Constructing the Child Viewer : A History of the American Discourse on Television and Children, 1950-1980

Beginning from a poststructuralist position, Constructing the Child Viewer examines three decades of U.S. research on television and children. The book concludes that historical concepts of the child television viewer are products of discourse and cannot be taken to reflect objective, scientific truths about the child viewer. Widely disseminated constructs of the passive viewer, the active viewer, the interactive viewer, and the media literate viewer are seen as problematic. Nearly all academic studies published from 1948 to 1979 on the subject are included in this volume. Each receives close textual analysis, making this a useful bibliographic resource and reference book. Methodologically and theoretically, this is the first text of its kind to read the history of research on television and children as an archaeology of knowledge. Constructing the Child Viewer is an extensive bibliographical resource, a preliminary introduction to Foucault's discourse theory, and an experimental application of that theory to one major strand of the discourse of mass communications research. Students of educational psychology, sociology, and communications/media will find this work invaluable. Contents......Page 6 Preface......Page 8 Introduction......Page 12 1. Discourse Analysis: A History of Knowledge Production......Page 16 Archeology of Discourse: Questions of Method......Page 17 Discourse: Definitions and Assumptions......Page 20 Discursive Formation: Rules and Relations......Page 23 Objects of Study and Sites of Emergence......Page 25 Discursive History: An Archeology of Knowledge......Page 30 Historical Constructs of the Subject......Page 31 Mode of Production: Mode of Information......Page 36 The Subject in Twentieth-Century Media Discourses......Page 38 Film......Page 42 Radio......Page 55 Comics......Page 62 Early Mass Media and Children: An Overview......Page 68 1948–1951......Page 72 1952–1955......Page 85 1956–1959......Page 103 The 1950s: An Overview......Page 119 1960–1963......Page 126 1964–1966......Page 147 1967–1969......Page 156 The 1960s: An Overview......Page 170 Postscript on a Decade: The Surgeon General's Report......Page 178 5. 1970–1979: Constructing the Cognitive Subject......Page 184 1970–1971......Page 185 1972–1973......Page 198 1974–1975......Page 204 1976–1977......Page 229 1978–1979......Page 262 The 1970s: An Overview......Page 284 The Making of the Media-Literate Child......Page 292 Ferment in the Field or Selective Reconstruction?......Page 294 Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis: Reification or Critique?......Page 302 References......Page 308 C......Page 330 G......Page 331 M......Page 332 S......Page 333 Z......Page 334 A......Page 336 E......Page 337 J......Page 338 N......Page 339 S......Page 340 V......Page 341 W......Page 342