The TV, in debt with the quality
By Silvia Bacher
March 2, 2007
La Nacion
According to different investigations, boys watch an average of four hours daily of television; some watch three, others up to six hours per day. Sometimes they do it accompanied by an adult, but in general it is an activity that makes single. The time of exhibition descends in the measurement in which they increase the resources sociocultural of the families.
But what see when they ignite the television set? A recent study of the Federal Committee of Broadcasting (Comfer) gives account of which the index of violence in the open TV is of 68% in the programs of the category “entertainment”; of 75% in the reporters, and who 7 of each 10 fiction programs contain violence. It indicates that one is to a violence act every 15 minutes, to all hour, without considering the schedule of protection to the minor. On the other hand, an investigation on the index of quality of the Argentine television made by the Austral University with the auspice of the Argentina Camera de Anunciantes found that 92% of the analyzed programs of entertainment use a vulgar language; 55% of the fiction programs transmit disvalores, as the lie and the deceit, and 60% of the reporters use fiction resources to present the news.
We can be asked then why the boys do not watch programs produced for them. The reason is simple: the specific programming is little. According to the study of the Comfer, in 2004 328 cycles different in the air channels existed. Of them, less of a 10% he was destined to the boys and young people, and only a 5% were national production.
And what see in that produced small percentage for them? The same organism indicates that in the cartoons and in I animated Japanese the violence index appears between highest. Without more study than the ignition, the parents complain the supply of the screen for smallest is, in most of the cases, more than a cultural proposal able to inform or to entertain, an invitation to the consumption.
The television is a powerful tool at the time of stimulating, entertaining, to inform and to learn. But few industralists make use of this tool with a tie glance to the rights of the childhood.
Why?
Perhaps they fear to run economic risks? Diverse experiences give account of which the business can be equal of profitable when producing quality television.
The subject has been worrying, for years, to professionals, educational parents and of different countries. For that reason, different sectors began to look for strategies to give visibility to a problem that aqueja to the great majority of the population, but which did not find echo in the civil employees nor in the industralists of means.
In Colombia, for example, the alliance Television of Quality comes leading, from 2000, a national debate on the television, with special emphasis in the television of public interest and the hearings of children and young people. The objective, affirms, is to obtain an agreement of wills between public institutions, deprived, academy, regulating being, ministries, parents, channels, teachers and all the other sectors involved with the subject of way that it is acted to fortify the existing regulation in subjects of infantile television, to stimulate the production and programming of national television destined to children and children, to foment a greater investigation on means where the children are protagonists and to promote the creation of veedurías, leagues of active viewers and informed associations of parents who allow a greater citizen participation in their own public service of television.
In Spain, two years back, one remembered a code self-regulation on televising contents and childhood that it looks for to conciliate the economic objectives (and of hearing) of the televisions with the guarantee of the protection of the minors. The code is an agreement established between the Spanish government and diverse televisions to foment the self-regulation in favor of the smaller protection of the respect to the televising contents. With the purpose of “conferring credibility to the code and granting public confidence to him”, two organs were created that guaranteed their fulfillment: the Committee of Self-regulation and the Mixed Commission of Pursuit.
In Mexico, Eleven children are the daily strip of local production better positioned of channel Eleven. One of its creators, Patricia Arriaga, affirms that the best production of the BBC does not win to him to a local production, because people are wanted to see. The channel has developed to the Code of Etica and the Philosophy Eleven children. This tool tends to that the boys participate actively in the productions and are respected not only like hearings, but also in as much potential protagonists of the productions.
In Argentina, the little speeches are many but the actions. In that sense, the report on the situation of the children and adolescents in electronic audio-visual means presented/displayed few weeks back by the defender of the town of the Nation receive individual relevance. It is a material consensuado with different professional organizations of the society civil and worried about the television who consume youngest.
The work is product of the debate of three commissions – of legal subjects, contained and participation of the children in the means that give account of the multiple dimensions of the problem. In him the estigmatizantes representations, stereotyped and therefore prejudiced stand out that usually present/display average the respect to youngest. Also it advances on the complex point that represents the participation of the boys in audio-visual means, by the direct entailment that arises with the infantile work, since often this one can be injurious for the development of the minors.
Between the conclusions, the report of the defender of the town emphasizes that the State would not suitably protect the rights and guarantees of the children, children and adolescents in this thematic one, or by inefficiency and/or negligence in the intervention of the controls or by the incapacity that the competent organisms show to take the pertinent measures and actions. Also it demonstrates the necessity to promote the production of televising programs of integral quality for the children, children and adolescents. Up to here the report.
Now, will be east document a passage towards a television of quality destined to the childhood and youth or will only be a situation report? One will settle, finally, the subject in agenda? Will guard the organisms responsible by the fulfillment for the legislation that does to the defense of smallest? Will be developed a self-regulation code? And of being thus, it will be respected by empresariado with hunger of ephemeral successes, which in many cases does not respect the schedule agreements at least? Will be stimulated the independent production so that the creativity is present at the time of which the boys ignite tele?
Thus this note finishes. Seeding you intrigue, to the way of the advances of a novel by deliveries, in which the interests of the market try to be worth more than the people. The central question is when the happy end will arrive in which those that wins are also those that less voice they have in a mediatizada society.