Portrayals of the Elderly on Children's Television Programming: A Content Analysis
Authors:
- Bradley J. Bond (Univ of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
- Kristin L. Drogos (Univ of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
The current study examined the portrayal of elderly characters in children's programming. A composite week sample was created for the 4 major networks, PBS, Disney, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon. The 120 hours and 10 minutes of programming revealed that elderly characters are frequent in children's programming and are portrayed as normal, happy, healthy people. The results are discussed using social cognitive theory.