U.S. co-viewing during COVID

Abstract

My family of five has a lot of moving parts, and on 12 March 2020 those parts were running like clockwork. Then COVID-19 happened. 13 March 2020 brought lockdown. Quarantine. Isolation. The cog of COVID-19 screeched our well-oiled machine to a halt. In retrospect, that forced stoppage of our everyday “normal” brought clarity to both my personal life and professional life. As a researcher of “teachable moments” in children’s media (movies, shows, episodes, storylines and characters that can be employed as discussion starters between parents and children) I was provided a unique opportunity to interweave my personal and professional life. A fundamental ingredient of teachable moments is parental co-viewing and inherent in this research agenda is the assumption that co-viewing can be a valuable family practice. What happens to co-viewing during a pandemic? The COVID-19 pandemic created opportunities that were previously unavailable, if not unheard of, in my household and provided insight for my research as well as a unique perspective of my family dynamics. From the academic viewpoint, I found that co-viewing – in my own anecdotal experience – could be used valuably in multiple ways. Besides my aforementioned “teachable moments” and conversation starters of larger life lessons, parents and children can actual learn new things together. Co-viewing can serve as a springboard to explore new phenomena. For example, my daughter and I watched the entire first season of Crikey: It’s the Irwins (airing on Animal Planet) together during lockdown. This program follows the family of (the deceased) Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, at Australia Zoo. Each episode features different species of wildlife, many native to Australia. There are animal births, animal deaths, and a plethora of animal experiences in between. Through watching this program my daughter was introduced to Australia and to many new animals she had not been exposed to in the past. In addition to viewing the program, we then explored where Australia was on the map, which led to discussions on geography and culture. We pulled out her animal books and flipped through the pages together pointing out animals that were similar to what we saw on television. In another case, my daughter, my husband and I all watched the most current season of Top Chef (airing on Bravo). This was different than the previous example in that this program aired weekly new episodes, so we were scheduling our time to watch this together every week up until the finale. This was much more “appointment television” rather than “binge-