Articles

Media expert Patricia Edgar describes issues surrounding her past efforts to set up an early childhood program for television. In doing so, she takes up themes from a keynote presentation by Professor Howard Gardner to the recent Future Minds Forum in Melbourne. She argues that television for children worldwide has become a negative force, delivering programs ‘of inconsequence with a commercial purpose’. She calls for an integrated approach to education, health and communication policy for children: current education policy 'does not deal with the media. I think it must, for the negative and powerful influence of the media in a free-market economy is too overpowering for parents and educators to contend with’.