Early Childhood and Media Representation: How does South Korean Animation Pororo the Little Penguin Reproduce Patriarchal Family Ideology?

This study examines the deeper cultural and social meaning of a South Korean popular edutainment animation Pororo the Little Penguin by analyzing 50 of its episodes. The article expands upon earlier studies of Pororo by not only analyzing gender stereotypes in Pororo’s narratives and aesthetics but also investigating these features within the larger frame of social discourse. The authors found that, despite the fact that Pororo seems to display friendship formation among children without adults’ intervention, it really reflects family relationships in South Korea and functions to reveal adults’ perspectives on them. Through positioning adult and children characters within the typical patriarchal Korean family, they argue that Pororo reproduces the patriarchal family ideology of today’s South Korea. This study therefore contributes to the field of children’s media and gender representation and the sociology of childhood