Television threatens lives of children, exposes them to violence

During summer vacations, Yemeni children spend long periods of time glued to the television, with no parental observation.

Many media experts that the Yemen Observer has spoken to agree that most of the Arab satellite channels exhaust viewers with their reports about Arab regimes’ achievements. To a great extent, channels are also deprived from playing any educational role that can keep citizens informed of what is happening around them. Such an educational role would help citizens to function better when informed of the real facts and not the state-preferred interpretation of news.

The group most threatened by this deterioration of media is children. By consequence, satellite channels in the Arab World should play a key role in educating children and in developing notions of identity and belonging, which are being threatened by Western and Arab channels that present morally destructive programs.

Psychologists say that children learn things quickly and imitate actions around them, creating and developing new behavior patterns different from those of the previous generation. The Yemen Observer talked to more than 30 parents, the majority of whom agreed that children’s behavior today is worse than during their childhoods, and all agreed that media is a key factor related to this new trend, due to the cartoons and other programs that TV programs feed children with.

Abdul-Rahman Mutaher, or father Abdul-Rahman as he is known, had worked in children programs for around thirty years on Sana’a Radio Station and now is Capital Secretary Advisor for Arts and Culture. He believes that the media in the Arab World in general and in Yemen in particular do not pay enough attention to the ages of their child viewers. “I personally have children and the children’s channels that we have present damaging programs for the child’s mind and have nothing to do with his needs in his or her age,” said Mutaher.

Raufa Hassan, a professor of media at Sana’a University and head of the Cultural Development Planning Foundation agrees with Mutaher about the crisis that Arab channels are undergoing.” When you see children’s programs and you realize their effect on children, you can see that children become confused and cannot differentiate between what is real and what is imaginary,” said Hassan. She also criticizes the production of children’s programs and said that Arabs do not have real or local production since most of it is adopted from Western programs.

Hassan thinks that production of children’s programs in Yemen needs the involvement of many players and not just the government; the private sector as well has to play a part in this in order to make something that can attract the child with its production, “but unfortunately” she continues, “we do not have what we can call real production.” Mutaher said that children’s writers are very rare and the media do not present topics suitable for children that deal with their surrounding and things that children can perceive. “Children of the seventies are not like children of today who are exposed to all sorts of knowledge, included dangerous information,” said Mutaher. He also believes that programs presented on the majority of channels damage the child’s feelings as well as their ability to innovate, feel and live. What the child needs is programs that express ideas and affairs that he or she can realize and thus help them to expand their mind. Mutaher said that what is presented in the broadcast media is not only dangerous for children but also for adults, and thus we need to educate parents to enable them to understand their children and their needs.   

There are three Arab Channels for children: Spacetoon-Arabic and English, MBC3 and the newly established al-Jazeera Children’s Channel. Other channels have at best one hour for children per day. Adel al-Sharjbi, a professor of Sociology at Sana’a University, believes that there is not one Arab channel that fully caters to children except maybe al-Jazeera, which he thinks presents quite acceptable materials that is entertaining and suitable for the needs of children.

“Yemeni channels have a very tiny margin for children’s programs like other channels in the Arab World and what they present for kids is boring and has no element of excitement, besides the programs are either old or adopted from Western countries and thus are not really suitable for our culture,” said al-Sharjbi. 

Al-Sharjbi rejects the preaching style used in all children’s programs and says that ethics and values should not be instructed directly to the child but rather an example of an honest child in a cartoon who succeeded because of his honesty can be better and can thus help the child to include himself in the story. What the child needs is an example that he can identify himself with.  Al-Sharjbi criticized channels that present children’s programs in local dialects and cause drawbacks in understanding Standard Arabic. Concerning identity, al-Sharjbi said that television is one of the most important means of developing and protecting children’s identity.

Al-Sharjbi wondered why Yemeni channels do not have children’s programs about visiting a library to encourage children to read or to know their country, and he talked about the Arabic version of Sesame Street that he describes as the best program for children. However, he said that nothing was produced like it.” If you do not offer the child something interesting, like adults they will seek excitement in other channels some of which may threaten their mind and life. The problem is that processes of making children programs are not done by experts and specialists in children’s pedagogy,” al-Sharjbi added. He urged for an increase funds directed to children’s programs in order to make them more interesting and finally said that the problem is that children not only watch children’s channels but also other channels where they are subject to all sorts of things ranging from violence to immoral values. 

Media experts call for more focus on children’s programs presented in clear Arabic but simple for young children. Children through such programs can learn Islamic values spontaneously in addition to Arabic.

Al-Taher Khalefa al-Qaradhi, a university professor from Libya, says in an article entitled Arabian Satellite Channels: Do they have Educational Role? (published in Al-Arabi magazine May 2007), that media have a great effect on children and is also dangerous in terms of breeding and education. He stated that it should be a duty that Arab channels attract young generations in order not run to Western channels or some destructive Arab channels.  

Al-Qaradhi believes that Arab channels have to educate children about how to deal with Western culture, providing them with comparative criteria. Arab channels have to present what serves children and connects them with their surroundings instead of leading them to fantastic and irrational worlds. Channels have to focus on what would help implement morals and virtues of Islam with a proportion between the level of the shows and the level of a child in terms of their age and education. Shows have to spread good images and they need to provide entertainment capable of catching children’s attention, subconsciously implanting the desire for values, provided that the shows are presented in a simple, correct Arabic. 

Parents also worry about what their children learn from the media. “I remember when I was a kid, we looked up to our seniors and we feared them greatly, of course out of respect, but now children talk back to their parents or to older people,” said Ali al-Khaledi, 43 years old and a government employee. Al-Khaledi said that children of this generation are exposed to many dangers from satellite channels and internet, which negatively affect their morality and religion. He blamed parents that do not talk to their children and urged them to monitor what they watch on TV.  

Eman Mohammed, first year student at Media College at Sana’a University said that TV negatively affects children through broadcasting values and traditions that are not part of Arab and Islamic societies. “Watching a lot of TV also reduces children’s production and the time they dedicate to school activities, the result is that they become unaware of the world around them. It also affects their emotions making them colder in personality and leading them to violence in their behavior as they become influenced by characters they see on TV or by the violence they watch in the news,” said Mohammed.

Abbas al-Ghorbani, a final-year student in the Political Science Department at Sana’a University College of Commerce, said that media has become an important part in every aspect of our life, with Western media dominant in the world. “Western-oriented channels cause a threat to Arab and Islamic identity with the messages these channels send. Media is governed by the market, deprived of any human elements and making profits as much as possible at the lowest cost,” said al-Ghorbani.

Zaher Ali, another last-year student from the same Political Science department, pointed out that children watch wars on TV as well as conflicting conducts that govern the world and life today. He thinks that it is hard to give any clear judgment of value when watching. “If you take Tom and Jerry as an example, a child watches the cat and the mouse in a world of conflict not knowing the reason behind it, but sees it as an inevitable or as an endless conflict not knowing also if there is a good or bad side. Both are shown liking the conflict and can never reach a stage to co-exist; the winner is always either the strongest in body or mind,” said Ali. This generates a sort of indifference in the child so it becomes normal to harm others and so life becomes a process of conflict where there is no right, wrong or one side closer to rightness or wrongness.

Ali strongly believes that channels mold life and dreams of children with no heed of any human side and send messages that the happy child who is loved by people is the one who has this product or that product advertised in TV channels. Children’s values are then reduced to consumerism as a value in a world where children are being exploited without any control.

People and experts still believe that media in the Arab world is still far from its potential role in creating a better society and not to be only a trumpet for the government and rulers.  

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