Religion in Children’s Visual Media: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Preschool Holiday Specials

ABSTRACT

Children adopt lifelong attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs from media messages, yet little is known about what messages visual media send to children on religion. This study addresses this literature gap by analyzing depictions of religion in holiday specials aired in 2018 from three top preschool networks: Disney Junior, Nick Jr., and PBS Kids. Using qualitative content analysis, this study reveals that preschool holiday specials are shifting away from more in-depth portrayals of diverse religions toward commercialized, generalized, and secularized portrayals of Christmas. Although Chanukah and other non-Christmas religious holiday specials are, on average, older and less common than Christmas specials, they portray non-Christmas traditions in greater religious depth than the more recent and numerous Christmas specials portray Christmas. These findings illumine American religious holiday practices and attitudes and provide insights for enhancing media literacy on religion in children’s media and for understanding television’s potential influence on children’s perceptions of religion.

KEYWORDS:

• Chanukah
• children’s media
• Christmas
• Disney Junior
• holidays
• Kwanzaa
• media literacy
• Nick Jr.
• PBS Kids
• preschool
• content analysis
• television

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ See, for example, Christiano and Swatos (1999).

² For a comprehensive summary of this debate, see Davie (2013).