Children's television programs in China: A discourse of success and modernity

Children's television programs in China are predominately produced locally. National channels carry many more children's programs than regional channels. Major themes of children's television programs reflected high aspiration for success, promotion of competition with peers, and submission to collective goals and authority. The television programs for children in China that we examined in this study largely reflected masculine values, collective values, and high power distance as discussed in Hofstede's (1994) framework of cultural values. It certainly does not reflect Western cultural values of low power distance where children are given a high level of autonomy and respect. If the values portrayed in children's television programs are matched to the list of modernization attributes proposed by Yang (1989), those that frequently occurred are motivation for high achievement, a high need for information and high educational aspirations. It is a pity that we could hardly find values that encouraged egalitarian attitudes towards others, independence, freedom of individual expression, and creativity embedded in the programs.