We used the Parent Trap to annotate a Nickelodeon show called Nick News-the particular show we saw was entitled "The Body Trap" - a show about kids' ideas about body image. Though it clearly seemed to be educational, it had the advantage of not preaching to kids-instead, it was a "roundtable"-style discussion with about ten kids aged about nine to sixteen, as well as three adults-Rosie O'Donnell, Linda (whose last name I've forgotten), and a psychiatrist named Dr. Rosen. The program began with two personal stories of kids who had serious problems with their body image-one of a girl who wrote to Linda about her concerns about her appearance and another of an anorexic girl in a hospital. This particularly serious example served to open the discussion with the kids, led by Linda. The discussion covered a lot of ground, including social pressures relating to body image, the influence of the media, differences among different racial groups' reactions to media images, the use of drugs or surgery to alter one's appearance, and the particular concerns of boys about their body image. Though the adults were generally uninspiring, the kids' comments were much more real, and I would imagine that this would greatly increase the show's impact among its intended viewers.

This seemed like a particularly good show to annotate to provide additional questions and information for both parents and kids so that further discussion would emerge. We had some trouble, however, when it came to splitting the show up into discrete units to annotate. Because most of the show was a continuing discussion, we tried to break it up in terms of the topics of discussion-not always a clean split. We did not actually add any categories, as we found that what we wanted to put down about the clip fit into the given questions. I particularly liked the question that asked us to play devil's advocate for the issues presented. This was actually a good challenge to us, causing us to think about possible alternative viewpoints to the show's. It seemed that this would be a good thing for both parents and kids, both in the specific questions that the annotations would provide and the general attitude of not blindly accepting the viewpoint presented by the show. It is, however, worth noting that the producer might be less likely to insert questions that challenge the validity of the show than we were. I also liked the opportunity to provide additional information to augment the information presented in the video. This would doubtless be of great use to the actual producers, who would certainly have references for more information. It might also be good to have some way of easily adding a URL to show up in the email and web page.

However, some of the other questions were not so clearly useful. The question about justifying the presentation didn't quite make sense for us, since we had not produced the show, but it seemed that (even if filled in by a producer) that this would be of limited usefulness both to the parent and the child. It might be an interesting viewpoint of television production, but seems to add little to the actual discussion or understanding of the video's content. I suppose that it might lead viewers to consider ways in which the medium can be manipulated to influence the impact on viewers, but I think that this might be more effectively accomplished using questions for discussion that question the representation provided.

We also had some trouble with the UI for selecting a segment of the video. My suggestion for selecting a segment is as follows: have three thumbnails for each segment-one large thumbnail and two smaller ones which would indicate each endpoint. The large thumbnail would be controlled by a third slider, which would allow you to choose any point in the segment as representative of the clip. This extra point in the segment seems necessary because I noticed that for several of our clips, the beginning point was not particularly representative of the point of the segment of the video. On a further interface-tweaking note, it was very difficult to determine the endpoint of the video. I would suggest that when you move a slider, the video should immediately stop (trying to move sliders while the video plays gives some strange effects) and move with the slider. You might also explore ways of making the current position in the movie appear on the slider. Because the position in the movie only appears in the quicktime window, it's hard to correlate between the movie's current position and the sliders.

I think that the Parent Trap can provide a valuable channel for producers to communicate additional information to viewers (and their parents.) I particularly like the notion that this information is intended to spark discussion, which is certainly a good means of furthering both the viewer and the parents' understanding of the material presented in the video. It would also aid both parents and children in recognizing the information presented in shows that are not clearly informational, as ours was. Most importantly, it can provide an additional viewpoint to the show to spark discussion and enabling viewers to move beyond simple acceptance of material presented to them.

for more information on the Parent Trap, see:

• this
• or this
• or this
• or even this

anyway, back to the menu...