An examination on the quality of contents of the cartoons that children aged 3-6 years preferred to watch : ‘ The cartoon I like most

In this study it was aimed to examine the content quality of cartoons preferred to watch by 3-6 years children. The content quality of the cartoons in current study was investigated under two titles: ‘themes and futures of characters’. Themes of the cartoons were analyzed under three subtitles: reality status, contents and types of messages. Features of the characters in the cartoons were analyzed under four subtitles: gender, type, number and character-preference reasons. The sample of the study was composed of a total 312 children. The data of the study were obtained from face to face interviews with cartoons-images. The data were analyzed using percentages (%) and frequency (f) whereas differences related age and gender were analyzed with chi-square test. In the pictures drawn by the children; it was seen that they drew 29 different cartoons. The cartoon preferences of the children may differ according to the content quality of the cartoons. Theme and character features of the cartoons preferred by the children may differ according to their ages and genders.


INTRODUCTION
Cartoons are the most favorite programs watched by 6-18 years children (The Supreme Board of Radio and Television-SBRT, 2013).Cartoons draw attention of the children thanks to their characters, contents, sound effects, unexpected and surprising visuals (Güler, 2013;Peri, 1997;Çelen, 1995).
Features of visualization and contents play key role in determining the quality of the cartoons.Images in the cartoons are expressive means for transferring the content of cartoons to children (Kagan, 1982).Futures of cartoons such as color, light, draw make formative future of cartoons.On the other hand theme and character features make content features of the cartoons (Güler, 2013).Each cartoon sends a message.It is visualized with a figurative narration (Güler, 1989).Figurative narration is affected by the formative and content features (Cesur and Paker, 2007).
Themes of the cartoons are fictionalized in two ways: "real" and "unreal" events (Güler, 1989).Real events are based on true stories or quasi-real stories which include real-life characters, stories and social contexts (İnce, 1991).Unreal events are fictionalized, animated and the targeted stories which include imaginative elements and even the most improbable events are displayed as if they were real (Altaç, 1994).
Theme presentation way in cartoons determines of the content of cartoons.For example; "science fiction" cartoons enable the children to consume technology as fast and aim to strength the importance, power and charming effect of technology on children."Emotional" cartoons deal with such basic emotions as happiness, love, sadness.The cartoons that address such universal values as sharing, cooperation and solidarity are the "ones that prepare the children for life.""Educational" cartoons simply aim at teaching/learning (Rigel, 1993).Theme in a cartoon is based either on the transfer of reality into imagination or concrete presentation of imagination (Kracauer, 1971).In this case; themes of the cartoons gain "concrete", "abstract" or "absurd" visualization.If the themes are perceivable with real life situations they are accepted as "concrete" cartoons; if the themes become real with reasoning or inferences, they are accepted as "abstract" cartoons but, if they break logical rules they are accepted as "absurd" cartoons (Işık, 2008).
What makes cartoons attractive is their characters.The characters in a cartoon are "animals", "humans" and "imaginative" characters.Human and animal characters are examples from the daily life whereas imaginative characters provide narration richness (Pembecioğlu, 2006).Success of the characters in cartoons is associated with their ability to demonstrate human qualities, to provide identification and to share the same emotions (Buckingham, 1996;Gregory, 2013;Güler, 2013).In this sense; gender features of the characters become important.The characters in a cartoon are displayed in two ways according to their genders.For example; if genders are clearly distinguished in cartoons, they are called gender specific characters.If gender of character is vague and is used for both genders, it is called unisex character (Ketenci, 2013).Besides, the number of the characters during the narration of the event is important.Events may be featured around "one character" as well as around "more than one character" and "put emphasis on team work, solidarity and sharing".All of these are the reasons why the cartoons are popular.
Well-designed cartoons make noteworthy contributions to the behaviors and cognitive growth of the children (Yağlı, 2013;Bulut-Pedük, 2012;Akpınar, 2004;Öztürk, 2000;Güngör and Ersoy, 1997;Can, 1995;Çelen, 1995;Pearl et al., 1982).Colorful, exaggerated and enjoyable world created by the cartoons both amuse and affect the children very much (Peri, 1997).Children may internalize the events and characters as they watch the cartoons (Oruç et al., 2011).Particularly, characters are important identification models for children (Yavuzer, 2013;Yorulmaz, 2013;Postman, 1994).Thus; the children may get the opportunity to observe different worlds (Rigel, 1993).When children reached three years old, they gain television viewing habits and they spend 1-2 hours by watching TV (Hollenbeck and Slaby, 1979).Because of the fact that they spend much time in front of the screens, today's media compete with socialization tools such as family, neighborhood, social environment.Television is an effective social learning resources for children (Aşar, 2014).In this context, cartoons undertake the role of a teacher for children with messages transferred deliberately and consciously.However, just as in all mass media, the cartoons have commercial purposes and have strong ties with the industry.İşler (2014) noted that cartoons are direct lines to the consumption of children.Today it is undeniable that as well as entertaining and educational purposes, cartoons contribute to impulsive purchasing behavior.Therefore, there is a need to know the characteristics of the cartoons watched by the children.When the literature was searched, no study that investigated the correlation between specific properties of cartoons and age and gender of children aged 3 years who gained television viewing habits were identified.
As a part of the study aims; themes and features of the characters in the cartoons the children liked watching were investigated.Therefore; it was analyzed whether or not themes and features of the cartoons differed in terms of ages and genders of the children.

Research design, instrumentations and procedures
The data of the study were obtained from face to face interviews with the children.First; 20-25 minute interviews were made with each child individually.During the interviews; the children were asked to answer these questions: "Which cartoon do you watch the most on TV?", "Which cartoon characters do you like watching?","Why do you like these cartoons and cartoon characters the most?"Later; the children were asked to draw a picture about the topic "The cartoon I like the most" and to talk about the picture they drew.Second; the cartoons drawn by the children were watched on the Internet.Third; themes and features of the characters of these cartoons were determined.(I) Themes of the cartoons were analyzed under three titles: First; reality status of cartoons which was examined in two topics (real and unreal), the second; contents of cartoons in four topics (preparatory to life, educative, science fiction and emotional) and the third; types of messages of cartoons which were examined under three topics (concrete, abstract and absurd).(II) Features of the characters of the cartoons were analyzed under four topics.gender (gender-associated and unisex character), character types (human, animal and imaginary), the number of characters (one character and more than one character) and reasons for liking characters (personality characteristics of the character, physical features of the character, having the same object as the character, the way the character spoke and the frequently repeated voices, words or sentences, behaviors of the characters, songs of the character and soundtracks of the cartoon and skills of the character).Finally; the information obtained from the face to face interviews were conducted with the children and their ages, genders and features of the advertisements were recorded.

Research sample
It was stated that children about 6 months begin to show interest in television (Hollenbeck and Slaby, 1979) and they have 1-2 hours daily television viewing habits after the age of 3. At this age, children usually can't understand fully the issues and dialogues between characters.They show interest colors, music and the movements of cartoons (Potter, 2001, p. 21).Elaboration of the content of cartoons watched by the children starts after the age of 4. Therefore the sample of the study was randomly recruited from the children aged 3-6 years who attended to pre-school education institutions.The sample included a total of 312 children; 148 (47.7%) of them were girls and 164 (52.6%) were boys.73 children (23.4%) belonged to 3-year age group, 77 children (24.7%) belonged to 4-year age group, 85 children (24.2%) belonged to 5year age group and 77 children (24.7%) belonged to 6-year age group.

Data analysis
The descriptive data were analyzed using percentages (%) and frequency (f).Whether or not themes and features of the characters of the cartoons differed in terms of age and gender related differences was analyzed through chi-square test.

RESULTS
When the pictures drawn about "The cartoon I like the most."were assessed; it was noted that there were 29 different cartoons.When these cartoons were examined in terms of themes and features of the characters; the following descriptive information were obtained: 1. 51.9% of the cartons included themes of "real" events whereas 48.1% of them included themes of "unreal" events.2. 38.8% of the cartoons included contents that "preparatory for life", 31.7% included "educative" contents (i.e.learning shape of objects), 15.7% included "science fiction" contents and 13.8% included "emotional" contents (i.e.basic emotions such as happiness, love, sadness).3. 33.3% of the cartoons had "concrete" messages, which were perceivable with real life situations (i.e.hot things burn), 33.0% had "abstract" messages which had the themes become real with reasoning or inferences (i.e.bravery is stronger than power) and 33.7% had "absurd" messages which were apart from logical rules (i.e. the universe would turn out to be doughnut shaped.4. 51.6% of the cartoons used "humans", 12.5% used "animals" and 35.9% used "imaginative characters".5. 58.3% included "gender-associated" characters while 41.7% included "unisex" characters.6. 56.4% of the cartoons were featured around "one character" while 43.6% were featured around "more than one character"' that put emphasis on solidarity, team work and sharing.7. When character-preference reasons were examined it was seen that "personal features of the character" were in 21.2%, "physical features of the character" were 20.8%, "to have the same objects as the character" were 22.1%, "the way the character spoke and the frequently repeated voices, words or sentences" were 9.3%, "behaviors of the character" were 9.3%, "songs of the character and soundtracks of the cartoon" were 8.7% and "skills of the character" were 8.7% of the cartoons. When the findings in Table 1 were analyzed; it was found that girls preferred watching the cartoons with real events (31.4%) and concrete messages (20.2%).Among the most favorite cartoons educative cartoons were (18.3%), cartoons including preparatory for life were (15.1%) and emotional ones were (10.3%).Science fictional cartoons were preferred by the girls the least (3.8%).Boys preferred watching the cartoons in which unreal events (32.1%), abstract themes (19.9%) and absurd messages (19.6%) the most.Among these cartoons liked the most by boys, including preparatory for life contents were (23.7%), educative contents were (13.5%) and science fictional ones were (11.9%).Emotional cartoons were preferred by the boys the least (3.8%).In light of the results of the chi-square analyses; it was determined that there were significant differences between the gender of the children, and reality status of the cartoons they liked (Pearson Chi-Square=23.04, p=0.00), types of the contents (Pearson Chi-Square=30.57, p=0.00) and types of messages (Pearson Chi-Square=10.90, p=0.00) at p value=.01.
When the findings in Table 2 were analyzed; it was seen that girls preferred the cartoons in which human characters existed (27.9%).These human characters in the cartoons generally had the same gender as the children did (32.7%)and the cartoons in which human characters existed were featured with only one character (27.6%).The reasons why cartoons were liked the most were having the same object as the characters (10.6%), personality characteristics of the characters (9.3%) and physical features of the characters (9.0%); respectively.The reasons why cartoons were liked the least were the way the character spoke and the frequently repeated voices, words or sentences (5.1%), behaviors of the characters (4.8%), skills of the characters (4.5%) and songs the characters sang and soundtracks of the cartoon (4.2%); respectively.As for the boys; it was noted that they preferred the cartoons in which human characters (23.7%) and (20.5%) imaginative characters existed.These characters were generally unisex (26.9%) and the cartoon was featured with only one character (28.8%).The reasons why cartoons were liked the most were personality characteristics of the characters (11.9%), physical features of the characters (11.9%) and having the same object as the characters (11.5%); respectively.The reasons why cartoons were liked the least were behaviors of the characters (4.5%) and songs of the characters and soundtracks of the cartoon (4.5%), the way the character spoke and the frequently repeated voices, words or sentences (4.2%) and skills of the characters (4.5%).According to the chi-square test results; there were significant differences between the gender of the children and the character types of the cartoons they liked (Pearson Chi-Square=6.87,p=0.03).However; there were no significant differences between  the gender of the children and the number of the characters of the cartoons they liked (Pearson Chi-Square=0.33,p=0.57) and the reasons why they liked the characters of the cartoons p=0.92).
When the findings in Table 3 were investigated; it was found out that children aged 3 years (17.0%), 4 (16.0%) and 5 years (13.8%)preferred themes with real events but the children aged 6 years (19.6%)liked the cartoons in which themes with unreal events were involved.The cartoons that included themes that were preparatory for life and educational were mostly preferred by the children aged 3 years (12.8%,9.9%), 4 years (12.5%, 11.2%) and 5 years (10.6%, 8.7%).On the other hand, the cartoons that included science fictional (10.3%) and emotional (9.6%) themes were mostly preferred by the children aged 6 years.The cartoons with concrete messages were watched by the children aged 3 years (15.7%) and 4 years (9.0%).But the cartoons with absurd messages were mainly watched by the children aged 5 years (12.2%)whereas those with abstract messages were mostly chosen by the children aged 6 years.According to the chi-square test results; it was determined that there were significant differences between the ages of the children and the reality status of the cartoons they liked (Pearson Chi-Square=47.71, p=0.00), types of contents (Pearson Chi-Square=146.85,p=0.00), and types of messages (Pearson Chi-Square=59.33, p=0.00) at p value=.01.
When the findings in Table 4 were studied; it was explored that the cartoons in which human characters existed were liked by all age-groups (10.6%, 13.5%, 13.5%, and 14.1%).Unisex characters were mostly liked by the children aged 3 years (12.5%).The children aged 4 years (13.5%), 5 years (13.8%) and 6 years (20.2%)mainly liked gender-associated characters.6 year-old children enjoyed watching the cartoons in which multiple characters put emphasis on solidarity, team work and sharing (13.8%).3 years children (16.7%), 4 years children (14.4%) and 5 years children (14.4%) chiefly watched the cartoons featured with one character.It was understood that the reason why the children aged 3 years (5.1%) and 4 years (6.1%) liked the characters was their physical features.Children aged 5 years (6.1%) liked the characters thanks to their personality characteristics whereas children 6 years (6.4%) loved the characters thanks to having the same object as the characters in the cartoons.According to the chi-square test results; no significant differences were found between the ages of the children and the characters of the cartoons they liked p=0.23), and the reasons why they liked the characters (Pearson Chi-Square=3.50,p=0.57).However; it was discovered that significant differences were found between the ages of the children and the gender of the characters (Pearson Chi-Square=24.18, p=0.00), and the number of the characters in the cartoons p=0.01).

DISCUSSION
"Reality" is defined as everything that exists (TDK, 1998).Each cartoon exists by building up its own reality and world of images and thus attempts to create its own reality (Ketenci, 2013).According to the findings of the study; children 3-5 years loved the cartoons with "real" themes whereas children 6 years liked the cartoons with"unreal" themes (Table 3).Again; girls preferred the cartoons with "real" themes whereas boys enjoyed the cartoons with "unreal" themes (Table 1).While the cartoons producing their own realities, they are lived in the children's world through identification.Thus, they Behaviors of the characters 7 2.2 6 1.9 8 2.6 8 2.6 Songs of the character and soundtracks of the cartoon 7 2.2 6 1.9 7 2.2 7 2.2 Skills of the character 6 1.9 6 1.9 8 2.6 7 2.2 N = 312 convey the children the message that "you can identify yourself with the character you admire" (Ketenci, 2013).The findings of the current study pointed out that that the message of "you can identify yourself with the character you admire."was differently perceived by the children depending on their ages and genders.Bukatko (2007) emphasized that children were freed from their selfcentered personalities as they grew and became more successful in perceiving objects, situations or reality status of the events.In Lemish's ( 2013) "reality" principle; it was seen that the children perceived the realities of the cartoons better as their ages advanced.Another finding of the current study was that girls concentrated on the themes consisted of life-related and probable events in the cartoons more whereas boys concentrated on the imaginative themes more.As stated by Kağıtçıbaşı (2004); that children have different preferences according to their genders may be associated with their social role expectations.In our society; particularly girls are more occupied with the activities that are preparatory for life (playing house, helping mothers with housework).
When the correlation between ages and genders of the participant children, and "types of the contents" of the cartoons that they loved was examined; it was noted that both girls and boys preferred cartoons that including educative and preparatory for life more (Table 1).Cartoons with emotional themes were liked by girls more while cartoons with science fictional themes were loved by boys themes (Table 1).Besides, children aged 3-5 years preferred cartoons with themes that were educative and preparatory for life while children aged 6 years enjoyed the cartoons which contained science fictional themes and emotional themes (Table 3).Although all these findings made us think that the children watched the cartoons that they needed, were interested in and liked; there may be changes in their preferences according to the age and gender of the children (Anderson et al., 2001;Rigel, 1993).
The theme in cartoon is embodied through either on the transfer of reality into imagination or concrete presentation of imagination (Kracauer, 1971).In this case; whether or not a theme in a cartoon is understood depends on the children's understanding these imaginative and concrete messages (Loizou, 2005).So, children become able to understand unreasonable, irrational or inconsistent and incoherent things changes depending on their cognitive thinking capacities.For example; children aged 3-5 years old just laugh at the exaggerated situations, objects and humans while children aged 6 ≥ years find inconsistent or impossible words rather funny (McGhee, 1971).According to the study findings; it was found out that the children 3-4 years liked the cartoons with concrete messages, the children 5 years old loved the cartoons with absurd messages and the children 6 years old preferred the cartoons with abstract messages (Table 3).Girls preferred the cartoons with concrete messages while boys preferred the cartoons with abstract and absurd messages (Table 1).All of these findings indicated that types of the messages in the cartoons watched by children might change in line with their cognitive growth and ages.Meanwhile; that girls preferred the concrete cartoons while boys preferred the abstract and absurd cartoons supported our study findings of reality status because the cartoons with real themes comprise concrete messages; which was an important finding that there might be gender differences.
When "the character types" of the cartoons the participant children liked were examined in terms of age and gender; it was noted that both girls and boys chiefly loved the cartoons with human characters.The cartoons with imaginative characters were in the second place and the cartoons with animal characters were in the third place (Table 2).Besides; the children of all age groups preferred the cartoons with human characters (Table 4).According to the Kohlberg; children 3-6 years old are in a period when they begin to understand gender-continuity (Trautner et al., 2003).The reason why the children of this period particularly prefer human characters reflects the characteristic features of the period (age of 3-6 years) (Troseth, 2003); and physical images extensively affect the judgments of the children therefore it is usual that the children prefer the cartoons with human characters with whom they can identify themselves and share their emotions.The reason why imaginative and animal characters were loved less than human characters may be that gender differences among these characters are not evident and thus the children cannot identify themselves with these characters.The gender effect upon the attempts made by the children to identify themselves with the characters in cartoons is very enormous (Ketenci, 2013).Therefore; it is an expected outcome that girls identify themselves with feminine characters while boys identify themselves with masculine characters.According to our study-findings; girls preferred gender-related characters while boys liked unisex characters in the (Table 2).Also, it was seen that 3-years old children liked the cartoons where unisex characters existed whereas 4-6 year old children loved the cartoons with gender-related characters; which was quite correlated with the study-results above mentioned because the children younger than 3 cannot understand gender-continuity and gender-constancy yet; it is a growth-related outcome that they prefer the cartoons with unisex characters (Table 4).On the other hand; the children older than 3 gradually understand gender-continuity and gender-constancy and as a result, it was an expected outcome tha t they liked the gender-Kilicgun 1421 dominant cartoons in which their gender differences were obvious.No matter what their genders are, the children learn their gender roles since early ages (Kılcı, 2009).Many characters in cartoons serve as examples and teach the children various roles associated with social values.Besides; these characters are supernatural heroes for children causing them to identify themselves with these heroes (Elkin 1995).According to the social learning theory; humans need to see how a behavior is performed so that they can learn the same behaviors (Bandura, 1977).During this process; the similarities (age, gender, etc.) between the model-receiver and the observer increase the rate of the behavior to be imitated (Erdal, 2012).Thus; during the process in which the children perceive and evaluate the real world, they identify themselves with the fictional characters offered and are affected by the behaviors demonstrated by these fictional characters (Öktem et al., 2006).In the cartoons; events may be featured around one character as well as around multiple characters that put emphasis on team work, solidarity and sharing.In the current study; it was noted that both girls and boys liked the cartoons in which events were featured around one character (Table 2).Also; it was seen that the children aged 3-5 years old chose the cartoons in which events were featured around one character whereas the children aged 6 years preferred the cartoons in which events were featured around multiple characters that emphasized on team work, solidarity and sharing (Table 4).All of these findings made us conclude that the number of the characters in the cartoons they like may change in relation with their increasing ages, social developments and changing needs and interests.Thus; the children obtain the opportunity to learn role models important for social life (Erdoğan, 2010).
Image is something designed in mind and desired to happen (Turkish Language Association, 1998).These moving images exist with the characters in cartoons (Ketenci, 2013).The degree children can identify themselves with these characters determines the degree they love the characters in the cartoons (Çelen, 1995;Moscovici, 1988;Reeves and Garramore, 1982).In the current study; it was explored that the first three reasons why the characters in the cartoons were loved by both girls and boys were having the same object as the characters in the cartoons, personality characteristics of the characters and physical features of the characters (Table 2).Main character-preference reason by the children aged 3 and 4 was physical features of the characters, main character-preference reason by the children 5 years old was personality characteristics of the characters and main character-preference reason by the children aged 6 was having the same object as the characters (Table 4).All of these findings emphasized that the children first identified themselves with physical and personality characteristics of the characters in the cartoons at first but later, having the same object as the characters became more important.The children learn complex and generalized behavior scenarios and behavior patterns through repetitive observations from their parents, family members, teachers, peers, other members in the society and the characters popularized by the mass media (Guerra et al., 2003;Huesmann and Guerra, 1997).
Thus; the children build up their social-cognitive schemes (Yetim and Yetim, 2008).Therefore; it is normal that the children initially establish their preference/liking reasons regarding the characters thanks to their physical and personality features.Nevertheless; today cartoons have turned out to be an object of consumption apart from entertainment and educational objectives and have produced meta-ideal characters in order to stimulate the watchers to consume more.The main objective is to make the children who are the target-group to identify themselves with these characters and hence big efforts are made to make the children to purchase accessories (costumes, toys, tools, etc.) popularized by the characters.
Having the same object as the characters, children identify themselves more with those characters (Ketenci, 2013).It was concluded that in line with the increasing age of the children; character-preference reasons by the children were replaced by having the same object as the characters; which was -in our opinion-due to the fact that cartoons/characters have become objects of consumption.
In light of all these findings; it might be argued that themes and character features in the cartoons that the children 3-6 years old liked may change depending on their ages and genders.Considering the fact that cartoons play a significant role in today's learning experiences and consumption sector; we suggested that these findings would draw the attention of parents and educators as well as cartoon producers, toys industry and customers.
In this context, it can be mentioned about negative effects of the cartoons.Cartoons "useful" and "harmful" for children can be arguable.However, if media literacy can be introduced to children from an early age, they can benefit from cartoons positively.The study can be designed with different sample groups (for example; rural-urban populations) by studying the effects of the different variables (for example; socio-economical level) of the children and the families.Also; changes that cartoons loved by the children undergo in time and the effects of these changes upon the children's TV watching preferences in the future -if any-may be investigated, too.

Table 1 .
The themes of the cartoons according to genders of the children.

Table 2 .
The features of the characters in the cartoons according to genders of the children.

Table 3 .
The features of the themes of the cartoons according to ages of the children.

Table 4 .
The features of the characters in the cartoons according to ages of the children.