Dora the Explorer

Dora the Explorer

In today's society, it's not a new revelation the media has a major impact on our youth. Children are growing up at a time where television has often a prominent role in their lives. Looking closely at the television programming and advertising that is available today in children's programs, we are able to see how certain shows impose commercialism and mainstreaming ideas into children's heads.

Through content analysis, we are able to look more closely at how certain programs affect or at least intent to affect the children they are targeted towards. The popular children's program "Dora the Explorer," is a program produced by Nickelodeon, a company that has a huge lineup of popular children's programming, which I have chosen to examine in order to shed a little more light on the content on the show, and the way it impacts it's viewers.

Dora the Explorer is a children's program most popular with the preschool aged children, which stars a fun-loving bilingual child named Dora who embraces adventure and the outdoors. The over-arching plot of the series is that Dora is actually an interactive computer game, every show beginning with a wide shot of a child's play room, slowly making its way over to the computer, on which Dora is playing.

The show is interactive, as Dora often asks the child audience questions, and after a brief pause for the answer, a mouse arrow slowly drags across the screen to the correct answer and clicks it. The show contains only one storyline which lasts through the entirety of the 24 minute program, and includes many activities along the way.

Prior to this assignment I personally had never seen an episode of Dora, so looking at the program so closely for the first time was an interesting task. I was careful not to read any reviews of the show until after I had formed my own opinion about the quality of the program.

Dora the Explorer is produced by Nickelodeon which is a huge conglomerate of children's programming, so when I first turned on Dora I assumed it would be riddled with advertisements and negative content, but as you'll see, I was pleasantly surprised.

Dora the Explorer did contain commercials, but only at the beginning and end of the program, which I will get into more specifically later in my analysis. Starting from the beginning, there are two main characters, Dora and her sidekick a monkey named Boots. Dora herself is a playful young bilingual girl, who is very smart and happy, and most importantly is always offering to help others. What I first realized about this show that I immediately appreciated was that this program was specifically aimed to educate not only English speaking American children, but bilingual children who speak or are learning both English and Spanish. I have never seen a children's show do this, at least not one this popular.

The episode that I examined is called, "Pablo's Flute," and was produced in 2001. As I said before, it was on Nickelodeon, during the morning timeslot of 10:30AM, so it was during Nick Jr. The importance of the time slot has a bigger impact on the type of advertising that occurs during the program, because most likely at 10:30AM these children are with their parents at home, or at day care. This comes into play more later when I examine the commercials aired with the program.

The story takes place outside, in a very colorful area with green grass, beautiful trees, and a big blue sky. The basic premise of this particular show was based on the story of Pablo, a Spanish child who had a magic flute, and when he played it, the farm that he lived on became fruitful. The crops grew fast, the chickens laid eggs, the animals were happy, thus making Pablo, and his grandfather, referred to as "abuelo" the Spanish word for grandfather, happy. One day there was a storm, which blew the flute out of Pablo's grasp and away from the farm, and until it could be found and returned to Pablo, the farm would be dry, no crops would grow, and the animals wouldn't be happy. The story of Pablo was from a book in Dora's backpack, where the first interaction with the audience occurs. After reading the story out loud, Dora turns to the camera and asks, "Will you help me find Pablo's flute?"

The adventure Dora takes with Boots to find and return Pablo's flute is not only the premise of the episode, but it is an example of prosocial behavior. Dora and Boots stand to gain nothing in return from finding the flute and bringing it back to its rightful owner, but they, with the help of the child audience, begin their journey anyways. The whole idea of audience participation, especially in Dora the explorer, in itself is a demonstration of prosocial behavior. The children are repeatedly asked by Dora, "will you help me do this," and their active participation in helping the story continue is itself reinforcing prosocial behavior. This was a pleasantly delightful observation, especially accompanied by the fact that as far as I could see, there were no actual instances of altruistic behavior, nor any violence. Though it would shock me to see violence in a program aimed at preschool aged children, still the themes and emotions of Dora's adventure are positive, happy, and engaging.

Dora the Explorer contains both positive educational and moral themes. The overarching educational theme was about following directions and being able to help travel from point A to point B. Dora explains the use of a map when traveling, and encourages children to pay special attention when getting directions from the map so that they won't get lost on the trip. Following directions is a common educational theme in children's programming, but in this specific episode of Dora, following the directions means two things, literally following directions to help Dora get to the mountains where Pablo lives, and following the directions of each activity on the way.

The moral tone of this episode was about helping others. The audience is asked to help Dora complete challenges along the way, in order to eventually help return Pablo's flute. The episode also touches on the moral of not stealing, introducing the character of Swiper, a fox who tried to steal Dora and Boots things'.

The musical tone to this story is interactive, repetitive, and though the use of songs is an important part of the program, there is also the use of musical sounds that mimic or portray a feeling that the characters themselves are experiencing at that specific time during their adventure. For example, when Dora and Boots reach the scary forest, there are often short sounds that are deep and sharp, but when they are traveling, the music is light, fun,