Octonauts - National Identity and Attribution Theory

Abstract

Children develop a sense of their own national identities, and knowledge of and attitudes towards other nations, around five to seven years old, with the media facilitating such learning. Though multiple psychological studies in this area exist, they must continue given the growing accessibility of media content and its potential impact upon children's attitudes towards people from other nations, and to better relate culture to attribution theory. To address this, content and discourse analyses, and an adapted version of Kelley's covariation model of attribution theory were applied to the children's television series Octonauts to determine how character behaviours were explained to children, how these behaviours relate to character national identities, and the potential representational impact of these relationships. Findings show the majority of behaviours were explained through internal attributions, fitting the series' educational focus, with some national identities being assigned to explain character behaviours or relationships between characters whilst also propagating negative representations of some nations. Findings also discuss missed opportunities for the series to enhance the geographic knowledge of child audiences, and how efforts to change behaviours within episodes potentially influence the moral development of children. Corresponding address: alexbrady1@hotmail.com