Television and imagination: an investigation of the medium's influence on children's story-making

Abstract

Drawing on a study of stories written and told by 10- to 12-year-old children, this article discusses the meaning of `imaginative response', suggesting several senses in which imagination may be engaged by a stimulus. Based on illustrations from the data of the study, it goes on to examine, in the light of previous relevant media research, ways in which television and videos may be considered either to stimulate or to stifle the imaginative processes and products of story-making. Possible reasons are discussed for the study having found little evidence that children transform ideas taken from television and videos when composing stories; it is suggested that the nature of the image on the screen is equivalent neither to actual experience nor to the visualized image, and may play a different role in the creative process. The article concludes by positing the notion that the ubiquity and ease of access to television and videos perhaps robs today's children of the need to pursue their own thoughts and devise their own occupations, distracting them from inner processes and constantly demanding responses to external agendas, and suggests that this may have implications for the development of imaginative capacity.