Socialization and Mass Media

In this day and age a child’s family and peers are no longer the main agent of socialization. Now with most households having televisions and access to video game systems along with their games the amount of time children spend in front of a television has grown substantially. With this in mind parents and care-givers need to be mindful of what children are exposed to as they can easily absorb much of what they see and use that in how they act in society. Despite the mass amount of violent or offensive television shows there are shows in my opinion that do show good values and socialization skills for a child to develop. In my report I will discuss the children’s show and website Dinosaur Train and how its depiction of the main family shows how a family and community and come together to ensure the safety and proper socialization of children. I will also discuss the possible problems this show like many other fictionalized and cartoon families present.

On the surface the show Dinosaur Train seems to only be teaching children nature sciences and some paleontology. Much of the information presented is accurate and it sparks kids’ interest in the sciences. The show seems to be a gender neutral show as the show shows the girl characters just as interested in the particular discovery as the boy characters. This show has fans who are both boys and girls. I find this to be very positive as it is tiring to see shows geared specifically towards one gender or another as this enforces binary gender roles and ideas upon children. Once you move from the overall idea of the show you see that each show also teaches an important sociological lesson in each episode. Some of the things I found very positive about the show was how the character ...

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...r Train as it seems to show a society quite more utopian than what will be actually experienced by anyone in the world. While it is good to show calm conflict resolution and good and loving relationships the quickness to which these problems are resolved is astonishing and could give children a false sense that all conflicts will be resolved this quickly. Unfortunately, they will then find out that not only do some conflicts last for a long time, they find that they may not be worked out at all.

All in all, I feel that despite the concerns of a simplified world and unreal expectations that television shows present, I think the educational value and overall messages of Dinosaur Train outweigh any possible negatives. It is far better than shows that are simply thirty minutes of an advertisement for products or other shows that feature violence or adult references.