The effect of PBS on today's college students
Big Bird from PBS' Sesame Street.
Anthony Cruz grew up on the Public Broadcasting Station. As a child, he had 10 favorite PBS shows. He can rattle off all their names with a big grin, although according to him, Thomas the Tank Engine was the best one.
As a young child, his mother would sing him to sleep with “I Love You” from Barney & Friends. When he grew older, he aspired to be studious like the titular character in Arthur.
Cruz, 19, a University of Pennsylvania sophomore from Riverdale, N.Y., loved PBS and said it would “tear up his heart” if PBS had to be cut from the American budget.
Although college students aren’t quite the target age group for such shows as Sesame Street and Teletubbies, experts argue that PBS has made a major impact on members of Generation Y.
Northwestern professor of communication, psychology, human development and social policy Ellen Wartella explained that Generation Y grew up with educational television.
“TV is still a major medium for children in school,” she said.
But one of the main reasons why PBS has had such an effect on young adults is that its programming is tested -- the curricula presented on the TV shows are tested before hitting the airwaves, and experts do research to make sure the shows have a positive impact on children after airing. Throughout, the station consults with academic advisers.
"The Early Window Project,” a study published in 2001, found that young children who viewed moderate amounts of planned educational programming — such as Sesame Street -- performed better academically than peers who watched other kinds of programming, or no programming at all.
“It’s not just the luck of the draw,” she said. PBS makes sure its programming is educational and age-appropriate.
She named Sesame Street as an “icon” for what good educational programming is about, and a model that “set the bar high.”
Wartella added that the benefits of viewing planned educational programming lasts through high school.
However, Ben Shapiro, an investigative author and right-wing columnist, is concerned that PBS -- or more specifically Sesame Street -- is being used to brainwash children.
"Sesame Street tried to tackle divorce, tackled 'peaceful conflict resolution' in the aftermath of 9/11 and had [gay actor] Neil Patrick Harris on the show playing the subtly-named 'fairy shoeperson,' " Shapiro noted in his book Primetime Propaganda.
“Hollywoodites admit openly to messaging their product, and to their scorn for conservative Americans. I'm just reporting what they told me," he told The Independent.
Rep. Senator Jim DeMint has similar concerns.
"Make no mistake, public broadcasting's furry friends are political animals," he said, according to The Atlantic.
PBS came under fire after presidential candidate Mitt Romney talked about his plan to cut its funding at the first presidential debate last week. Although this was not the first time Romney mentioned removing PBS from the national budget, his proposal has sparked conversation on numerous news outlets and social media.
DeMint has also expressed concern about the impact PBS is having on the federal budget.
“While executives at the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) are raking in massive salaries, the organizations are participating in an aggressive lobbying effort to prevent Congress from saving hundreds of millions of dollars each year by cutting their subsidies,” he wrote in a 2011 Wall Street Journal editorial.
In response to Romney’s proposal, PBS issued a press release, which stated that PBS only accounts for .01% of the national budget.
“Elimination of funding would have virtually no impact on the nation’s debt,” the statement said. “Yet the loss to the American public would be devastating.”
David Kleeman, president of the American Center for Children and Media, explained that Generation Y may have experienced more positive results from viewing PBS than prior generations because educators were developing a better understanding of how children learned with media.
“It was engaging,” he said. “It integrated education into the program in a smart way. ... It wasn’t just broccoli on chocolate cake.”
Another plus, according to Kleeman, is that it doesn’t have commercials, so the educational content goes uninterrupted.
Another effect PBS had on today’s college students was its ability to help form bonds between peers in different demographics. “[PBS] is a common educational experience, regardless of where [children] went to school, where they lived,” Kleeman said.
Katie McShane, 18, a Penn freshman from Wisconsin, agrees that the PBS shows she enjoyed as a child still serve as a way of bonding with her peers.
“I still watch Arthur occasionally with my friend,” she said. “It’s nostalgic.”
Like Cruz, she too loved PBS. And since she didn’t have siblings, she credits PBS for teaching her how to behave well around her peers.
“[PBS] is a hallmark of the American childhood,” Cruz said.
“You didn’t have a true American childhood if you weren’t a PBS kid,” he said.
Laura Cofsky is a Fall 2012 Paste BN Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about her here.
This story originally appeared on the Paste BN College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.