Cultural Identity through the small screen in globalization scene

The domination of foreign children programs and the lack of local children’s programs on Indonesian national television form the outline of this thesis. This phenomenon mainly occurred as a form of (media and cultural) globalization. Children’s television programs, especially those produced in US, are widespread across nations. Children around the world are most likely consuming the same programs from transnational children’s media companies, namely Nickelodeon, Disney, Cartoon Network. As foreign programs occupy the majority of the schedules of children’s television in Indonesia, Indonesian children are getting more exposed to foreign programs rather than locally produced programs. Since television is regarded as the medium, which represents a nation’s culture, thus in this case, the content of program is perceived to be influential upon the viewers in shaping their cultural identity through the cultural values presented in the content. The cultivation concept introduced by George Gerbner is used as the media effects theory to explain the process of cultivating the cultural values incorporated in television content. This thesis examines the cultural values carried in children’s television in Indonesia. There are three children’s programs examined in this thesis, representing local, glocalization (localized foreign program) and foreign programs. Content analysis method is applied to examine the cultural values in children’s programs with an additional interview with the children viewers. The results of this study indicate that glocalization programs have presented more of Indonesian cultural values than foreign and local programs. Moreover, it also implied the preference of Indonesian children for foreign programs to glocalization and local programs. Another remarkable note to bear in mind is animation or cartoon programs are still considered the most appropriate to reach children viewers. Therefore it is deemed necessary to have locally produced animations for Indonesian children viewers. As for the cultivation of cultural values in children’s programs, further study must be conducted regarding the influence of television content on children’s cultural identity, since this thesis observed the preference of children viewers to foreign programs, which may serve as the basis of cultivation analysis.