Abstract
Though rooted in a long tradition of critical commentary on contemporary social structures, the claim for a critical approach to social inquiry needs to be constantly reasserted, particularly in an area such as children and television, which has been dominated successively by empiricist and interpretative studies. Based on the preceding critical reappraisals of the still influential behaviourist approach and the currently thriving interpretative alternative, this chapter puts the case for a critical approach to the study of children and television.
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Notes
- 1.
See The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (1984). In this book alone, Giddens directly draws on and discusses Erickson, Goffman, Freud, Foucault, Durkheim, Blau, Parsons, as is shown in the content list.
- 2.
- 3.
See Ideology in Social Science: readings in critical social theory, ed. by Robin Blackburn, 1972, Fontana, Glasgow. The book covers nearly all disciplines in western social sciences – politics, sociology, anthropology, economics and history.
- 4.
The other two major ideologies in traditional Chinese society are Daoism and Buddhism.
- 5.
The May Fourth Movement in 1919 was triggered by the Versailles treaty, by which Western powers conceding Shangdong peninsula under German control and influence before the First World War to Japan, the new imperial power in Asia, despite the fact that China took part in the War against Germany and its allies.
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Zhao, B. (2013). For a Critical Approach to the Study of Children and Television. In: The Little Emperors’ New Toys. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32048-4_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32048-4_3
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