Gunter and McAleer (1994: 41) claim that children of about four or five years of age have difficulty comprehending television programmes as a whole. Although they may be able to recall isolated segments, they can not follow entire plots, even of programmes aimed specifically at this age group. By the age of about twelve however, this seems to have improved. While still not to the same level as adults, they can recount events in their correct sequence and draw conclusions from the material in the programme (Gunter and McAleer, 1990: 43). Clearly then, children go through a process during which their ability to understand television programmes, 'read' the content and make meanings from this matures.
Television programme makers use certain conventions that we come to understand without realising it. For example if we see a person getting into a car and leaving the shot, and then see another shot of that person arriving at their destination, we know that they have completed their journey - we do not need to see this entire journey, we assume that they have completed it and have covered territory not explicitly shown to us. It is frequent repetition of such conventions that makes us accustomed to them so that we can appreciate the meanings in television programmes (Fiske and Hartley, 1978: 40). This is associated with the notion of television codes constituting a 'language' and therefore there being a 'grammar' that we must learn, like learning the alphabet in order to read books. According to Gunter and McAleer, "there are elements of grammar, syntax, symbols and meanings which are medium-specific and which presumably can be taught." (Gunter and McAleer, 1990: 201). This grammar includes the technical decisions made by programme makers, such as shot size, shot duration, camera angle, lighting conditions and music. For example, a high camera angle will invoke a feeling of a character's inferiority and vulnerability, with the opposite being true of a low angle. This is partly due to social codes, which will be discussed later, but all the same it is a recognised code that even without realising it, experienced viewers read and understand. People who have not experienced television may not make the association. Hodge and Tripp (1986: 41) said that such meanings inherent in television are 'decoded' according to an internal set of rules, i.e. the rules of the grammar we learn, the older we are and the more we watch.
Many of television's codes are covered by the term Semiotics, which is the study of signs and their meanings, for example, denotation is the simplest meaning of a sign, and connotation is the way that that sign may be interpreted in a particular context. The way that these connotations occur within a given culture and are made sense of is known as myths. In terms of the language of television, the meanings implied or inferred in programmes are gained from the paradigms, i.e. the choices made in the making process such as stars and shot sizes, which combine to form syntagms - the combination of the codes as a whole.
A lot of research has been carried out into young children's attention to television programmes and how much time they spend concentrating on other stimuli. It is thought that children learn to control their attention according to what is happening on screen (and what has meaning for them) but they are always easily distracted and the periods of time spent actually concentrating on the screen are usually very short (Gunter and McAleer, 1990: 31). Their attention is therefore usually brought back to the screen by a distinguishable sound or image. Gunter and McAleer account for this short attention span by saying that if a child does not understand what he/she is watching, they will simply find something else that interests them and as their understanding develops, so does their pattern of attention (1990: 31). So, as children learn the grammar of television, their understanding becomes clear through their willingness to pay attention. The more they do watch and learn to recognise particular characters or programmes, the more they are able to attach meaning to what they are watching and the more they actively respond (1990: 39).
Understanding television, or 'reading' it, is essentially a cognitive process, which we undergo predominantly during childhood. While children have not yet learnt how to make sense of what they watch, adults have grasped the codes and even without realising it are able to make inferences about programmes and follow more complicated plots than those whose knowledge is still developing. Adults are constantly using the skills that they have developed and once they are acquired they are natural and taken for granted - it could be said that it is impossible to 'forget' how to watch television, once the necessary skills are embedded. Sonia Livingstone (1990: 6) suggests that this is shown by the misconceptions of children (i.e. their misunderstanding when interviewed about what they have watched and their clear lack of being able to follow even the simplest plots), revealing the interpretative work that adults must therefore conduct successfully in order to attach meanings to programmes.
Linked to this is the work of Gunter and McAleer, who also illustrate the cognitive process involved in learning the language of television. They say that in order to follow a programme's narrative, it is necessary to make connections between different scenes and also make informed judgements about what may happen next, based on their memory of what has preceded. While adults are able to do this usually without too much effort, and make predictions about what may follow, (i.e. if they have been paying attention to the events as they happen), it is not until the age of around ten that children are able to make these same kinds of adult-like inferences. (Gunter and McAleer, 1990: 44). This then shows that it is the more experienced viewers who are able to make connections and accurately retain the details of a plot, so they seem to be more 'literate' in the televisual codes governing the medium.
In order to make interpretations of programmes, a basic comprehension of the narrative is required, which is achieved when children begin to make subtle judgements a programme's genre, realism and importantly, its relation to their own lives (Livingstone, 1990: 175). It is widely believed that the social circumstances of children also affects their level of understanding of television and its 'language', and that there are cultural factors to be taken into account. The age and experience of viewers will determine to what level they understand television, but it is also affected by things such as the reason for watching, the amount of time invested and the socio-economic level of the individual (Van Edra, 1990). Children's everyday knowledge of their social surroundings will be relevant to their interpretation of television images (Livingstone, 1990: 4). Central to Livingstone's argument is that in order to understand how viewers make sense of what they watch, we should proceed from the starting point of examining how people make sense of their relationships and events of everyday life (Livingstone, 1990: 6). If people can make sense of their social surroundings, then it will be easier for them to make sense of the relationships and situations presented to them on television. It has been proven that children have to learn about their interpersonal relationships gradually whilst they are growing up and developing in maturity, so it seems reasonable to suggest that the same goes for television and therefore, as with 'real-life' situations, children have to learn the 'grammar' before they can fully comprehend it.
As I mentioned earlier, programme makers use conventions to influence their audience in the meanings they draw from what they watch (for example influencing emotion by using close-ups or invoking sympathy by using high camera angles). Many of the conventions are socially determined, such as the use (or misuse) of interpersonal distance. In Western culture anything within 24 inches of a person is socially encoded as being private space and so the use of extreme close-ups replicates this closeness and represents either a feeling of intimacy or of discomfort as it breaks the socially accepted code. Because this has become the norm in our culture, its use in television is effective and popular but it is only when we have learned the convention in our social lives that we can recognise its use in our television experience; a child who has no concept of this personal space, or can not put a term to it, will not then be able to recognise it as a convention being used by other people.
Without even realising it, people have built in stereotypes in terms of the characters we see on television. In making casting decisions, these biases are used to the advantage of directors who can encourage their audience to either like or dislike someone on screen. Appearances of people are encoded in to our social codes, and so their characters therefore become "embodiments of ideological values." (Fiske, 1987: 8). This kind of technique is common and is also achieved through costume, makeup, settings and actions, all of which we have preconceptions of so that when we are literate in the language of television and its conventions we subconsciously read them and learn that these are codes used to influence us.
Children are socialized through institutions such as the family and the education system. According to Hodge and Tripp, the level of socialization of a child depends on their socio-economic status, so those of a higher class will be more strongly socialized than the lower (Hodge and Tripp, 1986: 41). This suggests then that a child's understanding of television codes and conventions may be better for those of a higher class. Even though everyone learns to read such codes, it seems that the process may be shorter for some than for others, and the overall knowledge gained may be more comprehensive for some. (This is an area in to which there is a considerable amount of continuing research and is a greatly debated issue; nevertheless it may be a viable argument for the differences in the level of children's understanding).
Even though everything we see on television has a meaning, there are cultural differences which mean that the interpretation of these meanings changes throughout the world; symbols mean different things to different cultures (for example the Cross is only the sign of a crucifix to those familiar with the Christian religion). Therefore reading television is a cultural phenomenon and while certain things, when read by people of Western culture, have certain meanings attached, someone of another cultural background may read these meanings completely differently. This has nothing to do with age, but it does depend on a viewer's experiences. A young child may not be able to attach meaning to a complicated narrative in their own culture but equally, an adult who has been reading the language of television for many years, may fail to attach any meaning to a programme that has not been produced within their own culture.
One of the most important things that children need to grasp when learning the language of television is the distinction between reality and fiction/fantasy, which seems to be the part of the process that is most complex, therefore taking the most time. Fiske and Hartley have said that television presents us with images which use codes "which are closely related to those by which we perceive reality itself." (Fiske and Hartley, 1978: 17). So, the more familiar we are with the image, the more realistic we perceive it to be. This is something, as with the other aspects of the language of television, that develops gradually, and while children may not be able to make accurate or informed judgements on degrees of reality, their distinctions do improve as they get older. Younger children tend to base their distinctions on what is possible, whereas older children make increased distinctions of what is impossible and make judgements of reality based on subtle information, rather than having them directly pointed out (Gunter and McAleer, 1990: 49-50).
If television can be described as a form of communication, then it seems fair to say that it can also be described as a language, as in order to communicate, for example through a verbal language, we need to learn its rules of grammar. It is not simply a case of learning the language during childhood and then being to understand whatever is presented to us, it is more the case that we continue to learn new concepts into adulthood and subconsciously keep adding to our knowledge, building up our comprehension. In this way, television continues to be challenging for its audience, whatever age they are, and gradually we benefit more and more, whether educationally or for relaxation/enjoyment purposes.
Hopefully this essay has illustrated that television codes do constitute a kind of language that, while different from a verbal language, nevertheless we have to learn in order to gain from the medium. It is a process that occurs from a very young age, in fact from the first time we see a television set, and there is no point at which it is possible to say that the process ends. There is a general consensus in the belief that children are fairly television literate by the age of twelve (various sources) but the process continues well into adulthood, as new codes are introduced to us. It is also possible to gain from the experience by applying the social codes that we learn from our experiences outside of the 'television world'.
March 2002