Kids need programmes which reflect their lives back to them. This is a vital ingredient for a healthy, balanced childhood and to produce engaged and empowered citizens of the future.
UK kids have as much right to a varied media diet as adults, and they need programmes and websites which tell them their own stories, in their own voices and reflect their lives and the issues they face growing up in Britain today. Ofcom’s research for their 2007 Children’s Broadcasting Report revealed that children and parents recognise the value of locally made programmes – dramas, factual and entertainment shows – which speak to kids about the life they lead in the UK today.
British society will be the ultimate loser if children are divorced from their own cultural heritage and immersed in programmes from outside the UK. In some households, television is the primary way in which kids “connect” with the world and learn about the society they live in, its values and the way people interact. To damage that connection would be potentially disastrous in the long term.
Children’s television is part of the “glue” which holds our society together. At a time when we are debating the quality of childhood, and the values we want our children to understand and accept, why would we take away from them a vital ingredient of a healthy personality and one of the bonds which draw us together in mutual understanding?
For a robust defence of children’s TV as a cultural force, take a look at the response to the Buckingham Review of the commercialisation of childhood, written by Save Kids’ TV member Cary Bazalgette.
Programmes from the USA are frequently well-made and can be just as empowering as home-grown content. But they should be part of a rich mix, not the dominant force in UK kids’ cultural lives. Young people’s media diet should include programmes from all over the world to help them understand and appreciate the world around them. But it’s vital that programmes made here feature in that variety too.
As this version of the Wombles so vividly shows…
British society will be inevitably and indelibly changed over time if its children are not encouraged to “connect” with the place where they live and ”share” with the people they live with.
