Parents can also encourage their younger children to cultivate self-compassion by planning enjoyable activities to look forward to after a hard day of homeschooling or after realizing summer vacation plans are cancelled.
Self-compassion allows children to process and cope with difficult emotions. Eventually, it can help them see their common humanity—that everyone suffers sometimes—and know that it’s all right to feel bad.
Tending to their intense emotions helps children be restored and renewed, which in turn prepares them to serve others. Overwhelming personal distress can make children singularly self-focused and less able to attend to others’ suffering. Self-compassion practices can help them be more able to orient toward others and extend compassion to them—which is the last step.
3. Encourage kids to extend compassion to others
During the coronavirus pandemic, even though children are inclined to help, it can be hard for them to know exactly what they can do.
Children can start with small acts of compassion as a family—sending kind thoughts to essential workers, regularly FaceTiming with isolated older or immunocompromised family members, or helping gather canned goods for the local food bank. Parents can also review these other ideas from Youth Service America to help inspire children toward compassionate acts.
Research suggests that small differences in language matter when we’re encouraging our kids to help. Parents can nurture young children’s motivation by inviting them to “be a helper,” which can instill in them a compassionate self-identity. But there’s a catch: When tasks are too difficult and children experience a setback, those who were asked to “be a helper” are less likely to try to help again compared to children who were simply asked “to help.” So, in circumstances when children might not succeed at helping with something, it’s better to just ask them “to help.”
Even young children have undoubtedly picked up on their radar that life right now is quite a bit different than it used to be. What if this pandemic became an opportunity for them to learn that being human during hard times involves transformation and resilience, and that compassion helps us all to thrive?
Maryam Abdullah, Ph.D.
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
Five Ways to Reduce Racial Bias in Your Children
How do we combat racial prejudice? New research reveals how parents influence the formation of bias in children.
Children notice difference across racial lines. Even from a very young age, babies scan a face differently if it belongs to someone of a different race, suggesting that racial bias may be hardwired.
But noticing difference is not the same as having negative or positive beliefs around difference. Those types of judgments develop over time and are influenced by many things, including the social climate children grow up in and the experiences they have that confirm or disprove their biases.
This is where parenting comes in. Though it’s clear that parents are not solely responsible for biasing their kids one way or the other, science suggests that they do play a role—and an important one. In fact, their influence may extend well beyond a child’s early years and into adolescence.
Though how this works is not totally clear, recent research has shown that the process starts early and involves both explicit (deliberate) and implicit (unconscious) messages that parents send to their children. This is the good news: Parents can be a positive force in combating prejudice in their children. But the “bad news” is that kids can easily pick up prejudice from society at large unless parents do something about it.
Here are some of the ways that parents can help reduce negative bias in their children.
1. Expose kids to more positive images of other racial groups
Kids are immersed in negative stereotypes perpetuated by the media and culture, just as adults are. To counteract that, parents can expose kids through stories, books, and films to more positive, counter-stereotypical images of people from different racial and ethnic groups—including moral exemplars like Martin Luther King Jr. or Dolores Huerta. In studies with adults, this type of intervention has been shown over and over to be one of the most effective ways of decreasing bias.
Though less is known about how this might impact children specifically, at least one study suggests that they benefit, too. Researchers presented white and Asian children ages 5-12 with four positive vignettes involving admirable black people (such as firefighters or doctors), admirable white people, or flowers and then measured the kids’ implicit biases towards black people. Being exposed to the positive vignettes significantly reduced implicit bias in children nine years of age and older—though not in the younger children.
According to lead author Antonya Gonzalez, this study suggests that showing older kids positive images of black people may counteract negative stereotypes in society.
“Hearing these stories, the kids are internalizing an association between the group they’re hearing about and positivity, and that counteracts the stereotypical associations that they may already have,” she says.
However, just because younger children were not moved by the stories in her experiment doesn’t mean we shouldn’t expose younger kids to positive images, as well, Gonzalez believes.
“If there were more exposure and more exemplars, there’s a chance that might be enough to change associations” in younger kids, too, she says.
2. Help your kids develop cross-group friendships
Research suggests that cross-race friendships are an important factor in decreasing prejudice, probably because they help decrease stress and fears of rejection that may occur in cross-group situations. Having a friend from another group may also remove barriers to empathy and caring, which in turn decreases prejudice.
Research shows that having contact with different racial or social groups—especially when that contact is warm and positive—helps to decrease prejudice and to encourage more cross-group friendships. In a study with school kids of various ages, students who had higher levels of cross-race contact—including cross-race friendships—were more likely to see the way race plays a role in social exclusion and to view that behavior negatively.
In a longitudinal study with adolescents, those who had cross-group friendships were less likely to develop biases against immigrants in their community, even if their parents or peers were biased. These studies suggest that cross-group friendships might help mitigate biases that could otherwise form.
In one study, German teens who established a cross-group friendship during a three-year period demonstrated lower prejudice toward immigrants at the end of the study than those who hadn’t. In addition, the teens were more likely to develop cross-group friendships when there were more kids from different groups and more positive social norms concerning cross-group friendships in their community. This suggests that opportunity—meaning, living in diverse neighborhoods or going to integrated schools—is important.
Psychologist Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton encourages parents to take an active role in supporting cross-race friendships in their kids by organizing play-dates, inviting kids over to their houses, offering rides to sporting events, and creating other opportunities for their kids’ cross-group friendships to form.
“The default is to do these things with people with whom you already have an affinity,” he says. “You need to help scaffold these social experiences for your kids and be more intentional if you want to be sure that cross-group friendships happen.”
3. Cultivate cross-group friendships yourself
Parents can help normalize cross-group friendships by role-modeling them for their kids. This may seem superfluous, but research has shown that children’s racial attitudes are less tied to parents’ explicit messages around race than to the racial makeup of the parents’ social network.
Why does having cross-race friendships have such a strong impact on bias? Mendoza-Denton says that when you develop a cross-race friendship, you incorporate your friend’s struggles, motivations, and thoughts into your own self-concept—not in a way that’s confusing, but more expansive. For example, he says, you start to feel what they feel and empathize with them: maybe sweating when they give a talk or suffering when they experience heartbreak. And that experience of “inclusion of the other in the self” decreases bias against that person’s social group.
“It’s so much more organic to reduce bias by developing intergroup friendships, because it changes your attitudes through a very human mechanism, which is the interpersonal,” says Mendoza-Denton.
Though adding people to your social group based simply on race is probably unwise, it’s possible to search for common interests with people of different backgrounds, making it more likely that a friendship will happen naturally. Once friendship grows, empathy develops organically, says Mendoza-Denton.
4. Talk explicitly about race and the effects of racism
Many black parents give explicit instructions to their kids about the importance of race in society and what they can do to mitigate any bias they encounter. But well-meaning white parents are less likely to bring up race with their children, perhaps fearing that doing so would mean they don’t value egalitarianism or believe in a “post-race” society. The problem with that approach is that not talking about race can create a vacuum of information, which leads children to absorb biases around them—often in ways that are counter to parents’ own held values.
In one study, researchers had white parents read books depicting racial issues to their preschool-aged children (under the guise of studying the effects of literature on learning) while being videotaped. Racial attitudes were measured and compared afterwards in both parents and their children.
Later analyses of the videos showed that many parents avoided mention of race—even if their children asked about it—and used “colorblind” approaches to the issues raised in the book. For example, they might say, “It’s important to be nice to everyone” rather than something about race. Though the parents assumed their kids would absorb their colorblind ideals and hold favorable views of African-Americans, the children’s views weren’t in line with these expectations, suggesting that a colorblind approach does not decrease biased attitudes in kids.
In fact, research suggests that parents need to be much more explicit about racism and its effects. When white parents were asked to have race-related discussions with their kids—either with or without watching educational videos about race—their children showed more favorable attitudes toward racial outgroup members only if their parents discussed race directly. Interestingly, though, the researchers had trouble getting the parents to have these discussions—even when instructed to do so as part of the study. Apparently, there are psychological barriers to discussing race among many Caucasian parents.
How can parents overcome these? It’s not easy, says Mendoza-Denton, because if you aren’t comfortable, you will avoid the topic. He suggests that parents need to increase their own comfort first by developing connections to people from other racial groups. That will make it easier for parents to have these conversations without resorting to fear and avoidance.
If you can overcome your own discomfort, there are many children’s books that expose kids to the values and experiences of different groups and could be conversation starters. Or you may want to follow Allison Briscoe-Smith’s advice on how to use the movie Zootopia to talk to your children about racial prejudice.
5. Work to combat biases in yourself
Research clearly shows that the impact of parent bias on kids shouldn’t be underestimated. Although explicit biases have negative effects on kids, implicit bias can also impact children.
In one study, researchers found that very young children exhibited more explicit negative bias if their mothers held implicit biases—regardless of their explicit messaging. There can be a mismatch between what parents say and their unconscious reactions toward minority groups—and children seem to pick up on this.
Though implicit biases may seem an impossible thing to control—after all, they are supposed to be unconscious—they are quite changeable with conscious effort. Research suggests that automatic biases can be countered by deliberate attempts to counter them, exposure to moral exemplars, or positive cross-race interactions. In other words, much of what influences children may also influence you.
Becoming more aware of subtle prejudices may be the first step, and you can always take an implicit bias test if you want to learn about yourself. But Mendoza-Denton believes that this information is most useful in parents who are truly willing to attend to their biases; otherwise, learning about their implicit biases could possibly backfire, making them feel exposed and defensive and increasing their avoidance of the issue.
In addition to developing cross-race friendships, he advises parents to read books, watch films, and consume media not aimed at them. For example, to understand the viewpoints and experiences of blacks, a white parent might read Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book Between the World and Me, or see the movie I Am Not Your Negro. Doing so may counter bias by enriching understanding of another’s point of view, especially if they are motivated to foster that understanding.
Parents may think that there is very little they can do to influence their children’s biases or feel that prejudice-reduction is a daunting task. But if we are to impact bias in the long-term, we must come to grips with how bias is transmitted early in life and fed by a system of segregation and negative societal views. Parents, it turns out, can make an important contribution.
Jill Suttie, Psy.D
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
Foster or Otherwise, Parenting is Parenting: Love, care, and try your best
Media content has the power to shape perceptions and views on a mass scale. Unfortunately, media portrayals of youth in foster care are often negative and perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes. In this special blog series, The Center for Scholars and Storytellers is exploring this topic from multiple perspectives to inform and inspire the creation of accurate, empowering, and socially responsible media portrayals of foster care.
Marianne Guilfoyle, Chief Innovations Officer at LA-based Allies for Every Child and a key foster care advisor to the Center for Scholars and Storytellers, often remarks: “If I had a nickel for every person who said they had considered being foster parents…” And she is right. It’s not that people haven’t considered fostering, it’s that they’ve never seriously considered it. And far too often, their reason is that they don’t think they could do it. Indeed, multi-racial, same-sex couple Ching-chu Hu and Jim Van-Reeth, who have adopted four children through the foster care system, say they constantly hear comments such as “Oh, I could never do that” or “You’re stronger than me!” Their thoughts on this? “We believe most people on the planet naturally have the necessary tools to be foster parents -- to love and nurture a child.” Positive media portrayal of fostering can play a large role in empowering people to see that they can indeed foster. We need to see more of these stories.
Another honest response they get from people interested in adoption are fears that adopting from the system is too “dangerous”, and international adoption will get you “safer” children with “less issues.” To this, Hu and Van-Reeth remark; “Children are amazingly resilient, and the issues we all face as parents are strikingly similar, whether a child is from the foster care system, international adoption, or is a biological child. The primary difference is that we came into it expecting challenges, whereas those with biological children may be caught off guard by difficulties if they arise.” Rich Valenza, founder of Raise a Child and himself a father of two children he adopted through the foster care system, echoed this sentiment, reflecting on how the conversations with other parents at school drop-off were often quite therapeutic. He noticed, “Whether raising your birth children or children through foster care, the parenting problems you face are pretty similar! You have expectations of what raising a child will be like, but the reality quickly sinks in for both scenarios that it’s often not the way you planned. You’ll never be fully prepared. You likely won’t hear “thank you for giving me an amazing life” from your foster children as you tuck them into bed, but it’s a safe bet that you won’t hear that from your birth children either.” Content creators should strive to show the parenting commonalities in raising children, from the struggles to the joys, regardless of how their children entered their lives.
But this is not to dismiss the trauma that foster children experience in leaving their home, and whatever difficult life they may have endured previous to entering foster care (or within foster care). And this needs to be appropriately reflected in media, too. Valenza is a proud proponent of family therapy and removing all associated stigma, “Whether you have birth or foster children, all families can benefit from therapy-- it needs to be seen as a bonus to your life, an education into yourself.” In addition to recruiting foster parents, Raise a Child makes an effort to continually support parents throughout the foster/adoption process. They are currently partnered with LA-based Allies for Every Child on a pilot program that provides extra support and training to remind parents, for instance, that when problems arise, “this is not about me, this is about the needs of the child.” Portraying counseling as normative in fictional media could go a long way in reducing the stigma of seeking professional help, both for parents and children.
One of the biggest lessons that Hu and Van-Reeth encountered over the years was learning, accepting, and supporting the perspectives of the foster children’s previous lives, and not judging the biological parents (who often grew up in similar situations). They explain, “No matter how horrific we may find their previous life, it was still their home, their reality, their “comfortable” environment. It is the lives they were used to, and anything different, no matter how safe, how loving, how supportive, is still different, unusual, and unfamiliar to their world. And it takes a lot of time and nurturing for them to trust a safe and loving environment.”
Worrying that a foster child you hope to adopt might be reunified with their birth family is another fear that can lead people to pursue private or international adoption instead. Indeed, Hu and Van-Reeth went through this in the most heart-wrenching way; “Losing our 18 month old son-who we had had since day one- to his birth parents who we knew were falling back into drugs, was the hardest moment in our fostering journey. Especially the fact that as foster parents we felt we had no voice, no “seat” at the judicial table. Those scars left indelible memories.” Ultimately, their son did end up returning back to their home, and is now adopted by the Hu and Van-Reeth. Those interested in fostering and adoption and those creating media about foster care should understand that there are different paths to take, depending on the long-term option desired, and the amount of potential heartbreak you are willing to risk. Media content can help by portraying all types of fostering, including:
A foster parent that just fosters with no intention of adopting (roles which are very much needed since reunification with the birth family is the primary goal for children entering into the foster care system.)
A foster/adoptive parent who takes in foster children who might become available for adoption (and therefore would adopt the child if it was a good fit), but the child could instead be reunified with their birth family.
An adoptive-only parent who will only take a child into their home if they are already classified as “adoptive,” meaning the birth parents have terminated their parental rights.
Finally, another reason people are hesitant to become foster parents is because they’re afraid they won’t be good enough, or they will mess up as a parent. But ultimately, as Velenza correctly puts it, “Worrying about being good enough parent is exactly what will make someone a good foster parent. This shows that they are conscious of their role, and it shows they care. And ultimately, that is what it takes.”
For foster parents, there are countless instances along the way that remind you you’re doing a great job. For Valenza, as his children get older he finds he gets immeasurable pride from seeing them thrive, and even beginning to realize and appreciate the work he does for the foster care community. As Hu and Van-Reeth reflect; “It’s the small things: it’s seeing them come out of their shells, adjusting, being nurtured, opening up, and giving a hug. It’s seeing them bring their defenses down, grow, and become stronger and more comfortable with the world around them. It’s giving them first-time experiences, whether that’s flying on a plane, going to a park, or even, shockingly, giving them breakfast.”
Actionable Insights
Write and cast realistic, everyday people as foster parents who aren’t perfect people, but care and are doing their best.
- Media that gets it right: Instant Family - the couple is refreshingly honest in their uncertainty and process to fostering, making them extremely relatable.
Show the similar joys and struggles that parents face, regardless of whether their children are biological, adopted internationally/privately, or from the foster care system.
Normalize seeking counseling and therapy, show how it is beneficial and healthy for the entire family.
Colleen Russo Johnson, PhD
Senior Fellow of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers
This blog series is supported in part by the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families.
The Fun of Empowering Girls
For over 20 years, I worked in public broadcasting making shows for young people. We made television and digital content and even hosted events in communities across the country. As a public broadcaster, I was keenly aware of what we needed to work hard on, particularly gender stereotypes and gender roles — and, less overt gender bias — in Hollywood movies and TV. We needed to empower children — especially girls. We knew from research that if girls saw positive girl characters and women characters in television and film, it could have an incredible impact. But no matter how hard we worked, we couldn’t control what happened after they saw a program. We knew that the impact would be higher if the ideas in the shows were talked about at home. And even higher if a parent watched with them.
As a parent, I want great role models too. Like most parents, I feel a lot of pressure to try to make all the right choices. We’re fighting gender stereotypes in the media and gender bias in the culture. It can be a lot. So, I think it’s time to make a switch and take the pressure off.
I say let’s have fun empowering the girls (and boys!) in our lives. Instead of trying to find all the right everything to introduce them to, let’s make it an adventure together.
With your own kids, try to think outside of the box to find amazing female characters in your own movie and TV watching — and women and girls in your own neighbourhood or town, too! Make it a quest. A Mission. Make a chart. Or just do it for fun. Find what works with your family dynamic but make the goal finding awesome women near where you live. Here are some suggestions:
Make it a challenge to see who can find the coolest girl character in a TV show. And then watch it together. Why is she cool? How does she conform to gender roles?
Go to the library and see if any women authors are speaking. Or reading from their picture or chapter books.
Check out cool women running for office where you live and go and hear them speak. Even if your kids are too young to understand the issues, all the clapping and sign waiving will make it fun. A great way to combat gender bias is to see women being supported by other women and men.
In your play- whether it’s with stuffed animals, dolls or action characters- make the role-playing about inventing or leading (hey let’s find a way to invent a colour changing t-shirt or create a cardboard starship to fly us to the stars!). Remember that young kids’ imaginations are way better than ours as adults, so let them run with it.
Celebrate the women in your extended family who have interesting jobs- in science, architecture, a small startup- and have them tell your kids about it
Go old school. Kids still love to play board games. Print off pictures of powerful women- from politicians to pilots- that you can glue to cardboard and use as pieces in any of your favourite family games instead of the regular pieces.
And remember moms, research shows that this isn’t just about our kids. A study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found that working women who viewed images of powerful women succeeded in stressful leadership tasks. So have fun with it!
Kim Wilson
Media Advisor & Consultant of The Center for Scholars & Storytellers
Disclosure: This blog post was written independently and reflects the author’s own views. It was written in support of the Dream Gap project and was paid for by Barbie.
Dreams of a Six Year Old Girl
Have you ever spoken to a six year old girl? Seemingly the epitome of confidence,the world is her oyster, and she believes she can be anything:
An astronaut;
A ballet dancer;
The President;
All at the SAME TIME.
Moreover, young girls frequently do better than boys in elementary school, where their abilities to sit still and follow rules often makes their teachers give them plenty of gold stars.
The traditional thinking is that young girls’ confidence doesn’t drop until they hit puberty. But something else is happening during the ages of five to seven, as children develop cognitively, becoming aware that others are evaluating their behavior.
As a well designed experiment found, at five years of age, girls say that both genders are smart, but by six years old, they classify boys as belonging to the “really really smart” category at a higher rate. Thus, what children see and hear during this developmental stage shapes thinking in ways that adults may not always see or recognize.
In fact, even at younger ages, children quickly absorb the stereotypes we communicate about activities and skills associated with each gender. Children learn in the context of their social and cultural milieu and the messages they are given (from parents, media, teachers and other socialization agents) promote gender identities, sometimes with stereotypes attached to them.
The good news is that in the US, things may be starting to change. One study found that when asked to draw a scientist, kids in the United States increasingly draw women. Back in the sixties and seventies, when asked the same question, less than one percent of children drew a female scientist. Today the average is twenty eight percent. But still, as kids get older, they begin to draw more men in this role. At five or six girls draw the same number of men and women, but by seven and eight they begin to draw more men.
So there is still plenty of work to do. Luckily research has helped us become more aware of these biases. Moreover, companies who create media and product for kids are helping change entrenched patterns. Many companies are focusing on creating strong female characters, and their audience is responding – even boys!
What can you do to help encourage your child to dream big and help your girl recognize that boys and girls are equally “really really smart? One answer: Play! Play helps girls understand the possibilities because this is when children practice the gendered behaviors they see from role models. And young kids like to play with the objects that will teach them the most.
Here are a few ways caregivers can support their children so they start to internalize gender equality:
Choose media that highlight strong female role models.
Why? Because research shows that representation shapes the way we think.
2. Highlight real life female role models, including yourself if you are a woman.
Why? Because connecting to the real world helps make children understand what’s truly possible. And young girls focus on what their female caregiver is doing.
3. Encourage boys to diversify their play patterns. Support their play with dolls, and help them recognize that women are equally brilliant to men.
Why? Because until we recognize that boys can enjoy more “feminine” pursuits, masculine stereotypes of strength and brilliance will persist and undermine progress for women.
Yalda T. Uhls, Ph.D.
Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers
Disclosure: This blog post was written independently and reflects the author’s own views. It was written in support of the Dream Gap project and was paid for by Barbie.
The Importance of Authentic Asian American Representation in Hollywood
The Importance of Authentic Asian American Representation in Hollywood
Ages 5-10 were my Full-House-obsessed years. I considered myself an honorary Tanner. Then it was what my parents referred to as “The Inappropriate Show,” also known as Saturday Night Live. They thought it was too mature for my little sister and me, but we loved it. The Office got me through stressful high school times and now I quote it without thinking. However, amidst the joy these shows brought me, as a Korean-American I have been continually let down by the lack of representation of Asians in Hollywood. It makes me angry -- shattering the meek, silent-in- the-midst-of-unfairness, and the rarely impassioned portrait that the media has painted of people like me. Despite attempts at diversity in Hollywood movies and TV, Asian characters have often been portrayed as weak, nerdy, exotic, incompetent, powerless, and are seldom in the spotlight as leads, just like black television and film characters.
Notable progress has been made, however, in the past few years with the successes of Crazy Rich Asians, ABC sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, and Netflix’s Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj. Asians in Hollywood are portraying the Asian American community in a more authentic light than before; but while progress is exciting, there is still more to do when it comes to true representation of Asian TV characters and Asian movie characters on-screen and behind the scenes. What we view on-screen reaches far beyond entertainment; diversity in film and TV also impacts mental health, identity, and race relations as they pertain to Asian Americans. Content creators and industry decision-makers must change how Asians are portrayed in the media, as they have an opportunity and a duty to yield this powerfully influential medium in a more responsible manner. Avoiding racism, gender stereotypes of girl and boy characters, and other negative images are key.
Effect on Children
Personal identity is heavily influenced by the media, starting from a young age. Film and television have become avenues for imprinting stories in history. When it comes to authentic Asian movie and TV characters, the absence is noteworthy. The pride I felt watching Crazy Rich Asians’ all-Asian cast surprised me as if the sudden surge in representation alerted me to its prior absence in Hollywood. Asian children will subconsciously internalize an omission of Asian faces in the content they watch as an indication of their perceived invisibility or the box they are subjected to in the workplace and the world. Research shows that people exhibit feelings like shame and anxiety when viewing stereotypical representations of their racial group, even those framed as exaggeration or parody, and Asian stereotypes in movies and TV have been far too visible for far too long. While Hollywood has since moved away from the glaring racism of characters such as Long Duk Dong, the foreign exchange student in 16 Candles, Asian actors continue to be typecast and are still underrepresented in major film roles.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Personal identity is heavily influenced by the media, starting from a young age
• Content creators and industry decision-makers must change how Asians are portrayed in the media
Model Minority Myth
In today’s society, Asian characters in movies and TV are often stereotyped as over-achievers who obtain financial and educational stability: the 4.0 students, doctors, and Tiger-parents. Asian-Americans have been framed as the “model minority” within American culture -- the minority group that worked its way to success. This myth implies that other minority groups are lesser-than or do not work as hard, and also negates the ever-present discrimination that Asians and other minority groups experience. Such Asian stereotypes in film and TV shows also suggest that Asians belong to one homogenous group that shares the same attributes, when in fact, there are many subsections of the Asian community - composed of individuals each with their own stories and struggles. The effects of this perpetuated stereotype in the media, depicted by Asian actors but often driven by white writers and directors, jump from the screen into reality. Racial bias, even nonverbal, can be imprinted on people through the screen. It is perplexing how Asians are viewed as diligent and hardworking, yet rarely with strong leadership qualities or charisma. The scarcity of positions of power among Asian film and TV characters is reflected in many aspects of life. In fact, according to Harvard Business Review, Asians are the least likely group to be promoted to management in the United States. While this can also be attributed to different cultural values and other factors, a lack of diverse representation in media is influential in reinforcing these attitudes and perceptions.
Tokenism Behind the Scenes
What we see on-screen should not be the only aspect of representation examined. The majority of successful endeavors featuring Asian actors and stories were backed by Asians in Hollywood behind the scenes. More Asian studio heads, casting directors, producers, writers, showrunners, and filmmakers means more advocacy and support for Asian stories and Asian TV and film characters. Great strides have been made and writers’ room representation has significantly improved; however, discrimination still exists here. To promote more diverse representation in media, large networks host diversity training programs in which writers of color have the opportunity to be staffed on television shows. The networks and studios subsidize writers’ salaries, incentivizing shows to employ these essentially free “diversity hires.” It is common for showrunners to let these writers go after their wages are no longer paid for, communicating that Asian writers are only hirable when free. Diversity in numbers is insufficient as long as Asians in Hollywood are not receiving the same opportunities to succeed in this industry.
On YouTube, people produce their own content with virtually zero gatekeeping. It is no coincidence that Asian content creators have become some of the most popular and prevalent faces on the platform, with millions of subscribers and views. From beauty guru Michelle Phan to comedy YouTuber NigaHiga, there is tangible proof that when given a fair opportunity, the Asian community thrives and reaches incredibly far.
Financial Benefits
If the moral facet of equal Asian representation in Hollywood is not enough to motivate content creators and gatekeepers, there is data that supports financial incentives for more Asian TV characters and Asian movie characters. Asians are the fastest-growing racial group in the country with a buying power of $1 trillion in 2018. They lead the nation in internet connectivity, enabling them to consume Asian stories on TV (and Asian movies via home video) via broadband and subscription video on demand faster than any other group nationwide. An average Asian household will watch about 23 hours of television per week, and the percentage with subscriptions to services such as Netflix and Hulu surpasses that of the remaining population. It is clear that Asians possess considerable buying power in the US and make up a large, expanding segment of media audiences.
Hearing Bowen Yang, SNL’s first Asian cast member after 45 seasons, refer to himself as the “Lizzo of China” while playing a government official on Weekend Update, filled me with pride. It was not until I saw myself on-screen that I realized I had been missing this feeling my whole life, and I needed to see, hear and read about more Asians in Hollywood. There is more work to do, more stories to tell, always. There’s great power in representation. My Asian-Americanness is of value, and I expect the country in which I live to reflect the same.
Actionable Insights
Write Asian movie and TV characters that defy stereotypes, even if stereotypes are seemingly “positive.”
Portray more Asian diversity — all groups that are part of the Asian community are unique with distinct stories, cultures, and struggles. This includes groups like the Bhutanese and Burmese that suffer from a poverty rate that is twice as high as the national average, yet experience the repercussions of the model minority myth.
Feature more Asian TV and movie characters in positions of power and leadership on-screen.
Hire more Asians in behind-the-scenes positions: writers, directors, studio executives, casting directors, producers, showrunners, filmmakers. Rich and authentic stories come from those who can speak from experience and incorporate essential nuances to the characters and their interactions with the world around them.
Avoid framing content created by and featuring Asians solely as “Asian films.” While still taking their cultures into account, remember that Asians are normal people who have more to offer than just the fact that they are Asian.
Nicole Park
CSS Intern
Why it’s so important for kids to see diverse TV and movie characters
This article originally appeared on The Conversation.
The hype surrounding “Black Panther” has been as hyperbolic as any feat its characters might perform, with the film being praised for its layered story and what’s been described as its “Afrofuturist” cast. And “Black Panther” will be joined by “A Wrinkle in Time,” another film with blockbuster potential and an interracial cast.
But no matter how much money or how many awards films like “Black Panther” and “A Wrinkle in Time” amass, our research strongly suggests another reason they’re important: Children need a diverse universe of media images. And for the most part, they haven’t had one.
Some progress, but …
In the 1970s, Boston University communications professor F. Earle Barcus began publishing the results of content analyses he had conducted on children’s television. His findings showed large disparities between the numbers of male and female characters and between the numbers of white and non-white characters. In a 1983 study, Barcus analyzed over 1,100 characters in 20 children’s television programs and found that only 42 were black. Just 47 others belonged to some group other than white.
Since then, researchers have consistently found that the animated worlds children see on television are out of sync with their real environments.
Over the past seven years, we’ve continued studying this topic at the Children’s Television Project (CTV) at Tufts University, documenting images of different races, gender and ethnicities in the most popular children’s animated series. We’ve also taken steps to try to understand why stereotyped portrayals still exist well into the 21st century. Finally, we’re starting to develop ways to study and collect data about how children process the images they’re exposed to on TV.
In order to categorize the images children see, we’ve developed a system for coding the race, ethnic identity, gender and age of primary and secondary characters in children’s animated television shows. We’ve also included a sociolinguistic component to the analysis, because we know that children are absorbing both sights and sounds as they process media.
The good news is that the world of children’s animated television is more diverse than it used to be. For example, we’ve found that female characters account for just under one-third of all characters. Discouraging as this may appear, it’s a significant improvement from the 1:6 ratio that F. Earle Barcus had previously found, and better than the 1:4 ratio that communications professors Teresa Thompson and Eugenia Zerbinos found in the 1990s.
There’s more racial and ethnic diversity, too. Black characters account for 5.6 percent of our total sample of over 1,500 characters. (A study conducted in 1972 by researchers Gilbert Mendelson and Morissa Young for Action for Children’s Television found that over 60 percent of the TV shows in their sample had no racial minority characters at all.) There are many more Asian or Asian-American characters (11.6 percent), though this likely due to the prevalence of a few popular cartoons featuring mostly Asian characters such as “Legend of Korra.”
The bad news is that there’s still a ways to go. African-Americans represent an estimated 13.3 percent of the U.S. population. Meanwhile, Hispanic or Latinos make up 17.8 percent of the population, but we’ve found Latino characters only made up 1.4 percent of our sample.
Furthermore, stereotypes persist in both how characters are drawn and how they talk, with “bad guys” using non-American accents and dialects. We see this in characters like Dr. Doofenshmirtz from “Phineas and Ferb” or Nightmare Moon on “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.”
To try to understand why stereotyping persists, we’ve interviewed some of the people who write, direct, cast and provide vocal talent for children’s animated programming. While we haven’t completed this part of the study, it seems that economic pressures compel the creators of children’s animated programming to rely on stereotyping as a kind of shorthand.
For example, one director of a popular children’s animated show told us, “If something’s worked before, you tend to just use it again,” even if that “something” is stereotyped. An African-American voice actor reported being in auditions where he was told to make something sound “urban,” a code word for a more stereotyped African-American dialect.
Kids, quick to judge
But the real question is why this all matters.
Studies from many fields have shown that it’s important for children to see characters who not only look like themselves and their families, but also sound like them.
There’s a relationship between low self-esteem and negative media portrayals of racial groups, in addition to an association between poor self-esteem and the paucity of portrayals of a particular group. Others have found that media misrepresentations of ethnic groups can cause confusion about aspects of their identity among children of these groups.
In our study of how children process the sights and sounds of animated worlds, we developed a method in which we show children images of diverse animated faces and play voices that use different dialects. We then ask kids to tell us if the person is a good person, a bad person, or if they can’t tell. We follow this up by asking them why they think what they do.
Though we’re not far enough along yet in our research to provide definitive answers to our questions, we do have some preliminary findings.
First and foremost, kids notice differences.
We’ve found that first- and second-grade children, when presented with a variety of drawn cartoon character faces they haven’t seen before, have no problem sorting them into “good” and “bad” characters.
In fact, many children have clearly developed ideas and are able to tell us lengthy stories about why they think a particular character might be a hero or villain with minimal information. Sometimes this seems to be based on their belief that a character looks like another media character they’ve seen. They’ll then make the assumption that a face they’re shown looks like “a princess” or “someone who goes to jail.” With the lack of diversity in the world of children’s television, it’s not surprising that kids would make associations with so little information. But it’s also a bit alarming – given what we know about the prevalence of stereotyping – that children seem so quick to make attributions of who’s good and who’s evil.
It’s important that children not only have a diverse universe of characters but also that these characters have diverse characteristics. It’s okay for characters to have non-American accents, but good guys – not just bad guys – should have them too. The heroes can be male and female, and non-white characters don’t have to be relegated to the role of sidekick: They can assume leading roles.
This brings us back to why these new films are so groundbreaking. Yes, “Black Panther” is demonstrating that a film about a black superhero can shatter box- office records. Yes, “A Wrinkle in Time” is the first $100 million movie directed by a woman of color.
But beyond all that, these films break the mold by showing the complexity and variety of black male and female experiences.
If more movies, TV shows and animated series follow suit, perhaps we will finally move beyond the underdeveloped and stereotyped characters that children have been exposed to for far too long.
Actionable Insights
1. Children internalize stereotypes featured in programming they consume, influencing the way they judge and interact with others. Children should not easily be able to identify the “good guys” and the “bad guys” in your story through a reliance on biases.
2. When featuring characters with non-American accents, avoid falling into the trope of these individuals serving solely as the villains. Instead, show that both “good” and “bad” characters can speak with a non-American accent or dialect. A character’s cultural background does not determine their morality.
3. Showcase more diverse characters in leading roles, particularly non-white characters often relegated to acting as side-kicks. Tokenism can be especially harmful to children of color, causing identity confusion and poor self-esteem. All children benefit from seeing that anyone, regardless of their identity, can be the lead character in a story.
4. Heroes should not exclusively be male characters. Feature more women and female-identifying characters in heroic roles that thoughtfully showcase their strengths, weaknesses, and struggles.
5. Remember that featuring diverse characters is not enough. Attention must also be paid to featuring varied characteristics and more vivid backstories.
Senior lecturer, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, Tufts University
Editor and General Manager, The Conversation
Associate Professor, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, Tufts University
Professor of the Practice, Department of Drama and Dance, Tufts University
This article originally appeared on The Conversation.