Learning TV Realities:
A report for the schools involved

I showed a brief clip from the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? which we then discussed. I tried to discover how aware the children were of the mixture of animated cartoon and dramatic action in a clip showing a cartoon 'hole' thrown onto a wall by an actor playing a policeman, who then puts his hand into the hole. Suggestions ranged from 'it's a blue balloon', 'perhaps there are curtains in front of the wall' to 'it's petrol inside it' and it could be made of 'paper' or 'glass' or be due to 'magic', from the four- to five-year-olds, through 'it's a rubber wall' from one Year 3, to a confident explanation involving 'camera tricks' and computer animation from several Year 6 pupils. One of the latter said: 'I think the way he puts his arm through the hole is done by computer.'

However, in one ten- to eleven-year-old group, even though one child had ust said 'It's using acting and cartoon strips and they put it all together...', and another 'They're using toons and stuff', three of the four in the group a little later said that they thought the blue hole could be made of rubber:

A: ...'cos when he throws it...
L: And when he's holding it, it's all wobbly.
R: And when he throwed it at the wall, it slapped, it went, like rubber does.
S: Probably put some kind of superglue on it.
Int: So do you think he's really picking a real thing up out of the box, then?
All: No.
R: Not out of the box.
A: He's just pretending to pick something up...
R: Then when he throws it, it's a real thing then.
L: They put something on the wall.
Int: They put it on afterwards?
L: Yeah.
S: But then when he throws it then, they stop it [the camera] and probably give him a blue rubber thing and then he throws it.
L: They stop the film and then they have, take a bit of the wall out and when the thing sticks on, they can put their hand through.

One of the children in Year 3, when asked what the blue hole was, said: 'Drawing, drawing. They get like a piece of paper and draw on it, and on the other side as well... and then they can move it by strings'. Another said: 'It's like a big magic wall and a magic circle' and another 'they just taped it on to that... the cartoon bit on to the film' illustrating the divide in this middle age-group between children who still seemed to accept at face value much of what they saw on TV and those who had begun to develop a much more sophisticated understanding.

In most cases, I then showed brief clips from Animal Hospital (a veterinary hospital documentary presented by Rolf Harris) and a situation-comedy starring Richard Briers, when I asked the groups whether the people on the screen were acting or not, and how they could tell. It was immediately obvious to even the youngest which ones were acting. Reasons given included ''cos they're going like this' [pulling exaggerated expression] from a five-year-old; 'the people's laughing' [referring to canned laughter] from a seven-year-old; 'when they speak, they like stop, and think of the next word instead of just saying it' and '[they are] talking to camera' from the Year 6s, about the documentary. The Year 3s tended to mention the use of make-up and wigs etc. more than the other ages.

Then, using as a focus pictures of ten to fourteen well-known TV programmes , some specifically for children and some general, the groups discussed which programmes seemed more real to them. This led to placing the pictures on the table in order of perceived reality as decided upon by the group. The reception groups tended to say 'That's puppets - that's not real' followed by 'That's real people - that is real' whether it was actors or other real people like presenters. Having said that, there was a lot of confusion and inconsistency. Part of one exchange went as follows:

C: [About Sooty] Mae hwn yn real.
Int: Achos mae e'n puped?
C: Hmm. [Nodding.]
L: [About Pingu, an animated penguin adventure] Dim yn real achos clai yw e.
Int: What about the stories? [i.e. are they like real life?]
L: Yeah, I think that's real, 'cos there's penguins in real life.

Another group of five-year-olds made these comments:

Int: What programme's this?
All:Noddy. [Animated models.]
Int: Who watches Noddy?
S: Me. I've got a video of it. [Others nod.]
Int: Is it about real life, or is it not?
C: Na.
H: Real life.
Int: Why do you think it's about real life?
C: Um...
Int: Don't know?
J: Because it's got a cake there.
Int: Because it's got a cake? Is it a real cake?
H: Yes, because they eat it.
C: No, they don't really eat it.
S: I will!
Int: Why don't they really eat it?
H: It is a real cake.
Int: Are these real people then?
H: No.

Of course, the Year 6 children looked much deeper into the question of whether programmes seemed real. The cartoon animal adventure serial Farthing Wood was an example of this. One group started by saying that the picture should go at the bottom of the reality scale because it was a cartoon and ''cos animals can't talk', but after I queried whether it was really that straight-forward, they commented 'it's half and half really'; '...that might be happening with the animals', and ''Cos they really do destroy the habitats of animals, in some places.' [In the story the original home area is destroyed, forcing the animals to journey to a different area.] Another group commented about Farthing Wood that 'If farmers shoot at them, some of them actually do get shot. They don't miss all the time' in contrast with many other cartoons when the baddies always seem to miss. A member of a Year 3 group commented 'When the animals eat each other - I think they'd do that.'

There were plenty of strong opinions on soap operas. One ten- to eleven-year-old group agreed that Coronation Street was more realistic than Neighbours. Most of the first language Welsh speakers seemed to be particularly attached to Pobol y Cwm. One Year 6 group told me that it was much more realistic than other soaps because events happened on a much more realistic time-scale. There were not several disasters in one episode. They gave the example of the fire in Pobol y Cwm, which affected most characters one way or another, and was the big topic of discussion for a number of episodes over what the children felt was a much realistic period of time than tended to be the case in other soaps. A different Year 6 group felt that East-Enders was more realistic than Neighbours 'because them stuff can happen' and they felt that the character of Tricky Dicky was lifelike because people really could be bossy and get angry. Another group of the same age agreed, giving as one reason that 'if one actor goes away, they don't come back with a different actor [playing the same part]', as apparently happens in other soaps. I have not checked the truth of this assertion. I frequently found that although many said that Neighbours was the least realistic soap, they also enjoyed it more than most others because it was more exciting. There was a feeling that East-Enders was more real and honest, although not as real as Casualty.

The older children were usually very interested by themes in the soaps such as adult relationships and whether for example, one character should have an abortion. I have to say this was probably more obvious with the girls, but many of the boys knew enough of the lives of the characters to join in.

Most of the Year 6 groups were impressed also by The Bill, finding it to be very convincing and probably as real police were. Two members of one group even believed that in The Bill, 'some of the policemen are real'. I followed this up:

Int: Some of the policemen are actually real policemen in real life, do you mean?
L and S: Yeah.
S: And then they just pretend they don't know anything and stuff.
Int: What makes you think some of them are real policemen?
S: Well, everyone is quite quiet when they walk across [the police station office] and they don't say 'Hello' to each other, 'cos they probably don't know each other or something.

However, another in the group said 'I think they're all acting'. The vast majority of the Year 6 children claimed to be sceptical about the realism of Baywatch, particularly the physical attributes of the actors, although most watched it. One said that there were no women with short hair in the series, and that they all had long flowing locks, adding that they should be wearing goggles in the sea and tie their hair back. Several girls mentioned their liking for David Hasselhof, the 'hunky' hero.

Mr Bean was a great favourite with all the ages.

Most groups accepted The News as real: 'that is a realistic one 'cos it shows you what happened really' (Year 6). But one Year 6 group added:

S: No, they'll say the truth sometimes, but sometimes they, you know... lie sometimes.
K: They change... 'cos sometimes they change the story a bit... make it...
A: More interesting.

One seven-year-old was rather confused:

Int: Do you think what they say on The News is true?
K: Yes, 'cos er... that's right - I saw the news on The Big Breakfast right, and he said Superman was true. [Loud denials from the rest of the group.]

Grading pictures of TV programmes according to how 'real' they seemed to one reception group