The religious and cultural values education in the cartoon series broadcasted on cartoon channels in Turkey

This study was conducted to explore the role of cartoon series in transferring religious and cultural values to children and in internalisation of these values by children. Thus, literature review was undertaken, and value, religious and cultural values and religion-value, religion-culture relations were discussed. Moreover, the power of cartoons and its components were explored in relation to its impact on children. In this study, interviews were conducted with children and cartoons were analysed to explore child-cartoon interaction. 104 episodes (1440 hours in total) from 4 cartoon series, two foreign and two domestic, were analysed. Verbal and visual religious and cultural values and negative messages in these series were subjected to content analysis. Foreign and domestic cartoons were compared in terms of religious-cultural values and negative messages. It is found that domestic cartoons include more cultural values than foreign ones, but there is no meaningful difference between foreign and domestic cartoons with respect to religious values. It is also found that foreign cartoons contain more negative messages than domestic ones. Interviews with children indicates that children love domestic cartoons and their characters more than foreign cartoons and their characters. Furthermore, it appears that children imitate cartoon characters they love and identify themselves with them. As a result, it is argued that children are influenced by cartoons and their characters and they transfer values from these cartoons.