Family Differences on Television

This article examines how the family is portrayed by television in four countries —Australia, Denmark, Hungary and Britain — with different cultures, political and broadcasting systems. It is based on results from the preliminary phase of an ongoing research project carried out in 1982 and sponsored by the Stiftung Prix Jeunesse.1 Despite the differences between the countries under study, the television presentations of the family are remarkably similar. Part of the explanation lies in the common Anglo-American origin of much of the fictional material studied.