Máire Messenger Davies

I started my career studying and writing about television and children
by watching my own children watch television and becoming very intrigued
about the views of the world they were being shown in the preschool
programmes they saw. I wasn't alarmed or disapproving -- just intrigued,
also very entertained. I was a freelance journalist at the time and my
first published article on this subject was called 'Feudalism for the
Under Fives', and it appeared in *The Listener* magazine (published
weekly by the BBC) in 1977. [\[1\]](#_ftn1){#_ftnref1}

In those days, without the option of downloading, time-shifting, DVD
copies or boxed sets, there was little opportunity for children to see
repeated viewings of the same material. Nevertheless, throughout the
1970s there were three little TV shows that seemed to turn up every few
months, in rotation, which my young children watched avidly, forcing me
to become aware of the sociological representations being repeatedly
offered to them. These shows were: *Camberwick Green, Chigley* and
*Trumpton*, to which I gave the generic heading Trumpley Green.
[\[2\]](#_ftn2){#_ftnref2} *Chigley* had a Lord who lived in a castle
with a butler, and who drove a steam engine. *Camberwick Green* was a
village with tradespeople and housewives and a redcoated regiment of
soldiers. *Trumpton* was a town with a mayor and a famously underused
fire-brigade, Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb.

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[![](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/bigmill-camberwick-green-254x300.jpg){.size-medium
.wp-image-5554 .alignright loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="254"
height="300"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/bigmill-camberwick-green-254x300.jpg.webp 254w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/bigmill-camberwick-green-380x450.jpg.webp 380w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/bigmill-camberwick-green-118x140.jpg.webp 118w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/bigmill-camberwick-green.jpg 649w"
sizes="(max-width: 254px) 100vw, 254px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/bigmill-camberwick-green.jpg)My
intrigue partly arose from the blithe mixing together of very diverse
and anachronistic social and historical institutions, behaviours and
costumes. What did my young children think a Lord was? What is a butler?
What is a mayor? Why do women in long dresses work in a factory?
*Chigley* was mildly industrialised -- it had a biscuit factory with
male and female workers, and at the end of the day they all came out and
danced together. Windy Miller had a wind-powered windmill;
contrastingly, Pugh and co drove a motorised fire engine. At what point
in history did all this take place? And where?  To be frank, I now don't
think the answers to any of these questions matter much  --  certainly
not to the children, who took from it what they liked, and to this day,
(now in their 30s and 40s) can recite 'Pugh, Pugh', and 'time flies by
when you're the driver of a train.' But as the television scholar I
later became, (thanks to the arrival of my fourth child, which
stimulated me to do a part-time PhD studying television audiences), and
as a fairly recent grandmother of small children, I am now revisiting
these early musings and coming up with similar questions. I do think
these questions about the meanings of the tropes, conventions,
innovations, oddities, experimental doodlings, inconsistencies,
nonsenses, techniques, aesthetics and catchy tunes of preschool
television are worth asking. It's most important, of course, to
understand what they mean to the little people who watch them so
compulsively.

Which brings me up to date with some recent experiences. Thanks to the
companionship of a now six year old granddaughter, my son's daughter,
and another nearly two year old granddaughter, my daughter's daughter, I
have been observing the next generation and their current obsessional
viewing patterns -- patterns made much easier by their favourite
programmes' availability on download, YouTube, or on DVDs. The two year
old is obsessed with *Woolly and Tig* [\[3\]](#_ftn3){#_ftnref3} which
she watches on YouTube on an i-pad, or sometimes, when her parents can
bear it, on the big family TV. During a recent spell in hospital, very
listless and lacking in energy, the first thing she asked for when
waking up after a refreshing sleep was 'Tig.' The six year old, having
been through stages of being obsessed with *In the Night Garden, Thomas
and Friends*, *Bing* and more recently *The Worst Witch,* now watches
Disney's *Moana* [\[4\]](#_ftn4){#_ftnref4} over and over again. Why?

The fact that the children insist on repeated viewings, often in my
company, is certainly an advantage to the scholar: there is always
something new to notice. My musings about what is going on, at this
stage are purely speculative rather than rigorously scholarly. I'm just
speaking as an interested relative -- which of course, is where I came
in, all those years ago. But scholarly interest has also been stimulated
by recently reading some research by Cary Bazalgette, studying the
reactions of her two year old twin grandchildren to TV-watching
experiences. The full study is not yet published, although details can
be found at her website. [\[5\]](#_ftn5){#_ftnref5} (See also previous
writings such as Bazalgette, 2010.)[\[6\]](#_ftn6){#_ftnref6} As with
me, years ago, so with her: questions of meaning, comprehension and
emotional effect were triggered by observing both the programme content
and the toddlers' reactions to it. Her initial interest was sparked by a
fear reaction to *In the Night Garden*: "the defining moment that got me
started on my doctoral research was seeing my 13-month-old grandchildren
terrified by the episode of In the Night Garden in which Mr Pontipine's
moustache flies away."

So this got me wondering about *Woolly and Tig*. *Woolly and Tig* is a
short, live action, documentary programme about everyday experiences
which pose a challenge to the three and four year old little Scottish
girl (Tig) who is experiencing them. Tig is an only child with an
attractive, middle-class mother and father and she lives in a very
pleasant house somewhere in Scotland. The Scottish voice-over narrative
is Tig as an older child; it always begins: 'When I was little...' And
then the adventure -- the hair-washing; the trip on the subway; the
sleepover at a friend's house; the chicken pox and so on -- begins. Tig
always has some kind of a problem with these experiences -- hating her
hair being washed; being homesick; having itchy spots -- which is where
her toy spider, Woolly, comes to the rescue and explains why these
things are necessary, and how Tig's feelings are normal. According to
the consultant psychologist for the programme, Dr. Martin Williams,
"'Woolly and Tig' is an aid to understanding the 'self' . . . Anger,
jealousy, fear, sadness are just some of the feelings explored in a
simple, fun and positive way." [\[7\]](#_ftn7){#_ftnref7} Why a
multi-coloured, animated Woolly spider, whose voice-over sounds like a
small boy from North London, should be the chosen guide to an anxious
Scottish three year old is not explained, but it surely does work for
our little S, who currently lives in neither Scotland nor North London,
but in Brooklyn in the USA.  'I love Woolly and Woolly loves me', as the
theme song goes -- that's the main thing for S at the moment. The
programme seems to provide repeated reassurance that life will be
manageable and there'll always be help at hand, from beloved
transitional objects, as well as from adults.

Six year old L has reached the age when she can dress up as Moana, have
Moana jewellery, and play the Moana theme tune and songs on a MP3 player
repeatedly sometimes to the distraction of everybody else. *Moana* is
not a TV show, but a feature film produced and distributed by a huge,
international corporation, not, as with *Woolly and Tig*, by a small
independent production company commissioned by a public service
broadcaster, the BBC.   This is a distinction that means little to L,
although such is her inquiring frame of mind that I have no doubt that,
at some stage, she will give me a lecture on the Disney Corporation,
after carefully scrutinising the film credits -- which, as a new reader,
she likes to do.  But the domestic viewing experience for her is no
different from her dad's experience of watching *Camberwick Green* --  L
watches Moana on a DVD on the family television set in the company of
her family.

What's so special about Moana? Unlike L, who has a two year old brother,
Moana is an only child -- and she goes off in a sailing boat to have
adventures beyond some dangerous reefs, which the rest of her Polynesian
island society are afraid to do, in order to save the island's
threatened eco-system. Moana is inspired by her grandmother, a
rebellious spirit, who dies in the course of the action and returns as a
stingray to guide Moana at particular moments of peril. L often
expresses concern about the death of elderly relatives (two have died in
her recent memory) and it's possible that one of the many attractions of
the story is that it says something reassuring about death. L asked me
if, when I die, I could come back to accompany her -- which I surely
would love to be able to do, if not as a stingray. Whatever the reasons
for L's concerns, Moana's grandmother provides a good, strong, mature
woman as role model in the movie and this seems important for L. The
unfamiliar Polynesian setting, another of Disney's attempts at
multiculturalism, is taken as given: what matters to L is the
relationships and the adventurous spirit of the heroine, also an
increasingly sophisticated appreciation of the animation and special
effects. This is the advantage to a child of repeat viewings over time,
an advantage less available to earlier generations of viewers. L has
been allowed to use the material to develop different meanings and
responses for herself as she watches them again and again, and is able
to point them out to me, as a less experienced viewer.

Speaking for myself, I will never stop being interested in how our young
children relate to audio-visual storytelling because it tells me
something unique about them, and because it's an experience that we can
share and enjoy together. It also reminds me that my original
sociological approach to the content of programmes -- anxiously
wondering if children were aware of social hierarchies, inconsistencies
and stereotypes -- are adult questions which do not seem to be central
to very young children. For them, flying moustaches, stingray
grandmothers and cheerfully reassuring chatty toy spiders are currently
more salient.

For the time being, Tig's toy spider, Woolly, is offering little S
repeated reassurances about the domestic and outside world she is
becoming increasingly introduced to. *Moana* is an exciting, morally
uplifting story, offering an adventurous role model to an imaginative,
bright little girl who lives in the very different environment of a big
city, and it has very catchy songs which she loves.  As with the music
of *Camberwick Green* and its companions, music and song should never be
underestimated as having lasting value and pleasure for young children
-- the importance of sound was another feature of preschool material
emphasised in Bazalgette's research. I dare say L will one day be
singing Moana's song to her own children, if she has any, and S will be
reassuring the doctors treating her little ones, if she has any, and who
recoil from Woolly, 'Don't worry, it's only a toy spider.'

Let us hope that when that day comes, there will still be the financial
resources and the political will for talented storytellers to produce
programmes and movies that help young children to cope with the
challenges of life, and to stimulate their imaginations and that there
will still be the means to distribute them generally to whoever needs
them, at little cost to them. But that's another story. (See Steemers
2017 [\[8\]](#_ftn8){#_ftnref8}).

------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Máire Messenger Davies** is Emerita Professor of Media Studies at
Ulster University, and a Visiting Professor at the University of South
Wales. She has a BA degree in English from Trinity College Dublin and,
after a journalistic career in local newspapers and national magazines,
she obtained a PhD in psychology at the University of East London,
studying how audiences learn from television. She has worked at Boston
University and at the University of Pennsylvania in the USA, and later,
in the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, at Cardiff
University. She specializes in the study of child media audiences, and
is the author of several books including *Children, Media and Culture*
(McGraw Hill/Open University, 2010); *"Dear BBC": Children, Television
Storytelling and the Public Sphere* (Cambridge University Press, 2001),
*Television is Good for Your Kids* (Hilary Shipman, (1989, 2002) and,
with Roberta Pearson, *Star Trek and American Television* (University of
California Press, 2014.) She has four grownup children, and three
grandchildren. She lives with her journalist husband in Cardiff, Wales.

 

###### References:

[\[1\]](#_ftnref1){#_ftn1} See
<http://gale.cengage.co.uk/product-highlights/history/the-listener-historical-archive.aspx>

[\[2\]](#_ftnref2){#_ftn2} See <http://www.t-web.co.uk/trumpchg.htm>

[\[3\]](#_ftnref3){#_ftn3} Woolly and Tig (2012), (UK) production
companies

- [TattieMoon](http://www.imdb.com/company/co0379485?ref_=ttco_co_1)
- [The Charactershop
  Ltd.](http://www.imdb.com/company/co0157912?ref_=ttco_co_2)(produced
  in association with)
- Distributors
- [BBC
  Worldwide](http://www.imdb.com/company/co0103957?ref_=ttco_co_1)(2012)
  (UK) (TV)
- [Abbey Home Media
  Group](http://www.imdb.com/company/co0258710?ref_=ttco_co_2)(2013)
  (UK) (DVD)
- [CBeebies](http://www.imdb.com/company/co0265997?ref_=ttco_co_3)(2012)
  (UK) (TV)

[\[4\]](#_ftnref4){#_ftn4} *Moana* (USA) (2016) Walt Disney Animation
Studios

[\[5\]](#_ftnref5){#_ftn5} See <http://toddlersandtv.blogspot.co.uk>

[\[6\]](#_ftnref6){#_ftn6} Bazalgette, Cary (2010) Extending Children's
Experience of Film. In *Teaching Media in Primary Schools,* ed. C.
Bazalgette. London: Sage.

[\[7\]](#_ftnref7){#_ftn7} From 2014 CBeebies website, Grownups page (no
longer available)

[\[8\]](#_ftnref8){#_ftn8} Steemers, Jeanette, (2017) International
perspectives on the funding of public service media content for
children, *Media International Australia* 2017, Vol. 163(1) 42--5. DOI:
[10.1177/1329878X17693934](https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X17693934){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}

 

 


I started my career studying and writing about television and children by watching my own children watch television and becoming very intrigued about the views of the world they were being shown in the preschool programmes they saw. I wasn’t alarmed or disapproving – just intrigued, also very entertained.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

STEAM ENGINES, SPIDERS AND STINGRAYS: SOME OBSERVATIONS ON YOUNG CHILDREN’S TV VIEWING