A study of children’s television viewing and parental mediation styles in Tamilnadu, India

Abstract

Parents are observed to be engaged in children viewing television with mediation styles used at home. The objective of this study is to examine the various mediation styles (active mediation, restrictive mediation, co-viewing) adopted by parents in their children television watching and to understand parental mediation styles among children. For the purpose of this study, data were gathered from the parents of school children from Coimbatore (n=206) in a total sample size of 206 respondents. Respondents were asked to answer questions in a survey. The responses were analyzed to study the mediation adopted between three styles active mediation, restrictive mediation, and co-viewing with the parental demographic characteristics and children details. The findings of the study revealed that there is significant influence between parent’s gender and the family type. In the preference among various mediation styles across the age group of children and gender the mostly preferred mediation style is Restrictive Mediation i.e. Active Mediation and Co-viewing.