One of the most salient characteristics of the experiences of children in recent years is their exposure to electronic media including TV, video games, and computers. Many people argue that such an environment might have lasting negative influences on children. But I think that the argument itself influences the electronic media to which children are exposed. In this paper, I will attempt to examine how opinions and statements as revealed in professional journals, newspapers and the theories of media education are socially constructed.
The second and third sections of this paper describe a theoretical framework to which some of the important aspects of social concepts of media are related. I take the method of sociology of knowledge. Based on this framework, the second section analyzes the structure of statements made by that describe the manner which the electronic media (e.g., TV, video, and video games, etc.) influences children. In my research I have found several common characteristics of these structures throughout past fifty year postwar era in Japan. The statements always recognize the media to be ‘effective’ because of their ‘characteristics’.
The fourth section of this report discusses the way in which ‘characteristics’ and ‘effect’ have changed during this time span despite the fact that the structure of statement have not changed. During the fifties and sixties, the electronic media existed within the dimensions of ‘reality’ and ‘imaginary’. Electronic media has since evolved in the eighties to include the aspect of ‘virtuality’.
The last section argues possibility of other statements of the media. Usually in the statements made about education, the ‘virtual’ experience is thought of as being detached from the other experiences, that are ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’. The point that ‘real’ world experience itself, which includes the experiences brought about by electronic media encompasses the dimensions of ‘real’, ‘imaginary’ and ‘virtual’.
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