Gender portrayals in children's media

Soojung Kang

Due to the development of technology and the popularization of online media streaming services (e.g., Netflix, Hulu, YouTube), the current media industry targets parents of babies and toddlers, and babies and toddlers themselves, as part of a growing consumer market. Most online media streaming services include entertainment programs targeted to even the youngest of viewers, as shown from Hulu streaming content for babies. Nevertheless, previous content analyses have not catalogued how gender is portrayed in these programs. Therefore, this study explored the gender portrayals of main characters based on a content analysis of programs targeted to Babies and Kids 2-4 streamed via Hulu. Almost 200 (N=196) characters were coded from 34 programs in the final data set (11 in Babies; 23 in Kids 2-4; 96 episodes in total). The results revealed adult characters are largely absent from the programming, and male characters appeared almost twice as often as female characters. Female characters were portrayed significantly differently from male characters in stereotypical ways which included portrayals as caregivers with a focus on their appearance. In contrast, male characters were portrayed as active and aggressive significantly more often than their female counterparts. Overall, programs targeted to 2-4-yearolds included more masculine portrayals than programs targeted to babies. These results are disconcerting given the significance media plays in gender socialization, and this suggests that even the youngest of viewers are exposed to narrow and traditional gendered scripts.

Gender portrayals in children's media

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