ABSTRACT
Qualitative research on television audiences has often been motivated by a desire to take the viewer’s side-in effect, to speak on behalf of those who are seen to lack a voice. In the case of research on children and television, this has arisen at least partly as a response to public debates, which have characteristically regarded children as merely passive victims of the medium. The notion of the ‘television zombie’ has increasingly been challenged by a view of children as active, sophisticated, discriminating viewers.
