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Fantasy, Media Effects on
Fantasy is a powerful psychological process that enables human beings to create new ideas and concepts in their minds by building on existing ones. Questions and conjecture about fantasy and its significance for individuals, societies, and cultures have elicited scholarly and public debate throughout history. The question of whether various media, particularly television, have an impact—either positive or negative—on children's creativity, imagination, and play has been the focus of various studies throughout the years. An overview of the research on media effects in this area suggests that the overall negative effects of media on children's creativity, imagination, and fantasy play are stronger than its positive effects. Reception studies of fantasy offer an alternative to media effects research on this topic and suggest ways in which children can creatively use media elements.
Although the range of information available through communication technology and various media has expanded recently, specific concerns about children and the development of their capabilities for imagination have remained very much the same. The claim that enjoying leisure media, and television viewing in particular, is a passive experience for children—one that suppresses both cognition and imagination—has been a common thread in the public debate. From this perspective, the child viewer is but a passive receptacle; the visual nature of media such as television, video and computer games, and the Internet, is thought to rob children of the opportunity to form images in their own minds as they do when reading books. At the same time, any casual observer of children's everyday lives can attest that media content is deeply integrated in children's imaginations and fantasy play.
Creativity and Imagination
Several early correlation studies as well as experimental ones found negative relationships between television viewing and children's scores on a variety of creative tasks, such as thinking, problem solving, and writing. Several studies compared children's performance on a variety of tasks before and after the introduction of television into their lives. Although individual studies may be challenged on conceptual or methodological grounds, the accumulative picture coincides with the popular belief that heavy television use, particularly violent television, impedes the development of children's creative abilities.
Several researchers investigated how various media differ as stimuli of creativity and imagination. One area of research focused on whether a televised version of a story stimulates more or fewer creative ideas, story lines, and problem-solving solutions than the same story told verbally (in audio or print forms). These studies confirmed the hypothesis that processes of imagination (operationalized as any form of representational activity that creates new entities such as characters or events) were better stimulated by radio than by television. One explanation offered is that that the visual superiority effect of television is confounded in regard to comprehension by the advantages of the auditory–verbal track.
Fantasy Play
Studies of the role of television as a stimulant of fantasy play have examined the hypothesis that television viewing may displace free fantasy play (interchangeably termed pretend, make-believe, or imaginative play) in young children. Engaging in creative imaginative play is presumed to be essential for children's development and is one of the most important ways in which they learn about their environments. Accumulated research suggests that, ultimately, the types of content children watch are more important in determining outcomes of fantasy and imaginative play than the quantity of time spent viewing. One related finding is that fantasy violence in television content may inhibit or take the place of imaginative play, whereas certain educational, prosocial programming may actually encourage it. For example, viewers of programs oriented toward prosocial behaviors, such as cooperation, expression of empathy, delay of gratifications, ability to express feelings, and the like, have been found to incorporate such behaviors in their play. Several researchers also argue that it makes little sense to deliberate whether one kind of imaginative play induced by television (e.g., playing “school” or a particular profession) is of higher quality and more desirable than another (e.g., playing “war of the good against the evil”).
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