Media Release
April 29, 2004
Graphic images take toll on children’s peace of mind
Children are increasingly at risk of distress from exposure to
graphic images of war zones, terrorist attacks, and speculation about
Australia as a future target for terrorism activity, according to a
leading UniSA academic.
Dr Susan Howard, senior lecturer in Education, says speculation about
Australia as a possible target for terrorist attacks, together with
graphic violent images coming out of the Middle East, could easily
increase children's sense of fear and insecurity about their own safety.
This is particularly the case with young children up to the age of five
or six years.
Dr Howard said that in a five-year study titled Somewhere to call home?
Schooling and a sense of place and belonging in an increasingly
globalised world, (coauthored with Judith Gill, UniSA) upper primary
school children identified being safe, proud and free as key factors
high on the list of what being Australian meant to them.
“While 'proud' and 'free' 'might have been anticipated,” she said, “the
strong emphasis on safety surprised us. It was clear from the children's
discussions that their sense of Australia being a safe place was
principally drawn from a comparison with other countries where violence
of all kinds is reported and graphically depicted on the nightly news.”
“The persistent chain of terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001 has
left the global community feeling vulnerable – but non more so then our
children. They have been bombarded with images and reports about
terrorism, the War on Terror, the war in Iraq, the Bali and Madrid
bombings and now graphic pictures coming out of the Middle East
conflict,” said Dr Howard.
According to Dr Howard, even quite young children are quite capable of
discriminating between degrees of reality in television images.
“Five year olds judge TV reality on a continuum with cartoons (totally
unreal) at one end and the news (totally real) at the other.
“The extent to which media images disturb or distress young children
will depend on how 'real' they judge the images, how close they perceive
the violence to be and whether the violence is occurring to someone they
may know or someone like them,” she said.
“Children will process information and prioritise a threat according to
their knowledge base. Events in Iraq, for example, will pose less of a
threat then danger in the next suburb.
“For these reasons, I think it unlikely that young children will have
absorbed the recent rhetoric about Australia being named as a possible
terrorist target but for older children who have a stronger grasp of
global events and issues, the threat to Australia's safety will
doubtless have become more real, more possible and therefore to be
feared.”
Dr Howard said recent war images that would have had a strong potential
for causing fear and anxiety in children were those depicting the young,
distressed Palestinian 'suicide bomber' shown in the media several weeks
ago. The age of the boy and his evident distress would have been
uncomfortably recognizable for younger children.
It is important then, says Dr Howard, to protect young children from
detailed or graphic information about terrorism and war zones,
particularly that involving images which offer strong points of
identification for the child viewer Older children, on the other hand,
should be given plenty of opportunities to discuss what they see and to
debrief after particularly distressing material.
Teachers, parents and carers have an important role to play in sharing
information and explaining the causes of conflict and war.
“It is important that they place these events in a global perspective
and try to give a simple straight forward explanation, free of prejudice
and subjective opinion. Older children are certainly in a position to
understand and think about the issues but we did find in the study cited
above that perceptions of violence and oppression were frequently linked
to irrelevant points of 'difference' between Australians and other
people (e.g. styles of dress). Here we have fertile ground for the
development of prejudice and we need to take firm action to avoid this.
“Children need to understand that life is full of dangers, but they
should also put those dangers in perspective so that they can engage in
every life without fear.”
More information
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Dr Susan Howard, senior lecturer, Education, UniSA, (08) 8302 6275 or 0407717625
Media contact
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Thel Krollig, Media Liaison, UniSA, (08) 8302 0028 or 0407 726 175