The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies, 7 Volume Set

24

Exploring the Effects of TV and Movie Music on Childhood

Amparo Porta

ABSTRACT

In recent years the relations between childhood and the mass media have been the subject of an increasing number of studies conducted by researchers from the fields of communication and education. Their link with cultural diversity, heritage, habitat, and identity has made them the focus of psychological, multicultural, and critical pedagogic studies. The aim of this chapter is to determine how childhood is affected by one of the poles of the audiovisual binomial, namely, the music present in movies and television, which is included as their soundtrack. The article explores several descriptive paths from a semiotic approach, analyzing both the contents and the music in order to answer two questions: What is listened to in children's TV programs and movies? And what is that music like? Finally, some soundtracks are examined with the aim of discovering the effects of this everyday music that, through movies and TV, speaks to the child about the Other and his or her cultural dominance and values.

In recent decades numerous authors and disciplines have been interested in the effects of the mass media in childhood and adolescence. The object of this chapter is the act of listening in the daily sound environment, and the effects produced therein by the mass media, such as cinema and television. The music offered daily in the mass media includes cognitive, social, emotional, and patrimonial elements that ...