Children need help through the jungle of violence in youth shows Getting lost in TV Land [Archives:2002/20/Culture]

BY MAHYOUB AL-KAMALI
YEMEN TIMES STAFF
The media plays a pivotal role with regard to the development of any society. It can shape childrens minds in various ways.
But these budding, fragile minds need to be handled with care, with the best pedagogical and educational techniques.
And the media, which has gone through dramatic changes in technology, often causes more harm than good. This is particularly true with television.
Space channels all over the world, for example, are in competition with each other to produce every Tom, Dick and Harry for children. These programs in one way or the other are directed aimlessly.
With this rapid increase of space channels throughout the world, children programs have to be rightly directed in accordance with the childrens interests. Our media needs to consider childrens different ages. Then, one should know from where childrens programs are imported. And what is the best time for watching these programs?
Childhood in Yemen needs to be protected from the imported violence films televised through the Arabic channels. On these space stations, all forms of violence and killing are now easily seen by our Yemeni children.
Find suitable time
That doesnt mean that we have to prevent them from watching TV. But we need to choose a suitable time for children to watch and the concerned bodies at the Yemeni TV channels need to choose proper programs without violence which later manifests itself in other consequences.
Most animated cartoon programs are imported from foreign sources. These imported programs are hazardous to the intellect of our children, the same children we need to raise to be responsible adults who will build our country in the next generation.
Children are the pillars of any society. They are considered to be a national wealth to lead this country for the better.
Undoubtedly, there is a big gap between children in cities and children in villages, in terms of their ability to perceive things. This clearly can be seen through the way they receive and respond to things in general. Children in villages have been exposed to fewer things, and therefore they seem easily swayed by anything comes to their minds.
TV is widely watched by children in cities while in villages thats not the case because of the unavailability of electricity. Thats why educational programs in villages have to be promoted and supported by international organizations.
Childrens issues have become the concern of major international organizations such UNICEF. So we need to keep this concern over the medias impact on our children before such bodies. It seems, instead, its the media itself that has determined what is good and bad for our children.
Careful studies and researches have to be conducted with a view of selecting the right programs that will be best for our childrens minds and aptitudes.


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