Culture and Gender in Children's Television Globally

Drawing from the research for her recent book, Screening Gender on Children’s Television: The Views of Producers around the World, Dafna Lemish will address contemporary portrayals of gender and culture in television productions aimed at young audiences. She will discuss the accumulated knowledge from interviews conducted with 135 producers of children’s television in 65 countries and will provide insights from her critical analysis into the transformations taking place in the presentation of gender portrayals in television productions. Recommendations for change in screen culture that would promote gender equity, social diversity, and the wellbeing of children will be presented.

Screening Gender on Children’s Television: The Views of Producers around the World (2010, Routledge) offers readers insights into the transformations taking place in the presentation of gender portrayals in television productions aimed at younger audiences. It goes far beyond a critical analysis of the existing portrayals of gender and culture by sharing media professionals’ action-oriented recommendations for change that would promote gender equity, social diversity and the wellbeing of children. Incorporating the author’s interviews with 135 producers of children’s television from 65 countries, this book discusses the role television plays in the lives of young people and, more specifically, in developing gender identity. It examines how gender images presented to children on television are intertwined with important existential and cultural concerns that occupy the social agenda worldwide, including the promotion of education for girls, prevention of HIV/AIDS and domestic violence and caring for ‘neglected’ boys who lack healthy masculine role models, as well as confronting the pressures of the beauty myth.