Educating Young People through the Classics

Love, Friendship and Storytelling

Noberto González Gaitano

• Publisher: EDUSC
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9788883338601
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

What films and TV series do young people enjoy most? What books do they read most? Do they prefer novels based on the ever-changing preferences of mainstream critics, or do they prefer classic masterpieces that have survived the test of time? How are young people's views on love and friendship influenced by novels, movies, and television series? Are there significant differences in their choices due to cultural and linguistic traditions? A sample of 3, 694 people between 18 and 29 years old was selected and interviewed to answer these questions in May-June 2018 in nine western countries: Argentina, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, the UK, and the USA. The Spanish pollster GAD 3 has carried out the survey under the direction of the Family and Media Center and with the financial support of the Elina Gianoli Gainza Chair of Family and Media Studies at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (Pontificia Università della Santa Croce, Rome). This book is hinged to the awareness that the West is in the midst of an epochal educational crisis, and the project is strengthened by the belief, which is shared by its promoters, that one of the ways out of the crisis is the recovery of narrative intelligence. Besides the presentation of the multinational survey results, the book offers a reflection on six great works of literature – later adapted to the big screen – that have addressed these universal themes in different times, in order to cultivate an appreciation of great stories and promote an educational culture concerned with the development of thought and the ability to critically analyze. Their authors share a strong educational sensitivity and experience in education and bring together their diverse media expertise. The authors and works mentioned are: Alessandro d'Avenia (The Odyssey by Homer, The Divine Comedy by Dante, and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky); Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen); Armando Fumagalli (Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoj); Travis Curtright (Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare); Antonio Malo (Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil); and Andrea Monda (J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings).Norberto González Gaitano (Alcaraz, Spain) is a professor of public opinion at the School of Church Communications at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (Rome) and is the author of a number of books and scholarly articles. Formerly a professor of ethics of communication at the University of La Laguna (1990-1996) and at the University of Navarra (1981-1991), both located in Spain, he has also been a visiting research scholar at the University of Chicago (2008-2009) and the Catholic University of America (Washington, 1995). He has been a Consultant to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. Norberto González Gaitano is currently the Director of the Center for Family and Media Studies at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (Pontificia Università della Santa Croce, Rome).

TV Series: the Top of Today’s Audiovisual Pyramid among Young People

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David Iglesias Pérez

1 Introduction

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TV series have become a magnet and new audiovisual reference for many young people recently. 72% of young people acknowledge watching TV series several times per week and three out of ten watch them every day. These are just some figures of the data revealed by an international study about the preferences of young people in the Western world regarding movies, TV series and books. The study was designed by Family and Media (F&M), a think tank based in Rome, and conducted by GAD3, an international research firm based in Madrid.

What films and TV series do young people like most? Which are the preferred books among current young people? What attitudes do they have towards friendship? How do these attitudes influence their reading and watching behaviors?

A quota sampling of 3964 people between 18 and 29 years old was formed and interviewed in May-June 2018 to discover the answers to these questions in nine Western countries: Argentina, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, the UK and the US.

An additional sample of 737 Catholics who attended World Youth day in Krakow (2016), not randomly selected, was also chosen to compare their reading and watching behaviors with the general population: Are Catholic young people different to their peers when it comes to the tested preferences?

These questions became the starting point of this vast-reaching project, aimed to find out what kind of stories drive their cultural and entertainment preferences among youngsters and, simultaneously, to discover their reading and watching audiovisual attitudes.

With this goal in mind, F&M approached GAD3, a company with vast experience conducting sociological surveys and research, with the task of carrying out both the fieldwork and the statistical aspects of the project. The first meetings occurred in summer 2017, and the final proposal was approved in May, 2018.

To meet all the requirements of the project, two anonymous online surveys were designed. The first was run among people from the general population; the second was conducted only among Catholic youths. Both surveys included the same questions, in order to cross-reference data and draw conclusions later. The results of the research were presented in Rome in November 23, 2018.

It is the main goal of this chapter not only to describe the main conclusions of this study, but also to explain in detail other essential aspects, such as how the questionnaire was designed, how the sample of respondents was selected, etc. The following pages will follow a chronological account of the steps taken to conduct the project, in order to help readers and researchers develop and understand the account of the study by rebuilding the phases, stages and decisions taken.

2 Questionnaire

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Thousands of interviews were to be conducted in several countries. It was an ambitious research project with an extensive layout that had to be designed carefully in order to produce valuable and scientifically strong results.

For this purpose, an interdisciplinary team was set up, involving scholars in communication studies, researchers specialized in quantitative data, sociologists and communication consultants. To accelerate decision-making processes between the Italian and the Spanish teams, a researcher from Family and Media traveled to Madrid. From GAD3’s headquarters at the capital of Spain, the main lines of the project started to be designed, in a research effort that would end up surveying more than 4000 young people in the Western World.

A questionnaire was to be designed and translated into five different languages: English, Italian, Spanish, French and German. The aforementioned nine countries would be targeted.

Shortening and simplifying the initial draft of the questionnaire prepared by the Family Media team researchers was of the outmost importance for two reasons. The first is that young people rarely devote much time to the same activity or web page on the Internet. The second reason is that the questionnaires were expected to be answered by young adults who would complete them on-the-go, such as commuting to the workplace or to the university, for instance.

Synthetizing questions in a short questionnaire became quite challenging, but not the only obstacle to overcome. Furthermore, the set-up and flow of the questions had to be simple to avoid distracting the participants. At the same time, the design had to be visually enticing, in order to get respondents hooked to the questionnaire and avoid them leaving the survey incomplete. For these reasons, much time was devoted to craft a straightforward yet captivating interface.

This creative effort translated into several key decisions. One being the inclusion of a picture of the cover of the films, TV series and books that were going to be tested. People may not remember the title of a movie they watched five years ago, but showing them the cover may help them remember it.

Eventually, thirty-eight questions were included and answering them took more than ten minutes. At first researchers thought it would have to be shortened. However, the test trials proved otherwise, while uncovering a rather interesting fact. While the questionnaire was time-consuming the topic was so appealing to the participants that a great majority of respondents completed the interview. Answering the questionnaire was enjoyable due to the questions about favorite movies and TV series. The engaging display of the questionnaire proved to be an essential factor for the successful outcome.

Questions were divided into five sets. The first set comprised three basic aspects regarding the respondent’s profile: gender, age and state or region of residence. These were essential to control the flow of completed interviews and manage quotas.

After this introductory block, sections two (movies), three (TV series) and four (books) came up. Each block had the same order. First, an easy-going introductory question: What was the last title you watched/read? It was an open-ended question. Answers were obviously conditioned by the movies and TV series that were being screened at that moment, among other short-term variables. However, this first question served an important purpose: help the respondent have a good experience and provide a smooth introduction into the questionnaire. Who does not like mentioning the last movie he watched? Furthermore, it was an interesting means of coll...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Education about Love and Friendship through Stories
• TV Series: the Top of Today’s Audiovisual Pyramid among Young People
• Love and Friendship in William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing
• Reading Three Classics: Odyssey, Divine Comedy and Crime and Punishment
• Anna Karenina Characters and Values from the Pages of Tolstoj to the Cinema and Television Screens
• The Female View of an Authentic Life in The Painted Veil
• Together with The Lord of the Rings
• Love in Pride and Prejudice: Three Lessons from Jane Austen