Workshop discusses effects of TV war coverage on children

Filmmakers and talented youngsters got together with German experts in Damascus to discuss how television war coverage should best be presented to children at a recently concluded workshop entitled: “Children’s Programmes and Images of War”. “We discussed the psychological aspects of children watching war coverage, and did practical exercises on producing children’s news,” said Imen Nafti, 28, of the Tunisian Federation of Cinema Amateurs. The five-day seminar, held in the Goethe-Institute in Damascus until 8 December, included participants from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Syria. Syrian filmmaker Firas Dehni, co-organiser of the workshop, said participants discussed how television producers could depict war and violence for young audiences, in both factual and fictional formats, and how to develop ideas for new programming. “Children in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Palestine, are exposed to all forms of violence – we were badly in need of holding such a workshop,” he said. According to Nafti, images of war and violence can be extremely stressful for children. She asked 10 year-old participants what their impressions were after watching current television news bulletins. “Is there such violence in reality?” children asked, saying that they would never want to live in either Iraq or Palestine. Speakers at the workshop noted that, while violence was often a fact of life for many young people in the Arab world, images of war on television were only presented for adult audiences. Very little programming, they added, dealt with the subject from a children’s perspective. Studies indicate that children spend an average of six hours a day watching television, while more than 60 percent of television programming includes images of violence. Regular exposure to such material, noted experts, can ultimately lead to violent dispositions. “Children who watch violence tend to get violent ideas and show violent behaviour,” Dr. Mohammad Adib Essali, chairman of the Syrian Association of Psychiatrists in Damascus, said. "The effect of the mass media can be alleviated through setting time for children to watch TV, monitoring the films they watch, in addition to spreading counter-violence values and teaching children peaceful methods to solve their problems," he added.