Research project

Children’s sense of humour
Children like to laugh and they do it a lot. Supposedly, laughter is also nothing unusual in television. Nevertheless, the question what children laugh about and, in particular, what they find funny in the actual TV programme is scarcely investigated by international research. Here, the IZI starts work and co-operates with various renowned communication scientists and media pedagogues.

A. What do primary school children laugh about in everyday life?
Norbert Neuss, Ph.D., (PH Heidelberg) investigates types of children’s humour and their meaning in everyday life. The study uses several methods for the approach: The understanding of humour is being differentiated in about 30 group discussions with 6 to 8 primary school children at a time. The approach to humour in everyday situations is offered by diaries that have been written by parents. They had been asked to observe and note down scenes of humour of their children over a period of 6 months. Moreover, children write compositions about their experience with humour in television.

B. The understanding of humour: a comparison of pre-teens’ (10-13 years old) and adults
At the Film and Television Academy “Konrad Wolf” in Potsdam/Babelsberg, attractive comedy programmes for children are investigated under the direction of Prof. Lothar Mikos and Elisabeth Prommer, Ph.D. By means of the GfK-“quotas”, particularly successful formats could be identified with the 10 to 13-year-olds: “Die Camper” (“The Camper”), “Ritas Welt” (“Rita’s World) as well as “The Simpsons” and “The Pink Panther”. These series are analysed with respect to the applied humour. Afterwards it will be brought out what is funny for children and adults respectively in these programmes on the basis of group discussions and individual interviews.

C. Humour in the explicit children’s television
The “Kasseler Medienpädagogik” (“media pedagogy in Kassel”) carries out a qualitative media analysis under the direction of Prof. Ben Bachmair on the basis of the survey about children’s television in 2002 and the presently typical forms of humour in the explicit children’s programme.

D. Assumption on the part of the production of when a programme is funny for children and of the children’s reactions
The IZI carries out a partial study about programmes that are successful with children and considered funny for children by the editorial department. The people in charge of the children’s programme comment on their programmes as to which scenes are presumably funny for children. As second step children get to see the same episode and they judge when a programme is funny. In the qualitative study, which works with videotaping, participating observation and partner interviews (belated loud thinking), the evaluations of both the producers and the children will then be compared.In the quantitative part of this substudy 115 kids evaluated the programmes with a Fun-O-Meter.

E. The sensation of humour by international standards:
In 2005, the IZI investigated into a multinational comparative study. In Ireland, Germany, South Africa and the USA, 494 children (aged 8-10) watched the same TV programmes, discussed and evaluated by using the Fun-O-Meter. The cooperation partners are Maya Götz, Dr. phil., Shalom Fisch, Ph.D., Professor Dafna Lemish, Firdoze Bulbulia, Professor Máire Messenger Davies, Ralf Schauer and Bruce Homer, Ph.D.The results will be introduced at the Prix Jeunesse 2006.

F. Evaluation of funny programmes by international standards:
Children from China, South Africa, Danemark and Germany judge the same current Prix Jeunesse Finalist programmes by using the Fun-O-Meter.

G. Laughing in front of the TV by international standards:
Children from 13 countries were filmed while watching funny international productions. It will be evaluated if they laugh, smile or turn away.The results of the subproject are illustrated in the German specialist journal “TelevIZIon” 16/2003/1 and in its English issue of 2006.

further areas of work