For my research proposal, I want to explore how television impacts our community health and wellness. My initial research question would be, I guess, does the media (specifically television), have more of an impact on our health and wellness than just the cultural changes we know it influences? I think its worth addressing because television, at this point, is such a big part in our lives. Not only do we use it for entertainment, we use it for education and not just in classrooms. Television programs are being developed for children younger and younger as a way to introduce them to things like math and reading before they even enter school. But, what often happens is that parents begin to rely on television as a babysitter. They sit their toddler in front of the tube for Nick Jr., get distracted and forget to turn it off when Dora and Team Umizoomi turn to Spongebob, iCarly and Big Time Rush. And what about when children get older and parents stop monitoring them all together? What does watching Jersey Shore do to a 12 year old New Jersey girl? Does Spongebob really give little kids ADD?
I know about the Spongebob study, and I know shows perpetrate stereotypes about things like race (on Glee last night, Mike Chang, an Asian student, got an A- on a Chemistry test. They called it an Asian F. How's that for stereotyping?) But those are mostly cultural and individual changes. What kinds of impacts do those things have on the health and wellness of the community when they're widespread?
I'll need to find more studies on subjects like the impact of reality television, scripted shows and other cartoons. We Googled studies about reality television in class, so I know those are out there on the internet. For this, because the studies would be more recent, I think the internet would be my best resource, a place where information is changing constantly, as opposed to a book where they can only change the information a couple times a year at most.
Bre, I think this is a great topic!
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of ways to narrow this, if you want to (or maybe just subdivide it, so you can look for one type of info at a time, so you don't get 392,000,000 hits again.) Ideas: look at how television impacts a particular group (ie. a specific cultural group, like Asians. or a specific gender. or a particular phenomenon like teen pregnancy, or body image, or....other.)
I think you'll find stuff both online and in books and academic journals. The study of how media effects us has gone on a LONG time (and tv has been around quite a long time too) so they'll exist.