TV replaces absent parents as role models in Philippines

TV replaces absent parents as role models in Philippines

MANILA (AFP): In the Philippines, child viewers are making role models out of television programs as they turn to the "idiot box" to compensate for absent parents -- usually working as maids abroad.

And in Indonesia, out of the top 15 children's' favorite programs, eight are considered "adult" fare.

Indian children's programs are tailored to kids from wealthy families, while there was little regard for the child audience in Malaysia, Nepal, and Singapore due to the demands of advertising revenue and ratings.

These were the findings of the Singapore-based Asia Mass Communication Research and Information Center survey, presented at a three-day international conference on children's rights in the media that opened here yesterday.

At the other extreme, Japan, China and Vietnam gave high priority to locally-produced children's programs.

"If we look at the phenomenal growth of the medium in the region, the picture that television presents is very dismal. But it need not be dispiriting," the center's secretary general Vijay Menon told delegates.

The survey, begun in January and expected to be completed in June 1997, found that children's programs made up 7.4 percent of air time in the Philippines, but that of this portion, 73.2 percent were cartoons.

Parental absenteeism left children and youths spending more time watching television without guidance, it said.

It also related the tabloid inspiration of local networks to have the child victims of sex and violence relate their ordeals on television.

In India, only one percent of all programs catered to children, and most were designed for upper-class children. The audience only remembered foreign-made programs and producers did not mention the niche as a priority.

Seven of the eight television programs for children in Indonesia are produced by Japanese and American groups, and tight competition as well as ignorance of the rights of the child meant producers gave less attention to children's programming.

Malaysia is neglecting the sector since it does not appeal to advertisers, and what children's programming it has is dominated by the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and Japan.

In Nepal, children's programs have the lowest priority due to lack of markets, training and funding.

Children's programming was ineffective in Singapore where ratings were the determining factor in expenses, and the little attention it gets is targeted to audiences between four and 12 years of age.

In China, Central TV showed high awareness of the UN convention and had consciously integrated the provisions into children's entertainment, education and news programs, the study found.

The dominant position of NHK Broadcasting Corp. gave it an edge in children's programing with three out of four Japanese television channels using its educational and entertaining productions for their children's programs.

In Vietnam children's programs comprised 5.5 percent of national television airtime.

Although there are no programs suitable for ages 10 and older, the government was taking "serious steps to improve children's television programs apart from allocating state funding for it," Menon said.

"The summit provides us with the great opportunity we need to utilize governments to support the contract so we can work jointly to secure the rights of the child in Asia," he added. He said the study was being conducted by academics, television foundations, and private think tanks in these nine countries.

Meanwhile, experts at the meeting branded American cartoons as culturally subversive and called for a united stand against the U.S. media invasion.

"What we are now witnessing is a new form of colonialism... not any brutality -- we are simply inviting the colonizers in," said Patricia Edgar, director of the Australian Children's Television Foundation.

"And for children, they come in the form of the Disney channel, Viacom's Nickelodeon, Turner's Cartoon Network, and Murdoch's Fox Network."

"They look innocuous enough but their messages are culturally subversive for our children," she said, adding that programs made by U.S. broadcasters reflect the growing belief in the individual over common social good.

Profit-based U.S. broadcasters lack traditional public service broadcasting funded by the government, she said.

Edgar said the United States controls 85 percent of the world's trade in audio and video, "so while the U.S. dominates all our markets, it buys and sees very little of any other products we produce."

"The Asian summit aims to reaffirm the vital role the mass media can play in fulfilling the needs and rights of Asia's children," said Naohiro Kato, director of the program department of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union.