Panels View T.V.'s Effect On Children

Children's interpretation of television programs and general questions about school-age viewers will be the focus of today's closing session of the sixth annual conference of Action for Children's Television (ACT).

The national symposium, entitled "Products and Programs: The Child as Consumer," is sponsored by ACT and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The conference began yesterday night and has attracted over 400 participants from various levels of the television, advertising, and manufacturing industries.

Yesterday's discussions, held at the Law School, centered around television advertising directed at children.

Sex and Violence

In last night's keynote speech, David W. Rintels '59, president of the Writer's Guild of America, said television devotes too much attention to sex and violence during family viewing hours.

"Television should be able to delve far more deeply into the serious social and moral questions which sex raises," he said.

He also said violence is a part of life that television should deal with truthfully, but too much of it is harmful, especially to children.

More, More

"We call for an end to this mad race for more viewers, more sponsors, more money, more, more, more of everything, but what television is legally and morally obligated to serve--the public interest," Rintels said.

At a formal debate before Rintels's lecture, speakers argued about whether self-regulation by television stations is sufficient to solve the problems of children's advertising.

Madeleine S. Large, president of Families Against Censored Television, said children's advertisements should not be censored.

"It is not the broadcasters that end up being regulated; it is the children and parents," Large said during the debate.

"No one can make a more informed judgment about what interests him than the child himself," she said.

Uncensored Advertising

Dr. Chester M. Pierce '48, professor of Psychiatry, disagreed with Large's position. He said that uncensored advertising distorts children's perception of the world.

"Each individual dosage of advertising is innocuous by itself, but over the long distance of a child's life advertising has a cumulative effect," he said.

A child is influenced by more than just the product itself, Pierce said. Commercials teach children the values advertisers want them to hold.