La televisión como agente socializador ante el 11-M: percepciones y reacciones de la infancia frente a los atentados terroristas

Abstract

On March 11 2004 Spain suffered the bloodiest terrorist attack in its history. During this tragic day adult Spanish spectators received intensive information about the events over the television, but no attention was paid to the fact that a large sector of the audience lacked elements of judgment to decode the antecedents and consequences of what was shown on TV. The aim of our research was to explore the subjective experience of children in Madrid six months after the 11-M attacks. Based on a probabilistic sample of 606 pre-school and primary education pupils, the segmentation analysis shows, among other results, how in the majority of cases infant audiences lacked support from socialization agencies; how the selective memory of children reduces the events to the bloody images of the TV news coverage; and how exposure to pro-social contents promoted antiviolence attitudes in children.