Washington, May 30 (ANI): Children, except the white boys, who spend hours watching the idiot box tend to feel worse about themselves, a new study has suggested.
However, in case of white boys, the scenario is just the opposite as the exposure to electronic media makes them feel better.
In their study, Nicole Martins, an assistant professor of telecommunications in the Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences, and Kristen Harrison, professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan, also found that on an average, black children spent an extra 10 hours a week, watching television.
"We can't deny the fact that media has an influence when they're spending most of their time - when they're not in school - with the television," Martins said.
"Children who are not doing other things besides watching television cannot help but compare themselves to what they see on the screen," said Harrison.
Martins and Harrison surveyed a group of about 400 black and white preadolescent students in communities in the Midwest over a period of one year.
Rather than focusing at the impact of particular shows or genres, they focused on the correlation between the time in front of the TV and the impact on their self-esteem.
"Regardless of what show you're watching, if you're a white male, things in life are pretty good for you," Martins said of the characters on TV.
"You tend to be in positions of power, you have prestigious occupations, high education, glamorous houses, a beautiful wife, with very little portrayals of how hard you worked to get there," she said.
"If you are a girl or a woman, what you see is that women on television are not given a variety of roles," she said.
"The roles that they see are pretty simplistic; they're almost always one-dimensional and focused on the success they have because of how they look, not what they do or what they think or how they got there," she said.
"This sexualization of women presumably leads to this negative impact on girls," said Martin.
It was observed that black boys are often criminalized in many programs, shown as hoodlums and buffoons, and without much variety in the kinds of roles they occupy.
"Young black boys are getting the opposite message: that there is not lots of good things that you can aspire to," Martins said.
"If we think about those kinds of messages, that's what's responsible for the impact.
"If we think just about the sheer amount of time they're spending, and not the messages, these kids are spending so much time with the media that they're not given a chance to explore other things they're good at, that could boost their self-esteem," she added.
Martins insisted that their study negates the claims by producers that programs have been progressive in their depictions of under-represented populations.
This study has been published in Communication Research. (ANI)
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