Television has been integrated into the everyday life of people and therefore the question on whether it should be studied is not posed; instead, we the question is whether we are allowed to neglect studying it as a phenomenon. It is difficult to isolate one segment onto which television exercises influence, such as it has been attempted here by studying the influence of television programme on education of young people, since television is influencing all segments of life, as much as education is dependant on a number of factors. The theoretical part of the paper is based on studying television as a phenomenon which plays multiple roles in lives of children and young people, within their family circles, social life and free time activities. An analysis has been performed of the programme offer of all mass media, especially those of television broadcasters in Serbia, while the empirical part will provide an insight into the choices young people, their parents and their teachers are mak...ing. The age group has been pointed out as an important category, because changes of relationships between television and children are conditioned by the development of cognitive, emotional and behavioural abilities of children, as well as by their increasing experience of real life. The deliberate stratified sample in the empirical part of the paper consisted of 7th and 8th graders of elementary schools and 3rd and 4th grade students of secondary schools, as well as their teachers and parents from the territory of Vojvodina, precisely from the following cities: Vršac, Pančevo, Zrenjanin, Kikinda and Novi Sad. A total of 1,688 respondents were supposed to provide information on the influence of television programmes in Serbia on the education of adolescents, and also on their value system and all other segments of life. The questionnaires distributed to particular children and parents had codes, based on which it was possible to compare their answers. Wilcoxon rank sum test was used on the occasion of testing the difference between children’s and their parents’ answers.
The key question on whether television should play an important role in education of children and young people, was posed to the teachers and a large percentage of them answered it positively – 49.33 % of the respondents agreed with that statement, while 34.53% had a neutral opinion on this question. The other two groups – parents and children, had a predominantly neutral attitude regarding this issue. Asked in what disciplines television improved the students’ education in comparison with the school, the students indicated the following: foreign languages, music, history and geography. An important feature of the answers was the scattered distribution of children’s and parents’ answers when it came to a choice of television programmes; the answers were ‘crumbled’ – a huge array of TV models
or massive absence of favourite TV programmes and models. Elevating media literacy in children and parents, and in children and teachers surfaces as a solution which, through reinforcing their main strongholds of media literacy – personal status, available knowledge and skills, could lead to such a choice of media messages, which would be in harmony with their goals and wishes in life, properly selected and with positive effects on them.
