Children's View of Self and Comic Books S.N. Ume University, Ume, Sweden

Comic books are one of the most popular modern mass cultures spreading and circulating in the Japanese society. They cover a wide range of subjects, such as daily life, social and political issues, myths, religion, and history. It has popularity as a major form of handy entertainment for everyone from children to adults. According to the survey of NHK (Japan broadcasting corporation, 1990), 80% of elementary school children read comic books. It is also reported that younger the parents' age, read more comic books (father = 47%, mother = 35%). Children tend to draw as they see in comics, in order to gain what they are moved and influenced. It is an effective to unite self and the character, by doing so children can fill up the gap between actual-self (the self actually is) and ideal-self (the self that one would like to be)(Inoue & Yamashita, 2001). Comic books are so influential in Japan that occasionally, in therapeutic practice, the comic characters appear in the children's dreams. However, the problem is on the character products (Inoue & Yamashita, 2001). In Japan, there are many media related products such as notebooks, pencils, and sweets (Yamashita & Inoue, 2001) state the surrounding with unrealistic characters skew the reality and ideal world, and let us to remain in the unreal world, which they called "virtual reality". They suggest to be aware the effect, which causes low self-awareness and self-concept. Children have the potential to influence how children view the world of self among the popular children's comics. Children have familiarity with at least one character. Children select characters with whom they identify or admire. Some characters have very specific cultural significance and may even represent archetypal personality types (Pink Panther as the confident trickster; Anpanman as the powerful but benevolent friend). From the child's point of view, characters are neighbors that shared in their rationality. Kline states young children may believe misleading claims because they cannot distinguish reality from fantasy (Kline, 1993). This vulnerability fades as children gain more real world experience with products and are cognitively more able to recognize the persuasive intent of commercials use their real-world knowledge (Ramsey & Anderson, 2001). In contrast, Turkle suggests that children can distinguish from reality and ideality (Turkle, 1995). They defined people in contrast to characters. But since the characters are unreal, people are special because they could feel both emotionally and physically (Turkle, 1995). Many other environments fall somewhere in between reality and fantasy. By reading comics, and fantasize the character as ideal-self, children are allowed to speak free in their mind without inhabitation in their fantasy (Turkle, 1995), and could get away with being to be someone very different than who they are, while retaining them other true characteristics. So far, there is too little research on effect of comic books and characters to the child in psychology, because comic books are generally are considered to be an entertainment that isn't usually studied in psychology. Comic books have a long tradition of providing help and guidance toward designing a fantasy world that might be interesting to visit. It might be necessary to consider the effect on children's view of self, as the comic books and the character live very close to them.

References Inoue, R. & Yamashita, T. Shakai Shinrigaku. (in Japanese). Natumesha, 2001 Kline, S. (1993). Out of the garden: Toys, TV and children's culture in the age of marketing. New York: Verso. Turkle, S. (1995) Life on the Screen. SIMON & SCHUSTER. Ramsey, P. & Anderson, M. (2001). Gotta Get Them All! The Pokemon Craze and Children's Responses to Television Advertising. Early Education and Child Development. Child Research Net would like to thank Saori Nishikawa, student of Department of Psychology, Ume University, for contributing this article to the CRN web site.

Copyright (c) 2004, Child Research Net, All rights reserved.