Locating Moana through children’s eyes: “Seeing with others” in cultural identity and global media in Aotearoa New Zealand
type: CreativeWork
description: This thesis investigates how children aged 5 to 12 in Aotearoa New Zealand interpret cultural representations in global animated media, with particular attention to Disney’s Moana (2016). Through a child-centred, transnational lens, the research examines how young audiences make sense of ethnicity, culture, and identity in mediated stories, and how these interpretations are shaped by their personal, familial, and educational experiences. The study draws on Jesús Martín-Barbero’s (1987, 2006) theory of cultural mediations, along with theories of globalisation and transnationalism, to understand how meaning-making occurs across local and global cultural flows. It also engages with children’s geographies to attend to questions of spatial belonging, migration, and place-based identity. The study is based on qualitative data gathered from 94 research participants through face-to-face and online data collection with a diverse group of 54 children representing over 30 ethnic backgrounds, including a large subset of participants from 10 Brazilian-background families living in Aotearoa New Zealand. Children were invited to interpret a range of 24 characters drawn from 16 Disney and Pixar media texts (15 animated films and one television series), with a particular emphasis on Moana. In addition, perspectives from 36 parents, as well as three primary school teachers and one principal, were collected to examine how families and educators use media for cultural learning and identity negotiation. Findings reveal that children actively interpret cultural cues through visual, emotional, and relational frameworks. Characters such as Moana and Maui were often identified as being “from here”, drawing on landscape, school-based learning, and everyday cultural knowledge. Brazilian families used global media texts to support cultural transmission, while children articulated desires for characters who resembled them not only in ethnicity, but also in language, values, and personality. Acr…
abstract: This thesis investigates how children aged 5 to 12 in Aotearoa New Zealand interpret cultural representations in global animated media, with particular attention to Disney’s Moana (2016). Through a child-centred, transnational lens, the research examines how young audiences make sense of ethnicity, culture, and identity in mediated stories, and how these interpretations are shaped by their personal, familial, and educational experiences. The study draws on Jesús Martín-Barbero’s (1987, 2006) theory of cultural mediations, along with theories of globalisation and transnationalism, to understand how meaning-making occurs across local and global cultural flows. It also engages with children’s geographies to attend to questions of spatial belonging, migration, and place-based identity. The study is based on qualitative data gathered from 94 research participants through face-to-face and online data collection with a diverse group of 54 children representing over 30 ethnic backgrounds, including a large subset of participants from 10 Brazilian-background families living in Aotearoa New Zealand. Children were invited to interpret a range of 24 characters drawn from 16 Disney and Pixar media texts (15 animated films and one television series), with a particular emphasis on Moana. In addition, perspectives from 36 parents, as well as three primary school teachers and one principal, were collected to examine how families and educators use media for cultural learning and identity negotiation. Findings reveal that children actively interpret cultural cues through visual, emotional, and relational frameworks. Characters such as Moana and Maui were often identified as being “from here”, drawing on landscape, school-based learning, and everyday cultural knowledge. Brazilian families used global media texts to support cultural transmission, while children articulated desires for characters who resembled them not only in ethnicity, but also in language, values, and personality. Acr…
author: Spieker, Annelore
keywords: children’s media reception, cultural identity, transnational childhoods, cultural mediation, global media, Aotearoa New Zealand, Disney’s Moana
license: https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/099b8efe-3353-42b5-a77b-80e9119bae96/download
date published: 2025
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:57:18Z
provider: University Waikato
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The University of Waikato