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Abstract.
The study asses which cartoons are the most popular amongst kindergarten and schoolchildren, and whether they have an impact over their behavior. In a context in which children watch long hours of television everyday, the goal of the research is to comparatively analyze how animation films influence children of different ages. Methodologically, we chose to conduct focus groups, interviews, and a survey. The study has been conducted in one of the largest city of Romania, namely Cluj-Napoca. The results show that there is a certain level of influence coming from the cartoons. Depending on the age category, they seem to affect children mostly at the language level. Parents take a very important part in this process as they can turn a negative experience into a learning one.
Keywords: cartoons, impact, preschoolers, schoolchildren
Introduction
The study aims to analyze the impact of cartoons on preschoolers and schoolchildren. In a context in which the use of media has greatly increased in the past years, children are the primary consumers of media platforms (Rideout, Foehr, Roberts 2010). With the development of media technology and information transfer, children now have the possibility to access media everywhere, at any given time, starting from very small ages. Even though they now have the chance to enrich their knowledge using technology, this is thought to be having a more negative impact on their behavior on different levels, including aggression, prosocial behavior and cognitive skills (Davidson 1979). Children between 3 and 8 years old tend tobe the heaviest users of television. On average, a pre-school child spends more than half or, in some cases, equal to an adults' working week sitting in front of the television set (Patel 2008). Unfortunately, much of today's television programs are violent. Therefore, there may exist implications for schoolchildren and preschoolers' behavior that need to be analyzed.
The research questions of the study are the following: which are the cartoons that preschoolers and school children watch most and which are the most noticeable differences between the two analyzed groups?; to what extent can we talk about a different impact of cartoons on preschoolers and schoolchildren?; and what is the perception of parents and educators regarding the impact cartoons have on children?. Based on these research...