Tv Show Observation

This paper is the observation of three television shows, one children’s cartoon, one children’s teaching program and one adult program, in search for Aggressive Acts and Prosocial Behaviors. For the experiment these programs were chosen, Barbie Dreamhouse, Arthur, and Criminal Minds.
As to be expected the adult program, Criminal Minds hourly rate of aggression was higher than both children’s programs, ending at a rate of fifty-four. However, the children’s teaching program, Arthur, was not far behind, with an hourly rate of aggression of twenty-one. Although both Criminal Minds and Arthur had high numbers of aggression, they differ in what types of aggression was displayed. In Criminal Minds, the aggression was mainly Physical Aggression, hitting, killing, torturing, kidnapping. Whereas, in Arthur, the type of aggression was more Psychological, insults, abusive language, threats. Regardless of the type of aggression, both programs mentioned showed a dire deficiency of prosocial behaviors, the adult program had an hourly rate of six and the child teaching program had a rate of nine. Though Barbie Dreamhouse did have
As an educational television show, one would expect it to show a copious amount of prosocial behavior, however, the results reveal that is not always the case. Whereas, I expected Barbie Dreamhouse to be that stereotypical random, mindless cartoon to entertain children. Yet, when analyzing Barbie Dreamhouse, I was taken back on how this non-educational children’s cartoon promoted good social behavior. Criminal Minds, however, did not surprise me at all, since it was a crime show I expected more aggression than what was shown. I also couldn’t believe how much aggression and social faux pas we expose to children through television. It showed me that there are lots of negative things that are in children’s programs whether we notice them or not. (word count: