"The Children Talk about the Comics"
Excerpt from Fiske, Marjorie and Katherine Wolf, “The Children Talk about the Comics: A Report on Comic Book Reading, Based on Detailed Case Studies of 100 Children from Various Family Backgrounds,” Communications Research: 1948–1949, edited by Paul Felix Lazarsfeld and Frank Stanton. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949, renewed (c) 1977 by Frank Stanton and Patricia Kendall (used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers)
Excerpted by Aimee-Marie Dorsten
Contributor’s note: Footnotes from the original. I have preserved the style of the original notes. Underlining has been changed to italics throughout.
INTRODUCTION
THE PROBLEM
This study is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, which has attempted to get any direct information about the impact of comic book reading on children. A vast new medium of communication has been developed in the past few years and now reaches probably at least as many children as are exposed to motion picture and radio, for which elaborate research projects have long since been in operation. Although a new generation is growing up under the influence of this medium, sociologists, psychologists, educators, and publishers have to date been able to do little but speculate as to how this medium influences the behavior, attitudes and developmental pattern of that generation.
This study does not purport to provide the final answer to these questions. The objectives, in fact, are rather modest: to procure from a small, but representative, group of children between seven and seventeen their own reports about their comic book reading experience, and to get from those reports some impression of the motives for and effect of comic book reading among different groups in relation to their general behavior.
THE SAMPLE AND THE METHODS
The emphasis was on gaining insight into the nature of comic book reading experiences among different kinds of children rather than on procuring a quantitative picture of how many and what kinds of comics are read by the population at large. Detailed interviews were therefore held with a sample restricted to 104 children, carefully stratified according to age, sex, and economic status. Slightly more than half were eleven or twelve years old 1, and the rest were fairly evenly distributed down to seven and up to seventeen. Notice was also taken of the number of brothers and sisters in the family, because of the possible influence of siblings on comic reading behavior. Approximately three-fourths of the interviews were done in greater New York (in public and private schools, settlement houses and private homes); the remaining fourth were done for checking purposes in rural areas of Connecticut. 2
Each child was interviewed for more than an hour, during which time he was asked various questions concerning his comic reading habits, background, and social adjustment. In addition, his behavior was observed while he read a Superman story and was subjected to certain deliberate distractions. Interviewers were provided with an “interview guide” 3 but were instructed to allow children to talk on more or less at will, so long as the discussion remained relevant to reading comics. 4… ## CHILDREN ON COMICS
…The ambiguous attitude of adults towards comics is embryonically present in the children as well.
Children read comics and are, of course, unwilling to directly admit that such reading could have any harmful effect upon them. Asked, “Did comics ever make you do something bad?” every child without exception replied, “No.”
The seed of the anti-comic prejudice is already apparent, however, for the child almost inevitably adopts a double standard. He exempts himself, on one pretext or another, from social jurisdiction, but the moment he is made a legislator he is ready to enforce the standard for others. When asked, “Do you think comics are good or bad for younger children?” Many children see potent danger in the medium. The criticism of such children almost always conforms to one of three patterns according as the children is (1) in the late Superman stage, (2) an adult imitator or (3) a self-reliant, mature child.
CRITICISM BY SELF-RELIANT AND MATURE CHILDREN
A third group of children, all of whom are moderate readers, are apparently able to evaluate their own comic reading experiences and on the basis of these experiences identify younger children and accurately evaluate the effects of comic reading. Unlike their parents, whose criticism of comic reading are based on exaggerated if not wholly illusory dangers, these children seem to have discovered for themselves many of the facts demonstrated by this study.
Thus, such children realize that it is only the fan, and not the moderate reader, for whom comics are harmful.
Most people say they are bad. They are not bad, not if you don’t read too many. (Boy—10—A)
They are also aware that comic reading follows a developmental pattern, and that for the most children it is merely a matter of time until they stop reading too many comics.
I don’t think comic books are bad for children. We grow out of the comic stage. [When is the comic stage?] From 8 to 11. Then we slowly outgrow them. (Girl—12—B)
These children, unlike their parents and friends, realize that the influence of anything is largely dependent on the psychological make-up of the persons being influenced. To be sure, this point is not usually made in scientific language.
I’d say they weren’t very bad but they weren’t good either. It depends what kind of child it was. It it’s a child of a nervous type it would affect them very badly. With other children it would probably not affect them at all. (Girl—12—A)
The mystery comics might give nightmares to some children, but not to all: only those who are nervous to begin with. (Boy—11—A)
But some children even formulate the case in scientific accuracy and terminology.
I don’t think they are bad. They have a different reaction on different children. You have to know the emotional set-up of the child before you can tell. (Girl—12—C)
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Children manifest the same ambivalence toward comics as do adults, believing themselves unsusceptible of harm but believing that comics may have deleterious effects on other children.
In describing these harmful effects, children in the second stage of comic reading are still concerned with their own conflict between need and a dimly realized taboo, and so speak of peculiarly concrete and somewhat ridiculous dangers.
A second group, composed of fans, refuse to see or face the conflict, ignore their own experiences entirely, and parrot their parents, i.e., by higher authority.
The third group, composed wholly of moderate readers, use their own experience to identify, as the fan cannot, with younger children, and thus accurately describe the effects of comic reading on such younger children.
The ambiguous attitude of society as a whole toward comics can thus be seen to be a self-generative vicious circle, in which the first two groups (the great majority) of children as well as almost all adult participates. The ambivalence of the parents, who never praise comics and often consider them seriously dangerous, generates a double standard of comic reading morality in the child, and this double standard of comic reading morality in the child, and this double standard becomes adult ambivalence as the child grows older. Yet, as this study has shown, comics satisfy a real developmental need in normal children and are harmful only for children who are already maladjusted and susceptible to harm.
Why comics are considered dangerous and whether their influence could be made more nearly universally beneficial are but two of the many questions which, by settling more basic questions, this study leaves to future investigators.
The bulk of the interviews were made with eleven- and twelve-year-olds because the sponsors and directors alike felt that this was the period of most intensive comic book reading. It developed, however, that there are other critical age periods as well. ↩
A detailed statistical breakdown of the samples is on file at Columbia University, Bureau of Applied Social Research, New York, N.Y. See Appendix D, p. 307 below. ↩
The Interview Guide and instructions for interviewers are on file at Columbia University, Bureau of Applied Social Research, New York, N.Y. See Appendix D, p.307, below. ↩
Since all children did not answer an identical set of questions, the total figure appearing in tables is not always 104 ↩