| Shu-Ling C. Berggreen: | |
| Name: | Shu-Ling C. Berggreen |
| Academic Institution: | University of Colorado, Boulder |
| email: | Shu-ling.Berggreen@Colorado.edu |
| Country: | Estados Unidos/United States |
| Paper Title | Exploring with Dora the Explorer: Lessons from a Successful Intercultural TV Program for Children in the United States |
| Abstract: | Dora the Explorer is the number one show on commercial television for children ages two to five in the United States. It debuted in August 2000 in Nickelodeon and has remained its top rating status since then. It’s retail sales of licensed Dora goods also speak to its popularity. For example, since their release in June 2001, more than 6 million Dora the Explorer videos and 7 million Dora the Explorer books have been sold. By 2003, the retail sales of the Dora brand generated more than half a billion dollars, making it the leading preschool property in the nation. Several factors contributed to the show’s success. They include the content and production appeals, the bilingual and bicultural nature of the show, and the powerful preschool demographic the show is targeting. Dora the Explorer is an animated 30-minute show, featuring Dora Marquez, a seven-year-old Latino girl and her sidekick, a monkey named Boots. In the story, Dora roams her tropical world of jungles, beaches and rainforests while attempting to solve puzzling mysteries and problems. In each episode, she goes on a journey with Boots and relies on their good friend, a map named Map, and Dora’s backpack, called Backpack, to guide and help them. In October 2003, Diego, Dora’s cousin, joined the show. The premise of the show has remained the same. It uses engaging techniques, such as rich animation, adventure theme, catchy music and interactive plot, to get both children and parents excited about the program. Each episode the viewers are asked to help the main characters reach a certain destination by overcoming preschool curriculum-based obstacles along the way. Dora the Explorer has been credited as the most successful interactive TV show in the U.S. Many parents, who ban TV viewing in general, are said to be happy to let their children watch Dora the Explorer. Another of Dora’s widespread appeal is that she is bilingual and teaches a Spanish word or phrase in every episode. Many English speakers see the Spanish as something special that is not offered anywhere else in America mainstream TV. Children are learning words and phrases that (most of the time) their parents don’t even know. For the bilingual audiences, Dora is their heroine and the show has become a great source of their pride. To Nickelodeon’s credit, the show has employed a team of consultants with Latin American backgrounds to insure the bicultural elements in the show are truly authentic. This authenticity has a strong appeal to the Latino community, which has become an important demographic segment in the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Latino population in the United States has grown to an all-time high of 40 million people. And this community is especially strong in the preschool demographic. Because Latino households tend to be larger than Anglo households, as the Latino population grows in the U.S., a younger Latino population is emerging. Nickelodeon has been extremely careful in making Dora as appealing and authentic as possible to the Latino community, while ensuring viewers from other cultures are not alienated. For example, Dora’s eye color was changed from green to brown to reflect a more common Latino look, while she speaks both perfect American English and Spanish to draw audiences from all communities. The show’s success underlines that profit-making and cultural sensitivity do not have to be mutually exclusive. While Nickelodeon is a commercial entity, it also introduced a new genre of multicultural TV programming not exist in the nation previously, something the audience would have expected the PBS to do. The preschoolers and their parents (and the society in general, in directly) have become the unintended beneficiaries. They are said to have developed better intercultural understanding than tho |