Pokemon might be a worldwide hit, but children need quality home-grown entertainment , writes Agnes Bardon
The hero of the story is usually a boy, white. Girls may appear, but only in secondary roles. The adventures of these budding stars will be shown on TV screens from Soweto to Taipei.
We are not quite there yet, but reality may very soon catch up with caricature. This was the fear ex-pressed by participants at the third World Summit on Media for Children held in Thessaloniki, Greece, from March 23 to 26.
Television in the south has great difficulty competing with foreign channels. In this context, programmes for the young are even less well off than others.
“The poorer a country, the weaker its programmes for children,” said Anura Goonasekeva, of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre in Singapore.
In Senegal, for example, barely 15% of programmes are aimed at the young, even though half the population is under 20. This discrepancy leaves the field open to productions by countries in the north. Even when they exist, local heroes wage a losing battle against favourites such as PokŽmon. And the arrival of satellite TV has accentuated the phenomenon.
“Many families in Africa only watch the foreign channels they receive by satellite,” said Aminatou Sar, assistant co-ordinator of a Senegalese radio programme for children. “Admittedly local programmes are often mediocre and those addressed to children particularly insipid,” she said. “Consequently, youngsters feed on models borrowed from American series, which are very remote from their daily lives.”
The programme for which Sar is responsible is the only one prepared specifically for children.
“Whether in Africa or elsewhere, children want to see programmes they can relate to,” said Albie Hecht, president of the Nickelodeon Channel in the United States.
Conceived, prepared and produced by adults, programmes for the young rarely take into account the aspirations of children themselves. “When they have a chance to express themselves, however, the results are often very surprising,” insists Janie Grace, who directs youth programmes for the ITV Network, in Britain.
When she was in charge of Nickelodeon UK, Grace co-ordinated a series entitled Kid Nation which provided cameras to 100 children throughout the country. They each had five minutes to tell a story.
“As we expected, we received contributions on social issues affecting them directly, such as divorce, handicaps or death,” explained Grace. Less predictable was a story entitled “I hate cheese”, which related a conversation between a child and a rabbit. “What struck me the most,” added Grace, “was the children’s aptitude to construct a story with images, even injecting a dramatic element, often very skilfully.”
This type of experience is, however, rare. Most of the time, children have few opportunities to make themselves heard. Although many young people were invited to the summit, they were conspicuously absent during debates.
“We thought we would have more time to speak,” said Alya, 12, who had come from Johannesburg. “But apparently the meeting wasn’t planned that way”.
This complaint was registered. The final declaration devoted to new technologies stressed that adults should lend a more attentive ear to the expectations of future generations.
– Unesco Sources
– The Teacher/M&G Media, Johannesburg, June 2001.