THE ROUTLEDGE INTERNATIONAL

HANDBOOK OF CHILDREN,
ADOLESCENTS, AND MEDIA

This second, thoroughly updated edition of The Routledge International Handbook of Children,
Adolescents, and Media analyzes a broad range of complementary areas of study, including children
as media consumers, children as active participants in media making, and representations of
children in the media.
The roles that media play in the lives of children and adolescents, as well as their potential
implications for their cognitive, emotional, social, and behavioral development, have attracted
growing research attention in a variety of disciplines. This handbook presents a collection that
spans a variety of disciplines including developmental psychology, media studies, public health,
education, feminist studies, and the sociology of childhood. Chapters provide a unique
intellectual mapping of current knowledge, exploring the relationship between children and
media in local, national, and global contexts.
Divided into five parts, each with an introduction explaining the themes and topics covered,
the Handbook features over 50 contributions from leading and upcoming academics from
around the globe. The revised and new chapters consider vital questions by analyzing texts,
audience, and institutions, including:

• media and its effects on children’s mental health

• children and the internet of toys
• media and digital inequalities
• news and citizenship in the aftermath of COVID-19

The Handbook’s interdisciplinary approach and comprehensive, current, and international scope
make it an authoritative, state-of-the-art guide to the field of children’s media studies. It will be
indispensable for media scholars and professionals, policy makers, educators, and parents.

Dafna Lemish is a Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean at the School of Communication
and Information at Rutgers University. The founding editor of the Journal of Children and Media
and a Fellow of the International Communication Association, she is a prolific scholar of children
and media.
THE ROUTLEDGE
INTERNATIONAL
HANDBOOK OF
CHILDREN,
ADOLESCENTS,
AND MEDIA
Second Edition

Edited by Dafna Lemish

 Cover image: Getty Images
Second edition published 2022
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
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© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Dafna Lemish; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Dafna Lemish to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of
the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
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and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2013
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Lemish, Dafna, 1951- editor.
Title: The Routledge international handbook of children, adolescents, and media / edited
by Dafna Lemish.
Description: Second Edition. | New York, NY: Routledge, 2022. | Revised edition of
The Routledge international handbook of children, adolescents and media, 2013. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021053334 (print) | LCCN 2021053335 (ebook) | ISBN
9780367633356 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367633387 (paperback) | ISBN
9781003118824 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Mass media and children. | Mass media and youth.
Classification: LCC HQ784.M3 R88 2022 (print) | LCC HQ784.M3 (ebook) | DDC
302.23083--dc23/eng/2021112
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021053334
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021053335

ISBN: 978-0-367-63335-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-63338-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-11882-4 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824

Typeset in Bembo
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
 In memory of my mother, Chaya Barkai (Mishkov) 1925–2016, who once insisted on
pulling me away from my desk on the eve of a major exam because “there is this great nature
documentary on TV. You can learn so much from it too!” She read me books and played
Famous Authors and Wild Flowers card games with me when I was sick. We also went to the
movies, theater, and concerts throughout my childhood. In fact, she continued to
recommend books for my leisure reading over the phone in our cross-Atlantic calls, advising
me that I absolutely “have” to read them. Thus, it is fair to say that it is from her that I
learned first-hand about the role of media in children’s lives – as well as about her abiding
faith in my abilities to study and write about it (or anything else) – if I only want to.

With my deepest gratitude and love, forever.

 CONTENTS

List of Illustrations xiii

List of Contributors xiv
Acknowledgements xxix

Introduction to the Second Edition: Children, Adolescents, and Media:

Creating a Shared Scholarly Arena 1
Dafna Lemish

PART I
Childhoods and Constructions: Editor’s Introduction 13

1 The Co-construction of Media and Childhood 17

Kirsten Drotner

2 Representations of Childhood in the Media 25

Debbie Olson and Giselle Rampaul

3 Examining the Assumptions in Research on Children and Media 33

Marina Krcmar

4 Long-term Trends in Children’s Consumption of Media 41

Uwe Hasebrink and Ingrid Paus-Hasebrink

5 Constructing Children as Consumers 49

David Buckingham and Rebekah Willett

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 Contents

6 Feminist Theory Approaches to the Study of Children and Media 57

Dafna Lemish

7 Children, Youth, and Media Globalization 65

Divya McMillin

8 Childhood Studies Approaches to the Study of Children and Media 73

Liam Berriman

PART II
Channels and Convergence: Editor’s Introduction 81

9 Children’s Print Culture: Tradition and Innovation 85

Carol L. Tilley

10 Children’s Film Culture 93

Stephanie Hemelryk Donald and Noel Brown

11 Children’s Television Culture 101

Jeanette Steemers

12 Children’s Internet Culture 110

Sonia Livingstone

13 Children’s Digital Gaming Cultures 119

Pål Aarsand

14 Mobile Communication Culture among Children and Adolescents 127

Rich Ling

15 Children’s Musical Cultures: Industries and Audiences 135

Ryan Bunch and Tyler Bickford

16 Children and Consumer Culture 144

Kara Chan

17 Social Robots and Children 153

Jochen Peter

18 Children and the Internet of Toys 162

Francesca Stocco and Lelia Green

viii
 Contents

19 Children’s Technologized Bodies: Mapping Mixed Reality 171

Meenakshi Gigi Durham

PART III
Concerns and Consequences: Editor’s Introduction 179

20 Information and Communication Technologies and Well-being 185

Lenka Dedkova, Hana Machackova, and David Smahel

21 Screen Media, Early Cognitive Development, and Language: Babies’

Learning from Screens 194
Deborah L. Nichols

22 Children’s Media Use and Its Relation to Attention, Hyperactivity,

and Impulsivity 202
Ine Beyens and Patti M. Valkenburg

23 Media, Imagination, and Fantasy 211

Maya Götz

24 Social Media and Creativity 219

Kylie Peppler and Maggie Dahn

25 Media and Emotional Development 227

Nicole Martins and McCall Booth

26 Media Violence: Complex Relationships between Young

People and Texts 235
Erica Scharrer

27 Media and Sexual Development 243

Chelly Maes and Laura Vandenbosch

28 Media, Body Image, and Eating Disorders 250

Kristen Harrison and Valerie N. Kemp

29 Media and Childhood Obesity 259

Sandra L. Calvert and Bradley J. Bond

30 Media and Alcohol, Tobacco, and Drugs 268

Amy Bleakley and Morgan Ellithorpe

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 Contents

31 Media and Learning of the Social World 277

Srividya Ramasubramanian and Patrick R. Johnson

32 Children’s Citizenship and the News 285

Cynthia Carter

33 Processes and Impacts of Political Socialization 294

Erica Weintraub Austin and Shawn Domgaard

34 Persuasive Messages and the Development of Advertising Literacy in

Children and Adolescents 302
Esther Rozendaal, Moniek Buijzen, and Eva A. van Reijmersdal

35 Representing and Constructing Gender in Children and Youth Media 311

Sharon R. Mazzarella

36 Internet Media and Peer Sociability 319

Gustavo S. Mesch

37 Media and Children’s Mental Health 327

Anneleen Meeus and Steven Eggermont

PART IV
Contexts and Communities: Editor’s Introduction 335

38 Media and the Family Context 339

Peter Nikken

39 Media and Peer Culture: Young People Sharing Norms and Collective
Identities with and through Media 347
Sun Sun Lim

40 Media and Minority Children 355

Diana Leon-Boys, Michelle M. Rivera, and Angharad N. Valdivia

41 Immigrant Children and Media 363

Nelly Elias and Narmina Abdulaev

42 Muslim Youth: Representations and Media Consumption 371

Ans De Nolf, Leen d’Haenens, and Willem Joris

43 Children, Media, and Digital Inequality 379

Vikki S. Katz

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 Contents

44 Media Content for and Research on Children in Low- and

Middle-income Countries 387
Dina L.G. Borzekowski

45 Media and Children with Disabilities 395

Kate Prendella and Meryl Alper

46 Youth and Participatory Politics: Enhancing Digital Engagement

through Media Literacy Education 403
Tao Papaioannou

47 Media, Participation, and Social Change: Working within a “Youth as

Knowledge Producers” Framework 412
Jean Stuart and Claudia Mitchell

PART V
Collaborations and Companions: Editor’s Introduction 421

48 Media Policies for Children: Issues and Histories in the U.S. 425
Norma Pecora

49 The Intricate Play of Protecting and Promoting Home-grown

Children’s Screen Content 432
Katalin Lustyik

50 Children and Advertising Policies in the U.S. and Beyond 441

Amy B. Jordan and Alyvia H. Walters

51 Policies for the Digital Environment: Online Safety and

Empowerment in a Global Context 450
Brian O’Neill

52 Learning from Educational Television among Preschool and

School-age Children 459
Shalom M. Fisch

53 New Media and Informal Learning 467

Rebecca Herr Stephenson

54 Media Literacy 475

Renee Hobbs

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 Contents

55 Media Influences and the Medical Community in the U.S. 483

Michael Rich

56 Bridging Scholarship and the Media Industry: How Public

Broadcasting Works with Academia 491
Linda Simensky

57 Determining Quality in Children’s Media 498

Alexis R. Lauricella, Morgan Russo, Michael B. Robb, and Ellen Wartella

58 Promoting Excellence in Children’s TV: The Case of the Prix Jeunesse 506
Maya Götz and Kirsten Schneid

Afterword: The Invisible Children, Adolescents, and Media and the Future
of our Research 514
Dafna Lemish and Amy B. Jordan

Topic index 517

Author index 527

xii
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures

12.1 Intersecting Dimensions of Children’s Internet Culture 111

20.1 Conceptual Model of ICT’s Effect on Well-being 186

Tables

11.1 Industry Players in Children’s Television Culture 103

54.1 Media Literacy Curriculum Outcomes: Core Elements in
Developmental Sequence 476

xiii
 CONTRIBUTORS

Pål Aarsand, Ph.D., is Professor at the Department of Education and Lifelong Learning,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. His research interest
concerns children’s digital technology practices and phenomena, such as gaming, playing,
identity work, and digital literacy.

Narmina Abdulaev, Ph.D., is an Adjunct Lecturer at the Department of Communication

Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and a research fellow at the Department of
Hebrew and Comparative Literature, University of Haifa, Israel. Her research focuses on
internet folklore, tourism and media, celebrity studies, young influencers, and fandom studies
online and offline.

Meryl Alper, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies

at Northeastern University, U.S. She is the author of multiple books on the topic of disability,
youth, and technology including Digital Youth with Disabilities (MIT Press, 2014), Giving Voice:
Mobile Communication, Disability, and Inequality (MIT Press, 2017), and Kids Across the Spectrums:
Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age (MIT Press, forthcoming). In addition to her scholarship,
Dr. Alper has nearly two decades of experience in the children’s media industry, working as a
researcher, strategist, and consultant for entities such as Sesame Workshop, Nickelodeon,
Disney, and PBS KIDS.

Erica Weintraub Austin, Ph.D., is a Professor and the Director of the Edward R. Murrow
Center for Media and Health Promotion Research in the Edward R. Murrow College of
Communication at Washington State University, U.S. Her scholarship and outreach focus on
how media literacy and parent-child communication about media contribute to decision
making about health and civic affairs among youth and adults. The American Academy of
Pediatrics has cited her research in multiple policy statements about the health effects of the
media on children and adolescents.

Liam Berriman, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in Childhood and Youth Studies at the University of
Sussex, U.K. His main interests include the digital and datafied lives of children and young
people. He is the strand lead for “Digital Society” in the Sussex Digital Humanities Lab, and is

xiv
 Contributors

co-chief editor of the journal Children & Society. He is co-author of Researching Everyday
Childhoods: Time, Technology and Documentation (2018) and co-founder of the open-access
“Everyday Childhoods” digital archive.

Ine Beyens, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Amsterdam School of Communication

Research (ASCoR) at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her research focuses on
the effects of media on the cognitive, affective, and social well-being of children and
adolescents, with a special focus on differential susceptibility to media influences.

Tyler Bickford, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh,

U.S. His research focuses on children’s media, especially popular music and digital technology,
using ethnographic and cultural studies methods. He is the author of Tween Pop: Children’s
Music and Public Culture (Duke University Press, 2020) and Schooling New Media: Music,
Language, and Technology in Children’s Culture (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is the
recipient of an ACLS Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies for Tween
Pop, and Schooling New Media received honorable mention for the Iona and Peter Opie Prize
from the American Folklore Society.

Amy Bleakley, Ph.D., M.Ph., is a Professor in the Department of Communication at the

University of Delaware, U.S. Dr. Bleakley investigates how media influence adolescent health
and risk behaviors, portrayals of risk in entertainment media, and media use among youth.

Bradley J. Bond, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication

Studies at the University of San Diego, U.S. His research examines media as a socialization
agent for young audiences, and audience development of identification and perceived
connection to celebrities and fictional characters.

McCall Booth, M.S., is a Ph.D. student in The Media School at Indiana University, U.S. She
studies media psychology and specializes in joint media use and social media, with populations
ranging from infancy through adulthood.

Dina Borzekowski, Ed.D., is a Professor and Director of the Global Health Initiative at the
School of Public Health, University of Maryland – College Park, U.S. Dr. Borzekowski is an
internationally recognized scholar of children, media, and health. Her research focuses on
examining how youth come to use media and how media has an impact on the health and well-
being of children and adolescents. She enjoys working with media producers (Sesame
Workshop, Ubongo Kids, Blue Butterfly, MTV) developing and evaluating international
communication interventions for some of the world’s most vulnerable children.

Noel Brown, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer in Film at Liverpool Hope University, U.K. He has
written several books on aspects of children’s film, family entertainment, and animation,
including Contemporary Hollywood Animation (2021), The Children’s Film: Genre, Nation and
Narrative (2017), British Children’s Cinema (2016), and The Hollywood Family Film (2012). He is
also co-editor of Toy Story: How Pixar Reinvented the Animated Feature (2018) and Family Films in
Global Cinema: The World Beyond Disney (2015), and editor of the forthcoming Oxford
Handbook of Children’s Film.

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 Contributors

David Buckingham, Ph.D., is an Emeritus Professor at Loughborough University, and a

Visiting Professor at Kings College London, U.K. His work focuses on children’s and young
people’s interactions with media, and on media education. He has published over 30 books and
over 250 articles and book chapters in these areas. His latest publication is Youth on Screen:
Representing Young People in Film and Television (Polity Press). More information, as well as a
blog and numerous essays and articles, can be found at: www.davidbuckingham.net.

Moniek Buijzen, Ph.D., is a Professor of Communication and Behavioral Change at Erasmus

University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In her research she investigates how we can harness the
potential of digital media technology to improve young people’s well-being, while minimizing
potential risks. In 2019 she received a prestigious Vici grant from the Dutch Research Council
(NWO) for a five-year research project “SocialMovez: Effective and responsible health
campaigns for adolescents using online social networks.” In 2021, she received the Senior
Scholar Award of the Children, Adolescents and Media Division of the International
Communication Association.

Ryan Bunch is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers

University–Camden, U.S., where he teaches Children’s Literacies and Introduction to
Childhood Studies. He studied historical musicology at the University of Maryland and has
taught courses in music at Temple University, Rutgers University–Camden, and the
Community College of Philadelphia. Currently, he writes about children’s music, musical
theater, and the cultures of childhood. His dissertation is about the canons of mass-market
children’s music in the U.S. mid-twentieth century. He is the co-founder and co-chair of the
Childhood and Youth Study Group of the American Musicological Society.

Sandra L. Calvert, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology at Georgetown University, U.S. She is

also an affiliated faculty member at the McCourt School of Public Policy, and Director of the
Children’s Digital Media Center at Georgetown, as well as a fellow of the American Psychological
Association, the International Communication Association, and the Association for Psychological
Science. Dr. Calvert has authored seven books and over 100 articles and book chapters, served on
committees for the National Academies and the American Psychological Association, and is the co-
recipient of U.S. $9.25 million in grants in the children’s media area.

Cynthia Carter, Ph.D., is a Reader in the School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff
University, U.K. She has published widely on children, news, and citizenship; children’s media
policymaking; and feminist news studies. Her most recent book is the co-edited Journalism,
Gender and Power (Routledge, 2019). She is a founding co-editor of Feminist Media Studies
(Routledge) and serves on the editorial board of numerous media and communication
studies journals.

Kara Chan, Ph.D., is a Professor and Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) at the School of
Communication of Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong. Her research interests include
advertising and children/youth, cross cultural consumer studies, health communication, as well as
social inclusion. Her recent works include celebrity endorsement in public service advertising and
advertising literacy in the digital era. She is the editor-in-chief of Young Consumers journal. She
was the recipient of the President’s Award of Outstanding Performance in Research Supervision
in 2018, the General Education Teaching Award 2021, and a finalist for the 2020 University
Grants Committee Teaching Award.

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 Contributors

Maggie Dahn, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Researcher working with the Connected Learning
Lab and Creativity Labs at the University of California, Irvine, U.S. She received her Ph.D. in
Urban Schooling from UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies in 2019
with support from an NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Award. She engages in design research with
the goal of creating more thoughtful and imaginative learning environments. She is interested in
how people make sense of their experiences and how art making supports learning.

Ans De Nolf, M.A., is a Junior Researcher and Ph.D. candidate in the Institute of Media
Studies at KU Leuven, Belgium. She has conducted research on the experiences, solutions,
causes and coping mechanisms of Islamophobia among young adults in Flanders.

Lenka Dedkova, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Team

on Internet and Society (irtis.muni.cz) and the Department of Media Studies and Journalism at
the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czechia. She has participated in several
national and international projects and has experience in social science and computer science
research. Her research interests include the impact of children’s and adolescents’ online
interactions on their well-being, online parental mediation, and usable security. She is also an
editor of Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace.

Leen d’Haenens, Ph.D., is a Full Professor in Communication Science at the Institute for Media
Studies of the Faculty of Social Sciences in KU Leuven, Belgium. She teaches “Analysis of Media
Texts” and “European Media Policy” at the B.A. level, and “Media, Audiences and Identity” at the
M.A. level. Her research interests touch upon young people and (social) media use, with a focus on
vulnerable youth. She combines quantitative and qualitative methods, multi-site comparisons, and
in recent years “small data” with “big data” methods. She is co-editor of Communications and
associate editor of Gazette. She is a member of the Euromedia Research Group.

Shawn Domgaard, M.A., is a Ph.D. (ABD) student at Washington State University, U.S. His
research focuses on media literacy, misinformation, and health communication. He is currently
studying misinformation and its effects upon vaccine hesitancy and civic engagement, with
publications recently featured in the Journal of Health Communication, and the Harvard Kennedy
School.

Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Ph.D., is a Professor of Film, and Head of the School of Arts
and Social Sciences at Monash University, Malaysia. Recent publications include: Refugee
Film-making (http://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue18.html); There’s No Place Like Home:
The Migrant Child in World Cinema (2018), and, as co-editor, Childhood and Nation in
Contemporary World Cinema: Borders and Encounters (2017). She has had a long-term interest
and a record of publication and media research with children and young people, particularly but
not solely in China and Australia.

Kirsten Drotner, Ph.D., is a Professor Emeritus of Media Studies at the University of Southern
Denmark, Denmark. Her research interests include children’s media and information literacies,
digital co-creation and creative learning, and digital museum communication. She is (co-)author or
(co-)editor of more than 40 books and reports including The International Handbook of Children,
Media and Culture (co-edited, 2008), Digital Content Creation: Creativity, Competence, Critique (co-
edited, 2010) and The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication (co-edited, 2018).
In her work, she is passionate about bringing research evidence to bear on policies and practices.

xvii
 Contributors

Meenakshi Gigi Durham, Ph.D., is Professor and CLAS Collegiate Scholar in the School of
Journalism and Mass Communication with a joint appointment in Gender, Women’s and
Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa, U.S. Her research centers on sexuality in the media,
with a focus on youth cultures as well as sexual violence. She is the recipient of the International
Communication Association’s Teresa Award for the Advancement of Feminist Scholarship. She
has published in leading media studies journals. Her books include Media and Cultural Studies:
KeyWorks (2001/2012), The Lolita Effect (2008), Technosex (2016), and MeToo: The Impact of
Rape Culture in the Media (2021).

Steven Eggermont, Ph.D., is Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences and Professor at the Leuven
School for Mass Communication Research at KU Leuven, Belgium. His work, which has been
recognized with several international awards, focuses on the relationship between media use
patterns and developmental processes in the life span and in the media’s effects on emotional,
mental, and physical health in young people. Eggermont has published widely on children’s and
adolescents’ media use, sexual media contents, media use and health behaviors, and media
effects. He is also principal investigator of several fundamental and applied research projects
within the field of communication sciences.

Nelly Elias, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the Department of Communication Studies,

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Among her main research interests are media in
early childhood and family life. Currently, she is conducting a series of projects on shaping
media habits in early childhood, parents and children’s digital media practices in public places,
media content addressing toddlers, and preschoolers and grandparental mediation of children’s
media uses.

Morgan Ellithorpe, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at

the University of Delaware, U.S. Her research is in the area of media psychology, and centers
on media effects on health and health disparities, and representation of marginalized and
underserved groups in media.

Shalom Fisch, Ph.D., is President and Founder of MediaKidz Research & Consulting and
former Vice President of Program Research at Sesame Workshop, U.S. His work sits at the
nexus of theory and practice, helping to produce effective educational media for children
around the world (e.g., Sesame Street, 1001 Nights, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That),
while also advancing the academic literature through empirical research and theoretical
contributions such as the capacity model and cross-platform learning.

Lelia Green, Ph.D., is a Professor of Communications at Edith Cowan University, Australia,

and ECU node leader and Chief Investigator with the Australian Research Council’s Centre of
Excellence for the Digital Child. Researching children’s lives in digital contexts for 20 years,
Lelia has published more than 180 papers, written two books and co-edited three more. She is a
member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Children and Media.

Maya Götz, Ph.D., is Head of the International Central Institute for Youth and Educational
Television (IZI) at the Bayerischer Rundfunk, and managing director of the PRIX JEUNESSE
INTERNATIONAL in Germany. She graduated from the Pädagogische Hochschule in Kiel,
Germany, with the first state examination in education for elementary schools and the upper
division of elementary schools as well as with a M.A. in education. Subsequently she acquired a

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 Contributors

Ph.D. degree from the University of Kassel, Germany in 1998. The theme of her thesis was
“Television in the everyday life of girls: facets of media appropriation in female adolescence.”
Her main field of work is research in the area of “children/youth and television.” In addition to
that, she works and publishes in the field of gender-specific reception research.

Kristen Harrison, Ph.D., is a Professor of Communication and Media at the University of

Michigan, U.S. She studies media uses and effects concerning children, adolescents, and families,
with an emphasis on bodies, health, and development. Research topics have included fright
reactions to scary media, body image, disordered eating, nutritional knowledge, sexual
objectification, AIDS stigma, problematic child media use, family media conflict, and media
use for sensory regulation, among others. Her work has been funded by organizations such as the
U.S. Department of Agriculture and the William T. Grant Foundation.

Uwe Hasebrink, Ph.D., was the Director of the Leibniz Institute for Media Research in the
Hans-Bredow-Institut and Full Professor of Empirical Communication Research at the
University of Hamburg, Germany. His research fields include patterns of media use and
media repertoires, media convergence from the users’ perspective, consequences of online
media for established media, media use by children and young people, forms of user interest vis-
à-vis the media as well as European media and European audiences. From 2014 to 2021, he
coordinated the EU Kids Online research network.

Renee Hobbs, Ed.D., is a Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Rhode

Island, U.S., where she directs the Media Education Lab (www.mediaeducationlab.com) and co-
directs the Graduate Certificate in Digital Literacy. She has authored 150+ scholarly articles and 12
books on digital and media-literacy education, including Mind Over Media: Propaganda Education in
a Digital Age, which was awarded the 2021 PROSE Award for Excellence in Social Sciences by the
American Association of Publishers. She received a M.A. in Communication Studies from the
University of Michigan and an Ed.D. from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Patrick R. Johnson is a Doctoral Student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication
at the University of Iowa, U.S. His research focuses on media as a moral institution, which means
he interrogates how media serves as an educational, definitional, and structural agent in
developing one’s moral knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Most of his attention is on the
institution of journalism and news literacy, but his years as a high school teacher helped guide his
work about children, adolescents, and media literacy more broadly. Johnson is a Dow Jones
Distinguished National Journalism Teacher of the Year recipient.

Amy B. Jordan, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of the Department of Journalism and Media
Studies at Rutgers University, U.S. Her work focuses on the role of media in the lives of youth
and their families and the impact of U.S. public policy on the children’s media landscape. She is
the former co-editor of the Journal of Children and Media and former president of the
International Communication Association.

Willem Joris, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for Media Studies at the KU
Leuven, Belgium. He is also guest professor in Communication Sciences at the Free University
of Brussels (VUB). His current research interests include media and minorities, children and
youth, journalism, and European studies. He is project manager of ySKILLS (Youth Skills), a
Horizon 2020 project under grant agreement N°870612.

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 Contributors

Vikki S. Katz, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Communication Department in the

School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University, U.S. Her research focuses
on digital inequality and how children and adults in lower-income and immigrant families
respond to these challenges. She is the author of more than 30 books, articles, and policy reports
on these issues. For more information, please visit www.vikkikatz.com.

Valerie N. Kemp, B.S., B.A., is a Doctoral Student and Rackham Merit Fellow in the
Department of Communication and Media at the University of Michigan, U.S. She studies how
misrepresentation and underrepresentation of race and gender in media influences children’s
developing sense of self, their self-esteem, and their understanding of the social world.

Marina Krcmar, Ph.D., is a Professor at Wake Forest University, U.S. Her research focuses
on the how children and adolescents use and are affected by media. Recent work has focused
on media and moral reasoning, social media and media targeting young children. She has
published two books, as well as over 100 chapters and journal articles.

Alexis R. Lauricella, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at Erikson Institute and Director of the
Technology in Early Childhood Center at Erikson Institute, U.S. Dr. Lauricella earned her
Ph.D. in Psychology and her Master’s in Public Policy from Georgetown University and
completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University. Her research focuses on
children’s learning from media technology and parents’ and teachers’ attitudes toward and use
of media technology with young children.

Dafna Lemish, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean of Programs at the
School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University, U.S. Previously she was
Dean of the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts at Southern Illinois University, a
Fellow at the Center for Media and Child Health affiliated with Harvard and Children’s
Hospital Boston, and Chair of the Department of Communication at Tel Aviv University. She
is the founding editor of the Journal of Children and Media, and a Fellow of the International
Communication Association (ICA). Her work has been recognized in many prestigious awards,
including recently the Rutgers University Board of Trustees Research Excellence Award, 2020.
She is author and editor of 15 books, and over 150 journal articles and book chapters on
children, media, and gender representations and a regular contributor to media outlets.

Diana Leon-Boys, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication

Studies at the University of South Florida, U.S. She is a critical media and cultural studies
scholar. Within that framework, she focuses on the representation of race, age, gender, and
sexuality in popular culture. Most recently her research has focused on the production,
representation, and consumption of Latina girls in a post-network digital era against the
backdrop of contemporary post-feminist and neoliberal frameworks. She teaches and researches
digital audiences, Latina/o/x media, Latina/o/x studies, race and gender in popular media, and
intercultural communication, among other topics.

Sun Sun Lim, Ph.D., is Professor of Communication and Technology and Head of
Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at the Singapore University of Technology and Design,
Singapore. She has extensively researched the social impact of technology, delving into
technology domestication, digital disruptions and smart city technologies. She recently
published Transcendent Parenting – Raising Children in the Digital Age (Oxford University

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 Contributors

Press, 2020) and co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Mobile Communication and Society (Oxford
University Press, 2020). She serves on 11 journal editorial boards and several public bodies
including the Media Literacy Council. From 2018–2020 she was a Nominated Member of the
thirteenth Parliament of Singapore. She was named in the inaugural Singapore 100 Women in
Tech list in 2020 that recognizes and celebrates women who have made significant
contributions to the technology sector. See www.sunsunlim.com.

Rich Ling, Ph.D., is the Shaw Foundation Professor of Media Technology, at Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore where he studies the social consequences of mobile
communication. Ling has written The Mobile Connection (2004), New Tech, New Ties (2008), and
Taken for Grantedness (2012). He edits the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and is a
founding co-editor of both Mobile Media and Communication and the Oxford University Press
Series, Studies in Mobile Communication. He is a member of Academia Europaea, Det Norske
Vitenskaps Akademi (The Norwegian Academy of Arts and Letters), and a fellow of the
International Communication Association.

Sonia Livingstone, D.Phil., OBE, FBA, FBPS, FAcSS, FRSA, is a Full Professor in the
Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political
Science, U.K. She has published 20 books on media audiences, including Parenting for a Digital
Future: How Hopes and Fears about Technology Shape Children’s Lives. She has advised the U.K.
government, European Commission, European Parliament, UN Committee on the Rights of
the Child, OECD, ITU and UNICEF and others on children’s internet safety and rights in the
digital environment. She directs the Digital Futures Commission (with the 5Rights
Foundation) and Global Kids Online (with UNICEF).

Katalin Lustyik, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Media Studies and Global Screen Studies in
the Department of Media Arts, Sciences, and Studies, Roy H. Park School of Communications at
Ithaca College, U.S. Her research has focused on children’s television in Eastern Europe, the
transnational children’s television market, children’s media regulation, and the international
expansion of U.S.-based media companies and conglomerations such as Nickelodeon, the Walt
Disney Company and Netflix.

Hana Machackova, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and a researcher at the Interdisciplinary

Research Team on Internet and Society, the Department of Psychology, and the Department
of Media Studies and Journalism, at Masaryk University, Czechia. Hana researches the role of
the internet and technologies in adolescents’ lives. Her current research focus is on online
aggression, online communities, and ICT and well-being. Hana has participated in several
national and international projects, such as EU Kids Online and ySKILLS. She also focuses on
experimental research in the area of cyberpsychology.

Chelly Maes is a Doctoral Researcher at the Leuven School for Mass Communication
Research at KU Leuven, Belgium under supervision of Professor Laura Vandenbosch. Her
Ph.D. project focuses on the role of entertainment fiction as a positive socialization agent for
adolescents’ sexuality and body image. She also explores adolescents’ pornography uses and
engagement in sexting. Chelly has already presented her research at different (inter)national
conferences such as Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschapp and the 2019 and 2021
International Communication Association Conference (ICA). She is a member of the
Netherlands-Flanders Communication Association (NeFCA).

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 Contributors

Nicole Martins, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Media School at Indiana University,
Bloomington, U.S. Her research focuses on the social and psychological effects of the media on
youth. She has a longstanding interest on the effects of relationally aggressive portrayals in the
media, as well the impact of the media on children’s self-esteem and body-image concerns.

Sharon R. Mazzarella, Ph.D., is a Professor of Communication Studies at James Madison

University, U.S. Her research focuses on news constructions of girls and girlhoods. She is author
of Girls, Moral Panic and News Media: Troublesome Bodies (Routledge, 2020) and editor/co-editor
of nine academic collections including the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Girls’ Studies. In
addition, she is editor of the book series “Mediated Youth” (Peter Lang) – a series dedicated to
publishing trailblazing academic books on cultural studies of youth.

Divya McMillin, Ph.D., is a Professor of Global Media Studies and Associate Vice Chancellor
of Innovation and Global Engagement at the University of Washington Tacoma, U.S.
McMillin’s work on the impact of satellite television on audiences and the television format
industry across the world, have led to three critically acclaimed books, International Media Studies
(Wiley 2007), Mediated Identities: Youth, Agency, and Globalization (Peter Lang, 2009), and the
anthology Place, Power, Media: Mediated Responses to Globalization (Peter Lang, 2018). Her
analyses of media globalization, soft power, and the social impact of convergence technologies,
are widely published in leading anthologies of the field and in such journals as the Journal of
Communication, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Popular Communication, and Continuum:
Journal of Media and Cultural Studies.

Anneleen Meeus, M.A., is a Doctoral Candidate at the Leuven School for Mass
Communication Research, KU Leuven, Belgium. Her work has been published in several
acclaimed journals and focuses on the influence of (mobile) social media on the psychosocial
development of children. Specifically, she is researching media effects and media-adoption in
the family and peer context.

Gustavo Mesch, Ph.D., is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Haifa, Israel. His
research has focused on the social effects of internet and mobile communication, social
networks online and offline and technology and social capital. Professor Mesch has been a
visiting Fellow at the University of Toronto and the Oxford University Internet Institute. He
was the Chair of the Communication and Information Technology Section of the American
Sociological Association and is the co-author (with Ilan Talmud) of Wired Youth: The Social
World of Adolescence in the Information Age (Routledge, 2020).

Claudia Mitchell, Ph.D., is a Distinguished James McGill Professor in the Faculty of Education
where she is the Director of the Institute for Human Development and Well-being, and the
Founder and Director of the Participatory Cultures Lab at McGill University, Canada. Her
research focuses on participatory visual art-based work with young people particularly in areas
such as Gender-based violence and HIV and AIDS. She is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of
the award-winning journal, Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

Deborah L. Nichols, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Human Development at Purdue

University, U.S. Her expertise lies at the interface between children’s cognitive development and
learning and the use of multimedia materials and how and whether these vary by demographic and
social indicators. The majority of her research has examined the unique benefits for children

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 Contributors

growing up in poverty or for children who have culturally and linguistically diverse identities. She
is co-author of the edited volume Media Exposure During Infancy and Early Childhood: The Effects of
Content and Context on Learning and Development (2017, Springer).

Peter Nikken, Ph.D., is an Endowed Professor of Parental Mediation in the Department of

Media and Communication at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In addition, he
is Professor of Youth and Media at Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in Zwolle. His
research interest is mainly focused on the intermediate role of parents and professional educators
for children’s media use, and how the media industry can both support caregivers in their
mediation practices or create problems for them. A central focus point in his latest work are
children with mental disabilities and learning problems and the support on their media use by
their caregivers.

Brian O’Neill, Ph.D., is an Adjunct Professor at Technological University Dublin, Ireland.

His research focuses on young people’s use of digital technologies, online safety, and policy for
the digital environment. He has undertaken research for the European Commission, UNICEF,
the Council of Europe, the Ombudsman for Children’s Office and the Broadcasting Authority
of Ireland on various topics associated with media literacy, child rights, and information society
technologies. He currently leads on policy for the CO:RE Children Online: Research and
Evidence initiative supported by the European Commission. He a member of Ireland’s
National Advisory Council for Online Safety and chaired the Irish government’s task force on
Internet Content Governance.

Debbie Olson, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of English as Missouri Valley College, U.S.
Her research interests include images of African and African American children in film and
television, childhood studies, race and cultural studies, African film, and New Hollywood
Cinema. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Red Feather Journal: An International Journal of
Children in Popular Culture (www.redfeatherjournal.org), author of Black Children in Hollywood
Cinema: Cast in Shadow (Palgrave 2017), and editor of Children and Childhood in the Works of
Stephen King (2020), The Child in World Cinema (2018), The Child in Post-apocalyptic Cinema
(2015), and many others. She has written numerous book chapters, most recently “On the
Innocence of Beasts: Child Soldiers in Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation” in African
Childhoods, edited by Charles Quist-Adade, De-Valera Botchway, and Awo Abena Amoa
Sarpong, 2019. She is currently working on her next monograph, Counterculture Cinema: Youth
in Transition.

Tao Papaioannou, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Communication in the Department of

Communications at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus. Her research interests include digital
media, civic and political participation, media literacy and education, social media and youth
practice. She has published extensively on these subjects and guest-edited special journal issues,
including, most recently, an issue of the International Journal of Communication on comparative
analysis of anti-austerity protests in the Eurozone crisis (with Miguel Vicente and Peter
Dahlgren, October 2020). Her latest book is Media Representations of Anti-Austerity Protests in the
EU: Grievances, Identities and Agency (with Suman Gupta, Routledge, 2018).

Ingrid Paus-Hasebrink, Ph.D., was a Full Professor for Audio-visual and Online
Communication at the Department of Communications (2001–2018) and dean of the
Faculty for Social and Cultural Sciences at the University of Salzburg (2011–2015), Austria.

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 Contributors

Her research fields include media socialization, analyses of audio-visual content, of genres and
formats; audience and reception analyses (e.g., daily talks, daily soaps, real-life formats, social
media); she was head of a longitudinal panel study on media socialization of socially
disadvantaged young people in Austria (2005–2021) and head of the Austrian team of the
European research network EU Kids Online and the Austrian CO:RE-Team.

Norma Pecora, Ph.D., is a Professor Emerita at the School of Media Arts and Studies at Ohio
University, U.S. Her research interests include children’s media industries, questions of gender
in children’s media, and the history of media research. All of her work is informed by feminist
theory. Among her recent works are African media, African Child (edited with Enyonam Osei-
Hwere).

Kylie Peppler, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Informatics and Education and Director of
the Creativity Labs at University of California, Irvine, U.S. An artist by training, Dr. Peppler
engages in research on the intersection of arts, computational technologies, and interest-driven
learning. She holds a Ph.D. in Urban Schooling from UCLA, where she was on the team that
designed and studied the Scratch platform, which garnered her a Dissertation Research Award
from the Spencer Foundation.

Jochen Peter, Ph.D., is a Full Professor in the Amsterdam School of Communication

Research ASCoR at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His research interests
include young people’s use of new technologies and how they affect children’s and adolescents’
psychosocial development.

Kate Prendella is a Doctoral Candidate in Media Studies at in the School of Communication

and Information Studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, U.S. Her research focuses on
the relationship between disability and the media. Her work is thus two-fold: researching the
representation of disabled people present in popular culture and examining the ways in which
disabled individuals access media.

Srivi Ramasubramanian, Ph.D., is a Professor and Newhouse Endowed Chair at Syracuse

University, U.S. Previously, she served as Presidential Impact Fellow and Professor of
Communication at Texas A&M University. She is the Director of CODE^SHIFT
(Collaboratory for Digital Equity, Social Healing, Inclusive Futures, and Transformation),
Difficult Dialogues Project, and Media Rise initiatives. Her research focuses on critical media
effects, digital literacy, social justice, bias reduction, and mixed methods. She is the recipient of
the 2021 ICA Applied/Public Policy Award, 2020 NCA Gerald M. Phillips Distinguished
Award for Applied Communication, and the 2017 NAMLE Outstanding Researcher Award.

Giselle Rampaul was Lecturer in Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, St
Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago at the time of her sudden passing in 2017. She was co-editor
(with Geraldine Elizabeth Skeete) of The Child and the Caribbean Imagination, and was the
creator, editor, and producer of the podcast series The Spaces between Words: Conversations with
Writers. She was a founding member of Red Feather Journal: An International Journal of Children in
Popular Culture and has authored numerous journal articles. At the time of her death she was
completing a book on Shakespeare in the Caribbean. She is greatly missed.

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 Contributors

Michael Rich, M.D., M.Ph., is Founding Director of the Digital Wellness Lab and the Clinic
for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders, Boston Children’s Hospital, an Associate
Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and is an Associate Professor of Social and
Behavioral Science in the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University, U.S. He
practices Adolescent Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. A former filmmaker who studied
under Akira Kurosawa, Dr. Rich’s experience and expertise in medicine and media synergize in
his health research and clinical work as an Adolescent Medicine physician. He established
and directed the Center on Media and Child Health in 2002, evolving it into the Digital
Wellness Lab in 2021. Dr. Rich has been named “The Mediatrician” for his role in offering
research-based, balanced and practical answers to parents’, teachers’, and clinicians’ questions
about children’s media use and the positive and negative implications for their health and
development.

Michelle M. Rivera, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the School of Communication at

Northwestern University, U.S., where she is also a media expert for the Women’s Media
Center; and DEI consultant for Catalyst:Ed. Rivera was a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellowship
recipient and served as the Field Museum’s first-ever Public Engagement Manager for Diversity
and Inclusion. She was named an Exemplary Diversity Scholar by the National Center for
Institutional Diversity (NCID) at the University of Michigan, where she was an NCID
Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of American Culture and affiliate faculty in Digital
Studies. Her anti-fandom and Latin(x) pop music research has been published in several
contributed volumes.

Michael B. Robb, Ph.D., is Senior Director of Research at Common Sense, U.S. At

Common Sense, he oversees the research program, Evaluation of Organization Impact, and
Program Development Research. He has published research on the roles of media and
technology in children’s lives in a variety of academic journals, and his work has been featured
in press outlets such as The New York Times, the Washington Post, and NPR. Michael also has
supervised community educational outreach efforts, helping parents and teachers make the most
of quality children’s programming. Michael received his B.A. from Tufts University, and M.A.
and Ph.D. in Psychology from UC Riverside.

Esther Rozendaal, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Communication and Behavioral

Change at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In her research she investigates
how teenagers can be empowered to use digital media in a safe and responsible manner. In
2020, she received a Vidi grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for a five-year
research project “Empowering children to behave safely online: An integrated developmental-
behavioral approach to digital media literacy.” Rozendaal also investigates children’s and
adolescents’ responses to advertising.

Morgan Russo is a Research Assistant at the Technology in Early Childhood Center and is
completing her master’s in Child Development at Erikson Institute, U.S. Previously she taught
in Chicago Public Schools and worked as an instructional coach. She currently works as a
writer and curriculum developer for a series of edtech and media companies such as Peekapak,
321 Learning, and Friends Call Me Jim. She has also published a chapter in a children’s book,
The Mediators, teaching children how to mediate their media use.

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 Contributors

Erica Scharrer, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair in the Department of Communication at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst, U.S. She studies media content, opinions of media, media
effects, and media literacy especially regarding violence and gender. Her newest book is
Quantitative Research Methods in Communication: The Power of Numbers for Social Justice, co-
authored with Srividya Ramasubramanian, and she has recently published articles in the Journal of
Children and Media, Psychology of Popular Media, and Journal of Media Literacy Education.

Kirsten Schneid is the festival and project coordinator of the PRIX JEUNESSE Foundation in
Germany. She has studied Political Science in Munich and Jerusalem and started her professional
career as foreign correspondent in Israel for the Catholic News Agency (KNA). In 1995 she joined
the PRIX JEUNESSE Foundation. At PRIX JEUNESSE Kirsten organizes the bi-annual PRIX
JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL, the world’s leading festival for children’s and youth TV
programs, and organizes and conducts training for children’s TV professionals with the “PRIX
JEUNESSE Suitcase.” Additionally, she oversees the media-literacy initiatives for children which
the PRIX JEUNESSE Foundation has developed in recent years.

Linda Simensky is Head of Animation and Scripted Content for Duolingo Studios, U.S.,
where she oversees story-based animation and scripted content for the language app. From 2003
through 2021, Simensky was Head of Content and Vice President of Programming for PBS
KIDS. Before joining PBS, Simensky was Senior Vice President of Original Animation for
Cartoon Network, where she oversaw development and series production of “The Powerpuff
Girls,” among other shows. She began her career working for nine years at Nickelodeon, where
she helped build the animation department and launch the popular series “Rugrats,” “Doug,”
and “The Ren and Stimpy Show.”

David Smahel, Ph.D., is a Professor at the Faculty of Social Studies and the Faculty of
Informatics, Masaryk University, Czechia. He is the head of the Interdisciplinary Research
Team on Internet and Society, which researches the social-psychological implications of the
internet and technology. His current research focus is on adolescents’ and adults’ internet use,
the online risks of children and adolescents, physical well-being, mHealth, eHealth, and online
research methods. He is a chief editor of Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on
Cyberspace and has co-authored Digital Youth: The Role of Media in Development.

Jeanette Steemers, Ph.D., is Professor of Culture, Media, and Creative Industries and Vice
Dean Research in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at King’s College London, U.K. After
working for CIT Research, a research company, and HIT Entertainment, an international
distributor of children’s content, she joined academia in 1993. Her many publications on
children’s media include Creating Preschool Television (2010), Children’s TV and Digital Media in
the Arab World (2017, with Naomi Sakr), and Screen Media for Arab and European Children (2019,
with Naomi Sakr). Her work has been funded by the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust,
and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Rebecca Herr Stephenson, Ph.D., is an Associate Clinical Professor and director of the Ed.D.
in Educational Leadership for Social Justice in the School of Education at Loyola Marymount
University, U.S. Her research interests include teaching and learning with digital media in both
K-12 and higher education with particular emphasis on access and inclusion. Her recent work,
aimed at supporting educators in urban schools, has focused on culturally sustaining and trauma-
informed teaching during periods of cultural and political turmoil.

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 Contributors

Francesca Stocco is a Ph.D. Candidate at Edith Cowan University, Australia. She is associated
with the Australian Research Council (ARC) Internet of Toys (IoToys) Discovery Grant,
researching connected toys, with particular reference to the commercial governance of these
toys, two of which are health-related. Currently, she is analyzing the obfuscations and omissions
of selected privacy policies (PPs), terms and conditions (T&Cs) and frequently asked questions
(FAQs) related to connected toys, with regulatory, design, cyber safety, and educational
outcomes focused on improving parents’ literacies so that they can better support their
children’s understanding of data privacy and security practices online.

Jean Stuart, Ph.D., was a Lecturer and a Researcher in the field of Media and Language
studies primarily within the field of Education at University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.
She is interested in how participatory and arts-based methodologies can contribute to
identifying and expressing challenges in health and education and for moving towards
positive steps forward in this area. She regards her period serving as Director of the Centre
for Visual Methodologies for Social Change at University of KwaZulu Natal and the
opportunity to lead the research project “Youth as Knowledge Producers” as periods where
she was stretched and strengthened by the commitment, dedication and enthusiasm of both
students and very gifted colleagues.

Carol L. Tilley, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the
University of Illinois, U.S., where she teaches courses in youth services librarianship, media
literacy, and comics. Tilley’s scholarship focuses on the intersection of youth, comics,
participatory cultures, and libraries, particularly in the U.S. during the mid-twentieth
century. Her research has been featured in The New York Times and other venues. She is a
former president of the Comics Studies Society and has served a juror for the Will Eisner
International Comics Industry Awards.

Angharad N. Valdivia, Ph.D., is Chair of the Latina Latino Studies Department and
Research Professor at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois,
U.S. Her books include A Latina in the Land of Hollywood; Feminism, Multiculturalism and the
Media; A Companion to Media Studies; Latina/o Communication Studies Today; Mapping Latina/o
Studies; Latina/os and the Media; and The Gender of Latinidad: Uses and Abuses of Hybridity. She
served as editor of Communication Theory and the International Encyclopedia of Media Studies. She is
a Fellow of the International Communication Association.

Patti M. Valkenburg, Ph.D., is University Distinguished Professor at the University of

Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her research interests include the cognitive, emotional, and
behavioral effects of old and new media on children, adolescents, and adults.

Eva A. van Reijmersdal, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Persuasive Communication in

the Amsterdam School of Communication Research, ASCoR at the University of Amsterdam,
the Netherlands. She focuses on the impact of online sponsored content, including influencer
marketing, on children and adults. In 2017 she received an Aspasia grant from the Dutch
Research Council (NWO) for a five-year research project “Disclosing Sponsored Media
Content to Confront Surreptitious Persuasion.” Van Reijmersdal serves as Associate Editor of
International Journal of Advertising.

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 Contributors

Laura Vandenbosch, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the School for Mass Communication
Research at KU Leuven, Belgium. The relationship between media and well-being is the core
subject of her research, leading to international publications in several fields including
developmental psychology, sexology, body image, social relationships, and communication
theory. In 2015 she was elected Secretary of the Children, Adolescents and Media Division of
the International Communication Association (2015–2018). Laura is currently also an editorial
board member of several key journals. Her work has led to several awards, such as the Top
Paper, Top Article, and Top Dissertation Awards from the Children, Adolescents and Media
(CAM) Division of the International Communication Association (2013–2016) and the
Research Council Award in the Humanities (Prijs Onderzoeksraad, 2016).

Alyvia H. Walters is a Ph.D. Candidate in Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers

University-New Brunswick, U.S. Her research focuses on the ways that child-centered affects
are deployed in the discursive worlds of U.S. news media and policy, with a particular interest
in the language surrounding marginalized children and its political outcomes.

Ellen Wartella, Ph.D., is the Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-thani Professor of Communication
and Director of the Center on Media and Human Development at Northwestern University,
U.S. She researches the role of media and technology on children and adolescents’ health and
development. She is the author or editor of 12 books and approximately 200 book chapters,
research articles, and reports. She edits Social Policy Reports. She is a fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Psychological Society, and the International
Communication Association and holds an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from St.
Vincent College.

Rebekah Willett, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Information School at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, U.S. She has conducted research on children’s media cultures, focusing on
issues of play, literacy, identity, and learning. Her publications include work on makerspaces,
playground games, amateur camcorder cultures, families’ screen media practices, and children’s
story writing. She has published in journals in the fields of education, childhood studies, media
studies, and library and information science. In addition, she has co-authored and/or edited five
books and contributed to numerous edited books.

xxviii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This handbook is a huge undertaking, one which would have been impossible without the
scholarship, enthusiasm, talent, expertise, and hard work of the contributors. Collectively, they
represent the current status of scholarship, policymaking, activism, education, and advocacy
work conducted for, about, and with children, over the last half a century.
This volume would have been impossible without the support I received throughout my
academic journey from many institutions and colleagues around the world, and in particular in
both Israel and the U.S. over the last 40 years. Collectively, they form an orchestra of voices and
should be considered to be leading partners and contributors. I am also indebted to Natalie
Foster, Senior Editor of Media and Cultural Studies at Routledge, for her enthusiasm and
support for this project, and to the Routledge editorial and production team. I am also grateful
to Nicole Weber and Alyvia Walters, Ph.D. students at Rutgers University for their invaluable
help in preparing this manuscript for print.
Finally, I acknowledge the important role of my own three children (now adults with their
own partners), Leeshai, Noam, and Erga, who taught me, first-hand, about media in the lives of
young people growing up, and their father and my partner Peter Lemish, who shared in our
efforts at home to maximize the positive potential of the media and minimize the negative
implications. The ideas we bounced at each other, the experiences we mediated, the constant
learning we shared – have made this – as all of my other books – a reality.
Dafna Lemish

xxix
 INTRODUCTION TO THE
SECOND EDITION: CHILDREN,
ADOLESCENTS, AND MEDIA
Creating a Shared Scholarly Arena

Dafna Lemish

Introduction
The media landscape has changed dramatically in the decade that has passed since the
publication of the first edition of The Routledge International Handbook of Children, Adolescents,
and Media in 2013. The ubiquity of digital media, the sharp rise in ownership of mobile
phones, constant engagement in social networking, as well as extensive viewing on streaming
platforms are just some of the dramatic changes we have witnessed that impact the lived
experiences of children and youth around the world. These developments attracted public
debates – as they always have historically – and led to the exponential growth of research in
our field. Questions about digital inequalities, media use and mental health, children’s digital
rights, and impacts of social network influencers surfaced in a variety of disciplines, and with
these developments, it became clear to us that there is an urgent need to revise the first
edition of this handbook.
As we were engaged in this revision process, the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic struck
and remains a central aspect of our reality as I write these lines. While it turned our lives upside-
down, in so many ways, it also highlighted the centrality of our field: Never before have young
children around the world been so heavily dependent on the media in such important aspects of
their well-being, including information, emotional regulation, relaxation, and social connec-
tion. Media have been recognized as the lifeline for isolated children and families in shutdown
societies (Götz & Lemish, 2022).
Reflecting over lessons learned from the pandemic, I noted recently the need to move away
from the dominancy of alarmist concerns over too much “screen time” and their potential
negative effects toward achieving balances including appreciation of the important roles they
serve for children’s everyday lives (Lemish, 2021). I also argued that focusing on how media are
used, rather than how much time is spent with them, is more valuable for our understanding of
the interaction between media consumption and well-being. Furthermore, I noted that the
pandemic highlighted to so many of us the disparities of access, skills, and opportunities with
media that exist not only between countries around the world with various levels of income
and resources but also, to a large degree, within countries when it is characterized by a high
level of social and economic inequalities. In turn, this situation reinforced, in my view, the need
to apply ecological approaches to understanding young people’s media use and impact, as they

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-1 1
 Dafna Lemish

can lead us to consider multiple contexts on all levels: Family, school, peers, neighborhood, and
society-at-large. I also called for staying away from binary approaches to media consumption
that constantly compare and contrast children and adults, school and leisure, learning and fun,
online and offline, rather than look at children’s world through a holistic perspective. Finally, I
noted how the pandemic illuminated the great need to strengthen the dialogue and professional
exchange between scholars and the industry’s producers of media for children and young
people, for the benefit of all.
While all these themes are emerging in new research that is stimulating our field, our
academic associations, and our production of knowledge and publication – it is important to
recognize how much has remained just as relevant and valuable. The debates over negative
effects and the need to protect children; the hopes for the positive roles media can play in their
lives; the recognition of especially thorny issues related to health, sex, violence, and substance
abuse; the roles of family, educators, policymakers, and the industry – all these and more,
remain topics of study and debate, regardless of medium and culture.
Furthermore, we continue to recognize that the study of children, young people, and the
media can be viewed as a microcosm of media studies. First, our field is occupied with the
conventional three main realms of research of the field – audiences, texts, and institutions.
Second, our research, policy debates, and initiatives, such as media literacy, demonstrate the
importance of understanding the needs and capabilities of different types of audiences. Third,
regarding audiences, media studies as a whole can learn from our field the importance of
understanding that characterizations of populations, such as childhood, are socially constructed
and culturally and historically situated. Thus, we understand that children are perceived to be
a special, evolving, and dynamic group of people – characterized by unique developmental
stages – who are gradually accumulating life experiences and developing knowledge as well as
critical skills. All of these processes distinguish children and young people from older audiences.
Indeed, they are often considered to be more vulnerable than adults to the influences of media.
Hence the debate about whether some forms of protection and supervision should be required
to ensure the realization of young people’s most basic of human rights – healthy social, physical,
and mental development and well-being.
Living with a global media culture is one of the characteristics of childhood in the third
millennium, as screens – of television, cinema, computers, mobile devices, and hand-held
electronic games – are all part of everyday life. Seventy years of research of the most central
screen in children’s lives, television, identified trends and key issues regarding the roles of this
medium, such as long-term implications for behavior (e.g., violence, eating disorders, sexual
experiences, consumer practices, pro-social behavior); cultivation of worldview and values
(e.g., perception of gender, political attitudes, stereotypes of minorities); learning potential
(e.g., language, school-related curricula, cognitive skills); and, centrality in family and social
life (e.g., structuring everyday routine, providing conversation topics, creating youth culture)
(Lemish, 2015). Interestingly, while television continues to be dominant in families as well as
for many individuals, this multifaceted medium is changing in front of our eyes. The device
is now manufactured in every size and shape; audio-visual quality improves constantly and
continues to perfect the illusion of mirroring a reality; and, perhaps, most important of all,
the content offered is being integrated into the rapidly evolving media worlds of converging
and mobile multiple screens. When children and their parents talk about “watching televi-
sion,” it is not clear anymore whether they are referring to the medium in the middle of
their living room; to streaming a program on YouTube on the laptop in the bedroom;
or to being immersed in a mobile-phone screen while waiting for food in the coffee-shop
(Elias et al., 2021).

2
 Introduction

Main Themes in the Study of Children, Adolescents, and Media

What then, characterizes this new reality of screen culture as we focus on the study of children,
adolescents, and media? The following six themes run as undercurrents through much of the
current scholarship in this area and the various chapters in this handbook: Multiple realities,
technological convergence, consumer culture, globalization, literacy, and the positive/negative
effects debate. We examine each of them briefly below.

Multiple Realities
Screen culture is characterized by its omnipresence in every aspect of young people’s lives – at
home, in school, in the workplace, in places of leisure, on the roads. As such, scholars note that
the distinction between our existence in concrete reality and the mediated one is often blurred,
as the media seem to move smoothly and fluently between the two states. One set of key
questions that can be raised in this regard asks: What effect does this seamless transition between
two realities have on children? From another perspective, how do children navigate between
these two realities? Or, can it be the case that the separation between the two kinds of reality is
artificial and meaningless, as both “flow” one into the other and are reciprocal? As a result, the
understanding of the “real” and “authentic” in such a culture may change its meaning. Indeed,
according to postmodern approaches, one might argue that screen representations of reality are
more attractive than the concrete ones in which we live.
According to Baudrillard, we live in a kind of “hyper-reality” in which concrete reality is
replaced with its representations. For example, romantic love as portrayed in a soap opera may
create longing and aspirations that are unrealistic in comparison with that experienced by an
adolescent viewer. As a result, a teen may state “I can really be myself” when engaged in an
internet chat since the partners to the chat are not influenced by his/her external appearance
(e.g., race, gender, normative beauty, and sexiness), and strangers can play with their identities
while they crystallize their very own internal core of what they perceive to be the “real me.”
The borders between accepted and common social divisions are blurred in this hyper-reality,
such as the division between the private and the public spheres. For example, while in her
bedroom a pupil searches the net for information for a school project; during class, she sends an
intimate text message on her mobile phone. Or, a love declaration appears on a huge billboard
beside the road in a major urban area, and scenes of war and natural disasters broadcast on CNN
worldwide are captured by a personal phone camera. Reality shows on television allow us the
illusion of peeking into people’s private lives. Uploading personal YouTube videos, Instagram
selfies, Facebook posts, or even “sexting” – sending personal sexual messages and images via
texting – move our private lives into the public sphere. Each one of the various screens can
serve a variety of needs ranging from the private to the public, and each one can do so in spaces
defined as private or public.

Technological Convergence
The convergence of communication functions into one screen is one of the dominant aspects of
screen culture facilitating the aforementioned processes. Thus, the mobile phone, tablet screen,
or computer can serve multiple and concurrent functions: a “library” accessed through an
internet connection, a video service, a television/streaming server, a radio and music player, a
photo album, a phone, access to social networking, a personal calendar, a still or video camera, a
games console, a navigation system, a newspaper, an exercise monitor, a search engine, an alarm

3
 Dafna Lemish

clock, and an endless array of application functions. As a result, other forms of blurring are
occurring with formerly presumed categories such as information, entertainment, and adver-
tising; formal and informal learning; study and play. Similarly, distinctions between media that
supposedly encourage passivity and those allowing for reciprocity and interactivity are be-
coming less convincing: One can choose to be passive or active on various levels with each
screen, depending on interest, context, personality, and circumstances. For example, the
computer and the internet allow interactivity, but it is also possible to consume them only for
escape from reality and for momentary gratifications. Television may allow relaxation and relief,
but can also allow the tailoring of a personal viewing schedule and encourage interactivity, such
as the selection of a preferred idol, signing a petition, submitting home videos for competition,
and even choosing a particular ending for a favorite series.
Children move between screens according to personal interest, accessibility, and the ex-
periences each allows. They watch their favorite “celeb-singer” on television, save his/her
photo on their phone-screen, surf the net to find “behind the scene” clips about their per-
formance, write Facebook messages expressing views, “like” them on various social networks,
download a favorite song or a ringtone to their mobile phone. The traditional assumption
according to which a specific medium has a preference for a specific kind of content or role is
redundant: For example, claims that books are more suitable for conveying complicated
messages for the acquisition of formal knowledge, while television is more suitable for passive
and non-demanding entertainment; or, that mobile phones are for making phone calls. In
summary, each screen can serve a full range of needs and roles.

Consumer Culture
Complex inter-relationships between popular culture and consumer culture exist, characterized
by privatization, individualism, and commercialization. Young people are, themselves, im-
portant consumers, but they also influence purchases by adults in their lives. Public debates
around children’s place in the commercialized world fluctuate between anxiety over their
possible role as victims of manipulative marketing to the celebration of their consumer com-
petency and sophistication. Children, so the argument goes, are treated by commercial forces
not as future citizens developing values, capabilities, and skills vital for functioning in a de-
mocratic society, but as consumers immersed in a leisure culture with an insatiable appetite for
consumerism. In doing so, media producers adapt the civic discourse of empowerment to serve
commercial purposes. For example, children’s independence is touted by advertisers as en-
couraging the development of their own consumerist lifestyle to actualize the “right” to express
their own individual “voice” in matters of culture and taste in music, fashion, food, and
entertainment.
In addition, economic interests drive the construction of newly invented sub-periods of
childhood. For example, the “tween” period of pre-adolescence is deemed to be a distinct
period of childhood with its own popular culture and tastes, also greatly segregated by
distinct gender differences. Similarly, babies and toddlers are framed as representing a
consumer market requiring its own technological developments (e.g., keyboards for babies,
special programs streamed on YouTube, satellite channels devoted to them, internet sites
for babies and toddlers seated on adults’ laps, baby games, mobile applications). Videos
posted by proud parents on Facebook present babies operating touchscreens successfully to
the delight of the adults around them. There is also clear consumer segregation between
girlhood and boyhood in the worlds of toys, fashion, music, TV programs, advertising, and
accessories.

4
 Introduction

The consequences of the consumer culture extend well beyond questions regarding product
purchases and the development of consumer literacy. Scholars raise questions regarding the
promotion of a hedonistic culture among the young; encouragement of children’s inability (or
need) to postpone gratifications; cultivation of a self-image dependent upon appearance and
ownership rather than qualities and achievements; internalization of a worldview according to
which products are framed to offer cures for every human problem – psychological or social;
the exhortation to youth to focus on the world of glamour and celebrities, and the construction
of future aspirations as located within screen culture itself (e.g., the desire to be a famous
“celeb,” a fashion model, a sports-news anchor, or an “influencer”).

Globalization
Globally, children watch similar programs and movies, play similar computer games, surf similar
popular websites, engage in similar social networks, and download similar popular music. Many
of these texts originate in North America, and hence diffuse worldviews, values, and interests
promoted in American culture. Interestingly, some of the other texts traveling throughout the
world originate elsewhere (e.g., Japanese anime, Korean computer games and pop-music,
African music, Latin American telenovelas) but undergo an adaptation process manifested by
companies in the U.S. that function as a “megaphone” to legitimize and intensify their dis-
tribution. The result of this process is cultural mainstreaming and homogenization. Thus,
children around the world sing similar pop songs, wear similar clothes, drink similar soft drinks,
and adore the same mega-celebrities. If so, is it possible to argue that children worldwide live
today in the global village portrayed by Marshall McLuhan? If so, as a result, do they perceive
the world in similar or different ways? Is their local identity eroded? Do they dream the same
scripts for their own futures?
While scholarly study and debate over the processes of cultural globalization is broad and is
taking place in multiple disciplines, for many children and young people growing up today the
tension between globalization and localization does not seem to be problematic. Globalization
is integrated through “glocalization” processes; here, audiences grounded in specific local
cultural contexts adopt and adapt global texts through processes of local meaning construction
and interpretation. One such significant process involves the creation of hybrid cultures as
children creatively integrate global contents and identities from other cultures with elements
from their own specific culture, as characterized through its history, language, tradition, re-
ligion, ethnicity, and so forth. These processes of intercultural and transnational exchanges have
been advanced significantly through technologies that include satellites, the internet, and
mobile communication.

Literacy and Education

The emergence of new forms of popular culture has led to redefining media literacy as a
multimodal literacy that requires a variety of skills in interpretation, comprehension, critical
thinking, application, and creativity in multiple languages. Thus, the claim is made that the
literate person needs to be a master of verbal language – oral, reading, and writing (and pre-
ferably in more than one language), audio-visual languages, computation, information re-
sourcing and evaluation, along with the capacity to integrate all of these modalities
simultaneously when functioning as an engaged citizen or “prosumer” (producer-consumer).
The realities of multi-modality challenge conventional formal schooling and normative
ways of teaching, and dictate a new agenda for educational systems in the rapidly evolving

5
 Dafna Lemish

media-saturated world. For example, unidirectional and hierarchical pedagogies, situating the
teacher as the primary source of knowledge, the requirement for unity of place and time for
classroom teaching, and other verbal language-oriented educational systems are challenged by
these new realities and require creative and bold adaptation strategies. The exponential growth
of misinformation and disinformation in the last decade, facilitated by the affordances of digital
technologies and social networking more specifically, have heightened the need for the de-
velopment of media and information literacy and the cultivation of critical skills related to
source credibility and information truthfulness. This need has become existential, specifically,
around the politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic and its life and death consequences.

Positive and/or Negative Potential

Most parties to the ongoing debate over the positive and negative potential of media in chil-
dren’s lives assume technological determinism; that is, technology dictates social structures and
processes. An alternative view admits that media culture is central to contemporary life, and has
a potential for a wide range of complicated influences, most of which cannot be dichotomized
as good or bad. Indeed, in support of this second view, we can claim that our accumulated
knowledge about the role of media in children’s lives suggests that they can have both positive
and negative effects on children, depending on the content, the context in which they are
enjoyed, the use made of them, and the individual characteristics of children using them. Media
have both positive and negative potential to make a difference in children’s lives in all areas of
their development: behaviorally (e.g., imitating sharing or aggression), socially (e.g., making
new friends and strengthening existing relationships through social media or bullying their
classmates on the internet); cognitively (e.g., learning school preparedness skills or developing
short attention spans); creatively (e.g., creating computer graphics, writing blogs, and uploading
their own videos or reproducing clichéd commercial formulas and stereotypical messages); or
even physically (e.g., learning balanced nutrition or developing bad eating habits). Clearly,
popular cultural influences are not simply either good or bad. They are complicated and in-
terlinked with many gray areas open to multiple interpretations that depend upon different
cultural value systems and worldviews. For example, is corresponding with strangers over the
internet dangerous, or does it widen horizons? Are sex education and sexual identities for
adolescents in the media life-saving or morally inappropriate? Does watching a TV series
originating in the U.S. expand cultural experiences or damage other cultural identities? Does
addressing topics like trauma or death help children cope with difficult experiences or trau-
matize them and make them even more fearful and distrustful of adults?
These overriding, complicated themes capture a moment in time in the dynamic process of
change and reflect where we seem to be in this third decade of the third millennium. It poses
exciting challenges to scholars of children, adolescents, and media if we are to break new
ground in both theory and practice. In the next section, I propose admittedly subjective
proposals of where I think we should proceed if we are to engage such challenges and, in doing
so, strengthen our scholarly arena.

Creating a Shared Scholarly Arena

The roles media play in children’s and adolescents’ lives, as well as potential implications of their
use by children that contribute to their cognitive, emotional, social, behavioral, and health
development continue to attract and advance research in a variety of disciplines. However,
these endeavors are for the most part fragmented efforts grounded in different disciplines

6
 Introduction

(e.g., developmental psychology, mass media, public health, education, cultural studies, feminist
studies, sociology of childhood) with limited interdisciplinary cross-fertilization. This state of
affairs has changed to some degree with the founding in 2007 of the Journal of Children and
Media (Routledge), the Children, Adolescents and the Media (CAM) Division of the
International Communication Association (ICA), and the Children, Youth and Media Section,
in the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), among
others. There are also established as well as relatively new research and advocacy centers and
organizations across the world, many of which are cited in this handbook.
The booming interest in creating a shared international arena for scholarship presents an
unusual challenge at this time, and an opportunity for revitalizing our field and redefining its
goals, focus, and vision. This first edition of the handbook was envisioned, initially, as a long-
term goal and an outcome of the Journal of Children and Media. The journal’s mission statement
reads as follows:

It is an interdisciplinary and multi-method collection that provides an integrative

state-of-the-art discussion of the field by scholars from around the world and across
theoretical and empirical traditions who are engaged in the study of media in the lives
of children and adolescents. It is a unique intellectual mapping of current knowledge
and future research directions about all forms and contents of media in regard to all
aspects of children’s lives, and especially in three complementary realms: Children as
consumers of media, as active participants in media making, and representations of
children in the media. It is committed to the facilitation of international exploration
and dialogue among researchers, students, policymakers, health and education pro-
fessionals, the media industry, parents and caregivers, and other invested stakeholders,
through discussion of the interaction between children and media in local, national,
and global contexts; concern for diversity issues; a critical and empirical inquiry in-
formed by a variety of theoretical and empirical approaches; and dedication to en-
suring the social relevance of the academic knowledge it presents to the cultural,
political, and personal welfare of children around the world.

This vision for our field – and for the handbook – has remained intact with the publication of
the second edition. This collection of chapters, created and revised especially for this volume, is
a mapping of the field in the most up-to-date, integrative, and creative ways possible. As you
read, I propose keeping in mind the following five central challenges that I believe need to be
engaged in order for us to be able to realize the capacity of this important field to thrive and to
realize its potential contribution to improving the lives of children, families, and educators, as
well as the endeavors of media producers.

From Multi-disciplinary – to – Interdisciplinary Study

At the heart of this handbook is the longstanding call for the interdisciplinary study of com-
munication, a call with burning relevancy to its application in the current study of children and
media.
Many colleagues in this field come from developmental psychology traditions, with “strong
effects” theoretical grounding. They may study the effects of violence on children, kinder-
gartners’ ability to understand the persuasive intent of advertising or the impact of social net-
working on mental health. Others, who apply cultural studies methods, approach this field
based on an identity-centered theoretical perspective (gender, race/ethnicity, class) and frame

7
 Dafna Lemish

their work in terms of “meaning-making.” They often explore the contribution of popular
culture texts to identity construction or the way young audiences negotiate the meanings of
such texts. Applying what may well be an overly generalized distinction, these two approaches
are often set off from one another as the over-generalized U.S. versus European divide (al-
though scholars in both continents operate within a variety of traditions; or via a con-
ceptualization of children as “becoming” (i.e., a deficit model suggesting children should be
viewed in the process of becoming adults) versus children as “being” (i.e., children as entities in
their own right). To this, we can add a third, rapidly growing body of work rooted in medical
and health disciplines, with which quite frankly many of us in communication studies are
unfamiliar (and vice versa; that is, researchers employing this approach seem to be unaware of
these previously mentioned traditions). Here, researchers apply an epidemiological approach to
media effects on children, leading many to endorse a protectionist ideology. Studies in this
tradition have explored, for example, the effect early screen-viewing has on the brain devel-
opment of babies and toddlers, or the effect of television viewing on obesity.
Each of these three approaches is dominated by a particular methodological preference:
experimental, ethnographic, and correlational. Furthermore, scholars read and submit their
work to journals in their separate disciplines, attend their own conferences, and network with
one another.
The consequences of these divisions are grave: Not only does each ground understanding in
one slice of the knowledge pie and prioritize a particular methodology of study, but scholars are
mostly unaware of each other. Or, when they are aware, they are deeply suspicious and often
even plainly disrespectful of these other approaches. In returning to the overview of the field,
we observe that there are few bridging or integrative efforts in the literature. As such, each
approach mostly stews in its own proverbial theoretical and empirical juices, while preaching to
its own choirs and ignoring vast accumulations of knowledge in parallel tracks. The decade
since the publication of the first edition of the handbook has witnessed efforts at closing these
divides, but challenges remain very much present.

From National – to – International and Transnational Study

The study of media and children can no longer remain bound within national borders, as media,
children, and young people’s well-being is an international as well as a transnational phe-
nomenon involving important issues such as the political economy of media corporations; the
implications of the centrality of digital, border-free technologies; massive migration move-
ments; and the rapidly changing understandings and theorizing of multiculturalism, cultural-
hybridity, and diasporic identities.
As many have argued in other fields, cross-cultural studies have the proven potential to make
obvious the deep ethnocentrism and cultural biases we all assume, to some degree. Such studies
help us understand the complicated intertwining of culture and media and at the same time
highlight those aspects of children’s lives – such as their needs, aspirations, pleasures, anxieties –
that seem to be shared universally.
Political economy analyses of these trends suggest that the monies invested in children and
media advance a global business of enormous proportions and varying value. For huge en-
tertainment corporations, children are not future citizens, rather they are first and foremost
consumers. From such a point of view, childhood is not viewed as a distinct period in the life
cycle, with attendant developmental needs that require development-oriented programming.
On the contrary, this population is viewed as a distinct market opportunity requiring aggressive
socialization to a consumer-centered lifestyle. Thus, as a number of authors in the handbook

8
 Introduction

argue, any attempts to advance or lobby for change in the content of television programs and
movies directed at children, to legislate internet safety policy and children’s digital rights, or to
develop less violent and more creative computer games for children are no longer matters to be
addressed in national isolation.

From Description – to – Social Change

Furthermore, many scholars continue to point out that we cannot remain content to study only
questions of privileged media use among children being raised in media-saturated environ-
ments. My own involvement in international studies reinforced my awareness of the multiple
and important ways in which media for children are employed globally, such as: promoting
schooling for girls; educating for sexual safety and rape-prevention in HIV/AIDS struck regions
of the globe; providing alternative masculine role models in societies driven by domestic and
general violence; reaffirming the value and self-image of diverse appearances in the face of the
pressure of the Anglo-European “Beauty Myth”; involving young generations in participatory
democracy. The list is as long as the issues facing children growing up in the world today.
In a global society in which children’s basic survival is still a major issue, I submit that we
privileged researchers of media need to roll up our sleeves and pitch in to link our research to
social change efforts. Indeed, I believe that in the spirit of action research, the field of children
and media studies needs a renewed commitment to create, integrate, and disseminate knowl-
edge that will assist in efforts to empower children and young people through media, parti-
cularly those from underprivileged segments of global and national societies.

From Research About Children – to – Research for and with Children

As we came to understand that children occupy a very unique period in the human cycle, one
deserving of special scholarly attention and resources, we realized that children, in each stage of
their development and in all cultural contexts of diversity, need to be encountered and fully
recognized as having a uniquely personal voice that deserves to be listened to, and understood
with empathy. Children’s voices need to be accounted for in our research questions, included
in methods we choose and apply in our studies, in the ways we present our findings, and in
recommendations we make for both further research and for applied implications. This involves
disclosing and confronting the power relationships that exist between researchers and the
children being researched. This requires developing more inclusive and egalitarian participatory
methodologies – from the inception of the study to its assessment – while remaining ethically
committed to promoting the well-being of those studied, attempting to avoid exploitive
strategies, and guarding participants from possible research-related harm.
For example, new technologies that blur traditional distinctions between the “sender and
receiver” of text have immediate implications for our field. Many children and young people
are regularly engaged with producing, as well as consuming, media texts – be it via emailing,
instant messaging, text messaging, blogging, posting, phone-photographing, videoing,
tweeting, designing personal web pages, and a host of other creative expressions. Since this is
the case, it is no longer appropriate for us to study them as solely passive receivers of messages
imposed from the outside or as negotiators of texts. Rather, we must understand them to be
either potentially or actively involved in new and exciting uses of media. Naturally, the more
alarming cases gain public attention (e.g., “sexting” – sexual texting, the self-distribution of
nude pictures and pedophilia; the posting of encouragement of eating disorders or suicide
advice), and thus become a pretext for legislating public policies that threaten a wide range of

9
 Dafna Lemish

children’s rights. In addition, much more remains for us to understand about children and the
various ways media can better serve their healthy growth into productive and engaged citizens
of the human globe.

From the Margins – to – the Center

The proposals addressed thus far have far-reaching implications within and beyond the aca-
demic world. As long as various branches of the study of children and media fail to attain and
present an integrated, persuasive, and holistic picture of children, young people, and the media
in their lives – the discipline will remain unsuccessful in producing a strong, empirically
grounded voice that influences media policy and media literacy on national as well as global
levels. The promising accomplishment in 2021 of amending the U.N. Convention on the
Rights of the Child with a specific and detailed reference on children’s rights in relation to the
digital environment is an illustration of the potential of such an outstanding effort. However,
our voice is not strong enough in the public sphere as witnessed by politicians and policymakers
who wave the consensual “violence” and “sex” red flags or “too much screen time,” while
continuing to ignore the intricate and complex matrix of media-related issues so crucial for the
well-being of children and young people.
The absence of a strong, multifaceted disciplinary voice may also contribute to the reasons
why this sub-area of media studies is finding difficulty in engaging with other disciplines that
focus on children and young people, such as education and health. But even within our own
disciplinary field of media studies, there seems to be a limited flow between the study of
children and other sub-areas. This seems quite surprising given that many of the questions asked
in these fields are quite similar. A partial explanation for this situation may be the feminist
explanation for the devaluation of questions pertaining to the private sphere of family and
children (in comparison, for example, to the study of media, politics, the economy, technology,
and news). The fact that the vast majority of researchers in this sub-area are women continues
to perpetuate the traditional gender division of interests and responsibilities. With more men
entering the field (as is evident in the handbook) and with the technological developments that
blur the private-public divide, we see a potential change, but it remains very slow in coming. In
a conceptual world in which adult identities are understood to be fluid, flexible, and ever-
evolving – and where adulthood too is constructed as an unfinished developmental business –
the study of children and media should really be at the heart of media studies as it pertains to the
development of a better humanity.

The Handbook
Organizing such a vast area of multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research is a complicated
task. Obviously, there are different ways of charting the field from the one I created. The
following rationale was employed in developing this volume.

The Handbook Structure

The handbook is structured around five main sections, each divided into individual chapters:
Childhoods and Constructions, Channels and Convergence, Concerns and Consequences,
Contexts and Communities, Collaborations and Companions. You will note the use of capi-
talized C words as an organization tool. I did so because these terms assist me in pinpointing the
anchor of each section.

10
 Introduction

Childhoods and Constructions: the opening section sets the stage for the study of this
field by discussing the nature of childhood as a social construction and the various
roles media play in such constructions. It offers a variety of approaches to studying
children and media from a variety of disciplines.

Channels and Convergence introduces the main media cultures in children’s lives in-
dividually; including their history, content preferences, and unique contributions to
the study of children and media. Despite valid arguments about media convergence,
there is still much to be learned by looking at each group of media independently, as
this clarifies their unique contributions to debates about media and children. We also
learn about their roles in different regions of the world.

Concerns and Consequences of media in the lives of children contains chapters that assess
specific areas of consequences from various theoretical perspectives. However, as
arguments presented in this section make clear, the discussion of children and media
needs to be grounded in their many social and cultural contexts and communities.

Contexts and Communities from dominant national and local cultures as well as the
cultural communities of minorities and immigrants to family and peer groups, and to
micro-contexts, such as the bedroom. This section also contains discussion of the role
media play in children’s ability to voice their own interests and concerns and their
involvement in civic engagement.

Collaborations and Companions presents a variety of initiatives whose shared mission is

to maximize the benefits of media for children and to minimize potential harm. The
exemplars selected function locally and/or worldwide in the realms of policy, quality
and educational media, and media literacy.

Finally, many of the chapters in the book “correspond” to one another: They complement
theory and empirical findings, offer alternative frames of reference, criticize and debate ideas
and research presented just a few pages away. Such connections are noted at the end of each
chapter in order to call your attention to those chapters particularly relevant to the issues
discussed. Altogether, the handbook aims to provide as wide a horizon as possible on how
media are integrated into children’s and adolescents’ lives around the world.

The Authors
Two principles guided the selection of authors: First, researchers who were at a relatively early
stage of what seemed to be a promising career path were invited along with established scholars
who were prominent authorities in the field. Second, special efforts were made to select a broad
and diverse collection of contributors representing relevant disciplines and methodological
approaches, as well as different cultural backgrounds and geographical regions of the world.
Thus, collectively, the contributors represent a diversity of disciplinary groundings, including
communication and media studies, cinema and photography, literary studies, education, public
health, medicine, sociology, child development, anthropology, policy, and the media industry.
While this handbook does contain a substantial representation of U.S.-based researchers,
about half of the contributors reside in 17 different countries: Austria, Australia, Belgium,
Canada, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, the

11
 Dafna Lemish

Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, and the U.K., and their research
covers many additional countries.
This having been noted, several gross imbalances remain, despite my genuine efforts to
assemble a global representation of contributors. First, there is a gender-related imbalance:
About a quarter of the chapters have a male contributor, again reflecting the dominance of
women in this area, as noted above. The second imbalance relates to the fact that vast regions of
the world are not represented adequately; in particular, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East.
As a result, high-resource societies have a much stronger presence. Related to this last point is
the fact that despite the high priority I gave to including a wide range of persons from a variety
of cultural and racial groups, there are only a few contributors of color. We will return to these
issues in the Afterword of the handbook.
These observations call readers’ attention to the nature of this field of inquiry and the large
lacunae still in existence.

References
This introduction is based on an integrated review of earlier writings by myself and with colleagues, including:

Bloch, L.R., & Lemish, D. (2003). The Megaphone Effect: International culture via the US of A.
Communication Yearbook, 27, 159–190. Lawrence Erlbaum. 10.1080/23808985.2003.11679025
Elias, N., Lemish, D., & Rovner, G. (2021). Food for thought: Parent-child face-to-face communication and
mobile phone use in eateries. Journal of Family Communication, 21(4). 10.1080/15267431.2021.1953501
Götz, M., & Lemish, D. (Eds.) (forthcoming 2022). Children and media worldwide in a time of a pandemic.
Peter Lang.
Kolucki, B., & Lemish, D. (2011). Communicating with children: Principles and practices to nurture, inspire,
excite, educate and heal. UNICEF.
Lemish, D. (2010). Screening gender in children’s TV: The views of producers around the world. Routledge.
Lemish, D. (2015). Children and media: A global perspective. Wiley-Blackwell.
Lemish, D. (2019). “A room of our own”: Farewell comments on editing the Journal of Children and Media.
Journal of Children and Media, 13(1), 116–126. 10.1080/17482798.2019.1557813
Lemish, D. (2021). Like post-cataract surgery: What came into focus about children and media research
during the pandemic. Journal of Children and Media, 15(1), 148–151. 10.1080/17482798.2020.1857279

12
 PART I

Childhoods and Constructions

Editor’s Introduction

The field of children, adolescents, and media has been approached from diverse theoretical
traditions and perspectives. Each perspective is grounded in a unique scholarly history, frames
research questions in accordance with its assumptions, and focuses on different aspects of the
relationships between children and media. We start this fascinating journey by introducing
some of the most important of these perspectives, by focusing on the different ways in which
childhood has been constructed, socially and culturally, and how these constructions contribute
to the way we understand children’s relationships with media today.
Kirsten Drotner’s opening chapter makes the key claim that Western modernity witnesses
an ongoing co-construction of mass media, childhood, and youth that addresses basis dilemmas
brought about by ideological dynamisms of modernity. The claim is underpinned by a time-
based analysis of two sets of co-construction discourses. The first set hones in on mundane,
mediated images of childhood, for example through print news reporting, advertisements,
television, film, and social media; and the second set focuses on media panics which are in-
termittent and short-lived public outbursts of celebration or concern spurred by the uptake of a
new medium. The chapter documents that the entanglement of media and childhood indirectly
serves to re-imagine dilemmas of Western modernity in three ways: They address similar and
fundamental social regulation strategies with respect to shifting power relations of age, gender,
class, and ethnicity. They address the same cultural issues to do with changes in taste and
quality. Last, but not least, they address the same issues to do with the implications of mediated
interaction and its changes.
Debbie Olson and the late Giselle Rampaul argue that childhood is, and always has been,
an unstable concept, variously interpreted and represented according to historical, social, cul-
tural, political, and economic contexts. Such visual representations of children established a
standard for what children were expected to look like and contributed to certain idealized
conceptions of childhood, most notably the idea of childhood innocence. But childhood in-
nocence has proved to be as fluid as the notion of childhood itself. Images of children today
across all types of visual media demonstrate an ideological shift as they often present children as
knowing, adultified, and sometimes menacing. This chapter explains how representations of
children and childhood are historically and culturally situated, reflecting both local and global
notions of what childhood is through various visual landscapes.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-2
 Introduction to Part I

Marina Krcmar focuses more specifically in this chapter on the inherent assumptions of the
research on children and media. She considers four different assumptions that bear identification
and consideration as we construct our research going forward. The first assumption is that
children and adolescents are qualitatively different from adults, an assumption strongly held
although historically recent. Second, age is taken as a primary variable. Although it may be a
self-evident and necessary assumption when considering development, it should not be held up
as interdependent from other variables. The third assumption is that all differences are related to
development, again, a possibly problematic assumption that she argues, should be included in
research conceptualization and in theory building. Fourth, researchers have selectively applied
only certain kinds of development (e.g., cognitive) while leaving out others. For example, with
the advent of tablets, physical development may be a necessary factor to consider when in the
past, it has not been. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the importance of children’s
environment when studying media and the importance of considering and measuring the
Covid-19 pandemic as it relates to children and families in future research in this area.
Uwe Hasebrink and Ingrid Paus-Hasebrink discuss how changes in media environments
and in children’s practices of use, lead to changes of childhood and socialization and in the
development of their view of the world. The chapter deals with children’s media consumption
and how it changes over time. It focuses on long-term trends in children’s media use and this
mainly with a look at function rather than technology. Therefore, it takes the most relevant
forms of media use – reading, listening to audio content, watching audio-visual content,
gaming, and digital communication – and describes which media children have used in order to
realize the respective functions. In addition, against today’s backdrop of an increasingly con-
verging media environment, the chapter takes a more holistic view on children’s media use and
discusses trends in children’s cross-media practices. Finally, the authors discuss consequences of
the trends in children’s media use with regard to social and political implications.
David Buckingham and Rebekah Willett analyze how children are constructed as
consumers by a range of stakeholders, including marketers, campaigners, and academics from
different disciplines. Given the increase in children’s digital activities on personal electronic
devices as well as more sophisticated forms of data collection and analysis by online companies,
there are growing concerns about datafication and new forms of marketing that are targeting
children more directly. The chapter reveals the ways research and debates position children in
largely polarized ways, as passive victims of marketing or as active and “empowered” con-
sumers. The chapter explores how these debates play out in academic research in relation to
media effects and consumer socialization theories and includes critiques of these traditions. The
authors present alternative approaches to studying children as consumers, by taking account of
the social contexts of their practices. Specifically, the chapter describes research that employs
theories from cultural studies, actor-network theory, and the anthropology of consumer cul-
ture. The chapter argues for more nuanced approaches which move beyond polarized con-
structions of children as consumers.
Dafna Lemish offers a variant of a critical approach to scholarship by the extension of
feminist theories to the study of children and media. I argue that feminist theory can offer the
field of children and media significant and original perspectives, in the following four domains:
A mapping of gender segregation of children’s leisure culture and explanation of the mechanism
driving this segregation; a theoretical understanding of gender as a form of social construction
rather than limited biological assumptions; a particular view on the form and role of metho-
dology in the study of children and media; and a model of engaged scholarship attempting to
advance progressive social change. In countering common critiques of this approach, I argue
that feminist theorists could be considered ideological, but only in the sense that they stress
 Introduction to Part I

human equality and the right of every child (regardless of gender, race, geographical location,
disability or any other determinants of human conditions) to realize their full potential.
Divya McMillan argues that TikTok, K-pop, and digital television, all peaking during the
COVID-19 pandemic, offer scholars of children and youth media, the opportunity to pursue
new lines of inquiry in global media culture and childhood, and strengthen the integration of
research across broadcast media and digital technologies in the era of globalization. This chapter
uses the current moment of user generated media and direct-to-fan strategies of synergistic
global partnerships to provide a sweeping assessment of dominant approaches and urge new
directions in the field. The chapter reiterates the importance of grounded study to understand
active entanglements of youth, strategic interconnectedness of their multiple modalities of
media engagement, soft and hard skills in content production and delivery, use of peers as
experts, and influence of peers in content creation, framing, and integration. The author argues
that explorations of subjective agency, of inscribed consumer-producer positions across
broadcast and digital platforms, should be extended to empirical analyses of how networks of
trust are formed, how risks to privacy and self are assessed, how defense mechanisms are
constructed and deployed, and how peer experts are constituted.
Bringing this part of the handbook to a closure, Liam Berriman suggests that the growth of
research interest in children and media has run in parallel with the development of a “new”
interdisciplinary social study of childhood. This emerging field of interdisciplinary childhood
studies has been highly influential in how we theorize and research children’s relationships with
media. This has included providing conceptual tools for understanding how moral panics of
children and media emerge around notions of childhood innocence, and how children can be
seen as agentic in their engagement with media as part of their everyday lives. This chapter
looks back at the relationship between childhood studies and the study of children and media
over multiple decades – charting key theoretical and conceptual contributions, but also points
of tension and conceptual difference.
 1
THE CO-CONSTRUCTION OF
MEDIA AND CHILDHOOD
Kirsten Drotner

Charting ways in which mass media represent children and ways in which the media orchestrate
claims about children’s uses of new media offers analytical prisms through which we may
address wider societal discourses of, and contestations over, what counts as proper media and
proper childhood and youth. Such discourses are powerful frames within which children’s
actual media practices play out, and the discourses are therefore important to understand if we
want a full insight into children’s relations to media. My key claim, which I will substantiate in
the following, is that Western modernity witnesses an ongoing co-construction of mass media,
childhood, and youth that addresses basis dilemmas of modernity and late modernity. Media are
at once material and symbolic social resources (Carey, [1989]1992) whose main characteristic is
their semiotic properties. So, media are not merely conduits for the transmission of information,
they are institutionally embedded meaning-making tools that connect people across time and
space (Thompson, 1995). So, media serve as important keys to public re-imaginings and re-
calibrations of what is means to “come into being” in modernity.
The nexus between media and childhood may be seen to operate along a continuum of
positions. The chapter focuses on two poles in that continuum. First, on a day-to-day basis
media serve as an important public means of articulating selective images of childhood, for
example through print news reporting, advertisements, television, film, and social media. I
discuss how these popular mediated perceptions are articulated and may be understood. Second,
notably with the uptake of a new medium, media may concentrate on certain aspects of
children’s media uses, and such interest may develop into what may be termed a media panic
(Drotner, 1992). Positions within the two poles shift over time as the empirical contexts within
which they operate change. But the two poles also share important similarities to do with the
structural issues they tackle, issues that the chapter will spell out.
My focus is on media discourses that are both public and popular by which I mean discourses
promulgated through media that are publicly accessible and have a wide circulation and use.
Conversely, I have nothing to say about children’s responses to media nor their actual media
practices. Since demarcations between childhood and youth change over time, I include ex-
amples of adolescence or youth when they are deemed relevant, although my main interest is
with articulations of childhood; and while media serve as public arenas of debates on childhood
in relation to, for example, education, work and leisure, I focus my analysis on those aspects of
the nexus where the media operate directly as means or ends of childhood perceptions. Last, but

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-3 17
 Kirsten Drotner

not least, my account is a partial one, limited to the Global North and its specific empirical
constellations between media and childhood development that may have little relevance to
other parts of the world.

Mediated Childhood
Art historians, literary historians, and cultural historians have a long tradition of using re-
presentations of children in books and paintings as sources documenting historical change
(Coveny, 1967; McGraw, 1941). Indeed, the main proponent of the invention of childhood
thesis, the French historian Philippe Ariès, used painted portraits of children to claim that in
premodern times children were socially marked as adults writ small, dressed out in robes and
with adornments in the same manner as adults (Ariès, 1962). This claim has been contested. For
example, the British art critic Peter Fuller argues that many child portraits produced in Europe’s
courts in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were tokens in negotiations of political marriages.
So, the images projected potentials of future beauty and wealth in order to literally optimise the
purchasing power of the portrait (Fuller, 1979, p. 78). Apart from the validity of the empirical
evidence, the analytical differences testify to two markedly different approaches to under-
standing the relation between childhood and representation. While Ariès largely used paintings
as documentation about which adult perceptions held sway at particular times, Fuller and others
are at pains to illuminate how adult perceptions are constructed, circulated, and socially em-
bedded (Brown, 2002; Higgonet, 1998).
While Western art and literature have offered a rich source in charting shifting modes of
child representation through the history of childhood, much less is made of the ways in which
popular mass media as meaning-making technologies serve to advance shifting perceptions of
childhood. To chart these perceptions, we need to look into the historical situatedness of the
earliest forms of mass media, namely print. Books together with periodicals, prints, posters, and
postcards offer the earliest form of popular and publicly available media. Many forms of print
include images as illustrations and embellishments, yet most rely on text. So, the uptake and use
of print media is dependent on and serves to advance an ability to read if not to write. While
many people have learned literacy and numeracy through family members or peers, the modern
notion of childhood is closely related to training of literacy and numeracy during a sphere of life
separated from adult affairs, and requiring institutional spaces of development such as home,
school, playground, and clubs, yet nevertheless preparing for the child’s future functions with
the family as an unquestioned base. The co-construction of early mass media and literate child
audiences at a remove from the adult (male) world of work is key to the shaping of modern
perceptions of childhood.
So, for example the American cultural critic Neil Postman has suggested that in Western
Europe the spread of literacy through the invention of the printing press has been the principal
force in shaping a widely accepted consensus around the meaning of childhood. Mastering
book reading became a sign of maturity toward which the young must be trained (Postman,
1982). According to the historian John Gillis (1996), it was primarily the advent of hugely
popular media in the nineteenth century – greetings cards, postcards, calendars, and family
magazines – that helped disseminate an idealised image of childhood as a domestic phase of
innocent bliss, an image that became a constant source of identity for adults to the extent that it
overshadowed the reality of children’s lives.
This childhood image of domesticated innocence resonates with us today. It is perhaps most
widely seen with babies and small children and most strikingly appropriated by advertising –
from nappies and food to toys and cars. Many commercial TV serials and family films equally

18
 The Co-construction of Media and Childhood

subscribe to the ideal in the sense that its aberrations act as dramaturgical drivers which the plot
ultimately sets straight: wild or unruly children are tamed and socialised into “proper” beha-
viour, and childlike adults end up by shouldering the responsibilities of “proper” parenting.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

British media scholar Patricia Holland is among the relatively few professionals who studied
how popular visual media articulate such normative images of childhood and how these ar-
ticulations change over time. Importantly, she documented how the image of innocence is
inscribed into wider divisions in terms of class, gender, and ethnicity, divisions which popular
media serve to naturalise through their selective discourses. Drawing on the childhood historian
Hugh Cunningham (1995), she saw the child as an “other” against which not only adults’
fantasies may be projected but equally their fears. Popular media draw on and serve to enhance
representations of children that are idle, perverse, pitiful, or abused, in short beyond the
normative range of the middle-class family ideal. Working-class children are represented as
aberrant and in need of correction because of their public presence; girls – especially in public –
appear aggressive or sexualised and in need of counselling; while children from non-Western
cultures and marked as non-White are seen as exotic victims in need of protection (Holland,
2004). She cogently demonstrated how the commercial pressures underlying much news re-
porting play into these contrasting representations of juvenile otherness by simultaneously
stimulating audiences’ sentiments of anxiety and attraction.
Young people top the list when it comes to problem-oriented portrayals in the media
( Jamieson & Romer, 2008). Perhaps because they verge on the boundary to adulthood, their
marking as carefree, natural, and spontaneous others seems more difficult to sustain, and gendered
and racialized mediations increase with age. Indeed, public news reports and documentaries have
routinely represented young people, and particularly young men from working-class and non-
White backgrounds, as sources of crime, unemployment and general disorder, nurturing senti-
ments of concern (Hendrick, 1990; Springhall, 1998). Conversely, young working-class men
have a long tradition of being represented as, for example, cunning aces in mass-circulation serials
and as transgressive rock idols (Denning, 1987; Drotner, [1985]1988).
The global, if uneven, uptake of digital forms of communication and the spread of net-
worked platform economies serve to both continue and complicate these gendered and ra-
cialized imaginaries of problems and permissiveness. This is seen, for example, in the
transformation of gangsta rap and its representations of young Black men. From being a huge-
selling pop-music genre in the 1990s, whose lyrics and music videos portrayed their male
protagonists as dark-skinned and aggressive “thugs” (Kubrin, 2005), gangsta rap developed into
a cross-media phenomenon encompassing conflicting stereotypes of misogyny and transgressive
autonomy (Herd, 2015). In a similar vein, social media, in particular, are drivers of gendered
images of young women’s confidence and resilience to the extent that empowerment is
conflated with constant, personal media visibility (Banet-Weiser, 2012). Some scholars associate
this conflation with a neo-liberal instrumentalisation of feminism as a “likeable” and in-
dividualized “affective plasticity” (Kanai, 2017, p. 240).

Co-creation: A Two-Way Street

So, media operate as powerful vehicles in the display, dissemination, and discussions of
childhood. Why is this so? A primary reason may be found in the simple fact that every adult
has been a child and can, and does, relate to articulations about children, whether visual, oral, or

19
 Kirsten Drotner

in print. Childhood matters are simply good selling points and one of the key ingredients for
commercial media to increase their sales; and the vast majority of media, in the past as today, are
commercial. Moreover, the media employ a set of concepts about childhood that have some
purchase on social reality.
As public and easily accessible technologies, legacy media operate as spaces for the voicing of
competing perspectives on this reality, and hence these media are catalysts of often mundane
negotiations and reappropriations of what count as proper social and cultural boundaries for
children. While popular legacy media are prime catalysts in defining, handling, and regulating
social problems as moral problems (Hunt, 1999), social media tend to polarize perspectives on
childhood and youth. This is because the algorithmic logic of user preferences and profiling
serve to accelerate stereotyping (Dixon, 2017). So, the digital media environment illuminates
more conflictual and more complex childhood and youth representations.
The middle-class definition of childhood and its related “others” has equally influenced the
shaping of modern media. As children in industrialised societies gradually, and conflictually, lose
control as contributors to the family economy, they gain control over their leisure (Drotner,
[1985] 1988). Through the twentieth century, juvenile leisure culture increasingly becomes a
culture of domestic consumption with commercial media including advertising taking centre
stage and pushing age boundaries downward from the 1980s on. Moreover, the middle-class
norm of childhood comes to operate as a boundary space of genre, by which I mean that its
normative demarcations of public and private, adult and child, girl and boy, play into a mapping
of different genres. Perhaps the clearest example is the way in which, from the eighteenth
century on, fairy tales develop from communal, oral narratives enjoyed by young and old into
a hugely popular genre for the nursery, a genre that proves viable also for new media such
as film, as testified, for example, in the early development of the Walt Disney corporation
(Wasko, 2001).
In wider terms, fiction ties in with perceived notions that young children display imaginative
faculties not enjoyed by older children, who mature into the use of more realistic fiction, news,
and documentaries. Media producers gradually establish genre hierarchies that are attuned to
careful, parental, and educational monitoring of proper media fare – books, magazines, film,
television on to contemporary online gaming and digital communication – based on widespread
notions of child development. Some media producers have traded in catering to such genre
hierarchies while others have excelled in undermining the very same hierarchies to reach new
audiences. In digital and networked media environments marked by many children’s personal
ownership of smartphones, social media providers trade in the weakening of institutional media
monitoring. For example, Facebook self-regulates underage children’s ownership of accounts
despite clear age definitions pertaining to ownership in many countries. So, regulation is in-
dividualized as part of “the democratic family” life (Livingstone & Blum-Ross, 2020, p. 32).
When these everyday media negotiations transgress what at any given time are deemed key
boundaries of media, genres, or uses, the moral regulation of mediated childhood may turn into
more intense debate and, indeed, struggle.

Media Panics: Beyond Dialogue

Particularly when a new medium emerges on the social scene, it provokes stark reactions in
public debate, reactions that are persistently framed as normative discourses of optimism and
pessimism, celebration and concern ( Jensen, 1990). Chief among the optimists are proponents
of the new medium, including publishers, producers, service providers, and others with a vested
interest in its wide uptake and success. Pessimists include a range of individuals and interest

20
 The Co-construction of Media and Childhood

groups among which are often teachers, parent organisations, religious institutions, cultural
critics and experts such as psychologists and doctors. What is specific about such discourses is
that media are both objects of the discourse and the means of its articulation. Over time,
pessimists have been the most persistent claims-makers, and such discourses of concern over the
putative ill-effects of (new) media may aptly be termed media panics (Drotner, 1992, 1999).
The term may be seen as a variation of the concept moral panic, which denotes the social
processes shaping the public identification and handling of a perceived threat to the moral order
of society. Coined by the British sociologist Stanley Cohen (1973) in his study of British youth
movements in the mid-1960s, the concept specifies moral panics as being essentially normative
discourses (“moral”) that are marked by intense, emotional claims (“panics”) and play out
in public, often mediated, arenas with multiple claims-makers labelling the problem, and
suggesting routes of political, legal, or pedagogical action whose result is a fading of public
interest – until a new problem is identified. Media panics serve to raise analytical key questions,
including the role played by media in orchestrating the panics, the rhetorical strategies em-
ployed by different interest groups, and the power relations involved in prompting some, and
not other, issues to become panics at particular moments (Crichter, 2003; Thompson, 1998).
While media panics follow similar trajectories and share key analytical issues with the study
of moral panics, media panics, as I noted above, are special in the sense that the media not only
operate as discursive catalysts for rival claims-makers, (new) media and their perceived im-
plications for particular social groups are the very focus of the panic. Social concern over
popular media and their users is as old as popular media themselves.
In many countries, the nineteenth century saw the first wave of a mass-reading public and
mass-circulation print media, including new weeklies catering to young readers with their
exciting tales and offering profitable export opportunities (Denning, 1987; Drotner, [1985]
1988). These combined developments paved the way for the so-called Nick Carter panic in the
early 1900s (Boëthius, 1994). It was one of the earliest, but by no means the last, transnational
media panics developing in several countries at nearly the same time. Similar media panics have
accompanied the emergence of, for example, film (Smith, 2005), comics (Barker, 1984), videos
(Crichter, 2003), and computer games (Sandywell, 2006). In connected, digital environments,
panics cross individual media and focus on e.g., “digital addiction,” “cyberbullying,” or “screen
time.” For example, since the early 2000s a raft of guidebooks has emerged advising parents to
regulate (i.e., limit) their children’s “screen time” online or offering children themselves a dose
of “digital detox,” perhaps monitored by the child’s personal detox tracker (Guernsey, 2007).
Key attention is being paid to technological markers (a screen) across actual devices – television,
phones, gaming consoles – rather than to contents or communicative functions. Also,
the individual child is being addressed, not only as an object of adult attention, but as a subject
of action.
Studies of these processes suggest important historical differences in terms of the socio-
cultural contexts prompting the panics and the actions taken. The media landscape itself plays a
key role in the sense that its degree of commodification, cross-media connection and regulatory
conventions play into the actual panic processes. Moreover, the media offer prime venues for
rapid interaction and coordination among interest groups with stakes in the panic discourses.
Even so, the media panics also display striking similarities across time and space, similarities that
are to do with the media, with the perceptions of childhood and with the panic discourse itself.
Through the panic discourses of a new medium, a hierarchy of media and genres is set up. At
the pinnacle is the oldest medium – print – and especially the quality book. At the bottom
of the hierarchy is most likely the new medium in question. So, when VCRs entered the
home in the 1980s, family television was deemed better than the time-shifting of videos

21
 Kirsten Drotner

(Crichter, 2003). Moreover, factual genres hold pride of place, at least for older children, as is
the case in the day-to-day debate over children and media. So, when children’s cinema-going
caused public outrage in the 1910s and 1920s, one of the recurrent concerns was the alleged
emotional charge of the visual narratives. A normative dichotomy was set up between text as a
means of insight and image as a source of entertainment. Similarly, in digital media environ-
ments critics of children’s screen time advise the reading of print books as a more valid al-
ternative. The panic hierarchies operate as ways of negotiating quality in the face of new modes
of mediated communication, and the familiar media and genres offer obvious points of re-
ference and assessment.
Since the late nineteenth century, media panics have been particularly concerned with
young audiences. As we saw, the norms of middle-class childhood gain wide social currency in
tandem with an institutionalisation of children’s lives. Childhood becomes a phase for regulated
protection and transformation, and the upbringing of the young (to adult status) becomes a key
object of social interest: their individual development through ages and stages is seen as a
harbinger of society’s futures. The persistent panics targeted at the young are exercises in
normative negotiations of what counts as a proper childhood and, on a wider canvas, what
counts as the proper directions society should take.
Theorists of moral panics have seen the panic focus on children as an exercise in symbolic
politics, diverting attention to paedophilia not homosexuality, for example (Jenkins, 1992,
p. 10). In terms of media panics, at least, childhood seems no area of normative diversion, but
an area of normative projection, pushing at, and seeking to reaffirm, societal boundaries of
moral futures. For example, the often-heated public debates on “sexting,” that is young peo-
ple’s online sharing of intimate visual content, display competing assessments of these processes
as harmful or harmless (Jenkins & Stamp, 2018), while educational guides repeatedly call on
young people’s responsibilities never to share intimate content, not on service providers to
secure underage users’ privacies.
The panic discourses themselves are marked by stark binary positionings based on emotion
more than documentation; and what documentation is brought forward is often decontex-
tualised. One of the best-known examples is provided by the American psychiatrist Frederic
Wertham whose Seduction of the Innocent from 1954 is a powerful voice in the 1950s anti-comics
campaigns. His analysis hinges on selected images with no sustained narrative or visual analysis
(Barker, 1984); and on that basis he makes generalised claims about the psychological damage
wrought on young and malleable minds. Still, the emotional nature and the claims-makers’
selective evidence should not lead one to believe that panic discourses are pure fabrication or
that they are not grounded on very real issues of concern. Rather, the discursive format ob-
scures an illumination of more structural aspects of the issues at stake, including for example
children’s economic and social inequities or the power distribution of media production. A
repeated focus on individual cases quite effectively masks societal action points.

The Discursive Complexity of Digitization

The present chapter has studied some key historical discourses relating childhood and media. As
noted, the ongoing moral regulation of social problems through discourses of media re-
presentation display very different rhetorical strategies and outcomes from the ones seen with
the intermittent, short-lived media panics. Yet, in their different ways they serve to re-imagine
key dilemmas of Western modernity that is propelled by ideologies of dynamism in an eco-
nomic as well as social and cultural sense. The discourses address similar and fundamental social
regulation strategies with respect to shifting power relations of age, gender, class, and ethnicity.

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 The Co-construction of Media and Childhood

They address the same cultural issues to do with changes in taste and quality. Last, but not least,
they address the same issues to do with the implications of mediated interaction and its changes.
Since the 1990s, networked digitization has served to complicate these entanglement of
media and childhood, as we have seen, not least in terms of the implications of mediated
interaction. This is because digitization challenges the conventional definition of media, as
noted in the introduction, as meaning-making tools of human interaction. For digitization not
only puts all semiotic signs on the same footing allowing hypertextual linking and personalized
connection via the internet. Through its programmable and networked data structures, digi-
tization fundamentally transforms the very infrastructures of communication and the societal
means of its regulation (van Dijck et al., 2018).
So, current discourses on media and childhood display a new focus on the technologies of
online communication – for example screens – adding to existing complexities of discourses on
children’s mediated interaction and its implications. This focus implies that the measures sug-
gested to mitigate assumed ill-effects are also technology-led: limit time or remove gadgets.
These trends are obvious results of “deep mediatization” processes that implicate a re-figuration
of all societal dimensions (Hepp, 2020). Yet, they are also further complications of familiar
trends in the historical entanglement of media and childhood: individualization now extends to
children themselves, serving to blur generational demarcations of responsibility. The techno-
logical focus across media minimises public attention being paid to more substantive issues of
past discourses that also addressed, and sought to (de)legitimate, specific forms of media quality
and taste. Perhaps most importantly, the sheer complexity of globally networked data archi-
tectures with no transparency of governance reinforces historical trends to recalibrate private
morals through media discourses rather than tackle structural issues through public policies.
The analytical anchor point taken in the present chapter to illuminate the co-creation of
media and childhood offers important insights to the study of children and media in three
capacities. First, a historical perspective facilitates an attention to aspects of media change as well
as stability. Second, the conceptual perspective – looking at childhood, not children – allows a
constructivist approach open to discourses of contestation. Third, the relational perspective –
investigating the imbrications between childhood and adulthood, childhood and media dis-
courses – invites us to remember that discourses and practices are interlaced. Yet, the real
intellectual insights lie in cross-pollinating such epistemological and conceptual approaches with
context-sensitive and theoretically reflexive empirical studies which are fortunately growing in
number.

SEE ALSO Chapter 2 by Olson and Rampaul and Chapter 8 by Berriman in this volume.

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 2
REPRESENTATIONS OF
CHILDHOOD IN THE MEDIA
Debbie Olson and Giselle Rampaul

Introduction – Visualizing Childhood

Childhood is, and always has been, an unstable concept, variously interpreted and represented
according to historical, social, cultural, political, and economic contexts as Philippe Ariès shows
in his ground-breaking work, Centuries of Childhood (1962). Ariès’ work is regarded as a fun-
damental text informing the study of representations of childhood, as it opens up discussions
about the concept of childhood in history as well as in the contemporary period. As Ariès
showed, depictions of children as miniature adults in the sixteenth century were eventually
replaced with representations of children as distinct from adults. Such visual representations
of children established a standard for what children were expected to look like and contributed
to certain idealized conceptions of childhood, most notably the idea of childhood innocence.
But childhood innocence has proved to be as fluid as the notion of childhood itself. Images of
children today across all types of visual media demonstrate an ideological shift as they often
present children as knowing, adultified, and sometimes menacing. This chapter explains how
representations of children and childhood are historically and culturally situated, reflecting both
local and global notions of what childhood is through various visual landscapes.
In her historical overview of the concept of the modern child in America, Viviana Zelizer
(1985) explores how the emerging “special status” of the child-led to “sacralized” images of
children (objects invested with sentimental or religious value) that consequently affected their
economic market value. Profound changes in the modern family and the rise of industrial
capitalism contributed to the cultural process of “sacralization” of the child as seen, for example,
in the way that child deaths in the nineteenth century took on more emotional value, evident in
a rise of consolation literature and funerary art during that period – although portraits and
triptychs of dead children appeared as early as the sixteenth century (Avery & Reynolds, 2000).
Anne Higgonet (1998) argues that an ideal of innocence is presented in the (Western)
Romantic conceptions of childhood as feminine, passive, and associated closely with nature and
the belief that these images somehow captured the essence or “truth” of childhood. As Joanne
Faulkner argues (2011), Western cultural mythology has positioned “the child [as herald] of our
salvation, conceived as a redemptive return to a lost, primordial innocence” (p. 23). Innocence
and purity became the defining characteristic of modern childhood, and particularly Western
childhood, despite being conceived of by adults. By “treasuring our children and protecting

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-4 25
 Debbie Olson and Giselle Rampaul

them from ambiguous [threatening] social relations, we signal to ourselves that our way of life is
better than others’ where childhood is put at risk” (Faulkner, 2011, p. 104). The romantici-
zation of childhood innocence performed dual functions, as James R. Kincaid argues (1998): It
became both a justification for adult protection (p. 54) and its loss, its negation, allowed adults
to “other” those children who did not fit the Western innocence model.

Racialized Childhoods
Along with childhood innocence, whiteness was also implicitly idealized in early representa-
tions of childhood and images of a White childhood came to be considered universal and
desirable. Non-white children have, therefore, traditionally been subject to stereotypical and
caricatured representations or have simply been excluded from cultural productions of media
images, being replaced instead by images of White childhood. More recently, in predominantly
White societies such as in the U.S. and Australia, there have been deliberate corrective attempts
to distribute multicultural images of nationhood that include representations of non-white
children. However, in countries where whiteness is in the minority, depictions of the racial
majority are still rare as images of White children dominate traditional media forms. Both the
inclusion and exclusion of non-white children in different parts of the world are in response to
the early establishment of a whiteness paradigm in visual representations of childhood. The
depiction of race and color in images of childhood is, therefore, important to broader social,
cultural, and political issues.
Michelle H. Martin (1998) argues that the Blackamoor (i.e., a very dark-skinned person) of
Struwwelpeter (Heinrich Hoffman, 1845) and The Story of Little Black Sambo (Helen Bannerman,
1899) were perhaps the first illustrations of Black children in European picture books for
children. Although these writers were venturing into “uncharted territory” (p. 147) by writing
about children’s color, their presentations of blackness are very similar to each other because
they relied on and perpetuated established stereotypes. For instance, these works influenced the
ways in which African American children came to be represented at the turn of the century.
Many of these caricatured images of Black children were an integral part of the more gen-
eralized racist discourses of the early twentieth century, as Carolyn Dean (2000) shows in her
examination of literary, pictorial, and musical representations. Children of color were, in fact,
absent from all but “folk” representation for some time. Because they drew attention to
“physiognomic alterity” (i.e., othered because they look different) (p. 18) and prejudice was
characterized as “natural” and “innate,” these images “helped naturalize the extant American
social order and obfuscate institutionalized racist practices” (p. 29). In the popular media of the
time, such images sanitized themes of race relations, racial prejudice, victimization, and mis-
cegenation, offering reassuring interpretations of contemporary social conditions. The eventual
inclusion of children of color in mainstream representation – such as in school reading primers –
was politically motivated and had far-reaching socio-cultural implications and consequences in
the U.S. (any reference for this important statement?)
Studies of media representations of childhood elsewhere in non-Western countries have
shown that the influence of the Western Romantic concept of White childhood is widespread.
As Giuseppe Bolotta and Dympna Devine show (2021), the images of African children used by
NGOs (non-governmental organizations) fundraising, have “commodified” children’s emo-
tional value (p. 16), conflicting with the image of children working for the family unit which
“promot[es] interdependence and communal relatedness” (p. 4). According to Bolotta and
Devine, the Western concept of the emotionally priceless child has become a staple of local-
international tensions, for instance: “The essentialized and emotional portrait of ‘the African

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child’ as an ‘innocent victim’ to be saved has thus become an iconic trope for the region” (p. 5),
and at odds with traditional images of childhood. Bolotta and Devine argue that this shift in
portrayals of “victimized” childhood devalues children’s “relational value” (p. 4) to the family
in favor of the Westernized emotional value. This shift in perspective on the value of children
tends to favor the childhoods of White, middle-class, Western children as “normal,” while
children of color or non-western children are positioned as deprived of innocence and
(Western) childhood because of socio-political conditions such as poverty, war, or religious
restrictions. As Bolotta and Devine conclude, the “commodification of children’s emotional
value … serves to redirect global flows and sentiments through the essentialized image of the
suffering child” in ways that extend far beyond the images of children used by NGOs (p. 16).
This image of the “othered” child has stubbornly persisted in the media despite the many
contrasting images available on digital media.

Global Images of Children and Childhood

Although there is an increase in multicultural and multiracial representations in White majority
populations, problems of stereotyping and allegorizing can still be seen. For instance, Kyle
Harvey (2021) argues that in Australia “an abundance of studies and surveys since the late 1980s
have demonstrated that television, despite recent progress, has largely failed to reflect cultural
diversity on screen.” For Harvey (2020), Australian screens have been slow to adapt to an
increasingly diverse population (“Casting,” p. 94). In her analysis of the Australian film Red Dog
(2011), about a stray dog who helps unite an isolated community in the outback, Eleanor M.
Huntington (2016) argues that some Australian family films depict landscapes that can help
young people “navigate life in a postcolonial and explicitly multicultural nation” (p. 15).
Graeme Turner (2020) shows how the creation of the NITV in Australia (National Indigenous
Television Network, part of the SBS network) changed the landscape of representations of
childhood by introducing a Jarjum (aboriginal word for children) segment each morning. NITV
programming normalizes indigenous and multicultural childhoods through shows that feature
indigenous children and their lives like “Little J & Big Cuz,” “Mugu Kids,” and the beautiful
“Grace beside Me,” a show that presents the interconnectedness of indigenous children and
their ancestors.
Images of childhood in Arab media, for instance, are culturally specific despite Western
media influence. Feryal Awan (2016) shows how some Arab media producers model
Western television products for Arab consumption; for instance, a co-production of Sesame
Street has become the “most widely available children’s programme in the Arab world”
(p. 59). Awan (2021) looks specifically at Palestinian and Pan Arab television for children
and finds that there are “common assumptions and idealizations of childhood” that are
common everywhere, but in Arab-language television adult presence is a constant, whereas
in Western television children are often depicted having adventures by themselves with little
direction from adults. While other childhoods are not hidden from Arab child viewers,
there is a “plethora of international channels such as Disney and Nickelodeon,” Arab
children are encouraged to watch “a number of Arabic-language alternatives” (Awan, 2016,
n.p.) to Western programming. Awan (2021) found that the “children’s sphere is further
‘occupied’ by adults (parents, producers and presenters)” and in Palestine, “childhood is a
constant focus of adult anxieties due to the fear that children are placed in childhood-
denying spaces” where children are at the “mercy of their social and political environment –
implying that only through adult intervention and support, they can survive and develop
successfully” (p. 215).

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In the Arab world, images of children and childhood are often at odds with influences and
images from the West, particularly from the Walt Disney Corporation. Some scholars have
argued that media images of children on the global stage promote cultural homogenization or
cultural imperialism, particularly because Disney, and Western media in general, dominate
the children’s media landscape worldwide. But Kirsten Pike (2018 studied the ways Al
Jazeera’s Jeem TV (a channel directed at youth) “dubs Disney films and TV shows into classic
Arabic … and edits them to better reflect cultural norms and sensitivities in the Arab Gulf.”
Jeem TV actively rewrites and re-edits Disney programming in ways that “downplay or
eliminate a range of content deemed inappropriate for Arab youth” (p. 73). Such intertexual
merging of images of Western childhood with Arab contexts Pike argues demonstrates a
“fluidity … in outlooks” by Arab children that combine conservative with progressive views,
underscoring the ways young viewers actively negotiate images of childhood (Pike, 2018,
p. 87). Countries like Egypt used Disney animation as inspiration for “Islamizing animation
production,” blending Disney traditional storytelling techniques with Egyptian “Islamic
narratives” for children (Sayfo, 2018, p. 113).
Over the last decade, the Disney Corporation has made steady progress in representing more
diverse childhoods with films that feature children and adults of color in primary roles such as
Big Hero 6 (2014), Moana (2016), Coco (2017), and Black Panther (2018). Michelle Anya Anjirbag
(2020, however, argues that such films merely extend the reach of Disney’s particular vision of
childhood to the global community: White, middle-class, heteronormative, conservative, and
Christian (p. 153). Anjirbag suggests that the ways in which Disney portrays childhood reflects
“a particular ‘global’ culture, or, Disney’s overarching … and dominating view of the world as
it should be” (p. 153). Rather than present truly unique childhoods, Anjirbag proposes that the
Disney formula remakes non-western cultures in its own image, in a “process of subsuming”
childhood images through its “corporate lens” (p. 154) that “enforces a level sameness” to the
viewer (p. 156) through its particular visual style and classic narrative arcs.
Despite the seemingly limited diversity of images of children in Western media, the internet
has facilitated a much needed re-imagining, and re-imaging, of childhood that transcends
borders. Across the globe, children and youth partake in visual culture as both producers and
consumers through cell phones, tablets, and laptop computers. Sanjay Asthana (2017) shows
how Palestinian children in refugee camps “contextualize their experience [and] the socio-
economic and structural issues with living in the refugee camps and villages” by making short
digital films that are then featured on the “Palestinian Youth Media: Digital Resistance” web
page. These children’s “digitextual narratives” show a “connectedness through the translocal
spaces” of social media, which in turn circulate transglobally (pp. 10–11).
The digital landscape also allows children to participate in socio-political contexts in ways
that have a meaningful impact. Lidia Marôpo et al. (2020) look at the popular YouTube
channel, CarecaTV, founded and run by a 12-year-old Brazilian girl, Lorena Reginato, who
suffered from cancer. She documented her cancer journey and her difficulty accessing treatment
in Brazil. She raised funds and attained agency to depict herself not as a victim, but as a survivor;
she “juxtapose[d] cancer identity [with] self-promotion” and play (para. 28). By producing self-
images of a childhood beset by cancer, Reginato offered another counter-narrative to re-
presentations of idealistic childhood. But not all children in the Global South have regular
access to digital technology. Shakuntala Banaji (2015) suggests that while poor working-class
children in India may have limited access to digital media, they still find ways to participate,
imagining themselves in social media narratives and through selfies that reveal their complex
lives involving work, education, resource gathering, and family care. By representing their own
childhood, India’s working-class children also contribute a counter-narrative to the West’s ideal

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childhood. By actively imaging themselves, non-western children continue to contribute to a

growing landscape of childhood representations that challenge the limiting Western model.

Representations of Childhood in News Media

Historically, newspapers have had a major role to play in the sacralization of childhood through
their sensationalism of certain stories about childhood. Apart from publicizing childhood
deaths, they opened debates about child labor, including the issue of child actors who para-
doxically were working children who “represented the new, sentimentalized view of children,”
as Zelizer shows (p. 95). Sentimental adoption was also sympathetically presented in newspaper
headlines and in the rags-to-riches, fairy-tale presentations of adoption in magazines. The
blonde, blue-eyed girl child was advertised as the most desirable and, therefore, most valuable,
as she was the ultimate representation of domesticated and sentimental childhood.
While print news media has changed significantly in the last two decades with the rise of the
internet, images of children and childhood still tend to favor the White, middle-class child as
emblematic of universal childhood. White children in the news media are often presented as
innocent, pure, and living up to the Western middle-class standard, while children of color or
children from the Global South are depicted as adultified, dangerous, or as non-children be-
cause of perceived violations of the “natural state of childhood” (Prout, 2005., p. 13). Children
often appear in the news media as victims of crimes or social injustices. How that child is
represented however, depends a great deal on their race and economic status. For instance, on
May 3, 2017, while on holiday in Portugal with her family, 4-year-old Madeleine McCann was
abducted from her parents’ holiday apartment. The world’s media was saturated with images of
little Maddie who is from the U.K., White, blonde, and with blue-green-eyes. She is the image
of innocence and universal childhood. Years of investigation and leads have never resolved her
disappearance and to the day of this writing, no trace of her has ever been found, yet her
disappearance, and her image, still produce investigations, the most recent in 2020 in Germany.
Media images of Maddie often highlighted her large eyes – most photos depicted her looking
up to great effect – and her blonde hair, fueled the global outcry against an assault on such
innocence by unknown persons. The global barrage of media images of little blonde Maddie
reinforced notions of Western childhood, her image was held up as innocence personified and
the continual threat of its corruption. In contrast, no issue is more emblematic of the way news
media represents children and childhood as the issue of immigration and refugees. And no
one incident brought to the surface the unequal ideas about childhood like the death of little
Alan Kurdi.
On September 2, 2015, the lifeless body of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi, a young Syrian refugee,
washed ashore on a beach near Bodrum, Turkey. A Turkish photojournalist took pictures of
the dead toddler lying face down in the surf in his red shirt, blue pants, and little shoes. The
images went viral on both news and social media within hours, garnering immediate reaction
across the globe. The image of little Alan, who drowned along with his mother and brother as
they fled the rising violence in their homeland, shined the world’s spotlight on the Syrian civil
war (2011–present, at the time of this writing) and the subsequent refugee crisis in Europe. It
also highlighted how notions of universal childhood do not apply to all children.
At first, the global reaction to the images of Kurdi dead on the beach reinforced notions of
childhood innocence and vulnerability, and that children should be protected from such tra-
gedy. News reports – both print and visual – highlighted his innocence amidst political strife, a
“shocking image [that] require[es] instant political action” (Adler-Nissen et al., 2020, p. 76).
The photograph of Kurdi’s small body became an icon of the plight of refugees, artists created

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likenesses of Kurdi’s body in various forms, and his image became a call for more humanitarian
assistance for refugees, particularly unaccompanied minors. For instance, news media images of
Kurdi and Syrian refugees “mobilized the Canadian public … and contributed to the success of
the country’s goal in resettling 25,000 refugees in Canada” (Tyyskä et al., 2018, p. 161). News
media around the globe highlighted Kurdi’s innocence, his almost “sleeping” position on the
beach, that he “looked” White, telling viewers and readers that he could be “your child.” Such
imagery coupled with discourses of compassion and protection underscored the notion of the
emotional importance of the sacralized child. Indeed, the U.K. response to the images produced
political action to accept more unaccompanied minor refugees, resulting in the Dubs
amendment. News media images of very young, helpless and innocent child refugees fortified
for U.K. audiences the “kind of children who need rescuing” (McLaughlin, 2018, p. 1760). But
the image of the innocent child contrasted sharply with the actual pre-teen children that did
reach England’s shores from a refugee camp in Calais, France, known as “The Jungle.” The
U.K. media build-up of sympathy for refugee children like Kurdi quickly turned to animus for
the children who did not look like Kurdi, revealing the unstable and fluid image of the child.
Adler-Nissen et al. (2020) explain that, “within a year [of Kurdi’s death], policies adopted
with direct reference to his tragic death changed from an open-door approach to an attempt to
stop refugees ever arriving” in Europe (p. 77) as right-wing media pundits changed the nar-
rative of compassion for child refugees into fear of who these child refugees may become. The
previous media images “drew on the knowledge that the ‘child-body’ [as] the quintessential site
of moral compassion” (McLaughlin, 2018, p. 1760) that elicited a cultural desire to protect. But
that image slowly changed into one with a “dismembered child figure: part invisible, part
animal, with the ability to morph into both a mythic and parasitic being through its association
with … the ‘migrant’ as an opportunistic entity” (Ibrahim, 2020, p. 3). In this widespread case,
news media images of children and childhood began with the discursive frame of innocence,
but ended with refugee children framed by suspicion, fear, and “the moral and ethical chal-
lenges” of their now “non-sacred” child image (Ibrahim, 2018, p. 7).

Future Representations of Childhood

Technological advancement has been key to the global circulation of images of childhood and
has inevitably changed the way childhood is imagined and understood, which in turn, creates
new representations of childhood. The images of children in media circulation today have
helped to blur distinctions between dominant Western media images of childhood and images
of childhoods from all areas of the globe. Though the majority of images of children from the
West do continue to reinforce a particular kind of childhood, such imaging in the world’s
various digital media reflect the continued evolution of changing cultural attitudes about
children and childhood.
Representations of childhood in today’s media perhaps reflect new tensions and moral panics
by adults about the nature of today’s youth cultures. In an era of rising nationalism and poli-
ticization, children are sometimes positioned as the source of adult anxieties (i.e., refugees or
migrants) to such an extent that images of childhood innocence and futurity are at times unfairly
replaced with images of the delinquent or disconnected adultified child who inhabits a
childhood space that is fraught with adult knowledge and conditions. The sheer magnitude of
child images on the internet, often sexualized and adultified, encourages discussions about the
ways in which children and adults negotiate, consume, and produce those images. For Kate
Eickhhorn (2019), the concern is not so much the imagery itself, but that it never goes away.
Eickhhorn believes the ability to view childhood images in perpetuity may help youth cultures

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actively engage with issues of identity, relationships, family, school, and play by allowing youth
to develop a sense of their own unique history. She believes the internet functions as a public
repository for the “documentation of our youthful lives broadcast on what may best be de-
scribed as a continuous loop” and the ability to revisit those images may positively impact a
child’s transition into adulthood (p. 24).
Finally, digital environments contribute to the rise of new conceptions of the child image
that is no longer limited by Western dominance. The internet has normalized the global ex-
change of images, for instance film and television, widely dispersing diverse images of a wide
range of multicultural childhoods. Films like Cave of the Yellow Dog (2005), Like Stars On Earth
(2007), Burn Your Maps (2016), Pahuna (2018), or House of Hummingbird, (2019) all contain the
universal beauty of childhood wonder, yet all represent childhood in non-western ways.
The representation of children and childhood in the media continually evolves with each
new technological advance, transforming notions of what childhood is or should be across all
material and digital landscapes. And while modern images of children are continually changing,
the discourse of childhood – innocence, imagination, wonder, love and hope – remains, taking
on new forms while preserving the unique and diverse qualities of all children.

SEE ALSO Chapter 1 by Drotner in this volume.

References
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death of Alan Kurdi. Review of International Studies, 46(1), 75–95. 10.1017/S0260210519000317
Anjirbag, M.A. (2020). Reforming borders of the imagination: Diversity, adaptation, transmediation, and
incorporation in the global disney film landscape. Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, 11(2),
151–176. 10.1353/jeu.2019.0021
Ariès, P. (1962). Centuries of childhood. Alfred A. Knoff, Random House.
Asthana, S. (2017). Translation and localization of children’s rights in youth-produced digital media in the
global south: A hermeneutic exploration. New Media and Society, 19(5), 1–15. 10.1177/146144481
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Avery, G., & Reynolds K. (2000). Representations of childhood death. Macmillan.
Awan, F. (2016). Occupied childhoods: Discourses and politics of childhood and their place in Palestinian and Pan-
Arab screen content for children [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Westminster. https://
core.ac.uk/download/pdf/161106962.pdf
Awan, F. (2021). Representations of childhood and “modes of address” in Palestinian and Pan-Arab
programs for children. In D. Olson & A. Schober (Eds.), Children, youth, and international television (pp.
197–212). Routledge.
Banaji, S. (2015). Behind the high-tech fetish: Children, work, and media use across classes in India.
International Communication Gazette, 77(6), 519–532. 10.1177/1748048515597874
Bolotta, G., & Devine, D. (2021). Contested futures: The “humanitarian value” of childhood in rural
Sierra Leone. Current Sociology, 1–21. 10.1177/0011392120985867
Dean, C. (2000). 1850–boys and girls and “boys”: Popular depictions of African-American children and
childlike adults in the United States 1930. Journal of American & Comparative Cultures, 23(3), 17–35.
10.1111/j.1537-4726.2000.2303_17.x
Eickhhorn, K. (2019). The end of forgetting: Growing up with social media. Harvard University Press.
Faulkner, J. (2011). The importance of being innocent. Cambridge University Press.
Harvey, K. (2020). Casting, diversity and fluid identities in Australian television. Media International Australia,
174(1), 86–96. 10.1177/1329878X19882528
Harvey, K. (2022). Migration, youth, and Australian television: Production, policy and audiences. In D. Olson &
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Higgonet, A. (1998). Pictures of innocence: The history and crisis of ideal childhood. Thames & Hudson.
Huntington, E.M. (2016). A land for animals, a space for children: The landscape in Australian family
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Ibrahim, Y. (2018). The unsacred and the spectacularized: Alan Kurdi and the migrant body. Social Media
+ Society, 4(4). 1–9. 10.1177/2056305118803884
Ibrahim, Y. (2020). The child refugee in Calais: From invisibility to the “suspect figure.” Journal of
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Kincaid. J.R. (1998). Erotic innocence: The culture of child molesting. Duke University Press.
Marôpo, L, Carvalho, R. de, & Jorge, A. (2020). Children’s cancer narratives on YouTube: agency and
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the politics of childhood. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44(11), 1757–1773. 10.1080/1369183
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International Australia, 174(1), 20–28. 10.1177/1329878X19869481
Tyyskä, V., Blower, J., Deboer, S., Kawai, S., & Walcott, A. (2018). Canadian media coverage of the
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Zelizer, V.A. (1985). Pricing the priceless child: The changing social value of children. Basic Books.

32
 3
EXAMINING THE ASSUMPTIONS
IN RESEARCH ON CHILDREN
AND MEDIA
Marina Krcmar

In a landmark article, Gonzales (1988) argued that communication has its roots in inter-
disciplinarity and the interdisciplinary nature of communication is one of its main strengths.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of children and media. Typically, a sound piece
of scholarship that examines children and media looks not only at the child, but at the child as a
developmentally influenced and constrained individual. Many scholars (e.g., Byrne et al., 2009;
Cantor, 2002; Krcmar, 2010) take developmental theory as a starting point. Research on
children and media has worked consistently and intentionally to apply work from develop-
mental psychology. However, surprisingly little has been written that examines this interplay
between developmental psychology and media research or the theoretical and methodological
assumptions that hold sway in this area of study. In fact, it is perhaps evidence of the strength of
these assumptions that they have not been considered or examined at length. In this chapter I
examine these assumptions and discuss how environment influences child development and
how methodological issues influence our understanding of both child development and of the
interplay between media and child development.

Implicit Assumptions in Research on Children and Media

In any area of research, the assumptions that we hold most strongly are the most difficult to see.
In research on children and media, many of the assumptions derive from those rooted in
developmental psychology itself. Although these assumptions are not necessarily incorrect, they
bear re-examination to help us move forward in our research enterprise.

Children and Adolescents Are Qualitatively Different from Adults

One of the most straightforward assumptions that guides work in developmental psychology is
that children are qualitatively different from adults. Before this idea made it into scientific
consciousness, children were not focused on as a separate class of persons. More recently,
however, there have been political and economic reasons to assume that children lack im-
portant knowledge and ability that require them to have a (female) caretaker for a lengthy
period (Burman, 2008). This results in a freeing of jobs for an adult, male work force. These
social and political forces shape the definition of childhood (Burman, 2008), generating

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-5 33
 Marina Krcmar

assumptions about it: namely that childhood exists, and that these assumptions are meaningful
and useful.
This assumption that children are unique is inherent in the work of developmental psy-
chologist Jean Piaget (Harris, 1997). Piaget popularized the idea that young children think,
conceptualize, and understand differently from adults and therefore their perceptions of the
world and their interactions in it all deserve distinct attention (Piaget, 1926). Much of the
research that focuses on young children and mass media takes as a premise that children do think
differently from adults; however, this assumption has been questioned, if not directly then at
least in its effect. Specifically, we assume that if young children think differently, and are
constrained by cognitive limitations (e.g., Inhelder & Piaget, 1964) then they are in need of
adult protection. Educational media and prosocial television targeting young children assume
that children are in need of guidance and shaping. A contrasting view is that children are
increasingly sophisticated as they encounter newer technologies and a greater variety of media
content (Livingstone, 2018). While some scholars have taken this approach, arguing that
children should be empowered as sophisticated media consumers (e.g., Livingstone, 2018) the
dominant approach in media effects research, has been a more protectionist approach
(Buckingham, 2000). After all, recent research suggests that children need not comprehend
content in order to be affected by it (Cingel & Krcmar, 2019). Thus, it does suggest that some
protection is warranted.
If, as Piaget has argued, young children’s thinking has certain characteristics that are somewhat
resistant to environmental training, simply empowering them with information is not enough.
For example, Cantor and colleagues (e.g., Cantor, 2002) have argued that to calm preschoolers’
fear, simply explaining that television is not real does little to calm their fears due to these very
cognitive limitations. Instead, until children have made a certain amount of cognitive develop-
mental progress that allows them to distinguish between reality and fantasy, it may be more
productive to calm their fears with behavioral strategies such as hugs (Cantor, 2002).
Assumptions regarding young children’s difference from adults are also implicit in the lit-
erature on adolescence. However, the fact that adolescents exist as a distinct age group is also an
assumption worth examining. Although puberty as a physical change has obviously always been
with us, adolescence as a concomitant social and emotional period is somewhat new. At the
beginning of the twentieth century, children often began paid employment at age 10. A
minimum age for leaving school (15 years) was not introduced in Europe until 1944 (Harris &
Butterworth, 2002). However, as technological advancements required more skilled workers
and more specialized education, the years of schooling needed to maintain a technologically
advanced society increased. Requirements for advanced schooling necessitated postponement
of reproduction. Thus, biological changes came face to face with economic, political, and social
necessity and the years of adolescence were ultimately extended. Amidst these forces, an aca-
demic interest in a period of life known as adolescence became greater (Saltman, 2005).
The middle of the twentieth century, then, saw a meeting of several occurrences. First,
adolescence as a social construction, influenced by the dominant political, economic, and mores
of the day emerged (Saltman, 2005). Next, television quickly became the mass medium of the
decade, with approximately 65 percent of homes owning a set by 1955 (Paik, 2001, p. 15).
Third, the field of mass communication was in its infancy and interest in media and children
was among the early topics of interest (e.g., Schramm et al., 1961). Thus, it was inevitable that
an interest in the effects of television on adolescents would emerge.
Certainly this is not to argue that adolescence is not a time of physical, emotional, and
psychological change. Rather, it is important to examine our assumption that adolescence as a
period of development exists somehow outside of the social and cultural contexts that helped

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 Examining the Assumptions in Research

define it. In sum, one major assumption is that children and adolescents think in ways that differ
from adults. It is crucial to understand that this is an assumption in order to recognize when
developmental theory provides us with shoulders to stand on, or when the weight of the extant
theory clouds our vision.

Age Is Taken as a Primary Variable

A second major assumption, is that age is often utilized as a key variable in studying children.
To perhaps state the obvious, this practice is less common in media research that examines
adults’ responses to media. Thus, we assume that not only do children think differently from
adults but that the way they process media differs as they age. Furthermore, with only some
exceptions, we assume that audience processing strategies and outcomes change with age during
childhood and adolescence, but do not do so during adulthood. Whereas it is true that pro-
cessing changes with the age of the child, it is crucial, still, to view this as an assumption.
A sizable body of literature does support this contention from the very youngest viewers (e.g.,
6-month-olds, Krcmar et al., 2007) to adolescents (Borzekowski & Strasburger, 2008).
However, despite compelling evidence that age is an important variable in research, age is often
used as a proxy for development without recognition that age is confounded by experience. As
children age, they develop biologically, and their experience with media typically increases;
their interactions with the world outside of their immediate families expand; they may be
exposed to greater and more varied stimuli. Thus, age is an indicator of development, but it is
also a corollary of many experiential variables. Thus, it is important to question and empirically
examine the assumption that age differences are inevitably linked to individual development
and recognize when it is a confound, hiding other relevant factors.

All Differences Are Related to Development

A third assumption, is that we tend to look for changes in children over time and then take any
differences as evidence for development or progress towards adulthood. Unlike the assumption
above, where age may mask more important or interesting variables, research on child de-
velopment must be vigilant about not assuming that any change is evidence of development.
Consider, for example, research on adults and media. Differences between older and younger
adults, when they are examined, are taken as evidence for social differences, economic dif-
ferences, or differences in the subculture of a cohort. None of this is to imply that development
does not occur; however, it is important to consider when changes over time or differences
between age groups are related to something other than cognitive, emotional, or social
development.
For example, more than three and a half decades ago, researchers suggested that due to
cognitive limitations, very young children, those aged 3 to 5, did not understand the persuasive
and selling intent of advertising (Ward et al., 1977). By today’s standards, when toddlers and
preschoolers are exposed to arguably more advertising on more media platforms than ever
before, it is possible to construe this classic research as dated. It is possible that with access to
more media and more sophisticated advertising campaigns, young children have become more
aware and critical of advertising. If such is the case, then scholars (e.g., Livingstone. 2018) are
correct: we underestimate and are unduly protective of children. Research from 1977 (i.e.,
Ward et al., 1977) should be replicated because the content of the media under investigation –
advertising – has changed dramatically in the ensuing years. In fact, McAlister and Cornwell
(2009) set out to test this claim. They found that 3- to 5-year-olds still do not understand the

35
 Marina Krcmar

persuasive intent of advertising, despite the more sophisticated media climate in which they
have been raised. However, 35 years of research provided support for this finding; one study did
not. However, even since 2009, things have changed. Unlike a decade ago, when children
started with a large screen, many children well under 2 years of age start with a cell phone and
are exposed to ever more screen media. Is it possible that this increased exposure to screen
media, across platforms, not only correlates with age but is independently causal of changes
in outcomes? Additional research that considers these cohort changes is needed to continue
to track the independent and interdependent roles of child development and increased
screen time.

Selective Application of Developmental Phenomena and Developmental

Theory in Understanding Children and Media
Researchers tend to focus on children’s cognitive processing, assuming that other develop-
mental factors (e.g., emotional, moral development) are outcome variables. Perhaps this is
related to scholars’ focus on a narrow group of developmental scholars and theorists (e.g.,
Piaget). For example, Vygotsky (1978, 1986) is often overshadowed by his contemporary,
Piaget. However, Vygotsky’s work is valuable to media researchers due to several insights.
Vygotsky stressed that certain cognitive processes in children (e.g., voluntary memory,
problem-solving, self-regulation) have their origins in social interaction and activity. To re-
searchers interested in studying how children learn from a diverse array of media, theorists who
emphasize the dynamic nature of development may help in our understanding of the process.
Thus, Vygotsky offers a possible starting place for thinking about children’s learning from new
media, especially, from social media. As a result of this somewhat narrow focus, work by Piaget
on cognitive development has often been used exclusively. This creates a subtle assumption:
cognitive development tends to be used in order to understand how children process and
understand media; children’s emotional, moral, and social development is often measured as a
dependent variable.
Despite this assumption, recent theorists paint a more holistic, integrated picture of children
that media researchers would be wise to attend to. For example, past developmental literature
has assumed that children are passive recipients of development, with development emerging
either innately or from their social world that either provided or did not provide them with
what they needed (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). More recent approaches see children as active
participants in their own development, due to a drive to explore and understand their world.
Furthermore, it is not necessarily accurate to atomize the developmental process, assuming that
cognitive, emotional, social, and moral development are distinct processes. Instead, cognitive
development may inform moral development which in turn may influence children’s inter-
actions with peers.
In terms of media research, we must recognize, for example, that cognitive development
influences children’s attention to media, but emotional development may influence their at-
traction to a media character which in turn may affect their attention. Similarly, social de-
velopment may influence their willingness and ability to “talk” to an on-screen character which
may then influence their learning from that character. Thus, if we continue to assume that (1)
media are processed primarily cognitively and (2) media influence primarily emotional, social,
and learning outcomes, we may become stagnant in our research. Therefore, that we are
somewhat selective and limited in our application of developmental theory should act as a call
to expand the boundaries of theories we apply in order to understand how children understand
and are influenced by media, socially, emotionally, cognitively, and morally.

36
 Examining the Assumptions in Research

The Importance of Environment

A sizable amount of research regarding children and media does not consider the family as a
featured variable. This decision is sometimes made for the sake of expediency and sometimes for
reasons of internal validity. In either case, family and environment is left out. Although the
elimination of certain variables is an inherent property of experimental design this may not
always be appropriate.
There are reasons both practical and theoretical to claim that it is invalid to remove children
from a social environment in the name of experimental validity. First, children rarely consume
media in isolation; very young children are rarely completely alone. Furthermore, many
children’s programs attempt to engage children socially by asking questions, eliciting verbal and
physical interaction, and building social relationships between the main character and the child
(Lauricella et al., 2011). Thus, for young children, social interaction is part of the experience of
consuming and learning from media.
Second (e.g., Vygotsky, 1978, 1986), children’s development cannot be considered isolated
from social interaction. Specifically, “human learning presupposes a specific social nature and a
process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them” (1978, p. 88). In
the end, then, the social world and learning are so intertwined that to attempt to take them
apart would be difficult and meaningless. To atomize something that occurs in the family (i.e.,
television viewing), especially when studying children who cannot survive outside of the
context of a support system, is to destroy it beyond recognition.
Another problem with the way family environment has been studied is that social interaction is
likely a broader concept than we conceptualize it in, say, the mediation literature. Strasburger et al.
(2009) define mediation simply as “the ways in which parents try to buffer children’s exposure to
media content” (p. 506). However, even this broad definition misses some of what we need to
look at in understanding how families interact with media. Yes, parents mediate in explicit ways
(e.g., by helping children interpret content) but they also engage in ways that remain mostly
unexplored. Is there a difference in a child’s processing of media between sitting in a high chair or
being rocked and kissed by a parent while viewing? Is one condition more supportive of learning
or more distracting to it? Certainly an experiment could attempt to answer that question, but
perhaps we consider it too irrelevant or strange to ask. In any case, family environment, social
interaction, and mediation may be conceptualized in ways that must be broadened.
The criticisms withstanding, the study of children and media and the application of de-
velopment to media has offered some very practical insights. For example, Sesame Street was the
first children’s program to be designed based on research that indicated what worked in terms of
children’s learning from television (Fisch & Bernstein, 2001; Lesser & Schneider, 2001). Thus,
research on children and media has offered information, recommendations, and assistance to
those who design it (e.g., Valkenburg & Piotrowski, 2017).

The Influence of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Assumptions in

Child and Media Research
It is self-evident that the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020–2021 had massive and worldwide effects
on so many aspects of life that they will not be enumerated here. Instead, I state simply that
family, work-life balance, and the role of media in that equation have not even begun to be
unpacked. When schools and childcare establishments were suddenly shuttered, millions of
parents worldwide, especially those with younger children and with paid employment were
forced to deal with the colliding realities of an insufficient safety net for working parents, a

37
 Marina Krcmar

school system that was not equipped to deal with online education in most cases, and the
increasingly real (rather than assumed) inability of children, especially younger children, to learn
in that online environment that had not been designed for that purpose (Engzell, Frey, &
Verhagen, 2021, Götz & Lemish, 2022).
In the past decade, the age at which children are exposed to media has dropped (Bohnert &
Gracia, 2021) and although overall traditional screen time has not increased as much, the use of
mobile media more than doubled for every age group from 0–8 years (Rideout & Robb, 2020).
However, during the Covid-19 pandemic, children used screens for school, entertainment, and
to communicate with family and friends at increased rates. Even apart from time spent with
screen for school, the proportion of children and teens who spent more than four hours a day
on screens essentially doubled in every category for children 0–4 years (from 13% prior to
Covid-19 to 26% during Covid–19) to older teens 14–17 years (from 32% to 62%) (Statista,
2020). How did all of this additional screen time, almost all done in the home with family
members present, test and affect our assumptions?
First, we saw in stark reality, if not yet in actual statistical effect sizes, that children are
qualitatively different from adults; they do lack ability and knowledge that makes them require a
lengthy period of care (although the actual length of that time varies dramatically from culture
to culture; Konner, 2010); and women were more likely than men to bear the burden of that
increased care and education (Power, 2020) during Covid-19. Furthermore, extensive research
is necessary to understand how children learn best in an online environment and how those
research findings can be applied. Thus, although the assumption under consideration points to
the fact that children are in fact in need of a specialized environment, it remains unclear how
best to design that media environment.
A second assumption that was amplified and tested by the Covid-19 pandemic, when many
children spent essentially all of their time at home and with family, was the role of family in-
teraction in navigating, moderating, and mediating the effects of media. Past research has typically
either ignored family variables in the search for the effects of media on children, or examined
family interaction as a key variable (e.g., Coyne, et al., 2017; Jiow, et al., 2017), with the former
being the more common approach. The importance of the family-media dynamic, the im-
portance of media as means of educating children, and the importance of media as sometimes-vital
babysitters for exhausted parents was highlighted. Therefore, the assumption that one could ig-
nore family interaction variables in a study on media and children is still possible methodologically,
but it is likely unwise to do so when examining the year of Covid-19. After all, it may not be an
exaggeration to say that family and media were the only things children had in some cases.
The effects of Covid-19 on families, on children, and on the role of and importance of
media in the lives of children remains to be tested. Will the pandemic year and the increased
media it introduced into children’s lives have a long-term impact? Will the landscape of media,
children, and families be permanently altered by this pandemic year? How will the assumptions
listed above be further questioned and tested? These questions beg research on children and
media for the coming decade.

SEE ALSO Chapter 8 by Berriman in this volume.

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Strasburger, V.C., Wilson, B., & Jordan, A. (2009). Children, adolescents, and the media (2nd ed.). Sage.
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 4
LONG-TERM TRENDS IN
CHILDREN’S CONSUMPTION
OF MEDIA
Uwe Hasebrink and Ingrid Paus-Hasebrink

Introduction
Within the framework of this volume, this chapter deals with children’s media consumption
and its changes over time. Reconstruction of long-term trends in children’s media use meets
two challenges. First, it cannot rely on long-term data, which cover several decades or even
centuries and provide comparable data over a longer period. Second, as a rule, the existing data,
which cover at least several years, reflect the situation only in a specific country and do not
enable general conclusions on a global level. Thus, our approach has to build on a synopsis of a
large body of research from different historical and cultural backgrounds. In order to identify
relevant trends which can serve as meaningful interpretations of the history of children’s media
use, this synopsis has to be highly selective.
Our approach combines two steps: First, we take the historical development of media
technologies as a key condition for children’s media use; starting with the earliest media, we
follow the historical development. For the most relevant modes of media usage, we sketch how
the respective media entered children’s everyday lives and how they are used today. This way of
telling the story of children’s media use as distinct stories of individual media technologies is
linked with the risk of a media-centered perspective that neglects the fact that children, in their
everyday lives, combine different media and build their personal media repertoire. Therefore,
against today’s backdrop of an increasingly converging media environment, our second step sets
out to develop a more holistic view of children’s media use. We focus on functions rather than
on technologies. This means that we discuss trends in children’s cross-media practices. This
perspective helps to better understand the particular role of the different media and the in-
terrelations between “old” and “new” media, as well as the changing functions that media fulfill
in children’s everyday lives. In the final paragraph, we discuss the consequences of the trends in
children’s media use with regard to social and political implications.

Single Media Technologies in Children’s Media Use

From a historical perspective, children’s media consumption is most obviously shaped by the
particular media available in a certain period. In the following, we briefly sketch the most
important media innovations, when they first appeared, what has been particular about them for

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-6 41
 Uwe Hasebrink and Ingrid Paus-Hasebrink

children’s media consumption, and how they are used in today’s multimedia environments. In
recent years, technical media became increasingly multifunctional. For instance, the smartphone
is a device that children can use for the widest possible range of applications and practices. Thus,
it is not helpful to structure this overview of long-term trends along with single technologies.
Instead, we structure it along with the most relevant functions: reading, watching audio-visual
media, listening to audio media, gaming, and communication.
Due to space limitations, we have had to make a decision here: around the world, the tech-
nological development is not at all synchronous; while, for instance, radio and television have been
normal presences for children in the Western world in their families’ households for several decades,
this is not the case for many children in some developing countries even today. For this chapter, we
decided to take the Western or American/European perspective as the reference point, but at some
points, we emphasize the substantial differences among different parts of the world.

Reading
Although there were different forms of mediated communication for and with children before
Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1436 (for example, theater or orally presented fairy
tales), in this chapter we take print media as the earliest form of media. The development of
children’s media started with periodical magazines for children; in Germany, for instance, the first
weekly magazine for children was published in Leipzig between 1772 and 1774 (Göbels, 1973).
During the nineteenth century, more and more magazines and books for children were illustrated
with colored drawings. This development builds the early starting point for the new genre of comic
strips (Botzakis et al., 2016). Walt Disney’s cartoon movies (see below) Mickey Mouse, first presented
in 1928, became so popular that the company started to distribute them by using a wide range of
media and merchandising products, including printed magazines or short strips in newspapers
(Becattini, 2016). Since the 1980s, Japanese Manga comics have also become quite popular in the
Western world (Schodt, 1983). In addition, in many countries, youth-oriented magazines have
become particularly important platforms for all aspects of youth culture (Lovegrove, 2016).
The reason that children’s books are an integral part of younger children’s media repertoire
is the fact that many parents read aloud to them or “co-read” illustrated books. In the U.S., for
instance, in 2018, 52 percent of parents of 0– to 2-year-olds reported reading to their children
five to seven days per week (Scholastic, 2019, p. 7); this figure was even higher for parents of 3-
to 5-year-olds (58%). Also for school children, reading aloud remains a common practice: 6- to
8-year-olds 45 percent, 9- to 11-year-olds 21 percent, and 12- to 14-year-olds 7 percent.
When it comes to children reading themselves, reading books is clearly more frequent among
girls than among boys; regarding age, there is a decreasing trend after the age of 8 to 10 years
(Rideout et al., 2010, p. 30). Books are still the most popular reading medium for children and
adolescents: The percentage of 8- to 12-year-olds in the U.S. who read books on a normal day
(36 percent) remained stable between 2015 and 2019 (Rideout & Robb, 2019, p. 12). In
addition, electronic books reached 7 percent in 2019 (in 2015: 5 percent). Among 13- to 18-
year-olds, the interest in reading books decreases: 16 percent read a printed book, 9 percent an
electronic book (Rideout & Robb, 2019, p. 15). In the same study, other print media reach
very low figures in this age group: newspapers 1 percent, magazines 3 percent.

Listening to Audio Media

Starting in the early 1920s radio entered households in the U.S. quite quickly: In 1930, 46
percent of households had a radio; in 1940, the figure was 80 percent, and in 1970, it reached

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98 percent (Paik, 2001, p. 11). In the first decades of its development radio proved to be a
highly attractive medium, also for children; many dedicated children’s programs were devel-
oped. Study in the U.S. in the 1950s showed that listening to the radio was the most frequent
evening activity of young people between 8 and 16 years (Lyness, 1952, quoted from Paik,
2001, pp. 11f.). Because of the advent of television, the relative importance of radio for children
and young people decreased. Although in most countries there are still some dedicated chil-
dren’s programs, the main function of young people’s use of the radio is listening to music.
Recently, figures for the daily reach of radio continue to decrease: the reach of radio among 8-
to 12-year-olds in the U.S. went down from 34 percent in 2015 to 27 percent in 2019; the
same was true for 13- to 18-year-olds (Rideout & Robb, 2019).
Children’s options to make use of electronic media were substantially enhanced by audio
recorders in the early 1970s. Over a relatively short time, these devices entered the majority of
children’s bedrooms in most Western countries. There were two functionalities, which made
these new devices so attractive for young audiences. First, particularly for younger children,
they offered “repeatable pleasures” (Wood, 1993, p. 184): children love to listen to or watch
the same story, again and again, although (or because) they know the content by heart. This
constellation allows them to experience exactly the degree of suspense that they like. Second,
particularly for teens, these recording devices allowed them to collect, sample, or re-mix their
own content from different sources, and by doing so, to express themselves and their identities.
Since then the specific technical devices and features for the use of audio content have changed
substantially: The path went from cassette recorders and record players to compact disc and MP3,
and podcasts. Today, the smartphone is by far the most important device for consuming audio
content. In 2019, 62 percent of 13- to 18-year-olds in the U.S. used it on a normal day for
listening to audio content (Rideout & Robb, 2019). Despite the dramatic changes in the tech-
nology of sound carriers, a stable element of children’s media repertoires has been pre-recorded
audio content for children, e.g., fairy tales, audio drama, or audiobooks for children.

Watching Audio-visual Media

The advent of cinema as the first audio-visual medium was a starting point for a still increasing
interest in empirical research on how children deal with any new medium and what effects this
might have (Paik, 2001, p. 7). In the first decade of the twentieth century, cinema proved to be
quite attractive, also for children. Paik (2001, p. 9) reports that in 1929, on average, children in the
U.S. were attending 1.6 movies per week. Cinema attendance in general was highest between the
late 1920s and late 1940s; after the advent of television the number of people going to the movies
substantially decreased. While younger children go to the movies together with their parents, the
core function of teenagers’ going to the movies is related to their increasing need to develop their
own social network and to experience social events with peers outside their families’ homes.
Therefore, even today, adolescents build an important pillar of the cinema market. However,
recent figures reflect a slightly decreasing trend among teenagers to go to the movies that goes
along with the increasing role of streaming services (see, e.g., Follows, 2019).
Following the cinema, for decades, television became the most relevant medium for chil-
dren. Television’s rapid diffusion in the U.S. started in the late 1940s; the strongest growth
occurred in the 1950s. From early childhood, children have spent quite a long time with
television, more than with any other media activity. Similar to audio media, children’s options
to make use of audio-visual media were enhanced by video recorders in the late 1970s; the new
device entered the majority of households with children in most Western countries. Later on,
the VCR technology had been widely replaced by DVD, Blu-ray, DVR, and other standards

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for audio-visual content. Even today with the availability of a wide variety of digital media,
television-viewing time is still high. However, in this respect, it is important to distinguish
different screen-based forms of viewing audio-visual content. Recent data for the U.S. indicate
that, in 2019, 13- to 18-year-olds spent almost three hours (2:52) watching audio-visual content
(Rideout & Robb, 2019). This includes only 25 minutes (compared to 54 minutes in 2015) for
viewing live content on a TV set, i.e., the traditional understanding of television. Thus, what
has been the normal practice over decades, turned to be on the fringes in the new media
environment: 42 minutes are spent with time-shifted television on the TV set (in 2015: 37), 38
minutes with television content on other devices (in 2015: 22), and 59 minutes with online
videos (in 2015: 35), most of them via smartphone (39 minutes; in 2015: 15). In this respect,
YouTube has turned into a major source of audio-visual content. Similar findings hold for 8- to
12-year-olds: On average they spend two and a half hours per day watching audio-visual
content, about one hour for television on the TV set, 20 minutes for television on other
devices, and one hour for online videos.

Gaming
When in the middle of the 1970s electronic games left public amusement halls and entered
private households, they immediately became an important new element in children’s media
repertoires. Although – from today’s perspective – rather simple, early games like Mario or Pac-
Man in the 1980s fascinated millions of children worldwide. Game consoles to be linked with a
TV set and small handheld games dominated the first years. In the second half of the 1980s,
computers increasingly made their way into private households, with games of all kinds being
the main function for children. The games market and particularly the most successful Japanese
companies Nintendo (e.g., Game Boy and later Wii) and Sony (PlayStation) grew exponentially
until annual turnover with electronic games exceeded that of the complete movie industry. On
the one hand, the consequence of this development was a strong fragmentation of the market
with fast innovations in technology, design, and game genres; on the other hand, very few
products became overwhelmingly successful on a global scale. One example is Pokémon, which
started as a game on the Nintendo Game Boy, was then adapted for bigger consoles, TV series,
play cards, and a wide range of merchandising products, and became a globally distributed
cultural brand (see Tobin, 2004).
Until today, electronic games are available on all new digital platforms, particularly smartphones.
An important step in technological development has been the increasing use of online games.
Particularly the so-called Massively-Multiplayer-Online-Role-Playing-Games (MMORPG) like
World of Warcraft have attracted many young people. Because of their persistence and the highly
time-consuming tasks that the players have to fulfill in these online worlds, they have generated
intense public and academic debate on whether they might lead to excessive gaming behavior (e.g.,
Gentile, 2009). Recent figures for 8- to 12-year-olds in the U.S. show that, on average, they spend
one and a half hours with games, 44 minutes with video games, 34 minutes with mobile games, and
11 minutes with computer games (Rideout, & Robb 2019). Over the years, there is stable evidence
that gaming is highest between 10 and 13 years and that boys play considerably longer than girls.

Digital Communication
Beyond the reception of pre-produced content for reading, watching, or listening, and inter-
active games, online media in general and social media, in particular, have provided children a
wide range of options for interpersonal, semi-public, and public communication. Before we

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present an overview of how children use these specific functions, we shortly deal with chil-
dren’s access to the internet as the technical prerequisite for using the respective commu-
nications services. Until now, internet diffusion is extremely imbalanced across the world.
According to the ITU statistics for 2019 (International Telecommunication Union, 2020),
Europe is the continent with the highest proportion of internet users; 83 percent of the total
population used the internet (96 percent of 15- to 24-year-olds). The Americas follow with 77
percent (90 percent), the Commonwealth of Independent States with 73 percent (84 percent),
and the Arab States with 55 percent (67 percent). The Asia and Pacific region has 45 percent
internet users (70 percent), Africa 29 percent (40 percent). Even if we consider that children are
using the internet in other places likes schools, these figures indicate that their opportunities to
make use of the internet are extremely different depending on the region or country where
they grow up (see also Byrne et al., 2016).
With regard to international evidence on how children and adolescents make use of
online communication, we can rely on findings of comparative studies from international
research networks: EU Kids Online (www.eukidsonline.net), Latin America Kids Online
(http://globalkidsonline.net/latin-america-kids-online/), and Global Kids Online (www.
globalkidsonline.net). Based on its 2010 survey on the online behavior of 9- to 16-year-olds
in 25 European countries (Livingstone et al., 2011), EU Kids Online has organized a new
survey in 19 countries between late 2017 and summer 2019, which allows for comparisons
across time (Smahel et al., 2020). In general, the comparison shows a substantial increase in
both the proportion of smartphone-using children and the general amount of internet use;
the time that children spend online each day has almost doubled in many countries. In
addition to watching videos, listening to music, and playing online games – media practices
that were discussed in the previous sections – communicating with friends and family, and
visiting a social networking site are at the top the list of activities that children engage in on a
daily basis. In the U.S., 13 percent of 8- to 12-year-olds use social media platforms on a
normal day (Rideout & Robb, 2019); this figure is considerably higher among 13- to 18-
year-olds (61 percent).

Comprehensive Trends of Children’s Media Use

While children’s media consumption has obviously been shaped by the media technologies
available at a given point in history, the focus on single media forms and functions as applied in
the previous paragraphs has its limitations. Given the broad availability of different services, one
relevant phenomenon regarding children’s media use is that children actively combine different
services and build their personal media repertoire (Hasebrink & Popp, 2006). This perspective
helps to better understand the relationship between different media, particularly between so-
called “old” and “new” media. As the history of media-related discourses shows, this relation is
usually expected to be competitive, with new media replacing the earlier media. Many findings
regarding trends in children’s media consumption contradict this assumption. Even if today’s
children devote quite a lot of time to social networking sites or online gaming, they continue to
read books, listen to music, watch television. If we take this perspective and observe general
patterns of children’s media use, several relevant trends can be identified.

Availability of Media Services

Children’s everyday lives are particularly affected by the meta-process of mediatization (Krotz,
2009; Livingstone, 2009). An increasing number of media devices, in their own bedroom and

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elsewhere in the family’s household, the expanding range of functionalities offered by new
services, the continuous and omnipresent availability of services, which overcome temporal and
spatial limits – these aspects mark a significant trend in the conditions for children’s media use.
Today’s children have far more options to communicate than any generation before them.

Amount of Media Use

One consequence of the earlier phase of digitalization has been that the time children spend
with media increased. In 2009 8- to 18-year-olds in the U.S. spent more than 7.5 hours per day
with media (Rideout et al., 2010, p. 11); this was more than one hour longer than five years
earlier. These figures have been interpreted as an indicator of the progressing mediatization of
children’s lives. However, more recent data rather indicate some kind of consolidation.
Between 2011 and 2020, the overall time spent with media among 0- to-8-year-olds remained
stable at 3:15 hours (Rideout & Robb, 2020). A similar result has been found for “tweens”
(8- to 12-year-olds) who spent the same time with media in 2019 as in 2015 – almost six hours
per day (Rideout & Robb, 2019, p. 13). In this respect, the figures for “teens” (13- to 18-year-
olds) differ from the younger age groups; their media time substantially increased from 8:56
hours in 2015 to 9:49 hours in 2019 (p. 16).

Cross-Media Patterns of Use

The media industry increasingly develops cross-media strategies, their ideal being to distribute
content on as many platforms as possible. Famous media brands for children, which may ori-
ginate from games, movies, television, comics, or even books (e.g., Harry Potter), are available
almost everywhere; the same content is now marketed across different media platforms. These
media brands build the integrating and characterizing elements of children’s media repertoires
and play a major role in children’s social relationships. They provide symbolic material that can
be used for social integration as well as for distinction, for inclusion as well as for exclusion
(Paus-Hasebrink & Hasebrink, 2015). As a consequence, pedagogical approaches to children’s
media are becoming less influential; educational services are giving way to entertainment and
fun-oriented content (Buckingham & Scanlon, 2005, p. 46).

Consequences of Recent Trends in Children’s Media Use

Changes in media environments and in children’s practices of use lead to changes in childhood
and socialization and in the development of their view of the world as well. Nowadays,
communication largely equals media communication; and as studies concerned with early
childhood media use show (Chaudron et al. 2018; Rideout, & Robb, 2020), even toddlers use a
wide range of media. Media offer children and adolescents an area of projection for their
dreams, emotions, and fantasies. Moreover, media provide a broad range of options for iden-
tification (Lemish, 2015), orientation, and action that adds to children’s identity construction.
Children choose their personal favorites and use them in their own identity formation, ac-
cording to their age, gender, and development status (Paus-Hasebrink, 2007).
Today the idea of childhood as a preparatory stage for adult life is increasingly modified by
the notion of the child as a competent, self-socialized being of its own right who steers and
fosters his or her own development largely independently. This change in the understanding of
childhood is closely related to the trends in media use mentioned above. Not least due to
discovering young people as a target group, childhood increasingly turns into a self-determined

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as well as a market-oriented form of life, in the context of which media again play a decisive
role. On the one hand, children are addressed as active and supposedly competent media users,
and on the other hand, they are regarded as future consumers in a globalized media system.
Since today’s societies, at least in the Western world, are deeply commercialized, this is ne-
cessarily also true for childhood (Buckingham, 2011). Nevertheless, most societies have been
trying to establish social spaces that are not or at least less commercialized in order to provide at
least some options for experiences that are less dominated by market-related considerations. In
this respect, public service media of all kinds, not only in television and radio but also parti-
cularly in the world of online services and mobile applications, have an important role to play in
order to create spaces that allow children to build their social relationships and their identity
independent of the logic of the market.
Furthermore, children’s media repertoires are increasingly independent of their parents’
influence. The availability of media in children’s bedrooms, individualized media services such
as digital games or social networking platforms as well as parents’ lack of knowledge about
modern digital media allow children to decide rather independently what media they use. This
is particularly relevant with regard to children from socially disadvantaged families. Most of
their parents’ mediation practices have in common that parents do not apply a child-centered
perspective; only rarely, they talk to their children about media-related issues. Therefore, they
are not able to support their children in developing media literacy and preventing them from
negative experiences (Paus-Hasebrink, 2018). Therefore, these children need particular socio-
political awareness of their role in society and with it of the role of media in their lives.

SEE ALSO Chapter 3 by Kcrmar in this volume.

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 5
CONSTRUCTING CHILDREN
AS CONSUMERS
David Buckingham and Rebekah Willett

Over the past few decades, children have become increasingly important both as a market in
their own right and as a means to reach adult markets. Commercial companies are targeting
children more directly and at an ever-younger age; and they are using a much wider range of
techniques that go well beyond conventional advertising. With the increase in children’s access
to personal electronic devices, digital advertising is now automated and targeted to niche child
audiences, driven by algorithms that are based on online tracking and data analytics (see Barassi,
2020). Children are experiencing a range of “stealth advertising” and social marketing practices
through advergames, branded environments, influencer marketing, sponsored search results,
native advertising, and location targeting (Nyst, 2018).
Marketers often claim that children are becoming empowered in this new commercial
environment: the market is seen to be responding to needs and desires on the part of children
that have hitherto been largely ignored or marginalized, not least because of the social dom-
inance of adults. However, critics have expressed growing concern about the apparent com-
mercialization of childhood and the infringement on children’s rights to privacy and protection
from manipulation (Nyst, 2018). Popular publications, press reports, and campaigns have ad-
dressed what are seen to be the damaging effects of commercial influences on children’s physical
and mental health as well as long-term effects of the datafication of children’s lives. Far from
being empowered, children are typically seen here as victims of a powerful, highly manipulative
form of consumer culture that is almost impossible for them to escape or resist.
This debate inevitably reflects broader assumptions about childhood – about what children are,
or what they should be. Children, it is assumed, are different from adults in key respects: they possess
particular characteristics, needs, or vulnerabilities, which mean they should be treated in different
ways. These claims can in principle be subjected to empirical examination. Yet this debate is also to
some extent a normative one: in making claims about what we want children to be or to become,
we are also asserting fundamental values to do with the kind of society we want. The theories and
methods that researchers use in exploring such phenomena – and indeed the issues and questions
they choose to explore in the first place – are also bound to reflect these broader values and
assumptions. This chapter aims to explore some of the ways in which the figure of the child
consumer is defined or constructed, by campaigners, by marketers, and by academic researchers. In
doing so, it argues that we need to move beyond the polarized terms in which this debate is typically
framed, and to address the social and cultural contexts of children’s consumption practices.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-7 49
 David Buckingham and Rebekah Willett

Campaigners and Marketers

A range of popular critical publications and campaigns portray twenty-first-century childhood
as suddenly and irretrievably marred by pressures from commercial markets. For example, the
Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood describes itself as “committed to helping children
thrive in an increasingly commercialized, screen-obsessed culture” (Campaign for Commercial-
Free Childhood, n.d.). Arguments from these sources typically presume that children used to
live in an essentially non-commercial world, or a kind of idyllic golden age. Many of the
discussions here link the issue of consumerism with other well-known concerns about media
and childhood: as well as turning children into premature consumers, the media are accused of
promoting sex and violence, obesity, drugs and alcohol, gender stereotypes, and false desires,
and taking children away from other activities that are deemed to be more worthwhile (see
Craig & Cunningham, 2017; Steinberg, 2011). Of course, this is a familiar litany, which tends
to conflate very different kinds of effects and influences. It constructs the child as innocent,
helpless, and unable to resist the power of the media. Thus, in these arguments children are
typically described as being bombarded, assaulted, barraged, even subjected to saturation
bombing by media: they are being seduced, manipulated, exploited, brainwashed, programmed,
and branded (see Buckingham, 2011). And the predictable solution here is for parents to engage
in counter propaganda, to censor their children’s use of media, or simply keep them locked
away from corrupting commercial influences (Chapman & Pellicane, 2020). These arguments
rarely include the voices of children, or try to take account of their perspectives: this is
essentially a discourse generated by adults on behalf of children.
Meanwhile, there has been a parallel growth in marketing discourse specifically focused on
children: children are increasingly being targeted as a profitable market and as influencers who
can promote brands and cross-media products to their peers and families. Of course, children
have long been seen as consumers: the late 1800s and the early decades of the twentieth century
saw marketers increasingly addressing children directly, rather than their parents (Cook, 2004,
2020; Cross, 2004). In the process, they made efforts to understand the child’s perspective, and
began to construct the child as a kind of authority. These constructions of the child as a
profitable demographic and as an empowered consumer are increasingly apparent in marketing
discourse today: marketers typically position themselves as knowing children’s developmental
needs, wishes, and habits, not least by means of sophisticated market research including online
tracking and data analytics (see Cook, 2011).
The most striking contrast between these accounts and those of the critics of consumer
culture is their very different construction of the child consumer. The child is seen here as
sophisticated, demanding, and hard-to-please. This is particularly apparent when it comes to
newly invented categories of child consumers such as “tweens.” Tweens, we are told, are not
easily manipulated: they are an elusive, even fickle market, sceptical about the claims of ad-
vertisers, and discerning when it comes to getting value for money – and they need con-
siderable effort to understand and to capture (Coulter, 2014). Of course, given the political
pressure that currently surrounds the issue of marketing to children, marketers are bound to
argue that advertising has very little effect, and that children are wise consumers. Yet this idea of
the child as sovereign consumer often elides with the idea of the child as a citizen, or an
autonomous social actor, and it is often accompanied by a kind of anti-adultism – an approach
that is very apparent, for example, in the marketing of the global children’s television channel
Nickelodeon (Banet-Weiser, 2007). Marketers argue that they demonstrate respect for children
by eliciting their viewpoints and seeking to understand children in their own terms; and by
drawing on this nuanced knowledge of children’s needs, they argue, the market is better able to

50
 Constructing Children as Consumers

provide opportunities for children to make choices and express their identities (Cook, 2011). As
Cook writes, “The child consumer persists, in part because commercial epistemologies – ways
of knowing – assist in creating morally appropriate social identities which children can inhabit
and parents can find provisionally acceptable” (p. 266). In this way, market discourse constructs
children as autonomous consumers and simultaneously draws on constructions that are taken
up by children.

Theories of Consumer Culture: Beyond the Binaries

There is thus a polarization here between two diametrically opposed views of children: the
child as innocent victim versus the child as competent social actor. For example, child influ-
encers on YouTube or other social spaces who create and distribute commercial messages are
seen on the one hand as part of the unpaid labour system of commercial enterprises and on the
other as agentive and savvy consumers (Coulter & Lao, 2021). Yet there are also some simi-
larities in these views. On both sides, it seems to be assumed that there is a natural state of
childhood that has been corrupted or simply ignored by marketers in the past – for the first
time, children’s “real” innate needs are now somehow being acknowledged and addressed, and
children are being provided with a means of empowerment. It is also believed that there is
something particular to the condition of childhood that makes children necessarily more vul-
nerable – or alternatively, spontaneously wiser and more sophisticated, for example in their
dealings with technology; and that adults are somehow exempted from these arguments.
These contrasting views of consumption are also played out in academic theories and de-
bates. On the one hand are accounts that see consumption as a kind of betrayal of fundamental
human values. From this point of view, the pleasure of consumption is something to be sus-
pected, a matter of inauthentic, short-term gratification – unlike the apparently authentic
pleasures of human interaction, true culture, or spontaneous feeling. This argument stands in a
long tradition of critical theory (e.g., Barber, 2007; Bauman, 2007; Horkheimer & Adorno,
1981/1944). For such critics it is generally other people’s consumption that is regarded as
problematic: the argument is informed by a kind of elitism, whereby largely White, male,
middle-class critics have stigmatized the consumption practices of others – women, the working
classes and now children (Seiter, 1993).
On the other hand, there are accounts that emphasize the agency of consumers – their ability
to define their own meanings and pleasures, and to exercise power and control. Towards the
end of the twentieth century, such accounts became particularly prominent in postmodernist
Cultural Studies (e.g., Fiske, 1990; Willis, 1990) and in the cultural turn in social theory more
broadly. Far from being passive dupes of the market, consumers were regarded here as active
and autonomous; and commodities were seen to have multiple possible meanings, which
consumers can select, use, and rework for their own purposes. In appropriating the symbolic
resources they find in the marketplace, consumers were seen to be engaging in a productive and
self-conscious process of creating an individual lifestyle and constructing or fashioning their
identities – and in the process, to be evading or resisting the control of what Fiske (1990) calls
the power bloc.
In many respects, these contrasting views replay a much wider polarization within the social
sciences, between structure and agency. Yet this fails to acknowledge some of the paradoxes
here. For example, it is entirely possible that children (or indeed adults) might be active and
sophisticated readers of media, but might nevertheless still be influenced – or indeed that an
illusion of autonomy and choice might be one of the prerequisites of contemporary consumer
culture. Activity is not necessarily the same thing as agency (Buckingham & Sefton-Green,

51
 David Buckingham and Rebekah Willett

2003). At the same time, we need to acknowledge the genuine difficulties and uncertainties that
are entailed for marketers in actually targeting children – and the possibility that the power of
marketers may be more limited than is often assumed.
On the side of structure, the market clearly does attempt to construct and define the child
consumer: it offers children powerful definitions of their own wants and needs, while pur-
porting to satisfy them. Yet on the side of agency, children also construct and define their own
needs and identities – not least by how they appropriate and use consumer goods. The paradox
of contemporary marketing is that it is bound to construct children as active, desiring and
autonomous, and in some respects as resisting the imperatives of adults, while simultaneously
seeking to make them behave in particular ways. As such, it is positively misleading to see this in
terms of a simple opposition between structure and agency, or as a kind of zero-sum game, in
which more of one automatically means less of the other. Structure requires agency, but agency
only works through structure: each, in this sense, actively produces the other. This relationship
also relates to constructions of childhood more broadly; as Dan Cook writes, “children have not
only been born into a consumer culture … modern childhood, in a sense, continues to be born
of it” (2020, p. 9). In this sense, it may be positively misleading to posit a version of childhood
that might somehow exist outside consumer culture.

Consumption Out of Context

In seeking to move beyond such binary thinking, we need to develop a broader and more
contextualized analysis of children’s consumer practices. Much of the work in this area has
continued to focus on children’s responses to advertising – especially television advertising
connected with food and toys – rather than on other aspects of marketing or of consumption
(cf., Gackenback, 2007; Joinson, 2003). This research largely ignores how children’s media
landscapes have changed, and the new forms of advertising and brand promotion that children
experience in digital environments (see Grimes & Fields, 2015; Nyst, 2018). A great deal of
research is also concerned with purchasing (or aspects of “pre-purchasing”), and relatively little
with how children appropriate and use products in their everyday lives (see de la Ville, Garnier,
& Brougère, 2021). As such, this work focuses on a relatively narrow aspect of the broader
nexus of production, distribution, circulation, and consumption.
Much of this work has been conducted by psychologists, within two main traditions: media
effects and consumer socialization. Both approaches have been widely challenged on metho-
dological grounds, which do not need to be rehearsed here. More significant in this context are
the theoretical questions that can be raised about these approaches. Effects research is self-
evidently premised on a view of children’s relationship with media as a matter of cause and
effect. A classic behaviourist perspective (sometimes termed social learning theory) conceives of
this process in terms of stimulus and response – of which the most obvious example would
be imitation. From this perspective, marketing would be seen to produce direct effects on
viewers – not only in terms of purchasing behaviour, but also in terms of attitudes and values.
More sophisticated exponents of this approach posit the existence of intervening variables (both
individual differences and social factors, such as personality, gender or family background) that
come between the stimulus and the response, and thereby mediate any potential effects; al-
though the basic cause-and-effect model continues to apply (see Gunter & Furnham, 1998).
By contrast, consumer socialization research tends to draw on developmental psychology in
proposing a sequence of ages and stages in maturation (see Cook, 2010). From this perspective,
children’s development as consumers is related to the development of more general cognitive
skills and capacities, such as the ability to process information, to understand others’

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 Constructing Children as Consumers

perspectives, to think and reflect in more abstract ways, and to take account of multiple factors
that might be in play in decision-making. Influenced by parents and peers, as well as media and
marketing, children’s consumer behaviour is seen to become gradually more autonomous,
consistent, and rational. This approach inevitably leads to a deficit model of the ways in which
children understand, interpret, and act upon their world: they are seen primarily in terms of
what they lack, as compared with adults. The view of socialization here is fundamentally tel-
eological: it regards development as a linear progression towards the final achievement of adult
rationality. In common with developmental psychology more broadly, this approach also ne-
glects the emotional and symbolic aspects of consumer behaviour, in favour of cognitive or
intellectual ones.
As objects of psychological inquiry, then, children tend to be perceived and defined in
particular ways. The primary interest is in internal mental processes of cognition or emotion:
the social context is predominantly understood as an external variable or influence. Children are
also conceptualized principally in terms of development – that is, in terms of their progression
towards the goal of adult maturity. And methodologically, much of the focus is on what
children think – or say they think, often in response to psychometric tests – rather than in what
they do, or even on how their knowledge is used in everyday life. By and large, children are not
seen here as independent social actors: as sociologists of childhood would have it, they are seen
not as beings, but only as becomings (Lee, 2001).

Consumption in Context
Critics of this approach argue that a more sociocultural account of consumer socialization is
required, which will provide a more complex and nuanced analysis of the contextual or situated
nature of children’s consumer practices (Sparrman et al., 2012). Ekstrom (2006), for example,
proposes that consumer socialization is an ongoing, lifelong process, rather than something that
is effectively concluded at the point of entry to adulthood; that it varies among different social
and cultural groups, and over time; and that it involves different life experiences and contexts of
consumption. As such, there can be no single definition of what counts as a competent con-
sumer. Ekstrom also argues that children should be seen as active participants in the process of
socialization, not as passive recipients of external influences. Likewise, Cook (2010) proposes
that the notion of socialization should be replaced by the notion of “enculturation,” which
he suggests would help to move beyond the normative, monolithic approach of consumer
socialization research. He argues that children are already implicated in consumer culture
from before the point of birth; and that rather than seeking to assess children’s knowledge in
the abstract, we need to consider how that knowledge is used (or not used) in everyday
social practice.
The key point here is that it makes little sense to abstract children’s relationship with
marketing, or their consumer behaviour, from the broader social and historical context. Indeed,
the distinction between consumption and the context in which it occurs may itself be mis-
leading: it might be more appropriate to regard consumption as a form of social practice, and a
dimension of other social practices, which collectively construct contexts. In a capitalist society,
almost all our social activities and relationships are embedded within economic relations. The
children’s market works through and with the family, the peer group, the school, and other
institutions. This is especially apparent in relation to children’s online practices. Here, the
boundaries between marketing and children’s other online activities are becoming increasingly
blurred, particularly on sites such as YouTube, TikTok, and gaming platforms (Smith & Shade,
2018). Children’s more or less active practices of watching, sharing, and creating content in

53
 David Buckingham and Rebekah Willett

these spaces are an inextricable part of the operations of broader transmedia commercial in-
dustries (de la Ville, Garnier, & Brougère, 2021).
A number of anthropological and sociological studies of childhood address these relation-
ships and dynamics in other areas of children’s lives (see Qvortrup et al., 2009); and in some
studies, this approach has begun to be applied to children and parents’ everyday consumption
practices (see Hawkins, 2016; Martens et al., 2004). This work addresses central questions to do
with the construction of childhood identities and the wider generational order, drawing on the
Sociology of Childhood as well as on Cultural Studies and on anthropological studies of ma-
terial culture (see Buckingham, 2011; Buckingham & Tingstad, 2010).
For example, one particular focus of interest here is how consumption produces and sustains
hierarchies of status and authority in children’s peer groups. Thus, some research shows how
children’s clothing purchases can be a site of play and creativity but also of anxiety about status
and belonging (Boden, 2006). To what extent does knowledge of consumer culture function as
a kind of cultural (or subcultural) capital for children? How do the hierarchies of taste and cool
within the peer group relate to the hierarchies within adult culture (for example, of class,
ethnicity or gender)? How might such hierarchies work with or against the imperatives of
consumer culture (for example, by rendering the cool uncool overnight)? How do we interpret
the anti-consumerist rhetoric of some forms of youth culture – and the ways in which it has
been appropriated for so-called ethical consumption, for example in the case of Fairtrade
produce (see Banaji & Buckingham, 2009)?
Another focus here is the changing role of parenting, and the social expectations that sur-
round it. There is a symbolic tension here between parents’ desire to shelter the child, to use
childhood as a place for pedagogic nurturing, and their desire to allow the child a space for
expression, to indulge the freedom they themselves have lost (Cook, 2020; Cross, 2004). As
parents spend less and less time with their children, they may be more inclined to compensate
by providing them with consumer goods. As such, contemporary parenting is now increasingly
implicated with the operations of the market – and yet parents often regard this with con-
siderable ambivalence (Pugh, 2009).
Other studies have addressed the experience of young people who are excluded from peer-
group culture because of their lack of access to consumer goods (e.g., Croghan et al., 2006).
Not all consumers are equally able to participate, since participation depends not just on one’s
creativity but also on one’s access to material resources: the market is not a neutral mechanism,
and the marketized provision of goods and services may exacerbate existing inequalities. In this
context, it is particularly important to understand the consumption practices of children and
parents in disadvantaged communities and low resource societies, for whom consumer choice
may be a fraught and complex matter. Understanding meanings connected with consumption
across different childhoods is an important corrective to assumptions about the universality of
children’s consumer practices.

Conclusion
Contemporary childhoods are always-already commercial childhoods. Childhood is not, and
cannot be, a pure space that is somehow held apart from the market relations that surround
and help to define it. Children are being constructed as consumers, not just through advertising
and marketing but also through the commercialization, privatization, and marketization of
other aspects of their lives, including education, leisure, welfare services, and public broad-
casting. These developments may well accentuate inequalities between children, even if they do
not create them. The market clearly does have a considerable power to determine the meanings

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and pleasures that are available to children; but children themselves also play a key role in
creating those meanings and pleasures, and they may define and appropriate them in very
diverse ways. Despite the often-melodramatic claims of campaigners and the generalized op-
timism of the marketers, the outcomes of children’s increasing immersion in consumer culture
are by no means the same for all.

SEE ALSO Chapter 16 by Chan and Chapter 34 by Rozendaal, Buijzen, and van Reijmersdal
in this volume.

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 6
FEMINIST THEORY
APPROACHES TO THE STUDY
OF CHILDREN AND MEDIA
Dafna Lemish

The heavily gendered nature of childhood is obvious to any naïve passer-by who views the
clothes children wear as well as the toys and games with which they play; who listen to their
language and mannerisms, assesses their interests, and make-believe worlds, and reflects on their
media habits and preferences. Indeed, many scholars have observed that the gendered nature of
the lives of young audiences is so distinct that it could be claimed that they live in two very
different cultural worlds.
The latter claim draws heavily on developmental theories and extensive media research
findings. Both bodies of research suggest that the tendency of children to segregate them-
selves by gender and play more compatibly with members of the same sex is already evident
in early childhood, around the third year, and that it solidifies progressively by mid-
childhood. While boys and girls are intensely conscious of each other as future partners and
spend a large proportion of their time as they grow up attempting to satisfy their curiosity
about the other group, they experience tremendous social pressure to remain separate during
childhood (Maccoby, 1998).
The causes and consequences of this segregation are a major topic of investigation in child
psychology and education and lie beyond the scope of our discussion here. Suffice it to say that
gender-segregated childhoods provide different contexts for the social development of children,
which do not necessarily prepare them for mutual understanding and collaboration. In addition,
it does not allow for the possibility of gender fluidity, for non-binary gender identities and
transgender ones thus cementing young people’s understanding of gender as binary, despite
their growing visibility on content targeting older audiences ( Jennings, 2017).
So what can gender theory and research contribute to our understanding of children and
media? What explanatory power does it bring to the interdisciplinary table as an original
perspective? The claim advanced here is that gender studies, and more specifically feminist
theory can offer the field of children and media significant and original perspectives, at least
in the following four domains: First, a mapping of gender segregation of children’s leisure
culture and an explanation of the mechanism driving this segregation; second, a theoretical
understanding of gender as a form of social construction rather than a biological fact; third,
a particular view on the form and role of methodology in the study of children and media;
and fourth, a model of engaged scholarship that is attempting to advance progressive
social change.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-8 57
 Dafna Lemish

Gendered Mediated Childhoods

An overview of the research from a gender perspective (see Lemish et al., 2001; Lemish 2010)
reveals two seemingly opposed conclusions. First, boys and girls differ in their access to media,
patterns of use, and content preferences as well as in the social practices and meanings they
attach to them. At the risk of over-generalizing, we can argue that boys are more technolo-
gically oriented; girls are more likely to listen to music and read; boys prefer action/adventure
and sports genres; girls prefer human relationships and romance; boys hang out more with
groups of friends outdoors or at their computers, while girls spend more time with their best
friends in the intimacy of their own rooms; boys’ culture is “game-dominated” particularly
since the content of games is heavily masculine in nature (Williams et al., 2009) (including
video, computer games, internet surfing, and phone applications), while girls’ culture is more
about relationships, communication, and talk (including their preferred use of digital tech-
nologies like texting and social networking via their mobile phone). Parents reinforce these
trends by their own gendered behavior: Boys and fathers share similar interests in sports, action-
adventure, and computers; girls and mothers share similar interests in human relationships and
more romantic genres. In short, there is mounting evidence that confirms the claim that tra-
ditional gender differences are being maintained to a large degree with new media as well as
with conventional technologies and that boys and girls continue to present stark differences in
their media-related interests, even when the time spent with digital technologies has mostly
been equalized (see, for example, Rideout & Robb, 2019).
At the same time, we can argue quite easily for a very different conclusion. While many of
the differences found in quantitative studies are rather small (even if they are statistically sig-
nificant), in-depth qualitative explorations provide us with what I submit is a richer under-
standing of gender differences and similarities. Many girls, as well as boys, play outdoors and
many boys, as well as girls, read books. Many girls show a strong interest in computer tech-
nology and gaming and are proficient in their use of the internet. Some like sports and elec-
tronic games that feature action and adventure. True, fewer girls than boys have such tastes, but
nevertheless, girls too are exploring and engaging in the new media environment. Furthermore,
more and more boys are retreating into their bedrooms, once a female territory, to play
electronic games alone or with friends and siblings, both physically close or remote via multi-
player technologies.
The equalizing role television may be playing in this process provides us with insights into
these changes. Boys and girls watch television programs, both intensively and extensively, in
similar amounts and on multiple screen platforms. This is a change from previous research that
suggested that boys are heavier television viewers. One possible explanation for this finding
draws on the expansion of viewing alternatives through cable and satellite channels, as well as
DVDs in the past and streaming services in the present, to a saturation point in some parts of the
world. One implication of this situation is that, currently, the media provide girls with a wider
selection of attractive content to suit their interests. In addition, the social world presented on
the television screen has been changing. Although far from being a world with equal oppor-
tunities and social justice, television nevertheless offers girls today a greater variety of role
models that show independent women in positions of power, engaged in adventures, sexually
active, and enjoying successful careers (Reinhard & Olson, 2017).
Moreover, while boys and girls continue to have very different content interests, there is
increasing evidence that genre preferences can cross-generational gaps. Thus, girls do watch the
same programs as their sisters and mothers, creating a feminine commonality of interests; and,
boys watch the same programs as their brothers and fathers, so guarding their own masculine

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 Feminist Theory Approaches

space at home. Yet, it is probably not so much the case that media technologies create gender
segregation: Instead, it is the contents and meanings these technologies offer, as well as the
viewing contexts of their consumption, which are important. When girls are offered attractive
options that serve them, they too use the computer, engage heavily with social networks, and
play outdoors. Indeed, the interpretation that attributes differences to content rather than to
media may be specifically observed in the case of the computer. There are many possible factors
that contribute to the image of computers as a sphere dominated by males. The computer
market, particularly the highly popular gaming culture, similar to the broadcast one, has ne-
glected to cater to girls’ specific interests and needs. In addition, in more traditional families,
parents seem to be less inclined to encourage their daughters to experiment with computers.
Other studies found that household practices (such as giving boys priority over computer use;
negative role models provided by mothers; boys’ superior networking with other computer
users, etc.) strengthen gender segregation in relation to computer use. The relatively un-
challenged assumption that operating a computer requires technological skills for which boys are
more inclined is deeply rooted in the historical perception of technology, and STEM professions
more generally, as essentially masculine. However, a social analysis of technological usage from a
feminist perspective suggests that technology is much more than hardware; it is also a process of
production and consumption, a form of knowledge, a site of gender and racial domination as well
as of power struggle. Gender relations in the household and its characteristic division of labor
shape the way technologies, including leisure technologies such as computers, are adapted and
used domestically (Wajcman, 2010). It is no wonder then that with more and more girls using
digital technologies proficiently for their own interests and needs and the proliferation of mobile
phones among young people, the gender dynamics around technology at home are shifting. A
clear example of the changing reality for many children around the world was brought about by
the high dependency on communication technologies at home and remote schooling during
COVID-19 for all children (see Götz & Lemish, forthcoming 2022).
What complicates this situation of domestic consumption is the fact that media, toy, and
merchandising industries capitalize very successfully on these popular notions; indeed, stated
more succinctly, they are intricately involved in enculturation, primarily through their ex-
tensive advertising and merchandising efforts in pursuit of ever-expanding markets and profits.
Indeed, their understanding of “implied audiences” is based on interpretations of market
findings seeking to identify children’s tastes, desires, and pleasures as mechanisms that serve
these industries’ goals (Lemish, 2010).
Commercial industries build upon the well-established research finding of the gendered
nature of media consumption by children and young people: Overall, girls develop an interest
in traditional masculine genres whereas, on the whole, boys continue to show no interest in
female ones. While this descriptive evidence does provide empirical support for the popular
axiom applied by children’s entertainment industry and media professionals – “girls will watch
boys’ programs but boys will not watch girls’” – we lack a critical analysis that is the product of
identifying, deconstructing, and analyzing the mechanisms creating this phenomenon. For
example, according to the feminist analysis of social change, this process can be partly explained
through the observation that girls as well as women, more generally, have learned to gradually
incorporate typical male perspectives and values into their lives, without necessarily abandoning
traditional female responsibilities and interests. This echoes other situations where efforts at
improving status and position are advanced through the process of subordinated social groups
adjusting “up” socially. Perhaps the trend of girls’ interest in boys’ genres represents their
growing sensitivity to the advantageous position that boys hold in our society and the higher
value associated with their tastes and interests (Lemish, 2010).

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In conclusion, I argue that feminist studies provide us with a valuable perspective and in-
terpretation and a deeper understanding with which to examine the gendered cultures of boys
and girls growing up in a mediated world.

Construction of Childhood
The second major domain of interrelationships between feminist studies and our field is in the
more theoretical understanding, now commonplace in the sociology of childhood, that this
period in our lives is highly socially constructed, and often has very little to do with the
biological variable of age (James & Prout, 2015). While clearly, children of different ages differ
greatly from each other, and from adults, in all aspects of life (cognitive, social, emotional,
physical, behavioral), age in itself does not provide us with an explanation for these differences.
Thus, today we understand that the definition of childhood is fluid, is ever-changing, and is
greatly dependent on cultural and temporal circumstances. For example, while a 9-year-old
child in certain countries in Africa can be a soldier, using machine guns to kill civilians and
enslave girls for the sexual pleasures of his commanders, a college student in his twenties in the
U.S. could be still living at home, enjoying free rent and parental laundry and cooking services.
And an under-21-year-old adult in the U.S. may not be allowed to drink alcohol or vote in
certain states, but he can serve as a combat soldier across the world. In many societies, con-
sensual sex under the age of 16 is criminal, while in others a 16-year-old may have already
fathered four children or might be considered to be “over-the-hill” in the sex or fashion
industry. Multiple examples abide of differing definitions of “childhood” worldwide, with
attendant legal and human rights as well as responsibilities and social expectations. Furthermore,
the definition of childhood is constantly reinvented by political, religious, and market forces.
Take, for example, the relatively new category of “tweens” – the pre-adolescent age: This
period was invented as a marketing strategy to target this age group by creating a profit-driven
identity to be realized through the consumption of goods, accessories, clothing, specific media
tastes, and the like. Similarly, a redefinition of babies’ and toddlers’ developmental needs has
emerged in recent years, largely through the efforts by a now booming industry that targets
parents urging them to consume baby videos, cable channels, computer games, digital toys, and
related merchandising in order to advance, so they claim, their newborn child’s development,
and, subtextually, capacity to compete for social and economic rewards from birth.
Recognition of the social construction of “childhood” draws part of its theoretical
grounding from the introduction of the construct of “gender” as a social category. Together,
both childhood and gender have replaced the centrality of biology – as in children’s age and
reproductive organs – in understanding this young period of life. The French philosopher
Simone de Beauvoir’s formative statement – “One is not born a woman, but becomes one” (de
Beauvoir, 1989) – captures the essence of this process. Accordingly, gender is not viewed as
something originally extant in human beings, but rather it is a set of understandings that or-
ganize how we relate to our bodies; one that is produced through behaviors and social relations
in the production and practice of everyday life. As such, gender is distinct from biological,
sexual differences that characterize humans from birth. Accordingly, gender is considered to be
a socially determined production and consequently differs from culture to culture. Hence,
paraphrasing de Beauvoir’s statement regarding this understanding of childhood, we can claim
that one is not born a child, but one becomes one through socializing processes within a
particular cultural context.
Only through such an understanding does “childhood” have meaning and significance, and
only within these different contexts can childhood be studied and interpreted. Clearly, gender

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studies are not the only theoretical school that introduced the notion of “social construction,”
but they had a central role in pushing it to the forefront of the discussion of biological cate-
gories. These have been also picked up by theories of race and post-colonialism. It reminds us
that gender is deeply intertwined with all other human identities that require intersectional
explorations– be they race, ethnicity, religion, class, disability, all being perceived as social
constructions that are open to multiple interpretations. Furthermore, feminist theory added the
argument that gender is constituted through and within performance (Butler, 1990), and one’s
performance of their gender identity – be it male, female, or any other gender identity on the
spectrum – creates another layer of individual and social construction. Examples of such per-
formativity on social media, for example, are abundant, be they gendered selfies, sexting,
Facebook posts, or TikTok dances (see for example Forsman, 2017; Naezer, 2020).
The good news is that this approach offers an optimistic view of the human condition – if
the meaning of biology – be it age, race, sex, disability – is socially constructed – it can also be
changed. Compare it to a deterministic view that offers very little hope for progress – once you
are born with a womb, or black skin, or Down syndrome – you are stuck with it and with all it
entails (except for the rare case of sexual reassignment or skin implantation, for example). Thus,
in the fundamental nature/nurture debate, the feminist approach weighs heavily on the side of
nurture, and its liberating potential.
In conclusion, I argue that feminist studies contribute to an understanding of childhood as a
social construction that is non-deterministic and opens the door to the possibility of change.

Methodological Approaches to the Study of Children and Media

Being change-oriented by definition, feminist media research is in a natural alliance with social-
action theoretical approaches to research. Therefore, it rejects many of the central assumptions
of normative science regarding the search for universal laws, absolute truths, and objective
knowledge. Instead, it recognizes that all knowledge is partial, relative, and socially situated, and
all forms of scholarship are ideological by nature and political by implication. It values the
researcher’s own subjectivity and reflexive abilities and renounces the presumed (positivist)
scientific goal to achieve objectivity and value-free research. It is greatly concerned with power
relationships between researchers and those being researched and searches for more egalitarian
participatory methodologies – from the inception of the study to its assessment. Finally, it is
committed, ethically, to promoting the well-being of those studied, attempts to avoid ex-
ploitive strategies, and seeks all in its power to guard them against possible research-related harm
(Eckert & Bachmann, 2021; Lemish, 2002).
All such feminist methodological concerns are immediately translatable to the study of
children and media: Rather than thinking of children as little people in the process of becoming
fully grown adults, we think of them as young people in their own right: we need to allow
children, in each stage of their development, to be fully recognized as having unique needs and
skills, as well as a personal voice that deserves to be listened to as well as understood – with
respect and empathy. Therefore, when considering media research that has the child’s well-
being as its goal, feminist research is committed to research not only about children and their
special developmental needs, but also to research with children and for children. The accu-
mulated knowledge from years of studying children and media demonstrates that children are
active users of media: They react to, think, feel, and create their own meanings out of them.
They bring to media encounters a host of predispositions, abilities, desires, and experiences.
They engage with interactive media in their own unique ways. They watch television, surf the
internet, play a computer game, or post a selfie on a social network in diverse personal, social,

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and cultural circumstances that also influence what they get out of the experience. We can
never assume that what we, as adults, need and take from a television program, a magazine
article, a news report, an internet site, a TikTok or YouTube video, or a tweet, is what children
will get out of it. Too often children themselves are absent from research on children and
media, and – amazingly – it remains too rare that we hear expressions in their own voices of
their concerns, interests, views, and so forth as well as exemplars of children’s agency in these
media. Symbolically, in feminist research, rather than referring to children as “subjects” of
study, they are seen and related to, in fact, as participants in the study. This is more than a
linguistic sensitivity; it is a commitment deeply rooted in non-hierarchal values of feminist
approaches to social science (Lemish, 2015).
As discussed above, feminist research is particularly concerned with the social construction of
gender and the conditions of individual children, diversified by race, class, sexual orientation,
religion, disability, and other human characteristics and how these intersect with each other to
create unique identities and life circumstances. While there is no unified definition of what
makes up feminist thinking or feminist methodologies, there are several principles that are
central to those defining themselves as feminist researchers. Their work attempts to uncover and
challenge male dominance and patriarchal structures, and advocates gender equality. It rejects
Western binary oppositions such as public/private, rational/emotional, spirit/body, subject/
object, culture/nature, west/east and re-shifts interests to the devaluated and ignored domains
of the private sphere, the emotional realm, and the taboos surrounding sexuality. As a result,
new areas of investigation in children and media are blooming, beyond the traditional red flag
phenomena of violence and sex, concern for cognitive and language development, or obesity
and substance abuse.
Take for example studies on girls’ use of the internet (Mazzarella, 2010). These studies ex-
emplify the interdisciplinary nature of the flourishing field of girlhood studies, as it requires in-
tegrating work undertaken in multicultural contexts through a variety of scholarly research
traditions. Doing so requires engagement with questions about the gendered nature of tech-
nology, the democratic potential of the internet, the implications of the digital divide, empow-
erment and agency, identity construction, the roles of leisure and popular culture, networking,
and sociality. Studies of these phenomena advance the agenda that considers girls to be active
producers of texts and meanings, rather than solely passive victims of hegemonic culture. At the
same time, we are advised to recognize the limitations of celebratory discourses of “active meaning
making” by girls and to also pay close research attention to the implications of the limited cultural
narratives offered to them on their well-being – be it for the proliferation of hypersexuality and
the promotion of unhealthy approaches to human sexuality, the push for attaining an unrealistic
and highly Caucasian “Beauty Myth,” and the erasing of indigenous cultures (Lemish, 2010).
Similarly, there is an emergence of boys’ studies, concerned with the unique meaning making
processes of their own engagement with favorite media texts (Götz et al., 2012). Both promising
lines of research provide us with insights into children’s private and hidden lives, from their –
rather than our – perspectives, including their relationships with their bodies, developing sex-
ualities, and pleasures.
In conclusion, I argue that feminist studies of children and media foreground gender-related
issues, as part of a general concern for the role media play in the early socialization of children
and youth into social inequalities and intolerance for diversity. They recognize that these are
deeply rooted in social structures and thus they examine media content, production, and au-
diences in context. They thus encourage cross-cultural and comparative methodologies that
can highlight universal as well as cultural differences, and a methodology that is democratic,
empowering, and mostly grounded and inductive.

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Commitment to Social Change

One of the salient characteristics of feminist theory is its commitment not only to con-
tribute to research and social theory, but also to be a catalyst for deep social change, thus
emphasizing the emancipatory potential of combining knowledge and action. Feminist
research is highly politicized and ideologically committed to obtaining, disseminating, and
integrating knowledge in the eventual form of specific change recommendations, oriented
to liberating and empowering women and other marginalized segments of society. It
embraces the concept of critical consciousness as a prerequisite for resistance and for the
possibility of change through confrontation with social forces producing the naturalization
of social repression. Accordingly, it seeks to problematize existing social orders that produce
unequal opportunities offered in the media world for boys and girls and the differentiated
uses they make of the media; the gendered risks around media effects and implications and
the like. It attempts to contribute to social change via introducing change in the social
structures producing gender inequality in the area of children and media: be they the
professional industry producing and distributing the media, the related toy and merchan-
dising industry, the caregivers and educators socializing children, the legislative system,
and policy-makers.
As a result, feminist studies have encouraged collaborative non-hierarchical work that is both
interdisciplinary in nature as well as multi-dimensional. Such efforts seek the integration of all
forms of knowledge, academic and professional, that can contribute to the well-being of
children and improve their media interactions. Thus, responsible production, together with
engaged parenting and education, may provide the fertile ground necessary for a media world
that provides a “safe haven” and an enriching symbolic environment for children and young
people. Many contributions in this handbook offer illustrations of such efforts, including the
applications of research to policy making, media literacy, production of content, youth made
media, social change, and educational interventions.
In conclusion, I argue that feminist studies have highlighted the need for and directed
scholarly efforts toward seeking to make a difference in the real world.

Concluding Note
This discussion has sought to highlight four of the major contributions that, I believe, feminist
studies have made and continue to make to the field of children and media. It has also attempted
to dispel several misconceptions regarding feminist theory, and in particular, that it is only
concerned with girls and women. Indeed, the examples in this chapter demonstrate that this is
far from the truth. Furthermore, feminist approaches have also been accused of being too
ideological and thus not “good” science. True, feminist theorists could be considered ideo-
logical, but only in the sense that they stress human equality and the right of every child
(regardless of gender, race, geographical location, disability or any other determinants of human
conditions) to realize their full potential. And, according to this logic, it would be fair to claim
that the science of medicine is ideological because researchers and doctors are committed to
sustain life and well-being, as is the science of law for its commitment to social justice.
Accordingly, feminist scholars are as ideological as any discipline dedicated to the improvement
of the human condition.

SEE ALSO Chapter 8 by Berriman and Chapter 35 by Mazzarella in this volume.

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References
This chapter is based on my earlier work and includes excerpts from Lemish, 2002, p. 64; Lemish, 2010;
Lemish et al., 2001, pp. 277–279.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.
De Beauvoir, S. (1989[1949]). The second sex. Vintage.
Eckert, S., & Bachmann, I. (Eds.) (2021). Reflections on feminist communication and media scholarship: Theory,
method, impact. Routledge.
Forsman, M. (2017). Duckface/stoneface. Selfie stereotypes and selfie literacy in gendered media practices
in Sweden. In D. Lemish & M. Götz (Eds.), Beyond the stereotypes? Boys, girls, and their images
(pp. 192–202). Nordicom.
Götz, M., & Lemish, D. (Eds.) (forthcoming 2022). Children and media worldwide in a time of a pandemic.
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Götz, M., Neubauer, G., & Winter, R. (2012). Heroes, planners and funny losers: Masculinities re-
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James, A., & Prout, A. (Eds.) (2015). Constructing and re-constructing childhood: contemporary issues in the
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Jennings, N.A. (2017). Teen drama and gender in the U.S. Two moms, a transgender teen, and one family
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Reinhard, C.D., & Olsonm, C.J. (Eds.) (2017). Heroes, heroines, and everything in between: Challenging gender
and sexuality stereotypes in children’s entertainment media. Lexington.
Rideout, V., & Robb, M.B. (2019). The Common Sense census: Media use by tweens and teens. Common
Sense Media.
Wajcman, J. (2010). Feminist theories of technology. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 34(1), 143–152. 10.1093/
cje/ben057
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 7
CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND MEDIA
GLOBALIZATION
Divya McMillin

Creative control, a large following, instant feedback – the desire of children to be producers and
distributors of their own media is a recurrent theme not just in the first edition of this
International Handbook from a decade ago, but in the growing body of children and youth media
studies since. No surprise then, that ByteDance owned short-form video TikTok was the top
app downloaded globally in the week following the COVID-19 outbreak in early March 2020
( Johnson, 2020), with a 12% increase from its previous week, registering 28.5 million
downloads between March 16 to 22 alone (Stassen, 2020). In April 2020, TikTok’s biggest star,
16-year-old Charli D’Amelio crossed 50 million viewers with her dances of encouragement to
children under pandemic lockdown (Jarvey, 2020).
The months since March 2020 when the first case of COVID-19 was detected, have re-
defined how life is lived around the world more dramatically than any other period in our
lifetime. Perhaps at no other time in the history of media globalization have we seen such a
proliferation of user-generated media or UGM. The sense of autonomy and individuality it
provides for its predominantly young users who have experienced school shutdowns globally, is
precisely the reason for its success during the pandemic, which is marked by adult confusion,
anxiety, lack of resources, and conspiracy theories, resulting in widespread pain, loss, suffering,
and death.
The pandemic years have also seen the phenomenal global rise of K-pop bands, demon-
strating the rising power of “direct-to-fan” communications, with such bands connecting
millions of young followers over the globe, to narratives of the future and of hope. The
ubiquity of UGM, the new direct-to-fan strategies of global media, and the fundamental shift
from broadcast television to digital streaming through such platforms as Netflix and Amazon
Prime, all peaking in use during the pandemic, offer us the opportunity to pursue new lines of
inquiry in global media culture and childhood, and strengthen the integration of research across
broadcast media and digital technologies in the era of globalization. No doubt Disney,
Nickelodeon/Viacom, and Cartoon Network/Turner still top the list of children’s fare in
North America and Europe (Steemers, 2020), but these are now contingent upon subscriber
demand to a much greater extent due to television accessed online (Shimpach, 2020). To draw
out the relevance of dominant approaches to children and media, this chapter opens with a case
study of the global phenom K-pop band BTS. In so doing, the chapter urges a shift in

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-9 65
 Divya McMillin

theoretical and methodological frameworks for the next decade to understand the worlds where
children and youth are simultaneously producers, distributors, and consumers of global media.

Shifting the Lens on Global Media and Childhood

With 242,000 digital copies sold in the U.S. alone in the first seven days of its May 21, 2021
release and 8.2 million views worldwide in its first 24 hours, K-pop band BTS’ “Butter” broke
all Billboard records, ever (McIntyre, 2021). The magnificent debut of this “boundary-
smashing, hegemony-overturning” band (Hiatt, 2021, p. 30) speaks to a new age of media
globalization, where billionaire backers and music production companies (Bang Si-Hyuk and
Big Hit here, respectively), engage in “direct-to-fan” communications (Weverse, in this ex-
ample), and where fans in the millions interact with and share content, as well as purchase new
products. Big Hit Entertainment’s partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG), also marks
a brand new era in the global music industry: the launch of “K-pop as a global cultural phe-
nomenon.” UMG is known for its backing of such Western global stars as Nirvana, Guns’n
Roses, and Sir Elton John (Webb, 2021). The direct-to-fan communication strategy is ex-
pansive, multilevel, and constant. BTS’ official Twitter account lists 30.3 million followers (as of
June 6, 2021, 12:25 p.m.), while its secondary account lists 36.1 million followers. Multiple fan
tracking sites place around 60% of fans between 10–17 years old, with as high as 85% of that
female. Fans can be part of the paid-tier BTS ARMY and simultaneously support its causes and
platforms for a nominal fee of around $30 per year. Fans can also receive live stream broadcasts
through VLine, and watch updates and videos on BTS’ YouTube channel, Bangtang TV. Brief
speeches and appearances at the United Nations and UNICEF in their Love Myself Campaign,
connect the boy band to global concerns, this time speaking out against violence against
children (Chen, 2020). Spotify which debuted in India in 2019, quickly moved BTS into the
top ten artists in the country. Horizontal and vertical synergies provide tight control over all
aspects of BTS content and talent production and distribution. Brand partnerships with
Hyundai Palisade, Samsung Galaxy, and even McDonald’s at the time of this writing, have
created for fans a walled garden of experience, yet with just enough cracks and gaps to allow for
adaptation and new allegiances.
The success of BTS can be easily explained through the wealth of political economy analyses
of global media. We see the interconnected and interdependent economic and cultural systems
(McPhail, 2001/2021), in the Big Hit-UMG partnership and in the creation of multiple spaces
for fan expression and participation). We see evidence of what Kenway (2008) calls a “libidinal
economy” that “consists of social and market structures and dispositions that release, channel
and exploit desires and feelings (intensities), although never fully controlling them” (pp. 19–20).
The mimetic and normative morphism (Keane, 2004) of BTS’ music videos and marketing
strategies can be seen as extensions of Americanization and Western versions of capitalism and
modernity (Giddens 1991; Robertson 1990), particularly in the use of American nostalgia in the
superhit “Dynamite,” and in its brand partnerships with other global or transnational industries
located in the U.S., U.K., and Japan.
In such analyses, the cultural and social impact of a networked and interdependent world on
young consumers is the overriding concern (Drotner, 2004; McAllister, 2007). Interdependencies
of media markets through financial deregulation and international alliances across all levels of the
industry, and the advent of satellite television in the early 1990s that marked the dawn of media
globalization, have diminished boundaries between producer and consumer. In the 2020s, we
take for granted transnational flows or scapes of people, media, finances, ideologies, and tech-
nologies across the world (Appadurai, 1990). Hybrid cultural products and experiences are part of

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our urban landscape, with critical and postcolonial scholars reminding us to examine where power
is located, and how difference is negotiated within the hybrid (Kraidy, 2003; McMillin 2007;
Moran, 2004). Political economists argue for ongoing evidence of cultural imperialism (Ma, 2000;
Tomlinson, 2003), with mass media, primarily television, standardizing, amplifying, and fe-
tishizing consumption of foreign products. In the world of social media platforms and mobile
apps, critical scholars of design explore the productivity of difference and the opportunities it
engenders for inclusive design (Sun, 2020).
At the heart of analyses of opportunities and opportunism in the global children’s media
marketplace, remains the concern of economies of scale. Digital technologies in particular,
disrupt flow and heighten fragmentation as well as continuity between past and present through
their OTT (over-the-top) modes of streaming and video-on-demand delivery (Hunter, 2019).
Further, SVODs or subscription-video-on-demand such as Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon
Prime combined with low numbers of national/domestic audiences push production and
distribution of children’s media into the hands of global conglomerates. Their dependence on
subscriptions and success in cultivating an early and loyal following among children and parents
build a formidable barrier to local productions (Potter, 2021).
The success of BTS’ music and persona in the face of xenophobia and pandemic despair
(Hiatt, 2021) also brings up afresh the reminder to de-westernize media studies (Curran & Park,
2000; O’Melia 2019) and subvert the “North Atlantic hegemony” (Trouillot, 2002 p. 16). To
explain, right after the nominated band failed to win at the 2021 Grammys, a Garbage Pail Kids
Whac-a-Mole cartoon of BTS circulated, mocking their loss (Benveniste, 2021). On the
surface, this could be seen as the consequences of celebrity status, a mere ridicule and out-
casting. At a more fundamental level, it is a message of psychic and even physical violence
through the use of intertextuality, which is a pivotal prerequisite for the success of media
products across platforms, on those who dare to bridge the distance. The outcry from BTS fans
that the cartoons normalized violence against Asians and were particularly distressing at a time
of increased violence against people of color in the U.S., is evidence of a highly active and
engaged community, ready for social and political change. Ahn (2021) writes in the context of
COVID 19, “one of (the pandemic’s) impacts has been to inflame racism against Asians in
general and Chinese in particular, both online and offline, as potential disease carriers. … (I)n
this context, the notion of Asia as method and the practice of inter-Asia media/cultural studies
as a discipline have become even more critical for engaging with current anti-Asian discourses
around the globe” (p. 126).
Postcolonial analyses attempt a revisionist history to open up the “epistemic potential”
(Mignolo & Schiwy 2002, p. 251) of non-western media contexts, typically the “lower end” of
the colonial hierarchy. Re-centering the global and re-introducing transnational and intra-
regional flows as well as their global influences (Iwabuchi, 2003; McMillin 2007) allows us to
also be responsive to the backlashes of globalization, when the “particular” hits the “universal”
or global stage (Ashcroft, 2001, p. 44).

Digital Media Worlds and Agency

As we move well into the 2020s, we see a growing body of research on digital media with
parallel concerns regarding the lucrative partnerships among media companies, online plat-
forms, and mobile technologies that heighten the power of transnational media corporations
(Potter, 2020), and the vulnerabilities of primarily children and teen users due to the risk to
their privacy and well-being (Shin, 2020). Interactive websites grew in the 2000s, opening to a
generation of digital natives, with between 80–100% of children and teenagers in the U.K.,

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U.S., Australia, and China, to name just a few countries, owning mobile media devices and
accessing digital technologies for everyday life (Anderson & Jiang, 2018; Yang, 2018), with
surging numbers in the Indian subcontinent (McMillin, 2020).
Overt concern regarding the impact of global mass and digital social media on young
consumers derives directly from the Anglo-American construction of childhood itself. In brief,
children and youth media studies follow one of two directions: the construction of the neo-
liberal active subject with relative autonomy and information to choose and consume products
in a borderless world, and the construction of the vulnerable passive subject, responding to and
influenced by all powerful media conglomerates. Both approaches situate the subject as reacting
to and responding to market created products. Buckingham (2007) writes that childhood was a
social category created in response to labor and market demands of industrializing contexts as
well as class-based desires for specifically defined developmental stages of the human experi-
ence. Integration of the field with psychology, education, and health studies, brought inter-
disciplinary perspectives and reaffirmed ideologies of development, positioning the child as the
incomplete, pre-modern adult.
Such ideologies and accompanying protectionist rhetoric are exacerbated in the context of
globalization, leaving us with determinist conclusions of the modernizing influence of global
media products. These conclusions legitimize “moral panics” (Steinberg & Kincheloe, 1997)
regarding the malleability of the consuming subject (Mazzarella 2007; McMillin, 2009). The
ages-and-stages linear model of child development persists as a frame of reference in parenting.
Parents, as primary agents of socialization of children and to media (Clark, 2011), tend to exert
control, rather than serve as mediators or supporters of autonomy (Shin & Kang, 2016). Hudson
(1984) and Walkerdine (2003) write that determinist constructions of children and youth al-
locate to them fixed positions, and disallow the possibilities of them achieving autonomy or
authorship within their own terms of representation. Balagopalan (2008) contends that this
shuts down empirical understanding of children and youth as activists in a globalizing world,
and as agents with rights.
In summary, political economy analyses of global media culture and childhood and the
Anglo-American construction of this phase of development, award the child limited agency as
consumer and decision maker. The pandemic context awards us an opportunity to expand
empirical work and understand children and youth as producers and actors as well as consumers
and reactors to global media.

New Inquiries for the Study of Children and Youth in Media Globalization
Audience studies of children and youth is perhaps where there is most diversity and re-
presentation from locales around the world, and which need to be extended and integrated with
user studies, of children and youth as creators of media within globalization. With the Chinese
conglomerate ByteDance’s TikTok debuting in the U.S. in 2018, after Shanghai’s Musical.ly.’s
2014 had started and ended a successful run worldwide, and with the proliferation of Japanese
anime and products as well as Bollywood templates pervading street fashion, weddings, apps,
and television shows across the globe, it is clear that in the 2020s, we cannot afford the con-
tinued balkanization of global media studies, especially as it relates to child and youth worlds.
Of enduring relevance are key concepts in media globalization: synchronicity, or simulta-
neous experiences of a cultural product in real time, and contemporaneity, which refers to the
reworking of Western (primarily American) ideologies of modernity into highly localized and
relevant ones, affording local users the feeling of synchronous consumption as well as of si-
milarity in experience (Iwabuchi, 2003). Online streaming children’s television heightens this

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 Childhood, Youth, and Media Globalization

experience through simultaneously fragmenting and decentralizing the viewing while also
providing continuity between past and present (Hunter, 2019). The possibility of not just
“global localization” that refers to adaptations of global products to local markets (interestingly
enough, a flipped example can be seen in the global BTS’ adaptations to the local U.S. market
in Dynamite) but “local globalization” (Iwabuchi 2003, p. 34) that offers local audiences global
membership through recognition of local elements in global formats, allows customization of
the viewer experience that should be explored for the mobility and agency it awards the viewer,
while connecting it to the economies of scale that choreograph it.
We bring back Dolby and Rizvi’s (2008, p. 5) call for an understanding of youth mobility
and the “ways in which they are agents of change and produce the new conditions for their
lives.” As Jeffrey (2008) summarizes, scholars of youth agency have recognized they respond to
different structures of dominance differently, dependent on spatial, temporal, and geographical
contexts. The same user varies according to moments, in their reaction to the same medium.
Study of such differences extends to diverse spaces of expression as well as methodologies. For
example, the experience of immigrant children has formed an important sub field of audience
studies (see for example, Elias & Lemish, 2008; Katz, 2010; Lemish, 2002). Qualitative
methodologies that include the elements of ethnography: observation and immersion, inter-
views, focus groups, as well as photo stories and history journals, have all provided deeply
contextualized analyses of the multiple social and cultural networks children and youth are
members of (Grixti, 2006; Lukose, 2009; McMillin 2009).
Considerations for new lines of inquiry begin with the acknowledgment that children and
youth, in their need for synchronicity and contemporaneity, are willing to enter into contracts
with digital and social media sites when benefits are perceived to far outweigh risks (Taddicken,
2014). The dynamics of risk assessment opens up exciting areas for discovery: of children and
youth as negotiators and managers of their own privacy, for example. Shin (2020) demonstrates
that children and teens are selective in managing information, and at establishing levels of dis-
closure based on the medium and access to social groups. Individual information that is disclosed
to a small group becomes co-owned information that may be shared based on the group’s col-
lective privacy rules, and this collective privacy boundary conveys a sense of safety and community
(Child & Westermann, 2013; Petronio, 2013). Such a textured approach explains the success of
BTS and of UGM, where small circles of allegiance connect to larger circles where the con-
ventions of privacy are understood and the sense of community may be easily scaled beyond local
and national borders. Lived realities of youth under COVID-19 have also revealed their use of
such technologies that extends far beyond self-disclosure and peer connections. Instagram,
Twitter, and TikTok are efficiently deployed to urge safety protocols, voice fears, and to circulate
medical information (Mohamad, 2020). On a darker note, the medium of play can also be turned
into a medium of harm. The “For You” personalization of TikTok and its call to users to perform
can also promote obsessive behaviors, such as the “pro-ana” or pro-anorexia videos that surged
soon after pandemic lockdowns (Logrieco et al., 2021) – all the more reason for dialogue with
children and youth around their engagement to change narratives and promote pro social content
to peers.
This chapter has summarized dominant approaches to media globalization and childhood
and renewed the argument to shift away from overtly prescribed frameworks that reduce the
opportunity to understand the dynamic and flexible positions of children and youth and
the multiple devices and modalities of expression at their disposal. In this rich world of UGM
and the unique analytical opportunity awarded to media scholars in the tragic wake of the
COVID-19 pandemic, we are confronted with the need for fundamental shifts in theoretical
and methodological frameworks. The postcolonial call in the 1990s and early 2000s, for

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contextually rich media audience analyses especially in non-media-centric environments of the

developing economies of the global south, is extremely relevant now and for the foreseeable
future, globally. The exploding diversity of UGM content, the capriciousness of trends and
celebrities, and the availability of ever new templates and technological affordances, open up an
urgent need for participatory design. This extends audience studies to activist intervention,
placing the well-being and agency of the user at the center. Political economy and ideological
analyses deriving from structuralist frameworks are no doubt important to keep up the mo-
mentum of the interrogation of powerful transnational conglomerates and standardized content.
Yet, such analyses have to be accompanied by empirical fieldwork that opens up understanding
of the unique environments in homes, neighborhoods, and schools; and of peer networks and
influence, as children and youth connect to seemingly autonomous local, yet global networks
and templates. The chapter reiterates the importance of grounded study to understand active
entanglements of youth, strategic interconnectedness of their multiple modalities of media
engagement, soft and hard skills in content production and delivery, use of peers as experts, and
influence of peers in content creation, framing, and integration. Explorations of subjective
agency, of inscribed consumer-producer positions across broadcast and digital platforms should
be extended to empirical analyses of how networks of trust are formed, how risks to privacy and
self are assessed, how defense mechanisms are constructed and deployed, and how peer experts
are constituted. Audience studies itself should open up to newer ways in which media com-
panies track interest, such as Beijing-based iQiyi’s “heat index” or Netflix’s “taste clusters”
(Shimpach, 2020). We need imaginative and creative approaches that recognize children and
youth as highly literate rather than unfinished or unsophisticated, as decision makers rather than
consumers, as co-designers, rather than autonomous producers, as networked rather than
connected. Their desire for creative control, to be producers and distributors of their own
narratives and hero stories, has to be respected, not wrestled with. The scholarly community has
to make way for children and youth to participate as co-designers themselves, of new meth-
odologies in media globalization and childhood research.

SEE ALSO Chapter 44 by Borzekowski, Chapter 49 by Lustyik, and Afterword by Lemish and
Jordan in this volume.

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 8
CHILDHOOD STUDIES
APPROACHES TO THE STUDY
OF CHILDREN AND MEDIA
Liam Berriman

The increasing prevalence and ubiquity of media in children’s lives globally has been of
growing interest for childhood scholars over recent decades. Since the 1990s, a growing body of
research and scholarship has explored how children’s lives are shaped in relationships with
media ranging from television and video games to the internet and social media. This research
has included a strong focus on children’s media practices, examining how children live with,
and make sense of, media in their everyday lives. This research has, however, taken place
against a backdrop of public discourses which have often framed children’s relationships with
media as a source of moral panic, with media content and platforms treated as potential sources
of “risk” and “harm” to children. In Western countries, such moral panics have included
concerns such as media content’s influence over children (e.g., through advertising or violent/
sexual content), physical and mental health risks from sedentary and “always on” media cul-
tures, the potential for inappropriate online contact, etc. Often these moral panics have given
rise to perceptions of children as media users who are passive and vulnerable to potential media
effects and risks.
This chapter examines the role that childhood studies have played in shaping the study of
children and media. It explores how critical interrogations of the moral panics surrounding
children’s media use have been informed by childhood studies debates about the social
construction of childhood, and, in particular, historical perceptions of childhood innocence
and vulnerability. It also explores how concepts of children’s agency and voice have been
central in shaping how children’s everyday media practices have been theorised and re-
searched. This chapter demonstrates how the study of children and media is closely aligned
with childhood studies, whilst also recognising that there have also been limitations to
childhood studies’ contributions to this field. One key issue is that children’s relationships
with media have not always been a central concern within childhood studies, and that re-
search into children and media has taken place across a range of fields, including education,
media and communication studies, and literacy studies. It is therefore important to recognise
how concepts from childhood studies have not always been imported wholesale into the field
of children and media, but rather have been adapted and re-appropriated through dialogues
with other fields of study.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-10 73
 Liam Berriman

Emerging Trends in Childhood Studies and Media Research

During the 1980s and 1990s, Western European childhood studies underwent a key period of
re-imagining, with key publications (e.g., Prout & James, 2015) and conferences scaffolding the
development of a “new” social study of childhood that combined insights from across a range of
disciplines, including sociology ( Jenks, 2005), history (Cunningham, 2005), anthropology
(Montgomery, 2008), and human geography (Wells, 2014). These new childhood studies set
out to challenge the hegemony of psycho-developmental perspectives of childhood, which had
dominated Western thinking about childhood for much of the 20th century. Childhood so-
ciologists, such as Alan Prout and Allison James (2015), were particularly critical of how de-
velopmental approaches treated children as “adults in the making” (Hendrick, 2015, p. 31). The
goal of the new field of childhood studies was to develop a child-centred paradigm of theory
and research that recognised children as social beings (rather than social becomings), who are
active and agentic in their engagement with society and culture. Present-day childhood studies
have been firmly imprinted by this period’s focus on childhood (as social construction) and
children (as social actors), and these ideas have also strongly influenced the study of children and
media over recent decades.
Prior to the 1980s, the study of children’s relationships with media had largely been confined
to the field of behavioural psychology which employed experimental methods to measure the
effects of media on children and adolescents. These studies, primarily undertaken in the U.S.,
took place against a backdrop of concern about the negative impacts of media, such as television
and cinema, on children’s health and behaviour. This included Albert Bandura’s famous 1960s
“Bobo dolls” research experiments (Bandura et al., 1963), which aimed to observe whether
children imitated violent behaviours, such as those witnessed on television or in film. Such
research set out to establish how and whether behaviours could be learnt from media, however
it also contributed to a view of children as passive media audiences, and of television (and media
more generally) as capable of influencing social behaviours. Such media effects approaches
greatly influenced not only the intellectual agenda around children and media, but also fed into
wider societal debates about media’s influence on childhood. Throughout much of the mid-
20th century, there were limited counterpoints to this perspective and so a deterministic model
of media (e.g., that media influences behaviour) remained highly influential and unchallenged
for many decades. One exception to this was Hilde Himmelweit’s study Television and the Child
(1958), which carried out a survey of children’s television viewing practices in Britain. The
study was strongly dismissive of a media effects approach, however, by this point, the notion of
media as pacifying children was strongly ingrained in mainstream public discourse in many
Western countries, and it would be several decades before other studies challenged the view of
children as a passive media audience.
This chapter is not intended as an exhaustive history; however it is important to note that
prior to the 1980s there were limited interventions in the field of children and media outside
of behavioural psychology. The arrival of the new childhood studies in the 1980s and 1990s
did not immediately alter this picture, with children’s relationships with media remaining an
area of limited concern for the field. One of the few exceptions to this was childhood
studies’ critical engagement with media representations of children, and particularly the role
of tabloid media in contributing to moral panics about childhood (Valentine, 1996).
Therefore, the first key contribution from childhood studies that this chapter explores is the
social construction of childhood, and how this enabled critical engagement with media
moral panics.

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 Childhood Studies Approaches

The Social Construction of Childhood and Media Moral Panics

One of the core theories to emerge from the new childhood studies of the 1980s is the idea that
childhood is a social construction that culturally varies across historical and geographical lo-
cation. Proponents of this theory recognise childhood as a biological phase, but argue that
conceptualisations and imaginings of childhood are socially and culturally constructed around
the biological phase between infancy and adolescence (Prout & James, 2015). One example of
this is the idea of childhood innocence ( Jenkins, 1998), which historically and geographically
emerged in 18th-century Europe during the Enlightenment period (Cunningham, 2005).
Rather than seeing innocence as innate to children, childhood studies has sought to demon-
strate how innocence is an enduring social construct that is mobilised to enact societal and legal
protections for certain children (e.g., white, female, affluent), whilst excluding others whose
bodies have been inscribed as non-innocent (e.g., black, male, poor) (Bernstein, 2011; Epstein
et al., 2017). Notions of innocence have also been deployed as mechanisms of governance used
to regulate children’s sexuality and police their access to the public sphere and thereby limiting
children’s autonomy over their bodies and physical movements.
The theory of childhood’s social construction has played an important role in interrogating
debates surrounding children and media. Over recent decades, there have been recurring moral
panics in the West about the negative effects of media on children’s lives. These debates have
contributed to a broader narrative of childhood in crisis (Kehily, 2010), with children’s de-
velopment, social relationships, health, well-being, and education all being viewed as under
threat from engagement with media content and technologies. Neil Postman’s book The
Disappearance of Childhood (1994) is emblematic of these earlier debates in relation to television
in the late 1970s through to the early 1990s. He argued that television had become a universal
medium, which did not divide its audiences by their literacy ability in the same way as print
media. Postman claimed this lower literacy threshold meant that children were more able to
access adult content (e.g., sex and violence) than was previously possible, and that television was
therefore contributing to the erasure of lines between childhood and adulthood. More recently,
psychologist Sue Palmer (2006) has written about the role of digital media technologies in
creating toxic childhoods, with the media seen as the root cause of issues such as obesity, and
developmental and behavioural problems.
These arguments capture some of the growing moral debates surrounding children and
media over recent decades, which claim Western childhoods are being irrevocably transformed
by media, and that children’s innocence, safety, and wellbeing are under threat. Postman,
Palmer, and others have claimed that an idealised version of childhood – as pure (or innocent)
and separate from adulthood – should be protected from the contaminating influence of media.
Theories of childhood’s social construction have been integral in demonstrating how such
claims are historically rooted in long-term Western moral projects of childhood innocence
(Cook, 2020), which date back to the early modern period. In Western Europe this began in
the 19th century with child saving campaigns aimed at establishing children as a group in need
of societal and legal protection (from poor working conditions, abuse, etc.) by virtue of their
innocence (Cunningham, 2005). Recent moral panics about children and media are therefore
neither new nor unprecedented and can be located within a wider pantheon of threats to
childhood, including issues of sexuality and sexualisation (Bragg, 2012) and consumer culture
and advertising (Buckingham, 2011). The social construction of childhood can therefore be
taken as a critical framework for locating moral panics about children and media within his-
torical constructions of childhood and children’s innocence.

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 Liam Berriman

One important change to moral panics about childhood has been their mediation through
print, televisual, and online news media. This in turn has profoundly shaped how childhood
studies engage with the rise and spread of moral panics. For example, the media coverage
following the murder of a toddler by two 10-year-old boys in Liverpool, U.K. in the mid-
1990s acted as a catalyst for U.K. childhood studies scholars to reflect on how moral panics
about childhood had become mediated within a national and international media context (e.g.,
James & Jenks, 1996; Valentine, 1996). In this sense, the influence of childhood studies on the
study of children and media has not been unidirectional but has also prompted a re-evaluation
within childhood studies of how moral panics of childhood are increasingly mediated.

Theories of Agency in Childhood and Media Research

A further key theoretical development to emerge from the new childhood studies in the 1980s
and 1990s was conceptualising children as social actors whose lives, perspectives, and experi-
ences are worthy of study in their own right. This claim was a direct challenge to the field of
developmental psychology, which had become the default field of childhood study for much of
the 20th century. The new social study of childhood viewed developmental approaches as
reducing children to social becomings – as social actors in the making, rather than as social
actors in the here-and-now (Prout & James, 2015). This new approach was further developed
through the concept of children’s agency, and a desire to understand how children navigate and
negotiate their social worlds as autonomous social actors. During these formative decades,
childhood studies were strongly influenced by Western social theories of structure and agency
(e.g., Giddens, 1984). These theories claimed that social actors’ capacities for social action (their
agency) were both enabled and constrained by social structures. In their outline of a new
childhood studies paradigm, Prout and James proposed that issues of structure and agency were
pertinent to children’s lives. They argued that children, like adults, have agency, and that they
should be seen as “active in the construction and determination of their own lives” (2015, p. 7).
However, they also cautioned that a theory of children’s agency should also recognise children’s
limited power within the (adult) social structures they inhabit (e.g., the family, education, the
legal system, etc.). Despite these limitations on their autonomy (in comparison to adults), Prout
and James argued that children should still be seen as active social agents and not just “passive
subjects of social structures and processes” (2015, p. 7).
The prioritisation of children’s lives and experiences also informed a new child-centred
approach to research from the 1980s onwards. Methodologically, this was informed by a desire
to treat children as experts in their own lives and to give voice to children’s experiences of key
issues impacting their lives. It is important to note that this drive towards recognising children’s
voices in research was also taking place in synchrony with national and international policy
initiatives to legislate for children’s rights to “have their voice heard” in issues affecting their
lives (United Nations Children’s Fund U.K., 1989). For childhood studies, a focus on voice was
therefore both an ethical and political imperative and involved a conscious and strategic po-
sitioning of childhood studies as a field that could contribute to making children’s voices and
experiences more visible. Subsequent debates in childhood studies have raised concerns that a
focus on voice has given unequal precedence to verbal communication, which not all children
may be physically or developmentally capable of (Komulainen, 2007). Nonetheless, a focus on
children’s voices sparked a new wave of child-centred social science, with children treated as
research informants of their lives, often through qualitative research methods.
It is important to note that, in the U.K. and Western Europe, childhood studies was not the
only field debating questions of agency. Within media and cultural studies, the 1980s marked a

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key shift in how media audiences were imagined. The Centre for Contemporary Cultural
Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham, U.K. became a focal point for a new critical
field of media and cultural studies research. A key strand of CCCS was concerned with the role
of mass media in shaping popular culture, and how audiences critically engaged with these
media as part of their everyday lives. Stuart Hall, a leading member of the CCCS, made a key
intervention in this field by developing a theory of media reception that sought to capture how
audiences engage with, and interpret media. In Hall’s (1980) framework, media do not simply
act on and effect audiences – instead, audiences agentically and actively engage in interpreting
and challenging media. This theoretical framework – alongside the work of other media
scholars such as John Fiske (1989), Ien Ang (1996), and David Morley (1992) – paved the way
for new understandings of how audiences are active in their engagement with media. This new
formulation of audience agency did, however, primarily presume an adult audience. One key
study to emerge from CCCS was the Nationwide Project in the 1970s and 1980s, which used
qualitative methods to observe everyday practices of media use in the home (Morley &
Brunsdon, 1999). Though this study made significant strides in capturing audiences as agentic in
their viewing practices, this did not include children’s experiences of media, and instead,
children’s media engagement was subsumed under that of the family. It was not until the late
1980s and the 1990s that media researchers would begin to turn their attention towards the
unique and specific experiences of children as media users, drawing on child-centred methods
of research.

Bringing Children’s Agency and Voice into the Study of Media

Prior to the 1980s, behavioural psychology research largely characterised children as a passive
media audience, who were susceptible to media effects. This perception has maintained a long-
standing grip on public and policy perceptions of media, often more popularly framed through a
nostalgic yearning for childhoods prior to media (Wesseling, 2017). In the U.S., the 1980s marked
a turning point for children’s media research, as a new wave of researchers sought to counteract
presumptions about children’s media engagement by asking children directly about their media
agency and practices. Although this work did not always directly engage with the emerging new
childhood studies in Western Europe, it nonetheless shared similar goals of viewing children as
more than passive audiences. This included the work of Marsha Kinder, whose psychoanalytic
work examined children’s experiences of power through media, and Henry Jenkins, whose work
was concerned with media as a source of pleasure and play. In her book Playing with Power in
Movies, Television and Video Games (1991), Kinder argued that the study of children and media
needed to move beyond “passive models of spectatorship” (1991, p. 6), and towards a more active
view of children’s media engagement. Kinder’s work focused on how children’s engagement with
media texts can provide opportunities to experiment with pleasurable feelings of power and
control. Similarly, Jenkins’ work challenged the idea of children “as victims, not users” (1988,
p. 170) of media, and proposed that research should focus on the pleasures that children can
experience through play and experimentation with media.
In the U.K. and continental Europe, discussions about children’s agency in relation to media
have been taken up through a focus on media literacy, and how these literacies are distinctive
from those of adults. One of the first studies to tackle this directly was David Buckingham’s
Children Talking Television (1993). Buckingham’s research involved asking children directly
about their television viewing practices and exploring the social processes by which children
acquire and negotiate media literacies. This research represented a key turning point in the
U.K. field of children and media, by adopting a child-centred perspective of children and media

77
 Liam Berriman

and placing a stronger focus on children’s voices and experiences. Buckingham’s work acted as a
bridging point between the new childhood studies’ focus on children’s agency and the new
theories of audience emerging from U.K. media and cultural studies, such as in the CCCS.
However, Buckingham’s work also highlighted childhood studies’ neglect of media, and his
work directly called for greater engagement with media by childhood scholars.
Further research expanding on children’s perspectives of media included Sonia Livingstone
and colleagues’ European-wide study of Children and their Changing Media Environment in the
late 1990s (Livingstone & Bovill, 2001). Livingstone’s work similarly critiqued past media
approaches focused on effects, but was also critical of how children’s media had been “ne-
glected” (1998, p. 438) within the field of childhood studies. Livingstone set out a new ap-
proach of contextualizing children’s media use by exploring children’s media practices in their
everyday lives across the school, home, and leisure. By adopting a cross-comparative per-
spective, the study was also able to explore ways that children and their relationships with media
were shaped by cultural contexts, such as around issues of media risks and parental regulation. In
the 21st century, there have been growing numbers of studies that locate media (increasingly
including the internet and social media) within broader contexts of children’s lives (e.g., Ito
et al., 2010; Livingstone & Sefton-Green, 2016; Thomson et al., 2018). These studies have
increasingly bridged the divide between studies of children’s media and the wider field of
childhood studies – capturing how media have become embedded in all parts of children’s lives,
including education, peer relationships, experiences of family, etc.

Looking Forwards
Childhood studies have played an influential, though at times indirect, role in the development
of the study of children and media. The shift towards a new child-centred approach to
childhood theory and research in the 1980s and 1990s unfolded in parallel with the arrival of
new media theories of active and agentic audiences. It was through these contemporaneous
developments that new approaches to studying children and media began to emerge – re-
conceptualising children’s engagement with media from one of passivity and media influence to
a site of agency, play, and meaning-making. Whilst childhood studies offered important new
approaches to centring children’s lives and experiences, children’s relationships with media have
often been treated as a marginal concern within the core field of new childhood studies.
Though childhood scholars have often critically engaged with moral panics surrounding
children’s representation in the news media (James & Jenks, 1996), it has fallen to children’s
media scholars to investigate the role of media in children’s lives. This bifurcation of children’s
media from studies of childhood has presented a long-term challenge for childhood studies and
raises important questions about how children’s lives can and should be researched in an in-
creasingly mediated world.
This chapter has primarily focused on the contributions of childhood studies in the 1980s
and 1990s around theories of childhood’s social construction and agency. These concepts have
had enduring legacies in both the field of children and media and childhood studies more
generally. However, recent trends in childhood studies present a growing array of new con-
ceptual contributions to the study of children and media. One recent shift has been towards a
more post-humanist understanding of childhood and children’s agency, which conceptualises
children as social agents who exist within relational assemblages of human and non-human
actors. Such work has led to new ways of de-centring childhood, and viewing children as
embedded within assemblages that span the local and global. For example, geographer Peter
Kraftl (2020) has examined how children are embedded within global assemblages of plastic

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production, consumption, and waste, and how, by de-centring children, we can view their
agency as embedded within social processes and practices that exceed their everyday lives and
experiences. Kraftl’s work, alongside other post-humanist childhood scholars (Spyrou, 2018;
Taylor & Pacini-Ketchabaw, 2019), therefore helps us to re-imagine childhood studies as a
project which explores the entanglement of childhood within social and material processes that
exceed children’s everyday experience. For the study of children and media, this opens up new
possibilities for conceptualising how children’s agency is embedded within increasingly com-
plex trans-global, polymedia worlds (Madianou & Miller, 2012).

SEE ALSO Chapter 1 by Drotner and Chapter 6 by Lemish in this volume.

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 PART II

Channels and Convergence

Editor’s Introduction

In this section we turn from a discussion of theories of childhoods and children to those fo-
cusing on media technologies themselves. While we acknowledge the convergent nature of
media in children’s lives, we also try to pull them apart and highlight the unique aspects of each
medium and the contributions it has made to children’s culture and leisure.
We start chronologically with children’s print culture, an often forgotten medium in col-
lections of articles on media and children. Carol L. Tilley surveys the history and current state
of children’s print culture, focusing on the U.S. and the U.K., and touching on issues including
the divide between literary and mass-market publishing, the rise of contemporary realism, and
the development of digital book apps. Although print culture as a subject encompasses a broad
range of social, cultural, historical, and material considerations surrounding the production
and consumption of texts, this survey addresses a more narrow question: How have books and
related texts for youth developed to their current status?
Stephanie Hemelryk Donald and Noel Brown argue that children’s film has long
been, and remains, a vital part of the media ecology for young people and adults alike. Their
chapter examines some of the key theoretical questions posed by children’s film. It begins
with a discussion of its privileged position within cultural and individual memory, before
considering the thorny question of the “(im)possibility” of children’s film, responding to
Jacqueline Rose’s famous assault on classical children’s literature. Finally, the chapter dis-
cusses the way that children’s film balances the imagined needs of the juvenile spectator
(and those of grown-ups) with those of adult society, including the tendency to embed
hierarchies of development from child to adult within the text, and to serve ideological, and
not merely aesthetic, purposes.
Jeannette Steemers concentrates on developments in children’s television culture and the
children’s television industry in the U.S. and Western Europe, mapping the advent of multi-
channel, multiplatform services from the 1980s onwards, and the more recent arrival of
streaming services including subscription video-on-demand services like Netflix and video
sharing platforms like YouTube. In this chapter she explores the connections between industry,
content and audiences that define children’s television culture, taking account of the tensions
between commercial U.S. and more public service-oriented European approaches. Looking to
the future, she asks, what do we mean by children’s “television” determined by transforming
distribution, funding and regulatory models?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-11
 Introduction to Part II

Sonia Livingstone argues that children’s internet culture is simultaneously becoming taken
for granted as underpinning much of children’s everyday lives and yet it persists in attracting
controversy. Children’s internet culture lies at the fault lines dividing child and adult worlds,
offline and online culture, and opportunities for cultural expression in a heavily globalized
political economy. This chapter critically examines these fault lines for what they reveal about
children’s agency and vulnerability, as well as the wider societal processes of power and change
that shape today’s digital world. It draws on cross-national findings from the Global Kids Online
project to reveal not only the factors that shape children’s internet cultures but also the potential
for a normative approach that translates research into action by advocating for children’s rights
in relation to the digital environment. Although much research, policy, and practice is tempted
to sequester children’s media cultures of all kinds into marginalized spaces, the internet fun-
damentally blurs boundaries and builds connections. While this is often not in children’s best
interests, bringing a range of familiar and new risks into their lives, their internet culture cannot
be separated from that of adults. For this reason, redesigning the digital environment in ways
that respect children’s rights is fundamental.
Pål Aarsand looks into singularities and multiplicities of children’s gaming practices. The
chapter problematizes the idea that there is a particular gaming culture for children, arguing that
we need to consider children as part of society. This underlines the fact that children deal with
adults as well as the game industry in the consumption and production of gaming cultures. It is
argued that we need to approach children as a heterogeneous group that varies with respect to
age, gender, ethnicity, and gaming practices. A key concept in the study of children’s gaming
cultures is participation. The author argues that the concept of participation directs attention to
how children in their everyday lives are involved in multiple gaming and metagame activities in
various ways.
Rich Ling discusses the mobile phone that the past decades has been an important part of
children’s and adolescents’ lives. In many locations around the world, the vast preponderance of
teens and children have a smartphone with which to coordinate, to use as a safety link, and to
connect with their social networks and their parents. While there are many positive uses,
mobile telephony has also been a channel through which there have been less savory activities
such as sexting, bullying, and phubbing. This chapter examines these issues and their potential
impact on children’s well-being.
Ryan Bunch and Tyler Bickford introduce us to music as an integral part of the lives and
media cultures of children and adolescents. In their chapter they argue that as audiences and
consumers of music, children cultivate peer relations and identities related to age, gender, race,
class, and sexuality. Their activities are configured according to changing practices and modes of
access to music as well as to shifting identifications with genres such as commercial, folk,
mainstream pop, and tween pop music. Changing media landscapes, from print sources and
phonograph records to film, television, and digital culture, construct childhood and children’s
music while children in turn engage with these media according to their needs. Longstanding
children’s cultural traditions, such as handclapping and singing games combine reciprocally with
contemporary media cultures, while digital technologies create new contexts for young people’s
music use and social relations, with young people and their music and media devices serving as
emblems of the digital age. This chapter addresses children’s musical media in the United States
and Europe, focusing on recent technological and commercial developments, which point to
important changes for children’s status as participants in public culture.
Kara Chan highlight the fact that children have been identified as an important consumer
market by brands and marketers. Food and beverages, toys, and entertainment are major
product categories that market to children aggressively. Her chapter examines the historical
 Introduction to Part II

development of the children consumer culture in the U.S. and how the global toy market and
scholars adopt gender, age, interests, and activities as market segmentation tools. The chapter
then discusses how children employ brands and media entertainment consumption as a way to
develop self-identity and expression of social-economic status and values among peers. and how
their perception and attitudes toward material possessions are presented. The chapter ends with
the analysis of the Disney brand as a case study in the international context.
Jochen Peter argues that although children are increasingly likely to encounter social and
communicative robots in their lives, scholars of children, adolescents, and the media have only
recently picked up on the subject. From the perspective of research on children, adolescents,
and the media, this chapter therefore first presents a rationale for studying social robots and then
explicates the pertinent theoretical issues. The author suggests that this theoretical fundament is
necessary to demonstrate the link between research on children and social robots on the one
hand and research on children, adolescents, and the media on the other. Accordingly, it is
outlined subsequently how scholars of children, adolescents, and the media can contribute
theoretically to theory formation in research on children and social robots. The remainder of
this chapter illustrates empirical research on the role of social robots in children’s lives, focusing
on topics that are prominently studied and relevant to our field.
In a related chapter, Francesca Stocco and Lelia Green introduce readers to the Internet
of Toys, an area of growing interest for children, parents, and scholars alike. This chapter
interrogates the characteristics of these technologies and explores issues associated with chil-
dren’s digital footprints, data privacy, and security issues that have been attracting public at-
tention in recent years. It also highlights the regulatory challenges associated with these digital
artifacts while noting that children often find IoToys to be engaging and empowering.
Finally in this section, Meenakshi Gigi Durham takes a technologized bodies approach to
the fact that in the contemporary moment, especially in countries of the Global North, chil-
dren’s and teenagers’ lives are deeply imbricated with media technologies as they use cell-
phones, laptops, tablets, and other devices to engage in an array of social activities. The interface
with these technologies blurs traditional distinctions between the “real” and the “virtual,”
subject and object, body and machine. Sexuality, once primarily considered a corporeal
practice, is also navigated via media technologies. In this chapter, using the moral panic around
sexting as an example, I examine children’s and adolescents’ sexual development through the
lens of “mixed reality,” acknowledging young people’s views of online sex to explore its
liberatory potential as well as its repressive and regressive significations. I argue that in a world
increasingly configured by media images at macro- and micro-levels, we need new “cognitive
maps” for understanding the technologized bodies and sexualities of youth.
 9
CHILDREN’S PRINT CULTURE
Tradition and Innovation

Carol L. Tilley

The social, cultural, and material transformations that followed in the wake of the development of
movable type came later for children and adolescents than it did for adults. Prior to the 18th
century, authors and publishers took little interest in the particular needs of youth, in part because
these needs were seldom distinguished from those of adults until Enlightenment philosophers
such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau posited that childhood was separate and distinctive from adult-
hood. This intellectual shift accompanied – in Western Europe and North America at least – both
a rise in literacy and a growing entrepreneurial spirit among publishers that led to child-centered
publications such as the English book merchant and publisher John Newbery’s A Little Pretty
Pocket Book (1744). Newbery’s book combined alphabetic structure with rhyming descriptions of
children’s games, profuse illustrations, and moral lessons. Although the book was not wholly
original, building as it did on various moral and educational texts from preceding centuries (cf.
Darton, 1932), it fulfilled Newbery’s purpose of Delectando monemus (Latin, “instruction with
delight”) and marked a starting point for a distinctive print culture for young people.
Broadly conceived, print culture includes complex and interwoven social, cultural, historical,
and material considerations surrounding the production and consumption of texts including
literary novels, popular magazines, and educational manuals. Print culture historian Wayne
Wiegand (1998) proposes that this discipline incorporates diverse aspects that include changing
conceptions of literacy, book as commodity, the impact of technological developments on au-
thorship and reading practices, and the circulation of printed texts. The concept of print culture
itself is not antithetical to technological innovation – moving type was just such an innovation –
but the term can obscure the role of technology. Thus, one must be clear that print culture
includes not only “traditional” printed texts but also developments such as digital books.
Similarly, the concept of print culture can sometimes seem to privilege print over orality, al-
though scholars such as Betsy Hearne (1989) have demonstrated the artificiality of this distinction,
especially regarding folktales, where a story may cross between orality and print multiple times.
Given its broad scope, print culture as it pertains to children and adolescents requires sig-
nificant delimitation for a chapter such as this one. This overview of print culture for children
and adolescents will emphasize contemporary issues in the material culture of print while in-
dicating their historical precedents. Taking Newbery as a starting point, the chapter focuses on
books, periodicals, and related products published and distributed by trade publishers, as op-
posed to educational and textbook publishers. Its emphasis will be on the U.S. and U.K., which

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-12 85
 Carol L. Tilley

dominate many aspects of children’s print culture on a global level, although examples from
other countries and regions will be integrated where possible. There will be no attempt to
address child-produced materials, self-published works, materials produced chiefly for the
educational market, reference works for or about young people, or games and toys that are
often part of the broader youth print culture.

Books for Young Readers: Development and Early Growth

Prior to John Newbery’s ventures into children’s publishing, books for children tended to
privilege spiritual and religious didacticism. Protestantism argued for individual accountability
for salvation and moral rectitude, thus impelling persons of all ages to read the Bible and
encouraging the publication of works such as Minister Isaac Watts’ Divine Songs, Attempted in
Easie Language for Children (1715), which was quickly reprinted in hundreds of editions.
Comparatively few texts were published expressly for younger readers, so children also read
from adult-focused works such as John Bunyan’s widely translated allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress
(from This World to That Which Is to Come) (1678). Popular books with a moral, but not pro-
selytizing, intent including Aesop’s Fables – published in more than 100 editions by the early
16th century – and Charles Perrault’s fairy tale collection Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Stories
or tales from past times) (1687). Many of these texts were intended for both child and adult
readers, but gradually they were published in chapbook form – inexpensive and often abridged
pamphlet editions – that targeted child readers more exclusively.
Newbery’s marketing acumen – The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes (1765) was an even
greater commercial success than A Pretty Little Pocket Book – encouraged a blooming print
culture for young people. Beginning in the late 18th century, authors, editors, and publishers
introduced more diverse texts to young audiences. Collections of folk and fairy tales found wide
audiences, especially in Germany where multiple editions of Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen
(Children’s and Household Tales) (1812) were joined by other compilations including E.T.A.
Hoffman’s Nachtstücke (Nocturnes) (1816–1817). Juvenile periodicals, which typically com-
bined literature, history, and science, thrived especially in the U.K. and the U.S., where titles
including The Children’s Friend (1824–c. 1930) and St. Nicholas (1873–1940) enjoyed pub-
lication runs that spanned decades. Toy books, which often had movable parts, along with
ephemera like harlequinades – single sheets of illustrated paper that required special folds to
reveal the stories – were also common. In encouraging the development of literacy through
play, toy books together with the continuing reconceptualization of childhood helped temper
the heavy moral and cultural didacticism that characterized children’s print culture.
Advances in printing, improved standards of living, and increased literacy rates helped hasten
an international golden age of children’s literature beginning in the late 19th century. In the
U.S., Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868/1869) and Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s The Story of a
Bad Boy (1870) introduced young readers to morally imperfect characters who did not always
suffer dire consequences. Along with Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), these
books characterized the twin themes of domestic life and adventure that dominated much of
juvenile fiction in the U.S. for decades. In the U.K., fantasies incorporating domestic and
folkloric elements including Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and George
MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin (1872) flourished. Juvenile literature published else-
where during the late-19th and early-20th centuries evokes similar themes and styles. For
instance, Iwaya Sazanami’s Kogane-maru (Tale of the Brave Dog, Kogane-Maru) (1891) wove
together Western and Japanese folklore to tell the story of a dog bound to avenge the deaths of
its parents. Similarly the Italian author Carlo Collodi blended folklore, puppet theatre, and

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domestic morality in Le avventure di Pinocchio (The Adventures of Pinocchio) (1883). China’s Lu

Xun and Ye Shengtao modernized children’s books there in the early 20th century with
translations of Western stories along with original fairy tales.

A Distinctive Publishing Category

Children’s print culture deepened in the 20th century, particularly as youth literature grew in its
recognition as a distinctive category of publishing. The number of juvenile trade books pub-
lished each year in the U.S. climbed from fewer than 400 in 1900 to about 1,300 in 1955 and
has leveled out at around 4,000 in recent years. The regularization of book reviewing serves as
one marker of this expanding formalization. Although the English writer Sarah Trimmer re-
viewed books for children in her magazine The Guardian of Education beginning in 1802 and
periodicals on both sides of the Atlantic such as England’s Macmillan’s Magazine and Scribner’s
Monthly in the U.S. occasionally recommended children’s books, The Horn Book, first published
in 1916 and still published in 2021, was the first journal to focus solely on the review and
discussion of youth literature.
Respect for the growing corpus of children’s literature is also reflected in the establishment of
literary awards. The John Newbery Medal given for excellence in children’s literature was first
awarded in the U.S. in 1922, its British counterpart the Carnegie Medal in 1937, New Zealand’s
Esther Glen Award in 1944. Many countries now have national awards – Brazil’s Fundação
Nacional do Livro Infantil e Juvenil (National Book Foundation Children and Youth) award and
China’s Feng Zikai Chinese Children’s Picture Book Award are examples – often decided by
librarians, teachers, or members of the publishing industry. In 1956, the International Board of
Books for Young People (IBBY) awarded its first Hans Christian Andersen Award, the primary
transnational award for youth literature. In the U.S. the Association of Library Services to
Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association, also recognizes outstanding
digital media (e.g., apps, audiobooks) for young people.
Schools and public libraries comprise the largest market for young people’s trade books, but
publishers have met the needs and interests of parents and young readers with a variety of low-
priced and – to some – low-brow books. In the late 19th century low-cost publications – some
specifically targeting youthful audiences and others that found their ways to young readers –
inundated the market. Named for the cheap quality of their paper, pulp publications included
sensational British penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and juvenile series fiction. Moving into the
20th century, other formats and genres included science-fiction magazines and comic books.
Prejudices persist – in the U.S., for instance, it was common into the 1970s for libraries to
exclude series such as Nancy Drew – against materials perceived to be more overtly commercial
than literary in nature, even though the Newbery Medal’s namesake sold small toys together
with children’s books as a marketing tool.
Beginning in the late 1950s the U.S. and the U.K. increased funding to schools and libraries.
This helped propel demand for young people’s books. Sales of juvenile trade books in the U.S.
increased from $45 million (~$440 million adjusted for current prices) (DeAngelo, 1958) in
1956 to $2.5 billion in 2020 (Anderson, 2021). This market expansion brought many changes,
but a few stand out. First, nonfiction texts for school-aged readers have become more rigorous
and multimodal. Unlike the often-fictionalized and text-dense works they succeeded, con-
temporary nonfiction books marshal documentary evidence, incorporate extensive visual in-
formation, and offer bibliographies and other materials. Second, marketing and categorization is
more specialized. Thus, consumers can now choose among publishing formats and categories
such as board books for toddlers, leveled series fiction for new readers, fiction for middle grade,

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tween, and teen readers, and comics and graphic novels. Third, series books are no longer
spurned by literary gatekeepers, so publishers seek out opportunities to issue the next Harry
Potter, Hunger Games, or Twilight. Popular series are frequently adapted into television programs
or films, enlarging the audience and revenue potential for these properties.
Outside the U.S. and the U.K., the development of and markets for youth literature can
look quite different. India, one of the largest markets in the world for books, is experiencing a
growing interest in books for younger readers. Where picture books for younger readers are
dependably popular among British and U.S. purchasers, they have struggled to find purchase in
India. And while the potential Indian market for books for young people is enormous, linguistic
diversity, the consumer demand for low prices, intellectual property theft, and related chal-
lenges make it a challenging one (Tan, 2016). In Namibia, another country with significant
linguistic diversity, the market for young people’s books is considerably smaller. Lacking a
culture of reading as well as robust funding for libraries, Namibian publishers released only 40
juvenile trade books in any language to the market between 2000 and 2011 (Tötemeyer, 2013).
The Namibian Children’s Book Forum – a non-governmental organization – is working to
change young people’s print culture there, but its impact to date has been modest.

Young People and Print

The successes of children’s print culture – and in particular, children’s literature – belie broad
concerns that young people are not reading for pleasure. Research into children’s pleasure reading
offers no easy response. For instance, Britain’s National Literacy Trust found that girls read for
pleasure more than boys and that the frequency of pleasure reading decreases with age (Clark &
Rumbold, 2006). A survey of 15-year-olds from more than 70 countries suggests that two-thirds
read for pleasure daily and confirms a gender gap (Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, 2011). The same report shows that young people in highly industrialized nations
report lower rates of pleasure reading than their counterparts in countries such as Kazakhstan,
Albania, Tunisia, and Peru. Recent findings from a multi-decade study of adolescent media use in
the U.S. found that the among high school seniors daily pleasure reading fell from 60% in the late-
1970s to 16% in 2016 (Twenge et al., 2019). Data collected by Renaissance Learning, the company
that owns the pervasive school-based reading management system Accelerated Reader, echoes the
low rates of pleasure reading among adolescents. The annual average books read per youth in the
U.S. peaks in around age 7 at 61.1, declining to 5.3 at about age 17 (Renaissance Learning, 2021).
The annual average words read per youth in the U.S. peaks at age 12 at nearly 400,000; although it
declines to about 265,000 at age 17, this figure is three times the average number of words read at
the book-reading peak around age 7. Many studies of pleasure reading investigate other types of
media use, but few scholars consider how reading inherent in using social media and playing video
games might count as pleasure reading.
Finding self-selected books they enjoy is a key barrier to young people reading more (e.g.,
regularly, avidly, additional books). Recent U.S. sales charts indicate the potential role that
comics and graphic novels could play in reducing that barrier. The ninth book in Dav Pilkey’s
Dog Man graphic novel series, for instance, sold more than 1.2 million copies in the U.S. in
2020, outstripping sales of the newest J.K. Rowling book The Ickabog by 400% (Aquino &
Kantor, 2021). Among backlist titles Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novel memoir Guts outsold
the first Harry Potter book. Many of the highest selling books on this list are comics and graphic
novels, hybrid comics chapter books (e.g., Jeff McKinney’s The Diary of a Wimpy Kid), series
books with cross-media adaptations (e.g., Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief), character and
media tie-ins (e.g., 5-Minute Frozen Stories), and enduring favorites (e.g., Dr. Seuss books).

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This scenario is duplicated globally: For instance, series fiction such as Harry Potter and manga
( Japanese comics) propelled 2020 sales in France (SNE, 2021). Few of the highest selling titles
are ones that have been lauded with children’s literary and book awards, pointing to an en-
during disconnect between reading gatekeepers and readers.

Toward a More Inclusive Print Culture for Youth

This section provides brief overviews of three key interrelated developments in publishing and
reception for youth: diversifying texts and tellers, representing lived experiences, and the
continuing dominance of English-language publishers and properties. Together these three
conditions demonstrate the challenges and opportunities for developing a print culture for
young people that reflects the realities of 21st-century life.

Diversifying Texts and Tellers

In the U.S. concerns around who is represented in books for young people and who is telling
the stories have existed since the 1940s. Black librarian Charlemae Hill Rollins’ (1941) bib-
liography We Build Together: A Reader’s Guide to Negro Life and Literature for Elementary and High
School Use was one of the first texts to call attention to representational issues. In 1965 White
reading scholar Nancy Larrick drew broader attention to the lack of diversity in books for
young people in her article “The All-White World of Children’s Books” published in the
Saturday Review of Literature. Despite continued efforts by authors such as Walter Dean Myers
and scholars including Rudine Sims Bishop, youth print culture in the U.S. continues to be
predominantly White. Based on publication data provided by the Cooperative Center for
Children’s Books at the University of Wisconsin and a survey conducted by the publisher Lee
and Low (2020), in 2019, 70% of U.S. youth trade books featured White characters, 76% were
produced by White authors and illustrators, and 76% issued and reviewed by White editorial
staff. This issue is not isolated to the U.S.: in the U.K., only 5% of children’s books published in
2019 featured non-white or ethnic minority main characters (CLPE, 2020). As troubling as
these figures are, they represent improvements. In 2017, 75% of U.S. youth books had White
main characters, while 99% of British books did.
Two social media campaigns have helped shift these percentages and raise awareness of the
need for more inclusive books for young people, We Need Diverse Books (launched in 2014)
and #OwnVoices (begun in 2015). Although centered in the U.S. these campaigns have had
global impact in beginning to dismantle the hegemonic Whiteness of youth print culture.
Germany’s Internationale Jugendbibliothek, for instance, sponsored a multiyear project to bring
more Arabic-language and Arabic-culture books to young readers in the country. The goal to
support literacy development among immigrant youth and to “build bridges into a culture…
frequently perceived through a stereotyped lens” (Mende, 2018, para. 7). Singapore’s 2021
Asian Festival of Children’s Content offered a number of sessions on facets of inclusive lit-
erature such as encouraging the use of local dialects in writing, the value of translated books,
and increasing the stories told by and about minoritized groups. Challenges to increased in-
clusivity vary. In Turkey, for instance, the economics of publishing mean that supporting
Turkish authors is more expensive than importing texts (Alpöge, 2018). Infrastructure issues
along with piracy hinder Nigerian publishers (Nyamogo, 2020). Prejudice and gate-keeping
within the Australian publishing industry discourages minoritized authors (Booth & Narayan,
2021). The Dominican legacy of colonialism and a pervasive anti-Black culture have created
difficulties in nourishing inclusive books for youth (Creech, 2019).

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The Dominance of English-Language Publishers and Properties

The annual Bologna Children’s Book Fair, established in 1963, and a key site for the purchase
and sale of publishing/licensing rights for juvenile books and related media regularly holds
sessions on issues such as translation and reading practices in various countries. Nonetheless,
titles originally published in English – especially ones from the U.S. – dominate the youth
market. For example, Salvi (2019) reported that the 2012 output from Italy’s largest publisher
was overwhelmingly work in translation, nearly all of it from English-speaking countries. J.K.
Rowling’s Harry Potter series is perhaps the preeminent example of this sort of literary im-
perialism. The core titles in this series were published between 1997 and 2007, and continue to
feature prominently on global bestseller lists. By 2018 with translations in more than 60 lan-
guages and significant readership in more than a hundred countries, Harry Potter sales crossed the
half billion copy threshold. Still there are local success stories. For instance, Korean author
Hwang Sun-mi’s children’s book Leafie: A Hen into the Wild (2000) has been published in
translated editions in France, Poland, Thailand, and elsewhere, while in Russia, some publishers
have pivoted from translations to original works by Russian creators (Asonova et al., 2020).
One of the continuing challenges in nourishing local publishing is the consolidation of
publishers and related media distributors. In 2020 the world’s largest trade book publisher
Penguin Random House – itself a result of merger and acquisition by the German-based
Bertelsmann – announced plans to purchase Simon & Schuster. The resulting company will
own the publishing rights to the majority of Newbery and Caldecott Medal-winning books
from the past century including Make Way for Ducklings (McCloskey, 1941), M.C. Higgins, the
Great (Hamilton, 1974), and Joseph Had a Little Overcoat (Taback, 1999). Small and independent
publishers continue to exist – Lee & Low Books in the U.S. and l’école des loisirs in France are
examples – although their ability to compete for visibility alongside larger corporate entities is
challenged. Nonetheless these smaller publishers play important roles in developing a more
inclusive body of literature for youth. Canada’s Groundwood Books, for instance, focuses its
efforts on publishing stories by non-white authors and illustrators and often in translation.
Similarly, Dar al-Hadaeq, an independent publisher of children’s books founded in 1989 in
Lebanon, focuses on nurturing the publication of Arabic-language books that give younger
readers a better sense of shared cultural identity.

Representing Lived Experiences

Some of the pulp stories that young people favored focused on the grit and tragedy of everyday
lives, but it was not until the 1960s that realism became a consistent feature in youth literature.
In the U.S. Maurice Sendak’s picture book Where the Wild Things Are (1963), Louise Fitzhugh’s
middle-grades novel Harriet the Spy (1964), and S.E. Hinton’s young adult novel The Outsiders
(1967) established the trend toward modern realism in books for youth. In the U.K. this trend
occurred later in the 1980s, although some earlier novels such as John Rowe Townsend’s
Gumble’s Yard (1961) signaled the changes to come. Earlier calls for realism by some factions in
the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the 1930s were focused on making settings and action of
these books more recognizable to children. This subsequent movement toward realism,
however, further pushed the boundaries in more varied ways such as by openly acknowledging
differences in social and economic class, incorporating issues related to emotional and physical
violence, and allowing that adults sometimes harm young people.
These changes have not been without controversy. For teachers, librarians, and parents, who
are often the gatekeepers of youth reading, the introduction of subject matter such as portrayals

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of transgender experiences (e.g., Gino, George, 2015) or drug use (Burgess, Junk (U.S., Smack),
1996) sometimes lead to protests and calls for censorship by the broader public. Calls for re-
stricting access to youth materials often reflect local concerns.
In the U.S. books that include explicit acknowledgments of racism such as Ibram X. Kendi’s
and Jason Reynolds’ Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You (2020) have been subjected to
challenges and outcry. In Singapore in 2015, And Tango Makes Three (Richardson et al., 2005)
about homosocial penguins was removed from libraries because of the country’s ban on
homosexual relationships. In Turkey in 2019, under the auspices of its conservative govern-
ment, the sale of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls (Favilli & Cavallo, 2016) – a collection of
vignettes about historical women – has been restricted to adults in an effort to protect younger
readers from purportedly detrimental ideas. In the U.S. the decision in 2021 by the estate of Dr.
Seuss to withdraw a handful of books from print because of racist language and illustrations
provoked concern across the political and social spectrum. This particular incident illuminates
the impediment of nostalgia in promoting inclusivity.

Scholarship on Children’s Print Culture

At least three disciplines have significant investments in the study of children’s print culture:
education, children’s literature, and library and information science (LIS). As detailed in Wolf,
Coats, Enciso, and Jenkins (2011), scholars working in these disciplines necessarily take differing
perspectives, but all are engaged in understanding how young people engage with texts; the familial,
peer, institutional, social, and cultural contexts in which that engagement occurs; and how those
texts are created, produced, and received. Professional societies supporting scholarship in children’s
print culture include the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL), the
International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), the International Reading Association
(IRA), and the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA). Journals with significant content is this
field include Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature, Children’s Literature in Education,
Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, and The Lion and Unicorn. Some scholarly contributions are
aided by various special and significant library collections of children’s books and related materials
such as creator archives. Prominent collections include the Osborne Collection of Early Children’s
Books (Toronto Public Library), the Opie Collection (Oxford University), the Kerlan Collection
(University of Minnesota) – which houses original art and manuscripts for more than 1,700 creators
– and the Internationale Jugendbibliothek (Munich), an independent collection founded in the
aftermath of World War II.
Rich scholarship exists for understanding the material forms and intellectual substance of
children’s print culture, especially as it has developed in North America and Western Europe.
Increasingly this scholarship is more inclusive (e.g., Jules Gill-Peterson, Histories of the Transgender
Child ) and goes deeper into particular formats and genres (e.g., Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer
(Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks). Important questions remain, especially sur-
rounding young people’s everyday activities and experiences with print. As the field moves
forward, it is imperative that scholars find ways to conduct research that reflect children’s agency
and understanding. The growth and influence of cognate fields such as childhood studies and the
history of children and youth, which are more solidly centered on understanding young people’s
experiences, may serve to balance scholarship. Similarly the more ethnographic aims of youth
media practices-focused research (e.g., Willett, et al., 2013) offer possible pathways for enhancing
scholarship on children’s print culture as they can capture reading-as-play as well as the ways in
which children’s print media are transformed through play (e.g., pretend games involving
characters from the Harry Potter universe).

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 10
CHILDREN’S FILM CULTURE
Stephanie Hemelryk Donald and Noel Brown

The Importance of Familiarity

Deborah Cartmell (2007) suggests that a defining characteristic of children’s books is that they
are “more loved” than adult fiction. Multiple readings, and the associated mimetic practices of
identification and playing out of stories and character, contribute to this definition of “loved.”
Similarly, since the innovations of home video and video-on-demand (VOD), favourite films
can be watched more than once. The long-held practice of Disney re-releasing (and, in recent
years, remaking) its “classic” films supports this “to-be-loved-ness” – to rephrase Laura
Mulvey’s (1975) famous dictum. The connoisseurship of recognition and familiarity with the
plot and the characters adds pleasure and even a sense of internalized ownership to the original
excitement of the first viewing. We can contrast this aspect of contemporary children’s film
culture with the much stronger sense of the cinematic event, which dominated previous
generations. Thus, a Dutch woman (Interview, Melbourne, 2011) in her early seventies recalls
that her favourite film as a child was the social drama Ciske de Rat (Staudte, 1955). She re-
members the viewing as a major treat, and recalls only the bare bones of the plot, and indeed as
discussion ensues it emerges that she has conflated that title with another earlier film about a
street child, Boefje (Sirk, 1939). What she also recalled, we would surmise, was the pleasure of
identification with the child’s persona and the attention paid to him in the formal aesthetic
structure of the film. In another interview, an elderly Chinese man recalls:

Compared with my contemporaries, I saw films earlier. I saw a movie for the first time
before 1949 when I was a kid. Our nursery school principal took me to a movie
theater in the 1940s. … I remember vividly that the movie I saw was produced by
China and called Snow White. The movie had no sounds, just pictures. There was a
Russian movie named 700 Years Ago. The film told of Russians resisting the Mongol
invasion. I did not entirely understand the movie at that time. I just remember that
our principal held me in her arms.
(Interview, Shanghai, 2011)

For many older people in Britain and the U.S., the first animated children’s film they recall
seeing was Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Hand et al., 1937). The film set the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-13 93
 Stephanie Hemelryk Donald and Noel Brown

pace for merchandising as well as for an ideological undercurrent of automated domesticity

(Kuhn, 2010). Henry Giroux (1999, pp. 4–5) writes that the “recognition of the pleasure that
Disney provides should not blind us to the realization that Disney is about more than en-
tertainment,” while Jack Zipes cautions against Disney’s focus on narratives that resolve,
“according to rigid sexist and racist notions that emanate from the nineteenth century and are
recalled in the film with nostalgia” (1995, p. 112), and Ian Wojcik-Andrews laments the
“infantile, narcissistic and violent underside of Disney culture” (2000, p. 81). Giroux, Zipes,
and Wojcik-Andrews remind us that Disney films enunciate and reiterate a conservative version
of power relations that reference a limited view of society, while maintaining firm control of a
young consumer base. Thus, The Lion King (Allers & Minkoff, 1994) deploys bizarrely jumbled
symbolic imagery and tropes – goose-stepping hyenas, a fluttering mane/flag under a rising
crescent moon, a plummy English accent – in a single sequence chronicling the rise to power of
the usurper, Scar. Presumably derived from post-Gulf War U.S. Islamophobia, and a gen-
eralized positioning of the English as prone to evil, and the Nuremberg rallies, the confused
and angry ideological assault on the audience is benignly forgiven and forgotten in a chorus of
“Hakuna Matata.”
Laying aside Disney’s hold over mid-twentieth-century American dreaming, it appears
curious that the many children’s films predicated upon a nostalgic remembrance or depiction of
the world order, and of childhood itself, are supposedly directed at an audience for whom
nostalgia is presumably irrelevant. Yet the success of long-running franchises such as Star Wars
and Harry Potter suggests a type of what we might call “flattened” or “immediate nostalgia,”
where children, as they grow up with new iterations on new media platforms, refer back to
earlier films and texts, as proof of “their childhood.” Children’s film culture surely belongs to
children, but it is also a space of intense nostalgia and delight for many adults. One of the
surprising joys of parenthood in the age of digital reproduction is the sharing of screen
memories – and thereby one’s own childhood memories – with younger family members.
Indeed, as the family film becomes an increasingly important part of the global film market,
generations are strongly encouraged to encounter films for the first time together.

The (Im)possibility of Children’s Film?

However, as we observe below, there is conceptual difficulty, or even impossibility, in de-
termining what meaning is created for which audience segment and with what intention and
nuance. When a children’s film is made and marketed as a family film, is it still a children’s film
at all? Or, does it necessarily compromise its efforts to aestheticize, narrativize, and identify with
children’s experience? And, if all these aspects of filmmaking are carefully addressed to child
spectators, or even entrusted to children (which is enabled by the epistemic shift to ubiquitous
and accessible digital visual technologies), surely one must always acknowledge the powerful
structural conditions underlining young people’s access to any screen material, given the ex-
tremely unequal relations of production and consumption for this particular demographic.
Furthermore, just as films ostensibly for children often address (and are consumed by) a
much wider audience, it is clear that children’s film culture extends well beyond the parameters
of what most people consider as children’s film, with young people having been shown to
enjoy more adult-oriented forms such as horror films (Smith, 2005) and fantasy-action films
(Barker, 2022). Despite these caveats, it is clear that films for children remain a vitally important
aspect of the media sphere for the young. In the following discussion of what we call
the possibility of children’s film, we first reference global phenomena, such as Harry Potter and the
Disney stable. In so doing we recognize that the tyranny of distribution, language, and narrative

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norms creates further inequalities of attention from producers, critics, and audiences. We also
mention films that are not in the global market, to remind ourselves that children are occasionally
offered alternatives to the international mainstream. Whether or not these opportunities for a
different notion of cinematic pleasure change the structural relationship between adult nostalgia
and children’s film culture remains open to question.
Simply put, a children’s film is a film produced for a primary audience of children and
received as such. In thinking about children’s films, we consider films intended primarily for
children up to the age of 12. In so doing, we follow Bazalgette and Staples (1995), Krämer
(2002), Brown and Babington (2015), and Brown (2017), who argue that films for teenagers are
often very different in style, tone, and content to films for pre-teen children. As Krämer points
out, young people aged 13–19 are usually targeted with “teen films,” a genre that film studies
has tended to regard as distinct from the children’s film because of its emphasis on taboo themes
and representations of sex, violence, and other issues considered off-limits in the more pro-
tected realm of children’s film. Nonetheless, phenomena like the Harry Potter series and the
popular McDull films (Yuen, 2001, 2004) complicate a binary distinction between child and
adult audiences, as children are exposed to the books and films (in the case of Harry Potter), and
animation in television shows (in the case of McDull) at a young age, and then approach
adolescence with the characters and narratives as they are re-mediated through additional ci-
nematic adaptations and cross-media platforms. Indeed, many children’s films aim to mobilize a
pluralistic, cross-demographic audience of younger and older children, teenagers, and more
mature adults (Brown, 2012; Schober, 2015).
Ian Wojcik-Andrews (2000), who has contributed a history of children’s film to the field,
outlines six perspectives from which to analyse the children’s film: personal, pedagogical, cri-
tical, textual, institutional, and cultural. To this we would add political, aesthetic, and historical,
while also noting that the cultures of children’s film spectatorship and pleasure range widely
between local and global experience, and across class groups, in developing and developed
media ecologies. With those categories of attention in mind, we attempt to provide a platform
from which to delineate the actuality of children’s film in world cinema.
Jacqueline Rose (1998) has posited the impossibility of children’s fiction through a devas-
tating analysis of classic English-language texts. In doing so, she has laid the ground for the
argument that the impossibly ruptured relationship between adults and children perseveres in
cultural production created by adults for children. She sees this as an ontological betrayal,
“Children’s fiction sets up the child as an outsider to its own process, and then aims, un-
ashamedly to take the child in” (pp. 58–59), and as an act of appropriation,

… the idea […] of a primitive or lost state to which the child has special access. The
child is, if you like, something of a pioneer who restores these worlds to us, and gives
them back to us with a facility or directness which ensures that our own relationship
to them is, finally, safe.
(p. 64)

Rose’s scepticism prepares us for A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book (2009), which fictionalizes
the neuroses of the children’s author in a saga of twentieth-century bohemian disorder, but
notably without acceding to the view that the process of writing for children is necessarily
infantile or perverse, nor that the love that children bestow on their favourite texts, literary or
filmic, is misdirected.
The indeterminacy of childhood and children’s texts seems affirmed by the lack of explicit
acknowledgement of the child audience by the entertainment industry, despite the importance of

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the youth market to box office receipts. This is reflected in the tendency to subsume children and
children’s films within the larger categories of “family audiences” and “family films,” and by
national ratings approaches that emphasize censorship over a proactive address to the pleasures and
fascinations of the child spectator. The (im)possibility of the children’s film/text is challenged by
the “blockbuster” status of many animated films such as the Toy Story series (Lasseter, 1995, 1999;
Unkrich, 2010; Cooley, 2019), and the international and critical success of the delicate char-
acterizations and robust adventures of Studio Ghibli’s animated features, such as Spirited Away
(Miyazaki, 2001) and Howl’s Moving Castle (Miyazaki, 2004). Firmly centred on child protagonists
and animal spirits, Miyazaki’s narratives essay Shinto animism, temporal disjuncture, familial
discord, and social decay. Yet only in recent years have critics begun to pay close attention to films
for children, or for families with children (Brown, 2017; Hermansson and Zepernick, 2019).
Bazalgette and Buckingham (1995) have noted this conundrum, pointing out that “Amid the
extensive public debates about the effects of the media on children, very little attention is paid to
the material that is produced explicitly for them” (p. 5). Media panics routinely bewail the
availability of X or R rated violent or pornographic material to children. Yet, the insinuations of
“General Audience” films, which entertain but also proselytize the worldviews of anxious adults,
are not widely understood to be dangerous to young minds (Giroux, 1999).

Socialization and the “Seeing Child”

To extrapolate from Rose without losing sight of her original insights, we could say that
children’s films are never for children alone. There are other prerequisites. They are conceived
and constructed by adults with the intention to socialize, instruct, educate, and inform children
on, for example, their position in the social and political order, how to be consumers, how to
negotiate interpersonal relationships, how to play within the culture in which they are located,
and how to “show” difference. In choosing the word “show,” we echo Karen Lury’s (2005)
insights on the adult capacity to show what is constructed as true or acceptable within certain
social contexts, against a child’s capacity to “see” the constituent elements of the world on
view. As Lury understands it, the interaction between showing and seeing is a core aspect of
learning and growing across generations, an interaction which is not a one-way street. The little
boy who recognizes the king’s nudity in Hans Christian Andersen’s cautionary tale of the
Emperor’s New Clothes epitomizes the social value of the seeing child.
The predominant practice of annexing and adapting fairy tales for children’s film is an
outstanding example of the socialization of the child’s eye view. Rose’s stance is substantiated
by Zipes’ extensive work in this area where he argues that the “domestication” of fairy tales for
an audience of children starts with the material itself – “The fairy tale was never a genre
intended for children” (2011, p. 17) – and is subordinate to a number of other concerns.
According to Zipes, fairy tales lend themselves to children’s film because they contain narratives
on social hierarchies and the proper conduct within those structures. They present encounters
between narrative, symbolism, and the dark side of human failure, trouble, and desire, yet the
resolutions veer towards retribution or social stability at all costs. That such stories should be the
staple for children is both appropriate (this is the world they live in after all) and strangely
counter-intuitive. In film for children, fairy stories and archetypes are revisited, partly with new
social prerogatives, but also to reproduce the sense of belonging to a wider, older adult world.
The Chinese epic Journey to the West (Xi You Ji) has been filmed more than 20 times to date. It
tells the story of a magic Monkey, born from a stone egg, who travels westwards across the
world in search of Buddhist scriptures, with the monk Tripitaka, Horse, and two companions,
Sandy and Piggy. The story concerns the expansion of Buddhism from India and the west of

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China into the Han heartlands, but it is framed as an adventure-fairy-fantasy-epic. The char-
acters are an imperfect and troublesome group. Monkey himself is violent, disobedient, and
untrustworthy, but nonetheless ends up as the popular hero of the story. Piggy is a sexual
predator, Horse is a dragon in disguise, and Sandy is a rough but well-meaning warrior. The
constant re-enactment and re-embodiment of these types for generation after generation of
young Chinese (and indeed international audiences) demonstrates that, even as the adult world
seeks to manage children’s investment in culture and sociability, it indulges in a carnivalesque
celebration of misbehaviour and improper conduct.
The film Where the Wild Things Are ( Jonze, 2009) is another study of the carnivalesque. Based
on Maurice Sendak’s much-loved 1968 picture book of the same name, it, too, has inter-
generational resonance. The boy and the monsters dance all night, the world turns upside down.
Childhood fantasies of escape, rebellion, and return are imagined through a boy’s night-time
adventure. His frenzied dance enunciates the fraught tension between adult desires for a perfect,
and so impossible childhood, and children’s imaginative and actual journeys within childhood –
both wonderful and catastrophic. The film adaptation concentrated on the moral lessons for the
protagonist Max – no - one can be king without first dealing with his own bad temper, and that
goes for children and monsters both – but perhaps its major contribution is to reiterate to a child
audience the subjective despair of the adult world, which is where the wild things really are.
Special insights of protagonists notwithstanding, national bombast, hubris, and bias, as well as
some gentler characteristics or nobler aims, are frequently coded into films for child spectators.
Early children’s film in the UK supported First World War propaganda, the renowned Soviet
studios, Soiuzmul’tfilm and Soiuzdetfilm, produced live-action and animated films that advanced
Soviet ideology, the Beijing-based China Children’s Film Studio (CCFS, founded 1981) made
films specifically to re-articulate patriotism and social stability for the post-Cultural Revolution
child in Reform China, and the aforementioned Ciske de Rat was very much concerned with
enunciating social progress in the post-war state in the Netherlands. Shortly before the for-
mation of the state-funded Children’s Film Society in India (CFSI) in 1955, President Nehru
spoke publicly of his belief that “Good children’s films can be a very powerful instrument
in developing the child” (Agrawal & Aggarwal, 1989, p. 188). In Australia, the Children’s
Television Foundation (ACTF) is a publicly funded organization that was founded to lobby for,
and ultimately create, high-quality programming for local children. The foundation branched
into cinema with Yolngu Boy (Johnson, 2001), a feature film motivated by the desperate need to
increase screen representation of minorities, indigenous children, and stories of indigenous lives
that exceed the Pocahontas (Gabriel & Goldberg, 1995) moment in Disney. Found actors, local
slang, and rap music are used to build a bridge between the Indigenous Australian subjects of
the film, and the wider population of teenage viewers. The film’s “after life” is supported by its
web presence, and its continuing impact in pedagogical regimes of cross-cultural understanding.
The ACTF’s rationale is that the local, circumscribed by national boundaries and points of
view, renders the child’s world legible and legitimate:

The Australian Children’s Television Foundation believes that children should have
access to their own culture and their own stories through film and television. […]
They should encourage an understanding of the child’s world interpreting the joys and
the hardships and the range of human emotion and experience. Quality programs can
contribute positively to a child’s development and creativity and to a child’s sense of
personal and national identity by presenting a diversity of places, ideas and values
reflecting the rich multicultural heritage of Australia.
(Australian Children’s Television Foundation, 2000)

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Such claims reflect a paternalistic conviction, common in state interventions in children’s film
production, that the form is a social good. While the dominant international tradition of
children’s film (represented, quintessentially, by Disney) is commercial and supposedly non-
political in nature, these state-supported undertakings are often explicitly ideological. The
intention is twofold: to inculcate desirable norms and behaviours in young people and, si-
multaneously, to promote aspects of national culture and identity.

Hierarchies of Development
The rub here is that institutions such as the ACTF, the CCFS, and the CFSI, as well as the
similarly state-funded British Children’s Film Society (CFF), regardless of their politics of in-
clusion and representation, are nevertheless predicated on a hierarchy of development that
places childhood in a conceptual prison of perpetual incompleteness, which may only be es-
caped through the doors of adult perception and guidance. In order to entertain the idea of a
children’s cultural field – indeed of many such fields of socialization, judgement, and affect –
one must first remove the temporal and teleological bias of the adult as a destination point.
Taken logically, if we retain this bias, we cannot truly discuss any cultural field without de-
ferring to the oldest segment of any population (unless also deferring to the seven ages of man
and the presumption of a second childhood).
The seven ages of man, values placed on different age groups, and the notion of ideal co-
chronicity, are explored cinematically in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Fincher, 2008), a
free adaptation of a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1922). The narrative draws on certain
preoccupations of children’s literature and film to explore its central premise: that time might
travel backwards. A boy is born an old man and grows younger. In the film, his wife loves him
when he seems “older” than her, but they have to part as she grows too old and he too young.
The film’s premise is fantastic – that a clockmaker can make clocks run anticlockwise and so
force time backwards, the material object dictating the processes of nature. The original short
story is, however, closer to the theme of impossibility. It interrogates the determinism of the
body and the fixedness of generational relationships. In Fitzgerald’s telling, there is no magical
reason for the boy’s fate, and people’s love (a father, a wife, a son) is circumscribed by the
boundaries of what seems reasonable to them and their age-group.
Fitzgerald’s story reveals the shift between seeing and showing. In children’s literary culture we
might talk about the stages of being read to, reading aloud, and reading to oneself; of the
different types of address, privacy, intimacy, and knowingness that each allows (Donald, 2001).
In a segue from Rose’s determination of impossibility, children’s film and literary scholars have
advanced the notion of “double address.” While allowing for demarcations between adult and
child, Linda Hutcheon admits a much more fluid negotiation between adult, text, and child
than Rose. She detects

a double audience of both child and adult, the adult experiencing with the child or the
adult the child becomes. […] And then there is the child in the process becoming the
adult, whose expanding consciousness is being shaped by his or her experience.
(2008, pp. 174–175)

Hutcheon’s observations are most obviously pertinent to family films, where the filmmaker is
deliberately placing attractions for the adult viewer within the scope of a film addressed to
children. To that extent, she does not countermand Rose’s remarks on the subordination of a
child’s taste to an adult’s preconception and internal longings. However, Hutcheon does clear

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conceptual space in which to challenge the overdetermined break between adult and child
status. In children’s film culture there is a less familiar articulation between seeing, watching for
oneself, watching in the company of children, and watching in the presence of adults – who
may be seeing a “different” film. In the words of one online commentator on Stuart Little
(Minkoff, 1999), a film about an anthropomorphized mouse:

Not one of my favourites, but the kids seem to like watching it over and over.

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 11
CHILDREN’S TELEVISION
CULTURE
Jeanette Steemers

Children’s television culture is quite different from the shared values of adult television culture. As
Buckingham points out, children’s television is “not produced by children, but for them” and as
such children’s television is often more a “reflection” of adult “interests or fantasies or desires”
(1995, p. 47) and their view of childhood, rather than what children would choose themselves.
This is a television culture where one group (adults) have created content for another group
(children), who have had little or no say about what is produced for their benefit. Indeed chil-
dren’s television, broadcast on TV around the world, invariably came to mirror commercial
motivations and beliefs held by adults, and the key players in defining this culture were those
adults who worked in the children’s television industry as commissioners and producers. In the
early days of television, children were seen as key to families adopting new technology from TV
sets in the 1950s to DVDs in the 1990s (Melody, 1973; Mitroff & Herr Stephenson, 2007). Family
and children’s content has also become a key driver of subscription video-on-demand (SVOD)
services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video (Bisson & Deane, 2018).
In the twenty-first century, as children’s viewing shifts from scheduled linear television to
internet-distributed video-on-demand services, adults still play a large role in determining what
gets commissioned, funded, and distributed; but some young people are now not only
choosing, but also producing as vloggers and influencers, reaching out to their peers in new
ways across platforms and social media (Craig & Cunningham, 2017; Lobato, 2019, pp. 30–34)
enabling them to exert forms of agency and interaction, that were not possible within the older
television paradigm. These developments are changing what is understood by television culture
as children’s attention to screen content is fragmented alongside social media and games (e.g.,
Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox) on multiple platforms and devices.
A second important observation is that the children’s television culture that developed in the
twentieth century became one of the most globalized forms of television, seemingly dominated
by U.S.-based transnational corporations and dubbed animation, conceived for North
American audiences, and infinitely repeatable to successive generations of children worldwide.
Digital developments this century show that North American players are still powerful as
platforms and providers, including global streaming services like Netflix and Disney+. What has
changed is the emergence of other powerful players online, particularly at regional level (for
example Tencent, IQiyi, YouKu, and Mango TV in China) and through video-sharing sites
such as Google’s YouTube and TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-14 101

 Jeanette Steemers

For reasons of space this chapter concentrates on developments in children’s television

culture in the U.S. and Western Europe, because the U.S. is still a key source of children’s
screen content globally, and because Europe has been a key recipient of this content. Television
content dedicated to children as a “special” audience, “with distinctive characteristics and
needs” (Buckingham, 2005, p. 468) did not emerge in these countries until after 1945. Initially
provision was patchy and limited to short blocks on generalist television channels at times when
more valuable adult audiences were not available. Yet the advent of multichannel, multiplat-
form services from the 1980s onwards contributed to a contemporary children’s television
culture, based around dedicated children’s channels, that was at once transnational and local
across content, industry structures, and in its appeal to child audiences. In this chapter I will
explore the connections between industry, content, and audiences that define children’s tele-
vision culture, and look to the future as we seek to define what exactly we mean by children’s
“television” determined by transforming distribution, funding, and regulatory models.

Defining Children’s Television Culture from an Industry Perspective

What do we mean by children’s television culture? Buckingham (2005) writes about three related
aspects of that culture. First, there is the institutional and industry context of production. Second,
there is content, based on an “age and stage-related organization of television” (Messenger Davies,
2001, p. 79) rather than classification by genre such as drama and entertainment. Third, there is
the audience, which has been subject to evolving definitions and constructions in much the same
way as childhood itself over the years. This outline of three different yet connected levels provides
a useful starting point for exploring a children’s television culture shaped by policy, regulation,
production practices, technology, funding, changing content and consumption practices.
Children’s television culture involves industry, content and audiences. The production ecology of
children’s television refers to different industry players who shape children’s television.
From an industry or institutional perspective we can identify a children’s television culture
shaped by a complex ecology or ecosystem (Cottle, 2003; Steemers, 2010), comprising a
“community” of industry, regulatory, and civil society players (Bryant, 2007), who “coexist,
cooperate and compete” within an increasingly disintegrated and globalized production
environment (Steemers, 2010, p. 16). These relationships have moulded the organization,
production practices, and content of children’s television. Yet this is also an ecology, which is
constantly evolving, reflecting changing industry relationships, distribution paths, new players,
and the search for new funding sources in the wake of a market fragmented across many digital
platforms.
Who then are the main players in this ecology which functions across distribution, content
creation, ancillary rights exploitation (merchandise licensing), regulation, and lobbying for
children’s media (see Table 11.1)?
Since the last edition of this volume, this ecology has changed. As shown in Table 11.1 large
U.S. transnationals like Disney, Nickelodeon (now part of ViacomCBS), and Cartoon Network
(owned since June 2021 by Warner Bros Discovery) have undergone mergers and consolidations.
Their previous transnational supremacy across production and distribution in the children’s sector
is challenged by video-sharing platform YouTube (established 2005) and internet-distributed
SVODs such as Netflix (established 2007), for whom children represent a valuable audience,
prompting responses from the likes of Disney, which launched its own global streaming service
Disney+ in 2019. As transnational operators, Netflix and Disney+ prioritize internationally
appealing content – animation, family films, “the broadest content” at the expense of more
culturally specific drama, news, and factual programming (Kaminska, 2020).

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Table 11.1 Industry Players in Children’s Television Culture

Distribution platforms for • Global children’s channel operators e.g., ViacomCBS

children’s screen content (Nickelodeon, Nick Junior), Warner Bros Discovery
(Cartoon Network, Boomerang), and Disney.
• Online video sharing platforms e.g., Google’s YouTube and
ByteDance’s TikTok.
• Internet-distributed subscription-video-on-demand services
(SVoDs) e.g., Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and
Warner Bros’ HBO Max (launched in the U.S. in 2020).
• National public service broadcasters (PSBs) e.g., BBC,
ARD/ZDF, PBS).
Content creation • U.S. transnationals e.g., Disney, ViacomCBS, Warner Bros
Discovery.
• National public service and commercial broadcasters.
• Independent producers.
• YouTube children’s animation channels e.g., ChuChuTV
(India); Masha and the Bear (Russia); Little Baby Bum and
Cocomelon (both owned by U.K.-based Moonbug
Entertainment); Baby Shark (Pinkfong, South Korea); Sunny
Bunnies (Belarus).
• User generated content on platforms such as YouTube and
TikTok.
Licensees • E.g., Toy companies, Publishers, Games industry.
Regulators • E.g., the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC),
and U.K. Office of Communications (Ofcom).
Lobbyists • E.g., Children Now; Fairplay, children beyond brands (U.S.);
Children’s Media Foundation (U.K.); Youth Media Alliance
(Canada).

SVODs and video-sharing platforms like YouTube inevitably alter children’s television
culture, previously curated by broadcasters. YouTube as Johnson (2019, p. 39) points out, is not
curated, because anyone can upload content, which children can access on its general service or
its children’s app launched in 2015. But it is YouTube which controls the algorithms which
determine what children get to see. By contrast SVODs like Netflix and Disney+ are closed
platforms showcasing acquired and commissioned content, which is closely curated by industry
professionals as part of a safe digital space for children in much the same way as broadcast
content.
In Europe, the emergence of streaming services and YouTube constitute a challenge for
public service broadcasters (PSBs), who have been key commissioners of local content and
whose services are premised on assumptions of universal and free digital access (Potter &
Steemers, 2017). SVODs like Netflix and Disney+ pose a particular challenge, because in some
instances they deliver distinctive “quality” content that might be defined as public service
(House of Lords, 2019, p. 24).
In the 1990s many European PSBs moved from children’s slots on mainstream channels to
dedicated channels to keep up with commercial rivals. Now many are moving towards online
distribution, including shorter “snackable” formats that fit social media (Sakr & Steemers, 2019,
p. 113) (see Table 11.1). Dedicated children’s channels are still run by the BBC (CBeebies for
the under 6s, CBBC for those aged 7 to 12); ARD/ZDF in Germany (KiKa); France TV

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(Gulli); RAI in Italy (RAI Yoyo for under 8s, and Rai Gulp for older children); Ketnet in
Belgium; NRK Super in Norway, and the NPO Zapp and Zappelin blocks in the Netherlands,
and others.
However, growing numbers of European PSBs (e.g., Denmark, Finland, Switzerland) are
moving to online only provision because children’s habits are changing. The closure of France 4
for children was only halted in 2021 by the government because of its contribution during the
Covid-19 pandemic. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, several European com-
mercial broadcasters (e.g., ITV in the U.K.) had already largely retreated from broadcasting and
producing children’s television because of competition from PSB, U.S. players, and YouTube
as well as bans or restrictions on advertising around children’s content, which made it an
unprofitable enterprise.
The community outlined in Table 11.1 also includes a wide range of producers, ranging
from large production companies involved in international co-production, distribution, and
merchandise licensing to many smaller production entities, producing for a variety of platforms
including YouTube (Dredge, 2015). In this ecology small producers still depend on broad-
casters, larger producer-distributors, and increasingly online platforms like Netflix to fund their
projects through outright purchase, presales, and commissions. In turn larger entertainment
companies are investing in online content that can be repurposed for other platforms. For
example Moonbug Entertainment purchased successful YouTube channels, Little Baby Bum
and Cocomelon in 2018 and 2020 respectively to leverage business with SvoDs like Netflix
(Franks, 2021a) and across licensed merchandise.
Beyond distribution and production there are other players who impact children’s content.
Licensees such as toy and games companies create consumer products including video games
based on children’s content/IP for distribution online or in stores. Licensing, particularly of
toys, became an important funding stream for globally marketed preschool shows in the 1990s
and 2000s (Westcott, 2002), with some producers earning up to 90 percent of their turnover
from consumer products and home entertainment (Steemers, 2010, p. 79). However, frag-
menting audiences across different platforms have made licensing harder without promotion
from linear TV as “barker channels,” forcing producers to think about streaming and YouTube
strategies for consumer product licensing (Franks, 2021b; Pope, 2020). Advertisers have been an
important player in the U.S., but in Europe restrictions or bans on TV advertising around
children’s TV content have limited their influence. However, opportunities for generating
advertising revenues from children’s content on YouTube suffered a setback in 2019 when
YouTube prohibited personalized advertising, data collection, and comments around content
targeting children (Wojcicki, 2019) following a U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fine for
contravening the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
National legislative and regulatory bodies, such as the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) in the U.S. and Ofcom in the U.K. are part of this ecosystem, shaping the nature of
children’s television culture through policy and law-making. Yet, policymakers are challenged
by the shift of content online and transnational operations, which are minimally regulated
compared to broadcasting. National policy interventions in Europe that seek to protect children
from harm and/or promote home-grown content that is deemed culturally valuable through
quotas and subsidies have little bearing on global platforms (Potter & Steemers, 2022). In this
respect lobby groups play a key role in keeping debates about children’s screen content in the
public domain. Examples include campaigns for educational content in the U.S., and campaigns
against fast-food advertising and in support of home-grown content in the U.K.
Yet this ecosystem is changing and so are the relationships within it as the children’s market
rapidly transforms. Even Disney made the decision in 2021 to switch off 100 international

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channels as it invests in a direct-to-consumer model underpinned by its new streaming service

Disney+, a vehicle for marketing its Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar franchises. However, these
developments also come at a time of declining financial contributions from traditional
broadcasting commissions, dwindling advertising revenues, and a downturn in shop-based retail
in North America and Europe, which affects the consumer products market. With many
YouTube channels from a variety of countries (see Table 11.1) producing volume animation at
low cost, content creators seeking financial support for drama, and high-end animation con-
tinue to use multiple funding sources including international co-production, presales, country-
based tax incentives, and alternative funding sources such as the U.K.’s Young Audience
Content Fund (YACF), launched in 2019 as a publicly funded pilot initiative for alternative
public service imbued content, which the market cannot support (Steemers, 2017).
What remains key from all of this is that the way that children’s television culture is un-
derstood and evaluated cannot really be understood without some sense of what constitutes the
broader industry ecology of children’s media, the changing array of forces/actors that operate
within it, the assumptions about what children’s television should deliver as a business, and how
these factors are negotiated by different players.

Key Stages in the Development of Children’s Television Content –

Perspectives from the U.S. and Western Europe
The previous breakdown of the industry ecosystem that shapes children’s television culture is
useful when looking at the U.S. and Western Europe because it raises questions about the
degree of difference and similarity between these two systems. These differences are apparent in
the different developmental trajectories of children’s television. Initially the focus in both was
driven by domestic considerations, which shaped children’s television in distinctive ways,
because the institutional basis of television was different – grounded on the supremacy of U.S.
commercial broadcasting, and the initial dominance of publicly funded public service mono-
polies in Western Europe. In Western Europe children’s television was viewed as one small
component of a public service remit, which was not meant to be driven by commercial im-
peratives. U.S. children’s television culture by contrast, was embedded in a commercial
broadcasting history with different traditions – not least the lack of a strong public service ethos
in children’s television.
In the U.K. for example, the BBC was focused from the start on providing a public service
linear schedule for children on its main channel that included diverse content such as news,
information, drama, and entertainment, and some animation. This was based on children’s per-
ceived needs, with a varied diet designed to protect them from commercial exploitation and
“from the consequences of their own vulnerability and ignorance” (Davies et al., 2004, p. 479).
However, with the arrival of commercial advertising-funded rival, ITV, in 1955, the BBC be-
came more responsive to its audience. The commitment to a diverse schedule continued, but
there was also investment in more child-centred programmes such as preschool magazine, Play
School in the 1960s, and Saturday morning entertainment shows in the 1970s that reflected
children’s love of popular music and culture. In the rest of Western Europe PSBs retained
monopolies until the 1980s (Germany, France, Benelux) and 1990s (Scandinavia, Spain), so there
was arguably less incentive to radically alter the type of service provided for children. This changed
once commercial competition was unleashed, and PSBs took a keen interest in dedicated chil-
dren’s channels, starting in the 1990s, once U.S. transnational players moved into their markets.
In the U.S. advertising-funded commercial television reigned supreme. As the 1950s pro-
gressed, children’s television was marginalized to Saturday morning slots comprising mainly

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animation, because children were not sufficiently attractive to advertisers. Broadcasters and
producers were not expected to fulfil public service or educational goals, as this was a business
that satisfied the commercial goals of advertisers and the networks rather than the needs of child
audiences. By 1961 Newton Minow, Chair of the FCC was describing children’s TV as a “vast
wasteland,” which served children poorly with “massive doses of cartoons, violence, and more
violence” (Minow, 1961). The wasteland was enriched in 1969 with the launch of educational
preschool format Sesame Street on newly established non-profit network, PBS (Public
Broadcasting Service). PBS and the producers it commissioned, embraced an educational remit
for children’s programming and consulted educational and child development experts.
However, mainstream children’s television on the U.S. networks became more commercialized
in the 1980s with animation series that were produced in collaboration with toy companies
(e.g., Transformers, Care Bears, He-Man).
Yet in both the U.S. and later in Western Europe the introduction of multichannel,
commercially led television heralded a shift from scarcity to digital abundance. A combination
of commerce, technology, deregulation, and globalizing markets brought new players into the
children’s television market in the late 1980s and early 1990s including Nickelodeon, Cartoon
Network, and Disney in the U.S. and later worldwide. Over time there was a shift away from
children’s slots on generalist channels to dedicated children’s channels, which became in-
creasingly targeted at different age groups – infants (under 2s), preschoolers (3 to 6), tweens, and
teens. Dedicated channels increased supply, but fragmented the children’s market, forcing
content producers to target international sales and consumer products much more intensively to
raise finance and sustain economic viability. U.S. transnationals Disney, Nickelodeon, and
Cartoon Network were the most successful at internationalizing their operations and leveraging
their television franchises worldwide during this period. However, domestic commercial
broadcasters in both U.S. and Europe either reduced or withdrew their commitment to
children’s television because of declining advertising revenues.
A fundamental change in Western Europe has been the shift of emphasis from content aimed
at the domestic market and produced from within a public service television culture to a market
which has become more commercially oriented and aligned to international audiences and
multiple platforms.
This clear distinction between “public service” and “commercial” has become less clear.
PSBs in Europe now compete with commercial entities across multiple platforms, and regard
YouTube as a serious competitor. In 2020 a report by U.K. regulator Ofcom, suggested that
45 percent of British children aged 5–15 would choose YouTube over SVODs (32 percent) and
regular TV channels, which were a first-choice preference for only 17 percent (Ofcom, 2020,
p. 10). PSBs work closely with independent producers because they are required by EU and
national legislation to commission certain levels of programming from independent producers,
but these are the same producers who are also trying to sell to companies such as Netflix.
Restricted funding is also compelling PSBs in Europe to seek more co-production funding. So
public service investments in originations are often shaped by the commercial considerations of
others, including international sales and consumer products, which raises questions about
whether the guardians of public service always have to be public service institutions (Children’s
Media Foundation, 2021).
These developments are relevant in as far as they impact the nature of children’s content.
Children’s television culture does not exist in a vacuum. It is promoted or constrained by
policy, regulation, and economics with far-reaching effect. This is evident in the different
historical development of children’s television in the U.S. and Europe where, as we have seen
commercial and public service priorities respectively have defined the different nature and

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scope of children’s output. But over the years this distinction has blurred as European television
has become more commercially oriented. What we have seen are two different historical and
institutional cultures of children’s programming converging as funding pressures reinforce a
more globalized production environment, transforming children’s content production in
Europe, in particular, from an essentially non-commercial domestic activity into a more in-
ternational enterprise, focused much more on funding issues, brand management, and IP
ownership. In both the U.S. and Europe this has laid bare tensions between the desire to make
quality programming that satisfies the educational, informational, and socio-emotional needs of
children and young people, and children’s screen content as a business. In Europe concerns are
focused on domestic originations for children, particularly drama and factual programming,
whose future looks uncertain other than from public service broadcasters.

Where is Children’s Television Culture Going Now?

However, the great unknown in all of this is where children’s television culture is going next as
the industry fights over fragmenting audiences and funding. One key challenge is represented
by assumptions about who has access to digital media on an equitable basis, even in wealthy
countries like the U.S. and Europe (Steemers, 2019). Such inequalities were laid bare during
the Covid-19 pandemic. For example in the U.K. 12 percent of children do not have access to
the internet and about a third do not have access to an electronic device (Cullinane, 2020).
Funding remains a major issue. Properties that are successful in licensing, particularly
globally, are few in number. The children’s television industry has moved away from the
traditional broadcaster-producer model, but a business model for sustainable content on the
web and mobile platforms remains elusive. Acquisitions by SVODs like Netflix often involve a
single contractual arrangement which secures global distribution in contrast to the windows
model, which has allowed producers to generate income from multiple international sales and
build IP and ancillary revenues from licensing (Doyle, 2016; Potter & Steemers, 2022). Online
revenues remain uncertain and secondary for many producers, without delivering the previous
impact of linear TV (Franks, 2021b)
The behaviour of child audiences represents another challenge for both budgets and tar-
geting. Generally children’s television culture does not extend beyond the age of 12, because
the industry saw no financial incentive in servicing older children, who were thought to be
watching non-children’s content. Not surprisingly older children, with little on offer on
conventional channels, have gone elsewhere using a variety of platforms (mobile phones) and
applications and SVOD to view screen content (Ofcom, 2020).
Children’s television, in the sense of watching linear content on television sets plays less of a
role in children’s lives, but viewing is still important. Children’s television culture has shifted,
driven by the changing production ecology and business of children’s screen content, and also
by changing consumption patterns. New technologies increased opportunities to watch at any
time online and on the go. Children’s television culture moved from scarcity to abundance;
from blocks on general channels to dedicated niche services, and then to screen content on
demand; from local to more globalized content and back to local with local influencers (Ofcom,
2020); and from linear television shows to more interactive experiences accessed on different
platforms and devices.
Children’s television content is still characterized by programming designed to meet the
needs of children. However, it is also connected to commercial demand and corporate stra-
tegies, where the child audience is segmented in ways that appeal primarily to commercial
interests; with new digital and online spaces increasingly colonized by the largest international

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companies. In Europe this leaves less room for producers who have become dependent on
public service broadcasters for commissions, but it does open up other possibilities online and
with other players, including SVODs. A small number of global SVODs offer alternative
opportunities, but combined with consolidation among other global players (Warner Bros
Discovery; ViacomCBS), and a crackdown on advertising to children on YouTube, plurality of
supply is likely to diminish as the largest players become more dominant, repurposing their own
content for a variety of platforms.

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 12
CHILDREN’S INTERNET
CULTURE
Sonia Livingstone

Children’s Media Cultures Are Increasingly Online

The twenty-first century has witnessed the emergence of a new form of children’s culture.
Children’s internet culture remediates earlier children’s media cultures by incorporating and
reconfiguring its forms and meanings in distinctive ways (Bolter & Grusin, 1999). One way or
another, it increasingly underpins all dimensions of childhood, at least in high income countries,
extending well beyond their leisure lives to include learning, information, health, politics, and
more. Children’s places, timetables, activities, relationships, even their bodies are, of necessity,
adjusting to the affordances, drivers, and infrastructure of the digital environment. In the early
days of the internet especially, children were celebrated for their pioneering exploration –
sanctioned or otherwise – of the unfolding digital opportunities for identity, sociality, learning,
and participation. But at the same time, the highly combustible mix of rapid change, youthful
vulnerability and experimentation, and technological complexity has reignited the moral panics
that typically accompany media change (Critcher, 2008). This amplifies public uncertainty,
parental anxiety, and policy attention to the challenges of child online protection, now reaching
the point where the very idea of children’s internet culture seems risky, especially if it includes
ideas of exploration, risk-taking and intimacy (Livingstone, 2013; Naezer & Ringrose, 2018).
Usually, cultural evolution is slow, allowing time for society to co-evolve and adapt. In
relation to the internet, however, the pace of change has been dramatic. In the U.K., for
example, internet adoption has risen with astonishing rapidity from just 13 percent of 7 to 16-
year-olds accessing the internet at home in 1998 to 41 percent in 2000 and plateauing at around
nine in ten in 2011 (ChildWise, 2012), although 9 percent were still unable to access the
internet at home in 2019, revealing inequalities that must not be forgotten (Childwise, 2019).
Around the world, each country has followed its own trajectory – often “mobile first” rather
than via a desktop computer in low-income countries, but always in the direction of more
internet access and thus greater reliance on networked digital infrastructures, and always with
notable consequences for children’s lives (Banaji, et al., 2018; Livingstone et al., 2019a). These
consequences can be both beneficial and harmful, in part because children are rarely the in-
tended target of business innovation or national digital policy, except in relation to educational
opportunities, and even here the ambitions are as variable as their consequences (Frau-Meigs, &
Torrent, 2009; Livingstone et al., 2017; Selwyn, 2009).

110 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-15

 Children’s Internet Culture

How shall we critically analyse and research children’s internet culture? Reflecting on the
previously dominant medium of television, Corner (1995, p. 5) insightfully observed:

the powerful capacity of television to draw towards itself and incorporate (in the
process, transforming) broader aspects of the culture … [and also] to project its images,
character types, catchphrases and latest creations to the widest edges of the culture,
permeating if not dominating the conduct of other cultural affairs.

Today we might say the same of the internet, for similar centrifugal and centripetal forces seem
to be rewriting the values, practices, and ambitions of a generation. What this means is still hotly
debated, with clamorous voices on all sides. These encompass the sceptics (e.g., children are still
children, there’s nothing new under the sun), the anxious (e.g., childhood innocence is under
threat, the good old days are gone, surveillance capitalism is taking over) and the optimistic
(e.g., children are pioneers, technology will solve our problems, institutions must reshape
themselves for the digital future). Like other debates concerning children, this too often takes
place over children’s heads rather than inviting their participation as agents of and participants in
their own internet culture (Livingstone & Third, 2017).

Theorizing Children’s Internet Culture

Consider the three terms that comprise “children’s internet culture.” Each requires unpacking
to recognize its heterogeneity across contexts. The first and third bring a centuries-long legacy
of academic analysis, while the second refers to a phenomenon that seems to innovate faster
than research can be published. The intersections among these terms also invite attention, yet
these are easily overlooked: (too) many scholarly books on “culture” say little about the in-
ternet; most writing on the internet has no index entry for “children” (except possibly for a
passing reference to child protection); and research on the childhood sociology or socialization
only sporadically acknowledges the importance of the digital environment for today’s children.
Observe, further, that as illustrated in Figure 12.1, each term also marks an analytic distinction
from its obverse, meaningful semiotically by contrast with what it is not.

Figure 12.1 Intersecting Dimensions of Children’s Internet Culture

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 Sonia Livingstone

To understand “children’s internet culture,” therefore, I argue that we must both pro-
blematize the intersections among its constituent terms and recognize how it is shaped by
tensions with adult society (with children treated as a homogenous group most notable for
being not adults), with the (increasingly problematic idea of ) “offline world” and, last but not
least, with influences on children’s lives that lie beyond culture, including the political
economy. In short, society has found itself asking – and researchers have found themselves
investigating – basic questions of change, power, and vulnerability, as shown in Figure 12.1.

Cultural vs. Political Economic Dimensions of Children’s Internet Culture

Children’s internet culture is strongly marked by the commercial imperatives now mediating
information and communication processes that were, until recently, both more private (i.e.,
personal) and yet more public (i.e., non-profit). Where once children phoned their friends, visited
relatives, kept a photo album, shared music tapes, or wrote a diary, today they do this in a
commercially owned online environment, and this also has implications for their rights and
wellbeing (Livingstone, 2005; Wasko 2008). The commercial is linked to the global, with national
(including public service), culturally appropriate, linguistically specific media and information
sources being displaced by a few global companies who mainstream the content and set the rules of
engagement for children everywhere. On the one hand, the online world greatly extends chil-
dren’s opportunities (including for intimacy, expression, and participation), but on the other, since
content is ever more detached from medium, it also amplifies the success of today’s hugely
profitable children’s content brands (e.g., Disney, Barbie, McDonalds, Harry Potter) and their
business models and forms of promotional culture (Mascheroni & Siibak, 2021).
Twentieth-century analyses of culture commonly start from Raymond Williams’ (1987)
dissection of culture as “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English lan-
guage.” Two complexities are especially relevant to children’s internet culture. First, culture
encompasses both the material (goods, products, media, technologies) and the symbolic
(images, narratives, discourses, imaginaries), necessitating the integration of disciplines which
compete in their accounts of power. The former tends to emphasize structural determinisms
(especially informed by political economic analysis) while the latter tend to emphasize agentic
processes of meaning creation (as developed by cultural studies), although both shape (chil-
dren’s) internet culture (Babe, 2009). Second, culture connotes both that which is superior or
refined (as in civilized or high culture) and that which is ordinary (as in popular or folk culture).
For children, the question of values is particularly fraught since it has long been the respon-
sibility of adult society to provide children with the optimal resources to support their de-
velopment and yet today’s liberal multiculturalism suspects such effort to be paternalistic or
elitist, instead seeking to validate children’s own activities and interests (Wall, 2019).
The possibilities opened up by conjoining these theoretical positions are now being explored
in the analysis of children’s internet culture, though some now seek to integrate rather than choose
among a more political economic or cultural studies position (Grimes, 2021). For example, David
Buckingham (2011) applies the “circuit of culture” to reveal how profitable but technocratic
opportunities for online edutainment are in some ways imposed and in some ways renegotiated by
parents and children in building their meaningful domestic learning environments. Ito et al.’s
(2020) ethnographic approach to youthful “hanging out” online helps to identify whether and
when interest-driven or “geeky” activities harbour the potential for new modes of learning among
those alienated by established, hierarchical pedagogy. Jenkins et al. (2016) reveal the lively clashes
between transgressive but highly literate young fans and litigious content owners desperate for
new ideas that enable some unexpected innovations in cultural forms and experiences.

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The Online vs. Offline Shaping of Children’s Internet Culture

Almost uniquely in relation to the internet, children’s knowledge is widely recognized as being
both valuable and exceeding that of adults. Is the internet effecting a reversal of traditional
power relations among the generations in a world where the grandchild teaches the grandparent
to Zoom, the student challenges the teacher’s knowledge, and even commerce tries to “get
down with the kids”? The largely unanticipated growth of peer-to-peer culture, user-generated
content, social networking and remix culture is stamping a youthful imprint on cultural do-
mains hitherto dominated by adults. Is this to the benefit of children or, as also argued of
television (Postman, 1992), is something lost as children increasingly participate in the adult
world? Children still love to play outside with their friends, learn to swim or kick a ball, snuggle
in front of the television with their family, and daydream in places hidden from adult eyes.
Teenagers still flirt, worry about their appearance, skimp their homework and get drunk. So
how shall we understand the changes wrought by widespread use of the internet?
Early research conceived of virtual or cyber worlds as entirely “other,” disconnected from
“reality” (and so open to radical postmodern speculation about the end of identity, re-
presentation, inequality, morality, and more). But empirically grounded research soon re-
cognized significant continuities between life online and offline, especially the ways in which
the offline shapes the online socially, economically, and politically through processes of design,
usage, or appropriation and regulation (Livingstone et al., 2018; Wellman, 2004). Does this
mean the internet itself is not a player in social change? As already noted, incorporating the
internet into the very fabric of society exacerbates processes of globalization, commercializa-
tion, and individualization in children’s lives. Yet it is salutary to reflect that after half a century
of mass television, Katz and Scannell (2009) struggled to identify just what difference even half a
century of television made, and so it is unsurprising that sober assessments of “what difference
the internet has made” to children’s lives tend to claim contingent and modest rather than
dramatic and transformational effects.
But, just as the field of media studies has long argued that television is far from a neutral
window on the world, the same should be argued for the internet. Its characteristics, its an-
ticipation of its users, its design features (for example, shaping privacy, authenticity, safety, or
networking) are, on the one hand, shaped by the institutions that developed them but, also,
they mediate the relations among people in particular ways. To recognize, critique, and in-
tervene in the power of media representations, scholars have long sought to promote media
literacy to the wider public (especially through media education for children). Now, too, in-
ternet scholars are promoting digital literacy alongside their critical scholarship (Frau-Meigs &
Torrent, 2009), with a distinct focus on combating the explosion of disinformation on social
media (Vicol, 2020). For notwithstanding the excitement about children’s digital expertise, the
online environment is far more complex – sophisticated, yet treacherous – than most people
can competently navigate, evaluate, or contribute to, and a critical engagement with the online
environment is therefore crucial for today’s citizens, young and old.
Adapting boyd’s (2008) analysis, we can recognize the internet’s distinctive communicative
affordances as including persistence (content is recorded, always visible, difficult to erase),
scalability (simple interactions can be rapidly made available to vast audiences), asynchronicity
(enabling interaction management), replicability (permitting seamless editing and manipulation
of content), searchability (both extending and permitting specialization within networks of
information and relationships), audience uncertainty (regarding who is listening and who
is speaking) and collapsed contexts (absence of conventional boundaries for social situations, a
key consequence being public/private blurring). These features pinpoint how the internet’s

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affordances mediate children’s experiences. Telling cases include: the extraordinary focus
among youth on self-presentation and relationship management newly enabled by social net-
working sites’ exploitation of persistence, scalability, asynchronicity, and replicability; the
deepened pain of bullying once extended into cyberbullying and so now, too, persistent,
scalable and visible to uncertain audiences across home and school contexts; the unprecedented
potential for children with niche interests (whether chess or photography, a diasporic identity or
a desire for self-harm) to harness the “long tail” of the internet (Anderson, 2006) via the features
of searchability and self/audience anonymity. In short, the possibility is not merely that chil-
dren’s lives are increasingly filled by online activities, but that the main aspects of their lives
(identity, pleasure, pain, relationships) are altered by the fact of their digital, networked, online
mediation.

The Specificity of Childhood (vs. Wider Adult Society) in

Children’s Internet Culture
Children’s online opportunities and risks depend substantially on their familial, socio-economic,
and national contexts, making for considerable heterogeneity in children’s internet cultures,
even though the power of the global brands provides a counter-veiling homogenizing effect.
The Global Kids Online project proposes the metaphor of the ladder to capture the com-
monalities within this diversity. Its cross-national survey of 9 to 17-year-olds’ online activities
found that when they first use the internet, children tend to look up information for school and
play games alone or against the computer; most also check out YouTube or similar sites for
watching video clips. These activities involve engaging with mass mediated content, and young
children do little more than this. Older children take the further step of peer-to-peer com-
munication (social networking, instant messaging, email), and teenagers more than younger
children do more complex interactive activities such as playing games with others online,
downloading content and sharing it via webcam or message boards, for instance. The most
advanced and creative steps are reached by only a minority of teenagers: despite the hype, it
seems that few children undertake new kinds of fan-based, community, activist, or creative
culture ( Jenkins et al., 2016; Ito et al., 2020).
What does progression up the ladder depend upon? The importance of age reveals how
children’s motivations and interests matter, as do their digital skills and literacies. Some variation
by country can be attributed to contextual factors such as the degree of internet adoption, the
level of national investment in digital resources for education, or the size of the language
community (that provides online content for children). Most within-country variation in
amount of use is attributable to socio-economic status, though once children gain access, age
differences matter more, with gender adding some nuances through the relative preference for
games (boys) or communication (girls) (Livingstone et al., 2019b).
In relation to online opportunities, there is a policy debate over whether children should share
in the online resources available to adults or whether they require – and have a right to – specific,
age-appropriate provision (for whom, funded by whom, to what end?). But in the online world as
in the offline world, opportunities go hand in hand with the risk of harm – because the internet
has been designed in this way (for example, searching for “teen sex” produces both useful health
information and violent pornography), because the internet is populated not only by children but
also by those who would harm them, and because children use their maturing skills and inven-
tiveness to take risks, as they must if they are to develop resilience.
Global Kids Online investigated the proportion of children by country who have encountered
online opportunities (activities) and risks (activities that carry a risk of harm). In interpreting their

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cross-national survey results, they learned that the costs of internet access in South Africa are
prohibitive for most children, reducing their online opportunities and, thereby, keeping their risks
lower than might be expected for a country with a fairly high level of violence, including against
children. To take another example, children’s internet culture in Philippines is shaped by rela-
tively restrictive parenting, while in Albania parents play a more enabling role in mediating their
children’s internet activities, opening up more opportunities for them, albeit with some increase
in their exposure to risk also. Perhaps the most obvious conclusion to be drawn is that, not-
withstanding considerable structural and cultural differences among the countries studied, chil-
dren’s online opportunities and risks are broadly similar, at least in terms of extent.
In each of these observations, the factors that shape children’s internet cultures are heavily
determined by the wider (mainly adult) society (e.g., costs of internet connectivity) and even
when they are specific to children, power is heavily in the hands of parents (e.g., parental
mediation strategies). One interesting result is that the internet tends to afford child users both
opportunities and risks, and it is difficult to intervene in ways that maximize children’s op-
portunities while also minimizing their risks (Morton, et al., 2019).
Recent years have seen increasing calls for child-rights approaches that seek not simply to fit
children into an adult-defined world (Wall, 2019) but, rather, to listen to children and redesign
the digital environment in ways that respect, protect, and fulfil their rights. This includes rights
to protection, non-discrimination, education, health, and many more. But it also includes
children’s civil rights and freedom (to expression and assembly, for instance) and to cultural
rights (representation that reflects their cultural heritage, services in their own language, ma-
terials conducive to their play, leisure, and cultural engagement). The possibilities for research
on children’s internet cultures to reshape internet (and societal) culture more widely are only
now being given priority (Lievens et al., 2018; Livingstone et al., 2020).

Conclusion
It may be argued that children’s internet culture differs little from any other area of consumer
culture. As is the case for late modernity writ large, it is shaped by the fundamental processes of
social change – globalization, commercialization, individualization, and mediatization (Lunt &
Livingstone, 2016). Thus, children’s internet culture is embedded within the global flows of
people, technology, and finance. It is increasingly subject to a market logic distinct from the
organic needs of children and childhood. It is ever more focused on the child as individual
divorced from community structures and affiliations (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2002). And it is
thoroughly mediatized – for beyond extending children’s culture to the internet, the affor-
dances of the online environment are also reshaping children’s culture both online and offline.
But as we have seen, this analysis underplays the contribution of the everyday activities of
children themselves, for which we must mobilize a conception of culture that emphasizes
ordinary activities “under the radar” of both culturally normative and political economic
perspectives. Indeed, a closer examination of children’s internet culture reveals counter pro-
cesses that qualify grand claims about childhood engulfed by increasing commercialization and
globalization – the embedded nature of local meanings, the agency and creativity of children’s
activities and meaning-making online and offline, the emergence of new publics and non-
commercial spaces, the elaboration of ever widening social and civic networks, and even a
renewed appreciation for face-to-face interaction (Turkle, 2015). In short, a more satisfactory
analysis of children’s internet culture recognizes (but does not overstate) children’s agency in
contributing to their culture as well as the power of social structures beyond media and market
(family, school, religion, tradition, politics).

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Scholarly analysis of children’s internet culture has tended to illustrate, complicate, and
contextualize but not entirely transcend the oppositional thinking (optimistic versus pessimistic,
virtual versus real, opportunities versus risks) that characterized the early years of internet studies
(Wellman, 2004). In introducing our International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture in
2008, Kirsten Drotner and I argued for three principles to guide the analysis of children’s media
cultures:

• Research must transcend technologically- determinist discourses of celebration and anxiety

and develop multi-disciplinary, empirically grounded accounts of the complex relations
among children, media, and culture;
• Media-specific research should be contextualized within a comparative account of children
and young people’s life worlds, recognizing the multiple influences upon children and
their diverse positioning in relation to these influences;
• Research should include child-centred methods, seeking to recognize children’s own
agency, experiences, perspectives and priorities rather than imposing an adult agenda or
adult values.

These principles are increasingly in evidence in relation to children’s internet cultures, with
much research (and, also debate in public and policy spheres) child-centred rather than
technologically- determinist, and grounded in the diversity of children’s life contexts
(Livingstone et al., 2018). Many now begin their inquiry by consulting children and many
seek diverse answers rather than seeking universalizing conclusions. But it is also clear that the
political economy that shapes children’s internet culture is strong, persistently (re-)defining
the digital environment in adult-centred ways, motivated by political and commercial drivers
that constrain children’s scope for agency and that tend to side-line attention to their rights in
the digital environment (Livingstone & Third, 2017). Creating opportunities for children to
define, shape, and enjoy internet cultures that are inclusive and meaningful to them is thus a
continuing task. It requires researchers to collaborate with policymakers, advocates, and ac-
tivists now and into the future.

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 13
CHILDREN’S DIGITAL
GAMING CULTURES
Pål Aarsand

Seeing children as cultural beings means that they are consumers as well as producers of culture.
This illustrates that there are no clear-cut roles. We rather need to approach children as a
heterogeneous group of players participating in various game-related activities. The present text
explores the multiplicity of children’s gaming culture by drawing attention to the participants’
heterogeneity in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, and gaming practices. The aim is to point out
different aspects of gaming practices through which children’s gaming cultures are produced
and reproduced.

Approaching Children’s Gaming Culture

Playing and gaming are key topics in the study of children and media (e.g., Burn & Richards,
2014). Here, the notions of culture, communities of practice, and, lately, affinity spaces have
been used to describe children’s digital gaming as part of their everyday lives.
Culture has come to mean different things. Within childhood studies, the concepts of child
culture and children’s culture are often used interchangeably. However, some researchers
distinguish between the two: the first points to artifacts and activities produced by adults and
offered to children, while the second points to children’s actions and doings (Mouritsen, 2002;
Sparrman et al., 2016). When we examine children and digital games, we find that children play
commercial games such as Minecraft, Fortnite, and Call of Duty (e.g., Dezuanni, 2020), they
participate in games design at school (e.g., Bowden & Aarsand, 2020), and they produce and
publish recordings of their own gaming (Carter et al., 2020). The distinction between child
culture and children’s culture has proven to be fruitful, mainly because it has underlined that
children may have a more or less active role when it comes to how we understand participation
in activities such as gaming (Ito et al., 2013). But, this distinction may also establish a dichotomy
between viewing the child as passive, in the sense that children are seen as just reacting to
an adult’s initiative, or as active, in the sense that they are seen as “independent” of adults.
The latter easily implies the idea of children’s gaming cultures as a subculture (Mäyrä, 2008)
or a sort of tribal childhood that renders parts of their lives separate from the adult world
(James et al., 1998).
Considering children’s gaming cultures as practices where they participate and deal with
digital games also means that stakeholders, such as game designers, parents, teachers/schools,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-16 119

 Pål Aarsand

matter when children’s gaming cultures are established, sustained, and developed. This shows
that gaming cultures cannot be treated as a dichotomy with the children’s initiative on the one
hand and the adult’s initiative on the other. Rather, we need to consider the reciprocity of what
has been called child culture and children’s culture. Thus, it could be argued that children’s
digital gaming cultures are not fixed or set entities. They are simultaneously singularities and
multiplicities (Sparrman et al., 2016). For instance, gaming cultures consist not only of in-game
practices, but also of the game industry’s ideas about the player, parents’ rules regarding game
play, as well as children’s game designing and programing, and their YouTube channels where
they display their own gaming.
Young people’s gaming cultures have been described as a community of play practices
(e.g., Pearce, 2009), placing emphasis on how the members participate in-game-related
activities, shared experiences, and the development of ways to handle tasks, artifacts, and
other players in the games (e.g., Sjöblom, 2011; Sparrow et al., 2020). Studies of Massively
Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games have focused on the production and reproduction
of social communities, often in terms of learning (Kahila et al., 2020). These studies have
pointed to such aspects as to how certain terminologies are used among the players/
members (e.g., Abram & Lammers, 2017), and how formal and informal rules guide and
regulate the social interaction in these groups (e.g., Sparrow et al., 2020). A community of
practices directs attention to learning, participation, and guidance, where “newbies” gra-
dually become full members who master the practices in the community (Lave & Wenger,
1992). As such, the distinction between full members and newbies is important for un-
derstanding gaming cultures.
Lately, the concept of affinity spaces has been presented as an alternative to the notion of
culture in the study of digital gaming practices (Abrams & Lammers, 2017; Gee, 2003; 2018).
Affinity spaces point to “loosely organized social and cultural settings” (Gee, 2018, p. 8) and
attend to how people are drawn together by a shared interest, in this case playing a particular
game such as Fortnite or Minecraft. One main idea here is that gamers usually do more than
playing the game. They may read books about the game, create and watch videos of others
playing, as well as meet their friends and discuss the game (e.g., Kahila et al., 2020; Mavoa
et al., 2018). The concept of affinity spaces focuses first and foremost on how activities and
sites are organized in relation to a particular interest. This can be seen as a “… shared interest
that directs the participation within the space, thereby promoting an openness in the ways
participants can and do interact – ways in which membership-based communities do not”
(Abram & Lammers, 2017, pp. 3–4). These spaces can be seen as a socio-material network in
which space, place, and materiality are interwoven in situated practices, and how people are
bound to each other is only secondary (Gee, 2003). However, it could be argued that it is a
challenge that the borders of gamers’ affinity spaces may be hard to demarcate as interests
evolve and new technologies appear (Gee, 2018). In contrast to the idea of the community of
practices, affinity spaces build on the idea that one does not have to be a member to par-
ticipate and that these spaces have a non-hierarchical structure as they are driven by common
endeavors (Gee, 2003). However, it has also been argued that even interest-driven practices
develop particular ways of talking and acting that may have an excluding effect on others
with similar interests (Abram & Lammers, 2017), which underlines that even in these spaces
there are positions that mark belongingness.
A community of practices and affinity spaces are concepts that are used to understand and
describe children’s digital gaming culture. They direct attention to both gaming practices as
restricted and singular, and gaming practices as multiplicity, as networks of activities. Keeping
these ideas in mind, attention will now be directed to the player.

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 Children’s Digital Gaming Cultures

The Player
Studies of children’s media usage in Northern Europe, in countries such as Sweden, Norway,
and the U.K., show that 79–98 percent of children between 9 and 17 years of age play digital
games (Medietilsynet, 2020; Medierådet, 2019; Ofcom, 2021). In describing and understanding
children as part of gaming cultures, it has been argued that age, gender, and ethnicity shape
gaming, participation, and experiences of playing games (Kafai et al., 2018).

Age
Age is marked as one of the key factors in describing children’s gaming, and recently younger
children’s usage has been explored (Danby et al., 2018; Dezuanni, 2020; Marsh et al., 2020;
Wohlwend, 2015). One of the reasons behind this is that touchscreens have made digital
playing and gaming possible for children as young as 2–4 years of age (e.g., Price et al., 2015;
Nacher et al., 2015). Such studies mainly focus on children’s individual and psychological
development and what they are able to do at a certain age, not on playing and gaming as social
activities. In contrast, children between 9 and 18 years of age play various online games co-
ordinating and interacting with other players all over the world, such as Fortnite, Minecraft,
Roblox, and Grand Theft Auto (Medierådet, 2019; Medietilsynet, 2020). First and foremost, this
shows that age matters when studying children’s gaming practices. Another aspect that appears
in the discussion is which representations of society the player encounters when playing digital
games. A recent British study of successful games shows that the majority of them did not
contain any child characters, and if children were present, they were most likely to be White
males between 6 and 11 years of age. They relied on stereotypes about children, and were
positioned in secondary and supportive roles (Reay, 2021). The lack of representation of
children in games indicates that adults are the norm, and that children are marginalized.

Gender
The question of gender is still an important topic in studies of gaming practices (Apperley &
Gray, 2020; Fisher & Jenson, 2017; Kafai et al., 2016; Mortensen, 2018; Smahel et al., 2020).
General patterns across countries still show that more boys than girls play digital games and for
longer periods of time. Moreover, these differences increase as the children get older, mainly
because girls to a larger degree than boys tend to stop playing (e.g., Medietilsynet, 2020;
Medierådet, 2019). One explanation may be that female characters in the games are usually
sexualized and victimized, and are not regarded heroes (e.g., Denner & Campe, 2008; Kafai
et al., 2016). Considering the fact that boys tend to play more, it is no surprise that they to a
larger extent make friends through online games and that they use games to be with their peers
and friends (Lenhart et al., 2015). Indeed, boys and girls tend to play different games and when
they are 16–18 years old, gaming is more or less gender-segregated (Medierådet, 2019).
However, one exception should be noted. Swedish girls between 9 and 12 years of age play
more than the boys in the same age group (Medierådet, 2019). Furthermore, a British report
concludes that playing digital games seems to be growing in popularity among girls (Ofcom,
2021). This may indicate a possible change in the population of gamers. Moreover, these studies
show that we need to move beyond the gamer stereotype when we try to understand children’s
gaming cultures. U.S. researchers have studied the types of games boys and girls play, game
design and identities, as well as the substantial proportion of girls who do not play games (Kafai
et al., 2016). One of the reasons why researchers have focused on digital games and gender is

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that games have been regarded as an important path to education and future jobs, particularly in
the STEM disciplines (e.g., Ball et al., 2020). It has also been argued that merely noting gender
differences runs the risk of essentializing the (fe)male gamer (Kafai et al., 2008). Moreover, such
a stance draws on assumptions about what boyish games are like, whereby certain kinds of logic
are related to what is considered feminine and masculine.

Ethnicity
Ethnicity is present in North American research and has been related to the question of access to
equipment, games, and the internet also called the digital divide (e.g., Ball et al., 2020).
However, the discussion of ethnic representations in games, stereotyping, and harassment is
very important (e.g., Bayeck et al., 2018; Behm-Morawitz, 2017; Behm-Morawitz & Ortiz,
2013; Kafai et al., 2016; Passmore et al., 2018). A study of 95 percent of all games sold in the
U.S. in 2005 shows that Caucasian adult males are over-represented as primary and secondary
characters in games compared to their actual proportion of the population (Williams et al.,
2009). The lack of ethnic diversity in games is still present, where African American, Latino,
and Native American characters usually have marginal roles, either as criminals or victims (e.g.,
Bayeck et al., 2018; Hutchinson, 2017), if they appear at all (Passmore et al., 2018). The lack of
ethnic diversity means that players of color do not have the possibility of identifying with game
characters while White males are positioned as the norm (Kafai et al., 2016), which tends to
illustrate systematic discrimination (Passmore et al., 2018).
Recently, intersectional approaches have directed attention to various intersections of age,
gender, ethnicity, disability, religion, and social class to examine the complexity of gaming
cultures (e.g., Behm-Morawitz, 2017; Kafai et al., 2018). In the study of children’s gaming
cultures, intersectional approaches may help us to move beyond binaries and better understand
singularities and multiplicities, similarities and variations, connections and gaps when it comes
to patterns of participation in-game practices.

Participation
A key concept in the study of children’s gaming culture is participation (e.g., Abrams &
Lammers, 2017; Ito et al., 2008; Jenkins, 2006), raising such questions as who, when, where,
and how to participate. There is a tradition within games studies to regard gaming as an activity
that is cut off from its surroundings and takes place within the “magic circle” (Juul, 2005; Salen
& Zimmerman, 2004). According to this perspective, the game is guided by specific rules meant
to keep the “world” outside the game. The rules are what constitute and sustain the borders of
the game simultaneously as they guide the player in how to keep the game going, inferring that
such aspects as gender, age, ethnicity, social class, and religion are of no relevance to succeed.
Studies of cheating show that games cannot be understood in terms of magic circles because the
rules of the game always have to compete with “other rules and in relation to multiple contexts,
across varying cultures, and into different groups, legal situations, and homes” (Consalvo, 2007,
p. 416). This indicates that we have to look beyond the activity of gaming to understand why it
looks like it does and what gaming means to those who are involved.
Furthermore, the idea that games are played in multiple ways has been described by Ito et al.
(2013), who refer to three different forms of media engagement among children: hanging out,
messing around, and geeking out. Hanging out is described as children using digital games to get
together, thus the main motive is organization. Messing around is described as an interest-
driven orientation to games that is supported both socially and materially. The main interest is

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to get to know and master the game, but players tend to stay within the context of peer
sociability. Geeking out is explained as an intense engagement with games and technologies (Ito
et al., 2013). It requires time, space, and resources so that the child has the opportunity to
pursue his/her interest. Hence, when focusing on patterns of participation, children’s usage in
their everyday lives is placed at the center of the research.
Interactional studies of digital games in children’s everyday lives, where the focus has been on
how gaming is socially organized and accomplished in interaction, also emphasize participation.
For instance, studies show how switching between languages works as a resource in orienting to
aspects of the game and coordinating action (Piirainen-Marsh, 2010), how the use of response
cries works to create an intersubjective understanding of the game situation (Aarsand & Aronsson,
2009), how children, through instructions and monitoring of each other’s activities, create a
collaborative peer culture with shared knowledge and goals (Danby et al., 2018), and how digital
technologies, tablets and applications, and their scripts, contribute to the distribution of positions
when playing games in peer groups (Aarsand & Sørenssen, 2021).
While interactional studies of gaming focus on the social organization of the game activities,
the notion of participatory culture understands gaming as just part of children’s gaming culture
and can be explained as practices where children are invited to participate in the creation and
sharing of content (Jenkins, 2006). Jenkins demonstrates how digital games and gaming are
followed by other practices, such as writing fan fiction and creating YouTube movies. In this
way, Jenkins also tells us that game cultures involve more than playing games within their
respective virtual landscapes, that games can be used in many different ways and for many
different purposes. Along these lines, Beavis (2015) argues that playing games can be seen as
performative practices that contribute to creating digital game cultures. In an Australian study,
Carter et al., (2020) argue that YouTube and Twitch played an important role in children’s
transition from Minecraft to Fortnite as films and live recordings enabled them to observe ex-
perienced players as well as the cultural practices around the game. If we see digital gaming
cultures as webs of practices where children view, discuss, question, learn, play, design games,
and are governed, then to understand how these cultures are (re)produced, we need to pay
attention to how these practices are interwoven and mutually enacted (Law & Mol, 2008).

Children’s Gaming Cultures

Arguing that children have particular gaming cultures also makes them visible as consumers and
producers. This generates an interest in learning, where the research has been pursued by two
camps (Connolly et al., 2012): studies that focus on negative outcomes, such as aggression and
sexualization (e.g., Burnay et al. 2019), and those that focus on positive outcomes, such as
problem solving and social skills (e.g., Kaye et al., 2017).
The discussion on what is learned by playing games in terms of outcome is rather narrow,
particularly if one is interested in children’s gaming culture. Instead, learning can be seen as the
production and reproduction of gaming cultures. For instance, it has been claimed that by
playing games one simply becomes good at playing them (Juul, 2005). Such statements have led
researchers to focus on the pedagogical principles that games build upon, and which help
players to make progress and thereby learn to become better players (Gee, 2003; Gentile &
Gentile, 2008). The concept of gaming capital has been used to describe the system of pre-
ferences and dispositions that gamers develop when playing games (Consalvo, 2007). In short,
gaming capital is used in an attempt to broaden the scope of what matters to the participants
in-game practices, and how these values are produced and sustained in interaction with other
players and the game industry.

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The notions paratext and metagame activities have proven fruitful as they point to how gaming
can be seen as networks of activities that are related to the (re)production of gaming cultures
(Consalvo, 2017). Using the idea of metagames, Kahila et al. (2020) have studied what Finnish
children are doing with digital games and the learning they are involved in. They distinguish
between six main categories: (a) game-enabling activities (i.e., actions that enable gaming); (b)
strategizing activities (i.e., activities that increase the chances of success); (c) discussing activities
(i.e., talking about topics during and between games); (d) information-seeking activities (i.e.,
seeking information from the internet, books, magazines, friends, and siblings); (e) creating and
sharing activities (i.e., creating, producing, and sharing game-related content that they make); and
(f) consuming activities (i.e., media created by others). These categories illustrate that gaming
cultures are manifold activities where children are involved that demand knowledge. Moreover,
adapting gaming capital reveals how players can learn to (re)produce gaming cultures, which is
done in relation to their understanding of gaming practices, technology, and participation in social
settings (e.g., Carter et al., 2020; Kahila et al., 2020; Pearce, 2009).
All in all, to understand children’s gaming cultures, researchers have studied important
questions, including who is playing games, what they are playing, and with whom they are
playing, as well as paratext/metagame activities. These studies give us valuable insights into aspects
of children’s everyday lives and how gaming cultures are produced, sustained, and changed.

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 14
MOBILE COMMUNICATION
CULTURE AMONG CHILDREN
AND ADOLESCENTS
Rich Ling

Introduction
In the developed world, and increasingly in the developing world, children and teens have
grown up with ready access to mobile phones. In many countries, the mobile phone, and often
the smartphone (Rideout & Robb, 2018), has become de rigueur among teens and children
(Rideout & Robb, 2020). It has changed the way that they experience youth when compared
to previous generations. This chapter examines the everyday use of mobile communication
among children and teens. This chapter explores their use of these increasingly multi-
dimensional devices that facilitate not only communication but also a variety of other functions.
While there are undoubtedly similarities between children’s and teen’s use of smartphones,
there are also differences. For example, messaging, a distinctive feature of the mobile phone
requires the user to master writing and thus limits use among the youngest children. At the same
time, there are a wide variety of child-friendly apps (Auxier et al., 2020) that are used by the
youngest children but not teens.
Ownership and access to mobile communication have grown with time. For example, in
2005 over 80% of 10-year-old Norwegians owned a mobile phone (Vaage, 2010). In 2020
Auxier et al. (2020) found that about 49% of infants and toddlers up to two used a smartphone,
and 67% of those aged 9 to 11 did the same (see also Lim, 2020, p. 61). Approximately the same
number of 9-to 11-year-olds in Singapore also used a smartphone on a daily basis (Teng, 2021).
When compared with younger children, teens enjoy greater autonomy of use. They have
greater independence from their parents and use messaging and mobile communication to
maintain their peer groups (Green & Haddon, 2009; Ito et al., 2010; Mascheroni & Ólafsson,
2014; Mascheroni & Vincent, 2016; Vidales-Bolaños & Sádaba-Chalezquer, 2017).
The teen period is also characterized by negotiations between parent and child regarding
emancipation and identity (Ito et al., 2010, p. 8; Ling, 2009; McEwen, 2009). Because of their
different life situation, teens use mobile telephony to manage social life more than do children.

Research on Mobile Communication Among Youth

Previous to 2000, there was relatively little research on children and mobile communication. Since
then, there has been a growing interest (Green & Haddon, 2009; Haddon, 2013; Lim, 2020).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-17 127

 Rich Ling

European research has been predominant although significant early contributions were also made
in Asia and in the U.S. (Green & Haddon, 2009). Today, the study of the social uses of the mobile
phone has become a much more widespread endeavor. By contrast, teens’ use of mobile com-
munication was an early focus of study (Ling, 2001) in Norway (Johnsen, 2003; Ling & Yttri,
2002), Hong Kong (Leung & Wei, 1999), Finland (Kasesniemi & Rautiainen, 2002; Oksman &
Rautiainen, 2003), the U.K. (Green & Smith, 2002; Grinter & Eldridge, 2001) Japan (Mizuno Ito,
2001) and the U.S. (Lenhart et al., 2010).
Teens were an early, and unexpected, group of users. Their innovative use signaled mass
adoption and helped to shape our understanding of the technology (Ling, 2004). They con-
sistently remained among the most active users (J.H. Park, 2020). The smartphone, which
affords voice calls and messaging, has been a central medium for teen interaction with same
gendered friends (Lenhart et al., 2010). It is also a tool for developing and maintaining romantic
relationships (Rochadiat, et al., 2020).
Increasingly, the use of smartphones means that mobile communication has melded into
broader forms of mediated interaction. Activities that were formerly restricted to personal
computers (such as the use of social network sites, e.g., Facebook) are available on mobile
phones. The social functions of this will be examined below.

Social Functions of the Mobile Phone

Given its wide-scale diffusion, one can ask why mobile communication has been adopted by
children and teens. There are several issues that come into focus. These include coordination,
safety, expressive use, messaging and multimedia uses.

Coordination
The most fundamental function of mobile telephony is coordination (Lim, 2020; Ling & Yttri,
2002). It allows users to work out, and re-work on the fly. For teens and children, this allows
them to iteratively sort out every day logistics that involve peers, parents, and the different
groups in which they are involved (Haddon, 2000). The development of messaging apps such as
WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Line, KakaoTalk, etc. increases the ability to make these ar-
rangements (Ling & Lai, 2016). In some cases, parental coordination can also take the form of
tracking their child (and monitoring their screen activity) via the use of apps such as Phone
Sheriff (Lim, 2020).

Safety
Mobile communication provides teens with a link to their parents (Ling, 2007; Palfrey, 2008).
Various serious, or perhaps not too serious episodes (i.e., missing a bus, being caught in bad
weather, experiencing minor injuries, etc.), are often used to first justify giving a child a phone.
The latent or actual ability to use it in the case of a real emergency is a significant reason for
having a phone (Cohen et al., 2007; Ling, 2012; Ling & Oppegaard, 2021).

Expressive Uses
In addition to instrumental tasks such as coordination, a very strong motivation for teens’ use of
mobile telephony is their expressive interaction with peers (Ling, 2009; Miyata et al., 2008).
Indeed, according to Lenhart et al. (2010), a central motivation for having a phone is

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“expressive” contact. While perhaps appearing superficial, this exchange of messages and calls
are important in the development and maintenance of peer-group cohesion (Matsuda, 2005) as
well as in romantic interactions (Ito et al., 2010). To be sure, these expressive messages con-
stitute a large part of the total volume of teen texting (Ling, 2005).

Messaging
Any discussion of mobile phones needs to take special note of messaging via apps such as
WhatsApp, Line, Telegram, WeChat, Weibo, KakaoTalk, etc. This form of mediation
provides a space where friends can gossip, make agreements, flirt, and generally communicate
while engaged in other activities. It is also a venue that supports creative linguistic styles
(Baron, 2008; Ling, 2008). With the development of messaging apps, the interaction can
include more than simple dyadic interaction as was generally the case in the era of SMS. This
introduces the social/power dynamics of small-scale social groups into the domain of mobile
communication (Ling & Lai, 2016).

Multimedia and Internet Use

Smartphones and the 3/4/5G network support the use of apps for consuming music and videos,
vlogging sites, social networking platforms, cameras, GPS driven maps, mobile games, dating
apps, and a universe of other functionality (Mascheroni & Ólafsson, 2014; Rideout & Robb,
2020). These developments facilitate the exchange of a variety of photos, videos, links, news
items, and other digital artifacts that facilitate the development of youth culture (Vanden
Abeele, 2015). The smartphone also provides adolescents with access to, for example, school
assignments and information regarding jobs (Bertel, 2013). This functionality has come into a
clearer focus in the case of home-schooling as seen during the COVID period (Basilaia &
Kvavadze, 2020).

The Social Consequences of Mobile Telephony

Social Cohesion
As has been noted, the mobile phone facilitates adolescents’ contact with peers. While it fa-
cilitates small-scale microcoordination (Ling & Yttri, 2002), the broader effect of the many calls
and messages is to strengthen the teens’ ties to their social networks (Eisenhart & Allaman, 2018;
Ling, 2008; Vanden Abeele, 2016). This is often the case in the Global North where there is
easy access to the technology. The situation in other parts of the world can be somewhat
different (Castells et al., 2007, p. 256).

Emancipation
Mobile communication has reshaped teens’ emancipation process. This “shaping” however can
take different forms in different global regions (Lim, 2020) and in different social classes (Clark,
2014; Rideout & Robb, 2020).
Mobile communication gives teens a communication channel that is free from their parents’
surveillance (Hijazi-Omari & Ribak, 2008). This freedom, however, is conditional (Haddon,
2000). Smartphones facilitate activities that are outside of parents’ direct view, but they also
enhanced parents’ opportunities to, for example, call their child and remind them of an unfinished

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chore (Ling, 2007). Thus, the mobile phone is an arena in which the teen and the parent negotiate
teen emancipation.

Identity Formation
Perhaps as an extension of emancipation, access to mobile communication also plays into
identity formation since it allows them to cultivate their peer networks. This is seen among
Korean youth (Park & Lemish, 2019), among mobile influencers (Abidin, 2016) as well as in
the Japanese “cute” culture (Hjorth, 2005).

Problematic Issues
While there are positive dimensions of mobile communication for children and youth, there
also problematic issues that require attention.

Money Use
Earlier work suggested that the cost of owning and using a phone could be an issue of
concern (Lenhart et al., 2010). The development of family subscriptions and data plans
seems to have subsumed some of this discussion in some regions of the world. That said, the
cost of new handsets and their treatment by adolescents can still be an issue (Lim, 2020).
Another expense associated with mobile communication is the cost of subscribing to
services via apps. In addition, the mobile phone can be a conduit through which children
and teens can be encouraged to engage in particular types of fashion consumption via
so-called influencers, e.g., Amanda Cerny who has over 24 million followers on Instagram
(Abidin, 2016; Lou & Kim, 2019).

Compulsive Use
An increasingly common topic in the literature is the idea of mobile addiction or dependency
(Lim, 2020; Sahu et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019), or the fear of missing out (Anshari et al.,
2019). There is the related issue of phubbing (a portmanteau of phone snubbing) where the
focus on the screen precludes co-located social interaction (Franchina et al., 2018).
It is clear that teens and children spend a lot of time every day with screens (Rideout &
Robb, 2020). While the smartphone can help children to develop motor skills and creativity
(Lim, 2020) researchers have examined whether this has resulted in compulsive or addictive use
(Kim et al., 2014) and further whether this is linked to other psychological issues such as
depression (Wang et al., 2019). As might be expected, mobile dependency during enforced
isolation, as in the COVID period, is also an area of focus (Jin et al., 2021). Li et al. (2021) for
example have found that during the COVID period, loneliness among teens played out in more
extensive smartphone use. At the same time, Billieux et al., (2015) have noted that the idea of
addiction is perhaps being overdrawn.
Finally, the question of being overly engaged in ones’ device has also been applied to
parents. While the device helps parents to coordinate everyday life (Clark, 2014) it is also
possible to ask whether parents are being too focused on their smartphones and not their
children in public settings such as playgrounds and restaurants (Elias et al., 2020; Lemish
et al., 2020).

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Dating and Sexting

Smartphones are a major conduit through which teens explore dating. Indeed, there is a
growing scholarship on teens and dating apps (Rochadiat, et al., 2020). In some cases, teens
using the smartphone to pursue romance is seen with forbearance by the parents. However, in
patriarchal societies daughters’ use of mobile communication can be seen as a threat to authority
(Ellwood-Clayton, 2003; Hijazi-Omari & Ribak, 2008).
Mobile photography facilitates sharing images between romantic partners that can be quite
innocent (e.g., a photo of the meal they are eating or their day-to-day activities) (Green &
Haddon, 2009; Ling & Li, 2020). However, another application of mobile photography is
sexting, e.g., sending sexually suggestive photos or videos. Sexting has, in some cases, become a
part of teen dating/courting (Lenhart et al., 2010; Prøitz, 2006). Mascheroni and Ólafsson
(2014) in a pan-European study found that 11% of all 11–16-year-olds had received material
from their peers that were seen as sexual. Further, 19% of the 15- and 16-year-olds reported
having seen this kind of material.
While sexting between partners can be seen as a part of the courting process, it can result in
problems for adolescents, and particularly girls (Campbell & Park, 2014) when the photos are
shared with others. In this case, the circulation of these digital artifacts is out of the hands of the
couple who ostensively shared them as in a bond of trust. It can lead to public shaming as well as
evoking legal issues such as allegations of trafficking in child pornography (Mori et al., 2020).

Mobile Bullying
For children and teens who are the victims of bullying, the access afforded by the smartphone to
the aggressor can be problematic since the victim is never outside the reach of their tormenter
(Smith & Slonje, 2010, p. 259). In a European-wide study, Mascheroni & Ólafsson (2014)
found that 17% of 9- to 16-year-olds had experienced smartphone-based bullying.
Interestingly, while the smartphone can be a venue for cyberbullying (Lee & Shin, 2017) others
have suggested that for some, not having a smartphone can make one into a victim (Vaterlaus
et al., 2021).

Sleep Disruption
Research suggests that use of the smartphone at night by adolescents is disruptive and can have
consequences for their mental wellbeing (Lemola et al., 2015).

The Future of Mobile Communication

Over the past three decades, mobile communication has established itself as an important part of
childhood and adolescence. Moving from 2G and analog handsets to 4/5G digital smartphones,
there has been a dramatic development of the technology as well as its use. This has included
cameras, social network platforms, dating sites, news, entertainment services, and access to edu-
cational material. The smartphone has become a place where children/teens learn about the world
and where they are exposed to various types of both positive as well as unsavory threats. It is a
place where they are able to experience the joy of chatting with a new boy/girlfriend, and where
they can be the victim of bullying. In the era of COVID, it has been a central device through
which they have access to education, information, social interaction, emotional regulation, and
entertainment. It is also a central way that they can keep in contact with their parents.

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Future research should examine how mobile communication is integrated into adolescents’
journey through emancipation and how it helps them get the information and the social in-
teraction that they need. Simultaneously, how does the device give them access to the things
that they would better do without? There is a need to help children and teens find the balance
between the two.

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 15
CHILDREN’S MUSICAL
CULTURES
Industries and Audiences

Ryan Bunch and Tyler Bickford

Music is an integral part of the lives and media cultures of children and adolescents. As audiences
and consumers of music, children cultivate peer relations and identities related to age, gender,
race, class, and sexuality. Their activities are configured according to changing practices and
modes of access to music as well as to shifting identifications with genres such as commercial, folk,
mainstream pop, and tween pop music. Changing media landscapes, from print sources and
phonograph records to film, television, and digital culture, construct childhood and children’s
music while children in turn engage with these media according to their needs. Longstanding
children’s cultural traditions, such as handclapping and singing games combine reciprocally with
contemporary media cultures, while digital technologies create new contexts for young people’s
music use and social relations, with young people and their music and media devices serving as
emblems of the digital age. Subject to discourses about their media use, children navigate complex
realities through music media. This chapter addresses children’s musical media in the U.S. and
Europe, focusing on recent technological and commercial developments, which point to im-
portant changes for children’s status as participants in public culture.

Children’s Commercial Music Industry

Historical Roots
Recent trends in the U.S. commercial children’s music industry build on a long history. Before
phonography, music collections for children were published in the U.S. and Europe. These
publications were part of a larger consumer ecology that, for instance, associated children and
music with holidays like Christmas (see Kok, 2008, for example). Some of the earliest re-
cordings were for children, often cross-marketed with toy phonographs and illustrated books
(Tillson, 1994, 1995). In addition, record labels marketed educational recordings (largely
classical music curated for “music appreciation” curricula) to schools and music educators
(Dunham, 1961). By the 1930s, with the advent of sound film and Disney’s musical animated
features (beginning with 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), a significant mass of children’s
musical offerings was disseminated across media. In the post-war era, commercial music tied to
movies and television shows became popular. The golden age of children’s records was initiated

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-18 135

 Ryan Bunch and Tyler Bickford

by the formation of popular labels explicitly for children in the late 1940s and the 1950s,
including Golden Records, Cricket, and Peter Pan. Television became an important medium
with programs like The Mickey Mouse Club (1955), Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood (1968), Sesame Street
(1969), and Barney and Friends (1992) featuring music prominently. Such musical media con-
struct concepts of childhood both in their contents and in their implied audiences, addressing
children as objects of adult desires and assumptions, but also offering affordances for children to
negotiate their own engagements (Maloy, 2020). Television programs construct trans-local
spaces through sound and image that position children within musical discourses that contrast
ideas of natural musical talent with musical ability as the product of practice and learning
(Vestad, 2017). Like the children’s media industries more generally, the U.S. is a major pro-
ducer and exporter of musical media for children, especially television and pop music. The
Australian group The Wiggles are a major exception to this norm as one of the most inter-
nationally successful children’s music acts in history, and one of Australia’s most successful
cultural exports (Giuffre, 2013). Many countries and regions support smaller-scale local chil-
dren’s music scenes and industries, often in languages other than English.
In parallel to more commercial recordings, independent labels tied to the folk-revival
movement produced often anti-commercial music for children. The folk-singing styles of artists
such as Burl Ives, Ella Jenkins, Tom Glazer, and, later, Raffi became the generic sound of
children’s music (Bonner, 2008). These recordings might be seen as addressing anxieties about
the commercialism of other music media for children and its presumably corrupting effect on
childhood. Children’s music artists such as Laurie Berkner and Dan Zanes have achieved
widespread success with recordings in this tradition, but in a style frequently described as more
sophisticated and adult friendly. To some extent these artists achieve adult tolerance by dou-
bling down on the folk music and roots-rock elements that have characterized children’s music
for half a century. Folk music’s limited arrangements and ideological emphasis on community
and tradition provide a bridge between musical characteristics that are seen as developmentally
appropriate for children and those that affluent White adults often see as markers of authenticity
and cultural value. Artists associated with the “kindie rock” movement have continued these
trends in the twenty-first century (Bickford, 2019).
A significant portion of commercial children’s music comes from the traditions of musical
theatre as adapted to film, television, and other media. In addition to Disney’s musical films, The
Wizard of Oz and its songs entered the children’s canon through annual television broadcasts.
Live television broadcasts of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella and Mary Martin’s Peter Pan
were important events for children of the post-war generation, and songs from family-oriented
musicals like The Sound of Music have appeared on children’s records and been embraced by
child audiences (Bunch, 2020a). Many children’s television programs, such as Sesame Street,
resemble musical theatre and variety entertainment in their use of music. Musicals about young
people use the act of bursting into song to express the emotions and power struggles of ado-
lescence, and Disney films since the 1990s combine music and animation to convey these
impulses (Bunch, 2017, 2020b). The appeal of these musicals across age categories is further
reflected in their generic affinity with such franchises as High School Musical and Disney
Descendants. Social media and streaming platforms expand the possibilities for young people’s
musical theatre fandoms. YouTube makes Broadway performances available to those unable to
get to New York or touring productions, while filmed performances of Newsies and Hamilton
are now accessible on Disney+.
Commercial children’s music continued a close relationship with changing media landscapes
as children’s media companies like Nickelodeon and Nintendo successfully cultivated a niche
kids’ market in the 1980s and 1990s. In addition to the resurgence of Disney’s animated

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musicals in the 1990s, the 1996 launch of Radio Disney, an FM station programmed with
music from young mainstream recording artists as well as child-friendly “oldies” and novelty
songs, pointed to that company’s renewed commitment to cultivating child music audiences.
By the next decade Disney was developing its own artists and releasing pop music – not just
numbers from their animated musicals – on its own labels, and its cable TV station, the Disney
Channel, became a key site for launching new musical offerings.

Tween Pop
A key change in the music industry for children is the emergence of the demographic marker
“tween,” describing children especially from 9–12 years old, but which may include children as
young as 4 and as old as 15 (Bickford, 2020; Cook & Kaiser, 2004). (The term highlights the
status of children this age as between childhood and adolescence.) “Tween” music stylistically
resembles mainstream pop music with somewhat less emphasis on overtly sexual themes (but
still retaining pop’s focus on heterosexual romance). The social dynamics around tween pop are
oriented to peer relationships rather than the parent-child relations more typical of music for
young children. The first decade of the twenty-first century was a significant “moment” of pop
music made for kids breaking through into broader commercial dominance (Bickford, 2020).
One week early in 2006, the three top-selling records on the Billboard sales charts were
children’s albums, and the top-selling album in the U.S. for the entire year was the soundtrack
to the massively popular Disney Channel original movie High School Musical. The tween music
industry also makes mainstream popular music with high production values available to chil-
dren. In addition to artists such as Swift, Bieber, and the various Disney acts, brands such as
Kidz Bop market Top 40 songs directly to children, with occasionally altered lyrics to address
adult concerns about inappropriate content and choruses of children singing along. Many of the
U.S. acts described in this section are popular internationally, especially in Europe, and tour
around the world.
The age ambiguity of tween music makes room for child-oriented artists to appeal to a wider
listenership, highlighting the growing role of young artists and audiences in the public sphere.
Artists such as Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift, who became celebrities as young teenagers,
continued to be associated with young audiences while commanding popularity in mainstream
pop. As tween pop makes children visible in commerce and public life, young audiences are
asked to participate in an age-based identity politics, exposing the contradictions between their
status and nostalgic ideas about private, non-commercial childhood (Bickford, 2020).

Toys
Toys are another aspect of children’s traditional culture, and musical media are increasingly em-
bedded in them and integrated into play practices. Music-box toys playing classic nursery songs
like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” were popular in the mid-
twentieth century, and such toys from Fisher-Price often took the form of media devices such as
music-box record players, televisions, and pocket radios. Electronic toys for young children, more
common since the late 1970s, commonly include snippets of music that play in response to an
infant or young child’s action. The music in such toys is often in the classical style, reflecting the
association of such genres with young children, mentioned above, and pieces like Rossini’s
William Tell Overture seem to have become canonical in these settings (Young, 2008). Older
children’s uses of portable music devices like MP3 players often resemble toy-play too, as kids
decorate their devices, trade and share them, and tinker with their physical form (Bickford, 2017).

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Children as Music Audiences

Age and Taste

Age identity is notable in the music choices of children and the marketing of musical media
for them. Teenagers and adolescents have long been the primary audiences for “mainstream”
popular music. In the past, children in the U.S. and Europe could be seen to move through
age-graded musical preferences, with the youngest expressing interest in children’s music
(Raffi, etc.) and classical music, pre-adolescents preferring popular music in general, and
adolescents eventually settling into preferences for specific genres of popular music (von
Feilitzen & Roe, 1990). Bickford’s ethnographic research on children’s popular music
consumption in a small community in the north-eastern U.S. bears this point out in its broad
outlines but suggests that musical taste remains a space for expressions of parental affiliations
among middle-school age children (Bickford, 2017). Such children’s expressed favourite
genre is frequently from mainstream popular music, but kids’ tastes are not monolithic; many
have strong secondary interests in genres like classic rock (bands such as AC/DC or Led
Zeppelin), and enthusiastically point out that their enjoyment of such music is learnt from
and connects them to their parents. If tween pop is increasingly popular in middle childhood,
it is possible that the standard progression from children’s music, to generic pop, to specific
genres has changed so that tween pop either replaces the generic pop phase, or pushes it
back, with potential implications for the timing when teenagers settle into specific genre
preferences. There is significant overlap between children and teenagers in the audiences for
acts like Taylor Swift (Bickford, 2020).

Music and Social Relations

Music mediates peer relations, family relations, and social status (Young & Wu, 2019). For very
young children, music listening provides soundtracks for play, scripts for understanding emo-
tions, and opportunities for working through relationships with peers (Vestad, 2010). Musical
media are also a very common part of children’s physical and kinaesthetic play, accompanying
dancing or games like musical chairs (Young & Gillen, 2007). For pre-teen and teenage girls,
“serious play” with popular music in bedrooms, playgrounds, and other spaces provides op-
portunities to develop understandings of their gender and sexual identities in wider contexts and
cultures of consumption (Baker, 2004, 2013; Willett, 2011). A bias against media and tech-
nology means children’s mediated musical experiences have been largely excluded from school,
but their media practices intersect with the school environment anyway (Bickford, 2017;
Young, 2009).
“Mainstream” Western or Anglophone music is a powerful marker of unmarked, White,
middle-class “American” identities (Carson & Westvall, 2016; Minks, 1999). At the same time,
(im)migrant and refugee young people may listen to music connected to their families and
countries of origin, incorporating them into their wider practices in complex ways, using re-
cordings, YouTube, and other media in syncretic performances in multiple languages, creating
their own spaces between their places of origin and their host countries (Carson & Westvall,
2016; Karlsen, 2013; K. Marsh 2017; K. Marsh et al., 2020).
As music consumers, children are subject to adult concerns about music’s influence on
children and young people’s attitudes and behaviour, especially for genres of music associated
with racial minorities or counter/subcultures. It is difficult to sort out correlation from
causation in experimental studies of musical “media effects” on violent or misogynistic

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behaviour (Roberts et al., 2003). While some quantitative and empirical studies show a
correlation between heavy metal culture and mental illness among youth, an in-depth
qualitative study has shown that metal identity protects many young people from mental
health problems associated with home and school (Rowe & Guerin, 2017). While many
studies of children’s use of technology reflect parental concerns about potential harms of
technology (Young & Wu, 2019), ethnographic evidence supports the idea that listening
is active and expressive and that the use of devices facilitates social connections, including
face-to-face interactions (Bickford, 2017).

Gender
Girls are a core market for much music media, through which they navigate complex identities
and social relations. Girls both create popular music and are tastemakers whose opinions are
sought by marketers, but they have also been traditionally confined by representations of
girlhood in media and ridiculed as trivial (Warwick & Adrian, 2016). Girls have been in a
“double bind,” having to choose between a subordinate position in male musical cultures or
participating in denigrated girl-centred music; these issues have historically been intensified for
Black girl groups (Warwick, 2007). Scholars identify the 1990s British girl group The Spice
Girls, who in a seeming contradiction combined their “girl power” slogan with a strong
emphasis on traditional femininity, as an important cultural touchstone in which this double
bind was itself commodified into twenty-first-century “post-feminism” (Lemish, 2003;
McRobbie, 2009). With recent icons of tween music and YouTube celebrities providing new
images and “reality” narratives about girls making it in the adult-male-dominated music in-
dustry, girls have new models for music making (Dougher & Pecknold, 2018). Still, they have
to negotiate ideologies about gender, music, cultural authority, and image, and the tween music
industry most dominantly addresses White girlhood. Campers at rock camps for girls navigate
perceptions of themselves as performing “rock” musicians versus pop music consumers. They
are aware that they are marketed to, and their perception of this targeting may influence their
opinions about pop stars like Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus (Dougher, 2016). The voices of
teen girl pop singers, enhanced by autotune and other technologies, affirm a new form of girls’
vocal expression while defying gatekeepers of acceptable girl vocality (Pecknold, 2016).

Children’s Own Cultural Traditions

Children’s traditional culture, including playground songs and toys, has long incorporated
musical media. In handclapping and singing games, practised in playgrounds around the world,
children incorporate elements from advertisements, television shows, popular songs, and the
internet (Gaunt, 2006; K. Marsh, 2008; Burn & Richards, 2013). These games also become part
of educational media as researchers and educators collect them for use in the classroom.
YouTube has become an important medium for teaching and learning handclapping games
(and as we write, TikTok is emerging as having a similar impact), affording opportunities for
children to present their expertise in the innovation and transmission of the games. Children
frequently assert that changes in the games are their own acts of creation (Bishop, 2014).
Because of their global spread and mediation, musical games afford transnational and cross-
cultural interaction and meaning making (K. Marsh, 2008; Lill 2014b). Children’s media
consumption, play, and literacy practices are connected in changing commercial and techno-
logical contexts. Creativity and innovation, often through bricolage and media assemblages,
thrive despite fears that play is disappearing from contemporary childhood (J. Marsh, 2014).

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Music and Digital Media

Digital technologies have created new contexts for children and young people to engage with
musical media. In fact, music and young people figure centrally in discourses of technological
change. Napster, a 1990s file-sharing service on which young people would exchange music,
was an early example of panicked discourses about challenges the internet might pose for
traditional media industries. File-sharing discourses participate in common anxious and cele-
bratory tropes of children as both problems and sources of promise (Stephens, 1995), framing
children and youth in terms of theft, piracy, and the breakdown of legal order, but also in terms
of sociality, sharing, cooperation, and collaboration. More recently, social network sites like
Facebook that appeal to youth encourage sharing information about listening habits among
friends as a form of social advertising (J. Marsh, 2014). YouTube karaoke videos afford par-
ticipatory performance by individuals or groups of kids with common musical interests, fan-
doms, and identities (Lill, 2014a). Blurring the line between producers and audiences, young
people also upload their own performances on social media and YouTube, further raising
concerns about exploitation and protection. Black girls’ online musical performances are subject
to especially stigmatizing discourses of objectification and sexualization (Gaunt, 2016). These
dynamics are intensified in apps like TikTok that integrate music and video in new ways
through advancing technology (Kennedy, 2020). The networking and algorithmic aspects of
such apps mean that social networks and identities can be specialized, with music choices and
memes playing a role in the cultivation of gendered, sexual, and racial identities.
Although music is prominently associated with youth and digital technology, studies of
young people’s musical practices are still emergent. Already completed studies of youth and
digital music suggest that music-editing software affords young people increasing opportunities
to produce music, while technological complexity encourages collaboration, and online social
networks create opportunities for distribution and public performances (Mahendran in Ito et al.,
2009, pp. 270–272). Bickford’s research on children’s uses of MP3 players demonstrates that
physical interaction and face-to-face sociability are key values that structure children’s portable
music listening, and common practices like sharing earbuds so that two friends can listen to-
gether create new contexts for intimacy in the joint consumption of music (Bickford, 2017). In
such ways, children and teenagers’ uses of portable musical media are dramatically different
from the isolated, cocooning practices that scholars have found among adult users of similar
technologies (Bull, 2008; Ito et al., 2008). But at the same time, such an emphasis on face-to-
face sharing is perhaps of a kind with the importance of real-world social relationships to young
people’s uses of social network sites and other information communication technologies.

Conclusion
Children’s music culture is thoroughly intertwined with all aspects of children’s culture.
Children’s commercial music is an important part of children’s changing role in the media
and consumer industries. Music connects children’s long-held cultural traditions with an
ever-changing mass media and technological environment. As audiences, children locate
themselves in increasingly powerful positions in mass media culture and everyday listening
practices as they express personal investments and organize relations among friends and
peers. Music often goes unnoticed in studies of media, but music is among the most im-
portant and meaningful media experiences in children and adolescents’ lives, and links
children’s small-scale face-to-face sociality to much larger-scale configurations of commerce
and mass media.

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CHILDREN AND CONSUMER
CULTURE
Kara Chan

Children as Consumers
Children represent three markets: a primary market with their own income to spend, an in-
fluencer market that gives direction to parental purchases, and a future market for all goods and
services (McNeal, 1992). As the trend for parent–child relationship in Western societies to
change from authoritative to mutual understanding, children’s voices are taken more seriously
in family purchases (Valkenburg & Cantor, 2001). In the digital era, children interact with
brands and exhibit consumer behavior in expanding platforms including mobile devices, social
media, and video viewing sites (World Health Organization, 2016).

The Development of a Children’s Consumer Culture

The early development of children as a consumer market in the U.S., for example, can be
traced to the period between 1890 to 1940 (Leach, 1993a). As mass production of consumer
goods outpaced consumer demand, marketers looked to children as a neglected demo-
graphic group at which they could target their products (Strasser, 1989). Social transfor-
mations including the democratization of middle-class family life, the increasing salience of
children’s peer relations and group activities, and growing regard for the legitimacy of
children’s self-expression convinced marketers that children were an important consumer
market (Jacobson, 2008).
That market in the U.S. witnessed explosive growth in the variety and supply of children’s
toys and clothing (Leach, 1993a), the establishment of children and teens’ toys and clothing
sections in department stores (Cook, 2004), as well as mail-order catalogues ( Jacobson, 2008),
the allocation of retail space for children’s playgrounds to attract shoppers (Leach, 1993a,
1993b), the development of personalized customer relationship programs for young consumers
(Formanek-Brunell, 1993), the publication of consumer magazines for children and teens
( Jacobson, 2004), and the promotion of products at schools through commercialized teaching
materials (Manning, 1999). To gain access to the parents, marketers in the early 1930s used
visual images that idealized the companionate family and associated their products with chil-
dren’s developmental needs ( Jacobson, 2008). Advertisers positioned themselves as friendly
advisers that helped youth succeed in the trials of peer culture. Advertisers offered young people

144 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-19

 Children and Consumer Culture

tips on impression management and immediate solutions to their concerns about personal
appearance and popularity ( Jacobson, 2004).
Similar processes have been witnessed in many other countries around the world. Brands have
always considered children as an important target. In the digital age, children are exposed to all
forms of digital marketing content through advergames, branded environments, influencer
marketing, sponsored search results, native advertising, and location targeting (United Nations
Children’s Fund, 2018). Children nowadays are heavy users of digital media. The digital mar-
keting efforts of brands magnifies the persuasive effect of advertising in the traditional television
media. Brand messages to children were less regulated than advertising in the traditional media
(World Health Organization, 2016). The appearance of new advertising actors, proliferation of
advertising technology, and centralized big data on audiences have made it even more difficult for
children to identify the marketer’s communication strategies. As a result, children have difficulties
in identifying the sales intentions of these commercial contents. The prevalence of media in
children’s bedrooms and the omnipresent images of consumer goods for children are influencing
their perceptions of a good life and personal well-being (Jacobson, 2008).

The Global Toy Market

Besides food and beverages, the first group of commercial products that a child comes into
contact with is toys. Infants are introduced to stuffed animals and mobiles at the crib. Toddlers
learn to touch, feel, and play with play items (McNeal, 1987). Toys are part of children’s
consumer culture as they are bought and consumed to display a certain lifestyle and identity
(Bondebjerg & Golding, 2004). The new “smart toys” with digital connectivity, artificial in-
telligence, voice recognition opened up a new form of digital play (Hains & Jennings, 2021).
Playing is an integral part of childhood. Due to the marketing efforts of a small number of
mega-corporations for toys, many children’s form of play has changed from a spontaneous and
unsupervised form more typical of earlier historical periods to a commercialized and branded
form. Children showed tremendous interest in branded goods and some in fashionable and
luxury items (Schor, 2004). Consumer culture in this chapter is understood to be “the ideo-
logical infrastructure that undergirds what and how people consume and sets the ground rules
for marketers’ branding activities” (Holt, 2002, p. 80).
The toy market worldwide is estimated to have been worth US$91 billion in 2019, an
increase of 0.5 percent over the previous year (NPD Group, 2020a). The U.S. remained the
largest toy market. However, the U.S. market declined because of the Toys “R” Us liquidation
sales in 2018. The toy market outside the U.S. registered growth, with Russia, Germany, and
Brazil up 5 percent, 3 percent, and 2 percent respectively (NPD Group, 2020b). Economic
growth and increase in disposable income accounted for this market growth. Children’s con-
sumer culture is brand-oriented. The five most popular toys in 2019 were L.O.L. Surprise! (a
miniature doll with accessories wrapped in plastic bags), Barbie dolls and accessories, Marvel
Universe with action figures such as Iron Man and Spider-Man, Hot Wheels (die-cast min-
iature toy cars), and foam-based guns for darts named Nerf (NPD Group, 2020b). The toy
market witnessed a convergence of toy manufacturers, the media industry, and the high-tech
industrial economy. Older children are now playing with mobile phones, the internet, and
online games. So, the medium becomes the toy.
Besides toys, children’s daily lives are filled with products depicting their favorite media
characters. In an ethnographic study of a group of 4- and 5-year-olds in Singapore, Lim (2015)
found that children often included popular cartoon characters, heroes, and cultural icons in
their free play, in chatting with peers, and in their drawings. These characters were often

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derived from children’s television shows and movies and included Batman, Spider-Man, The
Powerpuff Girls, SpongeBob, and Dora the Explorer. Material possessions such as school bags,
stationery, stickers, umbrellas, toys, and hair accessories helped children connect with one
another to create a shared peer consumption culture surrounding popular culture. Furthermore,
children’s consumption choices and desires reflected their families’ socio-economic status and
value. They developed an awareness of social status and personal taste through observing and
discussing the goods, services, and entertainment enjoyed by the peers (Lim, 2015).
Boys and girls have different tastes in toys. Boys preferred construction toys, toy vehicles,
and action figures while girls preferred slime, soft toys, toy animals, and dolls. The only toy that
both boys and girls preferred was LEGO (Foster, 2020). A qualitative study among 20 girls
found that participants could identify which LEGO products were intended for girls or for boys
by the company. However, when participants played with the mixed-together pieces from the
LEGO sets, girls demonstrated different interests and behaviors than those gender stereotypes
assumed by the marketers (Hains & Shewmaker, 2019).
Marketers often position themselves and their products as children’s allies (Cook, 2007).
They have adopted a child empowerment discourse that values children not as a vulnerable
audience susceptible to exploitation, but as a group of knowing, active consumers who exercise
choice (Kunkel & Roberts, 1991). The child empowerment approach is assumed to lead to
positive identification with children and adopting their point of view (Cook, 2007). In ads for
children’s products, child empowerment is typically communicated through the use of language
that addresses children directly as “you” or “you and your family.” Children are typically in the
foreground of the visuals, which encourage children to experience the products or services
before their peers. Children are the presenters in the advertising stories (Gram, 2011).
The children’s consumer culture has become global as the media and the content creation
process are gradually being globalized (Bondebjerg & Golding, 2004).

Children and Youth Market Segments

The children consumption market is usually segmented by age, gender, and sometimes race or
ethnicity (McGinnis et al., 2006). For example, the Toys “R” Us shop used eight age segments:
birth to 12 months, 12–24 months, 2-year-olds, 3–4, 5–7, 8–11, 12–14, and “big kids” for its
online offerings (Toys “R” Us, 2011). They also clearly segmented their toy aisles by gender.
Marketing scholars and market research agencies have proposed alternative segmentations.
Braimah et al. (2017) proposed three segments for the children’s market, including tempera-
ment, interest, and cultural disposition. An example of such an alternative segmentation was
investigated in a study of the preferences of children aged 8 to 12 in the U.S. toy market (Patino
et al., 2012) that identified four clusters of children: enthusiastic, social/intellectual, creative,
and the disengaged. The enthusiastic subgroup was the biggest in size with 44 percent of the
sample. Children in this group scored high in their ranking for all five attributes of toys, in-
cluding creative, challenging, educational, easy-to-use, and social, indicating that they were
keen to adopt a diverse range of toys. The social/intellectual clusters preferred toys that allowed
them to play with others or were challenging. The creative cluster preferred toys that would
stimulate the imagination and were simple to use. This cluster of children did not like edu-
cational toys. The disengaged cluster showed a lack of interest in all kinds of toys.
While such segmentations attempt to classify children into clusters, we should not forget the
underlying commonality among all children and youth. The children and youth consumer
culture demonstrates increasing similarity in terms of a deep interest in the process of becoming
who or what they will be in the future, being experience-driven, and a desire to get connected

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with peers in physical as well as virtual communities (Ekstrom & Tufte, 2007; Gram, 2011;
Stock & Tupot, 2006).
Children today are active users of internet and mobile devices. Marketers are developing
digital marketing strategies to engage children and youth. Children willingly play online games
on brand websites, download commercials and jingles, seek solutions to games or puzzles on
product packages, create their own versions of brand-related content, and enroll as members or
friends of their favorite brands ( Jones & Reid, 2010). Integrating interactive content with
product promotions supported by cartoon spokespersons encourages young consumers to de-
velop a strong and playful connection with a brand. In this way, brands have been successfully
woven into the everyday life of the children and the youth that marketers are targeting (Chester
& Montgomery, 2008). Marketers create game-themed virtual worlds such as Disney’s Club
Penguin with games and opportunities for community engagement. Oreo cookie brand in-
troduced a mobile scavenger hunt game “The Great Oreo Cookie Quest” where players used
augmented reality to find hidden virtual cookies in everyday objects and overlaid it with a
smartphone. These online platforms and promotional activities have been criticized for using
game mechanics and branding strategies to promote real money transactions and self-promotion
(Grimes, 2013).
Parents are aware of the symbolic meaning of consumption for children. They are eager to
spend money on their children because they want them to have a sense of social belonging in
terms of owning the right kinds of goods and living the right experiences. They worry that if
their children do not have the right possessions they will look and feel odd (Pugh, 2009).

Consumption and Identity

Children perceive toys as possessions. What they own tells who they are. Their attitudes to-
wards their possessions are culturally grounded and are impacted by the values of the society in
which they are growing up (Chan, 2006). For example, when children in mainland China were
asked to draw pictures about a child with a lot of toys and a child with few, the drawings and
the subsequent interviews demonstrated that the children most often associated toys with fun
and excitement. They also perceived that having the right toys would help them attract friends,
be successful, and enjoy self-confidence. Older children had a more complex association be-
tween toys and social significance. They perceived that more toys could bring more fun and
more friends, but at the same time could also trigger selfishness, envy, and arrogance. Older
Chinese children believed strongly that having a lot of toys would have a negative impact on
their schoolwork (Chan, 2005). A study among Chinese adolescents aged 15 to 20 found that a
person with a lot of material possessions was more likely to be imagined as selfish, envious of
others, and a spendthrift, while a person with few material possessions was more likely to be
imagined as hardworking, caring about others, willing to serve, and academically accomplished
(Chan, 2019).
Brands are playing a role in defining, expressing, and communicating self-concepts among
children and adolescents (Chaplin & John, 2005). A series of experiments with U.S. children
and adolescents aged 8–18 found that self-brand connections developed with age. Children in
middle childhood made a limited number of self-brand connections, and those connections
were based mainly on concrete associations with the brands, such as owning the branded item.
Adolescents demonstrated stronger self-brand connections, and those connections were based
on abstract qualities of personality, user characteristics, or reference group affiliation (Chaplin &
John, 2005). Children’s immersive involvement with brands can affect them socially and
emotionally, as well as leading to endorsement of materialistic values (Marshall, 2010).

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The Disney Brand

Children all over the world are consuming branded goods produced by the major toy and
media companies. Is their similar relationship with the product resulting in homogeneity of
consumer values? This section uses Disney as a case study to answer this question.
The renowned Disney brand is one of only two of the top ten global brands aimed primarily
at children. McDonald’s ranks no. 9 and Disney no. 10 (Interbrand, 2020). The Walt Disney
Company is one of the world’s largest media conglomerates (PBS, 2021). Its promise of “magic
and imagination” brought in a revenue of US$25 billion in 2020 from its theme parks, resorts,
studio entertainment, and media networks. Disney is a leader in film, internet, broadcasting,
television, recreation, music, and publishing (PBS, 2021). As of 2021, The Walt Disney
Company owns or licenses 14 theme parks, six resort destinations and 53 resorts in the U.S.,
Europe, and Asia (The Walt Disney Company, 2021). The five Disneyland parks in operation
attracted 73 million visitors in 2019 (Themed Entertainment Association, 2019). Disney stores
sell more than 100 merchandized product categories in Disney owned or licensed retail shops
(Disney Consumer Products, 2021). Disney’s media products carried North American values of
individualism, work ethic, advancement through self-help, and supreme optimism in societal
improvement (Wasko, 2020).
Some scholars have criticized Disney for its worldview and gender portrayal, including
distorted female images, and its potential negative impact on young children. For example,
scholars comment that the female characters in many of Disney films (especially the older ones)
are often weak, passive, and highly dependent on the approval of (or even rescue by) the male
characters (e.g., Bell et al., 1995; Kasturi 2002). Even though Disney Princesses possess divine
beauty, they suffer in silence and need salvation through a handsome prince (Maity, 2014).
Baker-Sperry (2007) analyzed the text of Disney’s official Cinderella story book and found the
following themes: romantic love at first sight, the expectation that the females and not the males
would take up domestic work, magical transformation, rescuer and rescued roles, the im-
portance of physical beauty, as well as the lack of a pivotal male role. Martin and Kazyak (2009)
analyzed Disney’s G-rated films and found that heterosexuality was favored through portraying
heterosexual romantic love as powerful and transformative, as well as through different ways of
depicting men’s and women’s bodies. The sexiness of feminine Disney characters was always
defined by the gaze of masculine characters (Martin & Kazyak, 2009). Gender reception studies
found that Disney fairy tales provided the child audience with the social meaning of romance
and marriage (Baker-Sperry, 2007; Lee, 2008). Many scholars analyzed changes in Disney’s
representation of gender and race since the 1990s. Stronger and more empowered heroines
such as Ariel and Belle were constructed. Princesses of color were featured (Wasko, 2020).
However, there is still criticism of Disney’s emphasis on intrinsic special power of heroines that
undermined choice and agency (Formanek-Brunell & Hains, 2015). As all the Disney movies
are still being streamed, broadcasted and viewed, the values that the older Disney movies
perpetuate continue to socialize children.
Consumption of Disney products varies in different cultural contexts. Disney emphasizes fun
and imagination, but it also pays attention to the needs and the cultural norms of the target
market. In China, an economy that places tremendous emphasis on education, Disney launched
a chain of English-language schools called Disney English and the first learning center was
opened in Shanghai in 2008. It was the first Western media company to operate a school in
China (D’Altorio, 2010). There were 26 Disney English centers in China and these attracted
more than 100,000 learners aged between 2 and 12 (Qian, 2020). Chinese parents view English
as a ticket to the world, and aspire to equip their children with fluent English as early in

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childhood as possible (The Economist, 2010). The strategy of positioning Disney products as
educational tools helped Disney react to the stringent publishing rules and rampant infringe-
ment of intellectual piracy in China (D’Altorio, 2010). Because of China’s restriction of foreign
media, Disney was not able to start a television channel or distribute the full series of Disney
movies (Areddy & Sanders, 2009). Thus, Disney English became an alternative for reaching
child consumers and their parents. Disney characters, books, songs, TV shows, and movies were
incorporated as teaching materials. Classrooms were named after Disney movie characters.
Students who performed well were rewarded with stationery, flash cards, and other items
especially designed as incentives for the Chinese market (Areddy & Sanders, 2009). Parents
trusted the Disney brand because of its strong international image. Chinese parents appreciated
Disney English’s ability to engage children in learning English in a fun way (Xiudadad, 2009).
However, due to the pandemic and the popularity of online learning, the business of Disney
English in China went downhill and was closed in 2020 (Qian, 2020).
Previously, the success of Disney movies in China brought criticism of cultural im-
perialism (Mufson, 1996). Some parents worried that the overemphasis on fun may erode
Chinese children’s commitment to the traditional virtues of hard work, discipline, and moral
integrity (Mufson, 1996). Disney animations and movies have been criticized for reflecting
Western stereotypes of China rather than being a reflection of actual Chinese culture. For
example, Chinese people were not happy with the portrayal of the national heroine Mulan in
the 2020 Disney film of the same name (Bloomberg, 2020). They commented that the
characters were shallow and the details showed a lack of understanding of the Chinese
concept of “Chi” – the vital life force that runs through living beings (Shen, 2020).
This illustrates how global media products for children face many challenges in penetrating
cultures and practices.
Similarly, Arabic characters in Disney movies were criticized as stereotypical that provided
misleading images about Arabs and Muslims. Arab men were featured as ugly, aggressive, and
violent. Arab women were represented as either oppressed or sexually attractive belly dancers.
Demonizing Arabs may affect how the Western audience sees them and how Arabs see
themselves (Belkhyr, 2012).

Conclusion
To conclude, children are recognized as important targets for commercial products and services.
The development of the children’s consumer market is sometimes criticized as the commer-
cialization of childhood. Using the toy market as an example, we identify that the children’s
consumer culture is moving toward brand and technology focus, homogeneity, and multimedia
formats. There is emphasis on market segmentation, meaning children of similar age, the same
sex, and similar psychographics are assumed to be attracted by a uniform product and benefit
appeal. Our discussion of Disney shows how a global company of children’s media products
play a role in social construction of identity and the stereotypes about the self and the other. A
review of children and consumer culture led us to a question about how children of different
cultures interact with brands with different consumer values. Further analysis can focus on the
ways children in different cultures respond to marketing communications of leading global
brands of interest to them.

SEE ALSO Chapter 5 by Willett and Buckingham and Chapter 34 by Rozendaal, Buijzen, and
van Reijmersdal in this volume.

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 17
SOCIAL ROBOTS AND CHILDREN
Jochen Peter

Social Robots and Children

Due to far-reaching technological changes in computing and machine learning (e.g., Eberl, 2016),
social robots are becoming increasingly more frequent in everyday and domestic settings
(Bartneck et al., 2020, Chapter 10). Social robots “are designed to interact with people in a
natural, interpersonal manner – often to achieve positive outcomes in diverse applications such as
education, health, quality of life, entertainment, communication, and tasks requiring collaborative
teamwork” (Breazeal et al., 2016, p. 1935). They come in types as diverse as the robot dinosaur
Pleo (Innvo Labs), the bulldozer-like Cozmo robot (Anki), or the humanoid Nao robot
(Softbank). One group that progressively encounters social robots are children (Brink & Wellman,
2019): Social robots have been used, for example, to help children in hospitals (Looije et al.,
2016); to support teaching in schools (Baxter et al., 2017); and for entertainment at home
(Bartneck et al., 2020, Chapter 10). Accordingly, scholars have studied the role of social robots for
therapy (Cabibihan et al., 2013), education (Belpaeme et al., 2018), and play (Shahid et al., 2014).
However, while thriving, research on social robots and children is still scattered (De Jong, Peter
et al., 2019; Van Straten, Peter, & Kühne, 2020) and less common among scholars of children and
the media than other research on new technologies, for example the Internet of Toys (Mascheroni
& Holloway, 2019). From the perspective of research on children and the media, this chapter
therefore first presents a rationale for studying social robots and then explicates the pertinent the-
oretical challenges. This theoretical fundament is necessary to demonstrate the link between re-
search on children and social robots on the one hand and research on children and the media on the
other. Accordingly, I outline subsequently how scholars of children and the media can contribute
theoretically to theory formation in research on children and social robots. The remainder of this
chapter illustrates empirical research on the role of social robots in children’s lives, focusing on topics
that are prominently studied and relevant to scholars of children and the media. Given space
constraints, the literature is presented in an exemplary rather than a comprehensive way.

Reasons for Studying Social Robots

Research on social robots started in the mid-1990s (e.g., Dautenhahn, 1995) and pioneering
work done in the early 2000s (e.g., Breazeal, 2003) subsequently established the field of social

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-20 153

 Jochen Peter

robotics. Studies on children’s interaction with social robots were part of the field from an early
point of time (e.g., Kahn et al., 2006; Kanda et al., 2004) and led to an increasing interest in
what is, next to human-robot interaction (HRI) more generally, known as child-robot in-
teraction (CRI). Although communication-related approaches to CRI have always played an
important role (Leite et al., 2013; Leite & Lehman, 2016), scholars of children and the media
have only recently started to deal with CRI more extensively (e.g., Peter, 2017; Van Straten,
Peter, Kühne et al., 2020; Vogt et al., 2017).
One of the reasons for the rather slow adoption of CRI as a subject in research on children
and the media may be that the relevance of studying CRI has not been (made) evident to the
community (see also Peter, 2017). Given the development of media offerings for young people
in the past four decades, scholars of children and the media have understandably centered on
television and, since the mid-2000s, increasingly on internet applications, such as social media,
and on computer-mediated communication more generally (for an overview, see e.g.,
Valkenburg & Taylor Piotrowski, 2017). However, as Gunkel (2012) has outlined for
computer-mediated communication, much of this research may be prone to two biases: first,
that communication is equated with human-human communication and, second, that com-
puters, or media more generally, are seen as neutral transmitters of information (see also
Guzman, 2018). However, an increasing percentage of communication currently takes place
between humans and machines (Gunkel, 2012), and social robots (but also virtual assistants and
social bots) need to be seen as “another kind of communicative Other” (Gunkel, 2012, p. 21),
given their communicative abilities (Hepp, 2020).
Relying on Gunkel (2012) and other theorists, Peter and Kühne (2018) have identified three
reasons why communication researchers should study social robots. First, social robots force us
to rethink the role of the communication partner: The communication partner is not ne-
cessarily human and human-human communication is complemented by human-machine
communication (Guzman, 2018; Spence, 2019). At a theoretical level, social robots may thus
compel us to also include machines, or non-humans more generally, as subjects and objects of
social study (Latour, 2005). For scholars interested in children’s play with technologically ad-
vanced toys, for example, this insight may be important because it enables them to link their
research more strongly to communication research and vice versa (e.g., Bloch & Lemish, 1999;
Mascheroni & Holloway, 2019).
A second reason why communication researchers may want to turn to social robots is that
social robots force us reconsider our notion of the medium (Peter & Kühne, 2018). As social
robots are able to send and receive information, social robots defy the notion of a medium as a
mere transmitter of communication (Gunkel, 2012; Guzman, 2018). In a visionary article,
Zhao (2006, p. 402) has already observed this more than 15 years ago: “[S]ocial robots … are
not a medium through which humans interact, but rather a medium with which humans
interact.” Moving beyond the notion of the medium as a transmitter may be a crucial step to
capture, in a theoretically adequate way, children’s and adolescents’ increasing use of social
robots, but also their encounter of “communicative robots in the form of software and digital
infrastructures .… [which can be defined as] (partially) automated and (partially) autonomous
communication media that serve the purposes of quasi-communication with humans” (Hepp,
2020, p. 1413, emphasis removed).
A third and final reason why communication researchers may benefit from studying social
robots is that they make us aware of the boundaries of communication (Peter & Kühne, 2018).
Due to the dominance of human-human communication in communication research, we have
at least implicitly accepted the boundaries of human-human communication as the boundaries
of communication. However, with the advancements in artificial intelligence and machine

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learning (Eberl, 2016), robots may soon surpass the communicative skills of humans, for ex-
ample in cognitive, linguistic, and sensual terms (Sandry, 2015; Van Bergen, 2016). New forms
of communication may consequently emerge that may differ from traditional human-human
communication, regardless of whether it is mediated or not. Children and adolescents are likely
to be among the first to use social robots and/or communicative robots (Mascheroni &
Holloway, 2019; Peter et al., 2019) and may therefore lend themselves to study the potential
erosion of traditional boundaries of communication and the possible emergence of new ones.

Theoretical Challenges in Studying Social Robots

Peter and Kühne’s (2018) three reasons why communication researchers should study social
robots implicitly also raise the question of whether theoretical frameworks from human-human
communication are suitable for studying human-robot communication. Evaluating the applic-
ability of theories of human-human relationship formation to human-robot relationship forma-
tion, Fox and Gambino (2021) have recently expressed this challenge explicitly. They have argued
that social robots do not meet the assumptions about the capacities of human interactants upon
which theories of human-human relationship formation are based. Interactions between humans
thus present a boundary condition of such theories and, consequently, models and theories are
needed that address the specifics of relationships between humans and robots (Fox & Gambino,
2021). Interestingly, Peter and Kühne (2018) derive their challenges for communication research
from assumptions about the improved communicative skills of future social robots. Fox and
Gambino (2021), in contrast, question the validity of interpersonal theories in studying human-
robot relationships based on shortcomings of common current social robots, such as their pro-
blems with persistent and searchable memory and their limited responsiveness, contingency, and
conversational control in interactions. Accordingly, Peter and Kühne (2018) see the potential of
theory formation about human-robot communication by going beyond the boundaries of
human-human communication whereas Fox and Gambino (2021) emphasize the need for such
theory formation by staying within these boundaries.
Regardless of these differences, scholars seem to become increasingly aware of an “an-
thropocentric bias” in contemporary theorizing about human-robot communication, which
uncritically takes insights from human-human communication as a starting point, generalizes
them to human-robot communication, and tends to overlook the defining features of robots
(Gambino et al., 2020; see also Westerman et al., 2020). Accordingly, a growing number of
researchers appears to agree that either existing theories from human-human communication
need to be tested for their applicability to human-robot communication and, if necessary,
modified, or new theories need to be developed (Fox & Gambino, 2021; Gambino et al., 2020;
Van Straten, 2021; Westerman et al., 2020). In this endeavor, it is crucial that researchers be
attentive to the defining features of robots as inanimate objects and the boundaries of human-
human communication (Fox & Gambino, 2021). With their expertise in children’s play with
technologically advanced inanimate objects (Bloch & Lemish, 1999; Mascheroni & Holloway,
2019) and an inherent attention to often developmentally based boundaries of communicative
processes (Valkenburg & Taylor Piotrowski, 2017), scholars of children and the media may be
predisposed to contribute to theory formation in human-robot communication.

Theory Formation in Human-Robot Communication

A fruitful starting point to contribute to theory formation in human-robot communication may be
to test the validity of human-human communication theories for human-robot communication.

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This can be done, for example, by including features that define robots (as opposed to humans)
into research on CRI and study its consequences for concepts and processes that are important in
communication between humans, such as social presence, animacy (i.e., being alive), and (be-
havioral) anthropomorphism (i.e., attribution of human features) (Fox & Gambino, 2021;
Walther, 1992), as well as characteristics of relationship formation between humans, such as
closeness and trust (Berscheid & Regan, 2005). Another option is to confront children explicitly
with shortcomings of current social robots, for example the fact that social robots often have to be
remotely operated to interact smoothly. If propositions from human-human communication
theories still hold under such circumstances, we have some initial evidence that even if as-
sumptions of theories of human-human communication are not met, these theories may at least
partly still be valid in human-robot communication (for a similar idea of using tenets from in-
terpersonal theories as a test for the similarity between future robots and humans, known as the
Turing test, see Fox & Gambino, 2021).
While not aimed explicitly at testing the theoretical issues outlined above, some recent
studies may illustrate how such research looks. For example, when 8–9-year-old children
were made aware that a humanoid robot does not have human psychological capacities, such
as self-consciousness, identity construction, and emotionality, they perceived the robot to be
less socially present, less animate, and less similar to themselves and anthropomorphized and
trusted the robot less. However, children’s feelings of closeness with the robot remained
unchanged (Van Straten, Peter, Kühne, et al., 2020). Similarly, when 7–10-year-old children
were shown that a social robot was teleoperated, they perceived it as less autonomous and
human-like. However, demonstrating children this shortcoming of robots influenced neither
the degree to which they perceived the robot as socially present and animate nor whether
they trusted and felt close to the robot (Van Straten et al., 2021). Although replication and
extension of these findings is needed, they suggest that some concepts and processes that are
important in communication between humans may require more scrutiny when studying
CRI. Importantly, in CRI or HRI more generally, they should not be expected to work the
same as in human-human communication. Conversely, the findings also suggest that char-
acteristics of human relationship formation, notably closeness, may be comparable in human-
human interaction and CRI, at least in initial interactions with a robot, as studied by Van
Straten and colleagues.
In sum, given their expertise, scholars of children and the media may be well-equipped to
contribute to current theoretical discussions on the extent to which theories of human-human
communication can be applied to human-robot communication. Such insights may be crucial
for a thorough theoretical understanding of current developments in which human-human
communication is progressively complemented, or even replaced by, human-robot commu-
nication or human-machine communication more generally.

How to Study Social Robots and Children: Examples from Empirical Research
As CRI is an inherently multi-disciplinary field, it has attracted researchers from different
countries and backgrounds as diverse as robotics (e.g., Leite & Lehman, 2016), psychology (e.g.,
Brink & Wellman, 2019) and communication research (e.g., Van Straten, Peter, Kühne, et al.,
2020). Accordingly, the diversity of studied subjects is high and at times difficult to summarize
(De Jong, Peter, et al., 2019; Van Straten, Peter, & Kühne, 2020). By and large, however, at
least three lines of research have emerged about CRI that keep on attracting research: first,
children’s acceptance of social robots; second, learning with and from social robots; and third,
relationship formation with social robots. Many studies have also been conducted on the use

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of social robots in child therapy, for example with children on the autism spectrum. This topic,
however, would require a deeper treatment than is possible here (for a review, see Cabibihan
et al., 2013).

Acceptance
Overall, most children seem to approach social robots positively and interact with them easily
(e.g., Kanda et al., 2004). Children’s acceptance of social robots has been extensively studied,
typically in a quantitative, experimental, and cross-sectional way (De Jong, Peter, et al., 2019).
However, our knowledge of what drives children’s acceptance of social robots is still limited. A
recent review has identified three antecedents of children’s acceptance of social robots (De
Jong, Peter, et al., 2019): First, in terms of robot characteristics, children accept an adaptive (i.e.,
responsive) robot more easily than a non-adaptive robot. As most social robots are adaptive, this
may explain why children generally use them easily. Second, in terms of user characteristics,
girls and children show higher acceptance of social robots than boys and adolescents, perhaps a
result of girls being more socialized into social activities and children being more prone to
imaginary friends. Third, in terms of interaction characteristics, more frequent interaction with
a robot is related to a higher acceptance of it.
An important challenge in research on children’s acceptance of social robots is the dom-
inance of cross-sectional studies. Without a longitudinal perspective, however, it is impossible
to rule out that children’s high acceptance of social robots, as suggested by current research,
may result from a novelty effect (De Jong, Peter, et al., 2019), that is, the tendency to pay
attention to novel stimuli, with that attention decreasing over time (Leite et al., 2013; Sung
et al., 2009). In fact, studies conducted in Sweden and Japan have shown that children’s ac-
ceptance of social robots reduced considerably over time (e.g., Fernaeus et al., 2010; Kanda
et al., 2004). We therefore need more longitudinal research, in the first place to better un-
derstand children’s long-term acceptance of social robots, but also to contextualize research on
child-robot interactions and their consequences (De Jong, Peter, et al., 2019).

Learning
A thriving field of inquiry in CRI is the use of social robots in education, for example as
second-language tutors (e.g., in the Netherlands, Vogt et al., 2017). Among other things, a
recent review has identified four important insights into social robots’ role in education
(Belpaeme et al., 2018): First, social robots improve cognitive outcomes of learning, such as
comprehension and knowledge, nearly to the same extent as human tutors. Second, social
robots also enhance affective outcomes of learning, such as attention and responsiveness, albeit
somewhat less strongly than cognitive outcomes. Third, different types of robots have similar
positive effects on cognitive learning outcomes, although humanoid social robots tend to exert
the strongest effects. Fourth, tailoring the robot’s behavior to the specific needs of a learning
situation and children generally improves cognitive and affective learning outcomes.
Next to dealing with intended effects of social robots on children’s learning in educational
settings, scholars have also started to study potentially unintended effects of social robots on
children’s learning in informal settings. In the latter case, children’s learning is expected to
follow the principles of social learning (Bandura, 1986), but is based on the observations of
robot, rather than human, role models. Relying on a social-learning paradigm, Peter et al.
(2021) have recently shown that a robot that demonstrates prosocial behavior in terms of
sharing stickers can increase that behavior among Dutch children aged 8–10. The study

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dovetails with a stronger interest in the relation between social robots and children’s proso-
ciality, with studies typically demonstrating that children extend prosocial behavior also to
social robots (e.g., in Australia – Martin et al., 2020).

Relationship Formation
As the interaction with humans defines social robots, much research has dealt with the for-
mation of relationships between children and social robots. A narrative review that focused on
children’s closeness and trust in social robots as key elements of relationship formation
(Berscheid & Regan, 2005) has distilled three general findings from existing research (Van
Straten, Peter, & Kühne, 2020): First, when a robot is responsive; has fewer capabilities than a
child; and engages in emotional and substantive (rather than small talk) interactions, children
feel closer to it. Second, a responsive robot also enhances children’s trust in it. Third, although
enjoyment and liking of a robot seem to be children’ main motivations to interact with social
robots (De Jong, Kühne, et al., 2019), little is known about their effect on closeness and trust. A
meta-analysis focusing only on trust has shown that more human-like attributes of a social robot
reduce children’s trust in the competency and reliability of the robot (i.e., competency trust,
Stower et al., 2021).
The existing reviews thus suggest several generalizable findings on children’s relationship
formation with social robots in terms of closeness and trust. Both reviews, however, also
emphasize several shortcomings in current research, which impede a better understanding of the
extent to which children form relationships with social robots, including low statistical power,
suboptimal statistical reporting, inconsistent conceptual and operational definitions of key
concepts, and the high percentage of correlational and cross-sectional studies (Stower et al.,
2021; Van Straten, Peter, & Kühne, 2020). Improving such issues is important not only to raise
the quality of research on children’s relationship formation with social robots, but also to
adequately address the concerns of those who have warned that social robots, as non-sentient
artefacts, may lure children into inauthentic, emotionally unidirectional, and deceptive re-
lationships (Scheutz, 2012; Turkle, 2007).

Conclusion
Although children are increasingly likely to encounter social and communicative robots in their
lives, scholars of children and the media have only recently picked up on the subject. There are,
however, several reasons why scholars of children and the media may benefit from studying
social robots. Conversely, there are several theoretical challenges in the study of human-robot
communication that may benefit from the expertise of scholars of children, adolescents, and the
media. Empirical research on children’s acceptance of social robots, their learning from robots,
and their relationship formation with them has produced many useful insights, but conceptual
and methodological issues still impair progress in the field. Given their topical proximity,
methodological knowledge, and conceptual richness, scholars of children and the media may be
well-equipped to make important contributions to the further development of CRI.

Funding Acknowledgements
Work on this chapter was supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC)
under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant
agreement No. [682733]).

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 18
CHILDREN AND THE INTERNET
OF TOYS
Francesca Stocco and Lelia Green

Introduction
The Internet of Toys (IoToys), a subset of the Internet of Things, redefines elements of
children’s play through multi-dimensional design practices that result in multi-sensory tech-
nological play experiences. Chaudron et al. (2017) discuss how IoToys implicate the child’s play
in the generation of data, subsequently communicating that information to the digital platform/
toy manufacturer and their chosen third-party agents. Connected toys can also be termed
“smart,” and the IoToys is a catch-all concept that is applicable when: “toys not only relate
one-on-one to children but are wirelessly connected to other toys and/or database data”
(Holloway & Green, 2016, p. 506). Given that these playthings are internet-enabled devices,
they may transfer a wide variety of children’s data, including audio files, video/images, and
personal information, to entities that store, analyse, and monetise data, often with the help of
artificial intelligence (AI) practices (Keymolen & Van der Hof, 2019).
Most smart toys are hybrid consumer products involving a range of corporate actors. While
the physical artefact (the toy) may be purchased by the parent and commissioned by them on
behalf of the child, for example via the registration of the child’s personal details within app-
enabled toys, the interconnected software integral to IoToys means that the parent is often
subject to long term contractual obligations relating to the data collected, both for themselves
and on behalf of their child (Chaudron et al., 2017, p. 8). This is a frequent consequence of the
commercial support for and management of data-generating goods and services.
Six types of connected toys are identified in the literature (Holloway & Green, 2016;
Mascheroni & Holloway, 2017): (1) app-enabled toys such as drones, digital pets, robots, and
coding/programming toys (e.g., Sphero Bolt and Cozmo); (2) cloud-based interactive toys that
may use the voice, speech and/or image recognition services of third parties to process, respond
to and analyse the child’s conversations (e.g., My Friend Cayla and Hello Barbie); (3)
augmented-reality toys (Mascheroni & Holloway, 2017, p. 16) (e.g., Parker bear); (4) children’s
wearables, such as fitness and tracking smartwatches (e.g., Fitbit Ace 2 and Vivofit Jr 2); (5)
toys-to-life, which connect action figures to video games (e.g., Skylanders, Amiibo); and/or (6)
manipulables/smart games (e.g., Osmo, Lego Fusion) (Mascheroni & Holloway, 2017, p. 16).
These toys blur the boundaries between online/offline play and activities, and physical/
digital entities (Bunz & Meikle, 2018; Marsh et al., 2016; Mascheroni & Holloway, 2019). The

162 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-21

 Children and the Internet of Toys

child’s activity with the toy is networked and coordinated with both the material (physical) and
technical artefacts of connected play. In a toy with cloud-based analytics, for example, the child
interacts with the material toy artefact, while the data is transferred from the physical toy to
third parties for analysis and potential commodification. The analytics services themselves often
use algorithmic processes that identify behavioural and other attributes to establish profiles of
children which can then be on-sold as commercially valuable data to inform the future
monetisation of young people’s consumption practices (Keymolen & Van der Hof, 2019).
Analysis of the blurred boundaries of IoToys (Bunz & Meikle, 2018; Marsh et al., 2016;
Mascheroni & Holloway, 2019) reveal that toys: (1) are complex systems: operating across many
devices and a variety of security settings; (2) include a range of separate, and often inaccessible,
data practices, such as cloud analytics service providers and marketers; and, (3) have multi-
dimensional design properties, that may offer both educational and social affordances
(Chaudron et al., 2017; Hinske, Langheinrich, & Lamp, 2008; Holloway & Green, 2016) while
potentially implicating a range of risks, for example, providing geolocational information about
the toy in use (and thus the child using it) and activating embedded, but not obvious, video-
sensory capabilities.
Current IoToys literature tends to conceptualise play between the child and the toy artefact
within a systems perspective, investigating how a child’s play can be influenced and/or further
monetised by actors operating within the IoToys environment (Mascheroni & Holloway, 2019).
Such an approach may fail to capture the richness of children’s engagement, however. The com-
plexities of digital play are reflected in the multi-disciplinary provenance of IoToys research, en-
compassing: Legal/Governance, Cyber security, Marketing, Media/Communications, Education,
Children’s Health, Human-Computer Interaction, Cultural Studies, Information systems (Data
analytics), and Robotics Engineering.
This chapter highlights the social and educational benefits of children’s connected toys, but
also notes increasing concern relating to children’s data privacy and attendant security risks,
widely discussed in news media and via specialist commentary, such as blogs. Past examples
relate to products such as Hello Barbie (Adhikari, 2015; Timms, 2015), and My Friend Cayla
(Collins, 2017; Roberts, 2016; Walsh, 2017). These are past examples because toys that are
closely analysed and widely discussed are less likely to be available: companies often withdraw
them in the face of perceived criticism. Thus, My Friend Cayla was withdrawn in 2017 and is
now featured in the Museum of Failure (MOF, n.d.). The risks highlighted by privacy ad-
vocates and other commentators inform increasingly urgent calls for policy development to
support enhanced compliance with national and international regulatory instruments such as the
United States’ Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA, 1998) and the European
Union’s General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679. Suggested reforms are generally
promoted as helping protect children from the effects of commercialisation and other ex-
ploitation of their data (Holloway & Green, 2016).
Governance documents relating to the network of actors that support a smart toy may be
separate from, and only vaguely referenced in, the vendors’ terms and conditions. Even the
terms and conditions themselves are rarely read by parents due to their length, the language they
use featuring vague and ambiguous terms that risk promoting misunderstanding, and com-
paratively inaccessible information. Operating policies may be amended by the company on a
regular basis, without the company notifying users as to updated terms and conditions nor,
necessarily, removing previous versions. Such practices may foster parents’ confusion
(Chaudron et al., 2017; Chowdhury, 2019; Keymolen & Van Der Hof, 2019). Policy docu-
ments like terms and conditions tend to be encountered for the first time after the act of
purchase, when a financial and emotional investment has been made. Lengthy governance

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information may remain unread, yet it can have implications for the smart toy’s unboxing, set-
up, installation, and use (Allana & Chawla, 2021; Keymolen & Van der Hof, 2019). Smith and
Regan-Shade (2018) contend that IoToys are, effectively, “black boxes” (Keymolen & Van der
Hof, p. 152), since parents have rarely accessed (and may not have access to) the information
they require to make informed decisions about their use. As a result, data collection, processing,
marketing, and AI practices implicated within smart toys’ operation may occur in ways that
parents don’t understand, and to which they have not fully consented.
Parents are primed by promotional commentary to expect that smart toys will provide their
child with fun, excitement, and learning opportunities; and he or she (hereafter alternated) may
indeed be deeply engaged and enthusiastic when playing with IoToys products. The next
section highlights four of the seven categories of connected toys: app-enabled mechanical toys;
cloud-based interactive toys; augmented-reality (AR) toys; and, children’s fitness trackers. It
includes discussion of prominent examples, some of which have been withdrawn.

Detailing Characteristics, Benefits, and Risks

IoToys have been associated with a variety of social and educational benefits including the
fostering of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Maths) skills. Such cap-
abilities will be outlined in the discussions that follow, which focus on the four categories
generally targeted at younger children and most widely discussed in the public sphere, which
includes grey literature (i.e., information produced outside of traditional publishing and dis-
tribution channels such as online news articles) as well as scholarly discourse.

App-Enabled Mechanical Toys (Cozmo, Sphero)

Social robots, such as Anki Cozmo (Allana & Chawla, 2021), have supported significant child
take-up of intelligent and programmable robots within the STEAM toy market (Heater, 2021).
The Anki Cozmo, aimed at children aged 7 to 8 and upwards, commenced production in 2016
(Chacksfield, 2018; MacDougall, 2020). Based in Silicon Valley, Anki closed due to bankruptcy
in 2019 (Simon, 2019) but educational technology company Digital Dream Labs (Heater, 2021)
acquired Anki’s assets and has announced plans to relaunch the Cozmo social robots (Heater,
2021). Cozmo is programmable by the parent or child using the appropriate app or via WiFi.
The robot’s interactive capabilities are enabled through advanced speech and facial recognition
software (Fenech, 2017; Frye, 2018; Heater, 2021). Cozmo responds in a pet-like manner,
using purring, snoring, and similar features to portray a cute response to activities and com-
mands. It demonstrates its ability to identify a child by her voice and says her name (Barack,
2019; Fenech, 2018).
Marketing discourse promoting the robot draws on robophilosophy principles through con-
ceptualising it as having a spirit “Anki Cozmo has the heart and soul of a Disney movie” (Stein,
2016). When the child speaks to, makes eye contact with, or touches Cozmo, and other social
robots, they activate the toy’s sensors. In Cozmo’s case, the display screen dashboard (the “eyes”)
illuminate, displaying emotion-informed heuristics relevant to the specific interaction initiated by
the user (Mascheroni & Holloway, 2019). Cozmo’s emotional reactions are underpinned by
symbolic digital design and support affective encounters between younger children and the social
robot (Barack, 2019; Fenech, 2018). Although the child can become absorbed in imaginary play
(Marsh et al., 2016), they tend to be aware that the robot is not alive. Even so, children will often
treat the robot as a human or pet and ascribe feelings, and thoughts (Severson & Woodard, 2018)
to Cozmo. This process, known as anthropomorphism (Severson & Woodard, 2018), is enhanced

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by intelligent programming and coding capabilities (Fenech, 2018; Frye, 2018) that help mimic
everyday interactions familiar to the child. These include the “fist bump”: the child can bump the
robot with his fist, and the robot will respond to this action by mimicking the child’s fist bump
(Barack, 2019).
Aimed at the slightly older child of eight years and up (Sphero FAQ, 2021), Sphero is also
claimed to foster STEAM skills including collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and
decision making. This robot is said to support children’s creative skill development in 3D
design, coding, and programming (Eileen, 2021). A robotic ball, Sphero Bolt has a range of
companion apps: The Sphero Edu app is embedded with infrared and ambient light sensors on
an LED matrix. When the ball is programmed and controlled via the app on an iPhone/tablet
(Eileen, 2021), the robot can detect various dimensions and properties of the child’s face.
Different child reactions can prompt customised movements (speed and rotating at various
degrees), while the display functions allow the child to learn and observe the written JavaScript
code that programs these actions (Eileen, 2021). Further, the Sphero Edu app allows the child
to create their own STEAM code. The ball guides and teaches both basic and advanced users
(generally aged 10 and up) to code, using mathematical scripts/logic as constituent building
blocks to form text (Turner, 2018). The ball also allows children to apply code that others have
designed within the Sphero collaborative online user community (Eileen, 2021). These features
are claimed to promote an independent and individualised style of child-focused learning that
responds to the pace at which he displays new knowledge (Gordon, 2014). The next section
considers the cloud-based interactive toys Hello Barbie and My Friend Cayla.

Cloud-Based Interactive Toys (Hello Barbie, My Friend Cayla)

Although not currently available in the market due to data privacy and security concerns
(Adhikari, 2015; Gibbs, 2015; Walker, 2015), the Hello Barbie interactive toy doll uses a WiFi-
connected network to capture and store the child’s digital interactions. Among other data
captured is a collection of sound files which the manufacturer claims assists them in formulating
relevant pre-recorded responses for child users. The capture and storage of audio files is de-
signed to be a deliberate act: the child makes a query by pressing Barbie’s belt buckle (Walker,
2015). Content analysis of the child’s question(s) uses both AI and speech recognition tech-
niques enabled via cloud-based processing and analysis (Gibbs, 2015; Walker, 2015). This
enables a personalised response among the pre-recorded options to offer the child as a response
to their question. Further, responses are rotated as part of a feedback loop (McReynolds et al.,
2017, cited in Keymolen & Van der Hof, 2019). Even so, the responses are not highly varied:
The Norwegian Consumer Council has expressed concern that Hello Barbie’s interactions are
limited to generic topics that indicate a gender-stereotypical view of girls’ interests, such as
fashion and toys (Keymolen & Van der Hof, 2019).
A different interactive toy doll, My Friend Cayla, has also stimulated widespread debate and
some controversy. Manufactured by U.S. company Genesis toys, and distributed in Europe by
British-based Vivid Toys, My Friend Cayla (2014–2017) was advertised as able to sing, talk, and
answer children’s questions (Roberts, 2016). The doll contained a microphone that listened to
children’s conversations: these capacities were deemed to be de facto “concealed transmitters”
(Walsh, 2017). In 2017, the German Federal Network Agency banned the toy (Collins, 2017;
Walsh, 2017) describing it as an “illegal espionage device.”
In addition to these security risks, specialist commentary and general news stories raised
concerns that the My Friend Cayla’s Bluetooth connection could be intercepted by hackers from a
close distance (Baraniuk, 2016; Timms, 2015), potentially allowing reprogramming of the doll to

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provide inappropriate responses to children’s questions, including the use of offensive language
(Moye, 2015; Walsh, 2017), and to encroach upon the family home (Walsh, 2017).

AR Toys (Parker bear)

Unlike cloud-based interactive-technology-dependent toys, AR-enabled IoToys do not ne-
cessarily include embedded wires, batteries, or cables. Reviews on technology websites by
Hayward (2017) and Ong (2017) note that toys like Parker bear are plush objects, that the child
can program via an iOS (Apple) device (Hayward, 2017; Ong, 2017). Parker bear also eschews
embedded sensory technologies, such as speech detection or video capabilities. AR toys are
discussed here with reference to Parker bear.
Parker bear is a toy concept developed by New Zealand children’s digital start-up company
Seedling. The bear was released in October 2017 (AppleInsiderStaff, 2017), and provides toys
and activity kits that offer educational and social benefits. Parker bear is designed for use with
the Parker by Seedling app and aims to foster the child’s empathy, enlisting them as caretaker of
the bear’s medical and physiological wellbeing, with a target market of children aged 3 and
above (Homer Shop, 2021). Parker bear is also claimed to foster children’s STEAM skills,
allowing a shift in responsibility from the role of child to “parent” as the child becomes Parker
bear’s caregiver, monitoring the toy’s “health” and diagnosing a range of medical issues. Within
this caretaker role, the STEAM skills developed by the child are said to include: (1) Scientific
rigor and decision-making skills; (2) confidence via exploration of technological AR features
that developers believe enhance children’s digital literacies; (3) engineering to build children’s
critical thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving skills; (4) art skills, as children used
drawings/designs to create accessories, such as in-app bandages; and, (5) the solving of maths-
related puzzles and AR games (Hayward, 2017; Ong, 2017). Parker bear’s happiness factor can
be increased when further AR features are unlocked with add-on products (Hayward, 2017;
Ong, 2017), motivating children to consume pay-on-demand goods and services. On the other
hand, Parker bear has been criticised in consumer feedback as having “barely any AR in the
teddy bear” (Fast Company, 2017).

Children’s Wearables: Fitness Trackers/Smartwatches (Fitbit Ace 3, Vivofit Jr. 2)

Connected toys like Parker bear may support children’s understandings around health and
wellbeing. Other IoToys may encourage recreational fitness and physical activity (Chaudron
et al., 2017). These are the benefits promised by the last of the four toy categories considered in
depth: children’s wearables. Children’s versions of adult fitness trackers include the Fitbit Ace 3
and Garmin’s Vivofit Jr. 2. Marketers claim these technologies offer physical and recreational
benefits, encouraging children aged six and above to monitor the number of steps they walk,
sleep patterns, and exercise habits. Such progress is not private, however. It is generally ac-
cessible to parents and other caregivers via a parental control account (Cipriani, 2021; Griffith,
2021). The Fitbit Ace 3 watch-face uses aural and visual techniques to reward achievement –
ranging from an emoji response when the highest number of active steps is surpassed, to digital
trophies and badges reserved for when the child reaches their pre-specified target. To date, the
Fitbit Ace 3 wearable has generally benefited from positive media coverage (Griffiths, 2021).
Although wearables may support beneficial physical activity, they have also been identified
as part of a category of internet-enabled devices contributing towards “surveillance capitalism”
(Holloway, 2019; Zuboff, 2015, p. 75). The Fitbit app suggests that parents create a family
account prior to adding their child as part of the account, so that parents can monitor their

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child’s health and activity data (Griffiths, 2021). Leaver (2017) argues that such technology
references the emergence of “intimate surveillance” (p. 2), though in which parents use digital
devices to closely monitor their babies’ or infants’ previously private activities. This data is not
only visible to parents, however, and can contribute to both commercial and state dataveillance.
From a rights-based perspective, parental surveillance may impinge on a child’s freedom and
independence, especially as they grow older, potentially limiting their opportunity to learn to
trust, and to feel trusted by others (Rooney, 2010).
Children’s smart watches, such as MiSafe, Gator, and GPS for kids (Wakefield, 2017), are
framed by two incongruous and contrasting discourses: as a caring device that helps ensure a
child’s safety on the one hand (Wakefield, 2017), and as a surveillance device which risks the
security and safety of a child’s personal data on the other. Hackers and others who may be able
to identify the geolocational coordinates of a child’s watch constitute a further security risk
(O’Donnell, 2018), tracking the wearer’s location and maybe recording and enabling access to a
child’s private information (Abel, 2018). As with My Friend Cayla, Germany’s Federal
Network Agency has deemed smartwatches, including fitness trackers, to be an “unauthorised
transmitting system” (Wakefield, 2017). Such devices have been banned in Germany, with
parents warned to stop buying and using toys that embody surveillance risks (Greenberg, 2020;
Wakefield, 2017).
In summary, the four types of children’s IoToys highlighted in this chapter demonstrate the
diverse social and educational benefits that manufacturers claim are offered to children by
connected toys. Organisations such as The Mozilla Foundation are likely to continue reporting
their evaluations of the safety and security measures undertaken by IoToys companies, pro-
viding a valuable starting point for further investigation.

Conclusions
IoToys offer both benefits and drawbacks for the families and children that invest in them. The
benefits include explicit integration of advanced digital technology within the play-based
practices of even very young children without necessarily, or always, involving a screen or an
app-based interface. This harnesses a natural style of communication between the toy and the
child; as opposed to rigid, static, child-robot interactions. Personalisation and customisation of
toy responses can build rapport with the child and help them bond with a toy that recognises
their voice or greets them when they arrive within the special parameters of built-in facial
recognition technologies. Such toys may also offer individualised opportunities that evolve with
the child’s learning style and developmental readiness. Many IoToys companies explicitly chart
the ways in which their products support STEAM learning. Credible arguments suggest such
skills may help prepare children for an uncertain future which is, nonetheless, almost certain to
be digital (Livingstone & Blum-Ross, 2020).
The concerns raised by these toys are significant, however. They centre on the data streams
emanating from IoToys revealing swathes of private information about child users including,
potentially, their physical geolocation, their voice patterns, the content of personal conversa-
tions, their appearance, their full name and names of the other people the child spends time
with, especially in terms of their play practices. Parents rarely appreciate that these data streams
can lead to four sets of monetisation for toy manufacturers and associated technology com-
panies. These income strands include the purchase of the toy; the add-on services and network
costs; the potential on-selling of children’s data to third-party agents and other marketing
companies; and, on occasion, the opportunity to place products in the child’s ideation, such as

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when My Friend Cayla talks about Disney World and Disney movies (Today, 2016; Green &
Holloway, 2017, p. 9).
Disgruntled parents may realise too late the privacy and security implications of IoToys that
are bought and paid for before they are registered and used. As mother Julia Borowski told Stern
TV, in Germany (Stern TV, 2017), her view is that IoToys companies should have the capacity
to “deactivate the forbidden function or the associated app” (Stern TV 2017, in translation). As
it was, this mom found herself the owner of a €150 watch that she was legally obliged to
destroy, keeping proof that she had done so. According to Stern TV, the mother “only noticed
on [a] second glance at the operating instructions that [the watch] advertises the eavesdropping
function, namely: Secret listening to the area around the watch without the person wearing the
watch hearing the caller.” As the German Federal Network Agency argues, this can allow
parents and others “for example, to eavesdrop on teachers in class” (Stern TV, 2017): and to
otherwise spy on their children.
It might help redress the balance between positives and negatives if regulatory safeguards
were stronger, if enforcement were rigorous, and if children and young people ultimately had
the right to remove any data trails relating to activities engaged in before reaching adulthood. As
it is, IoToys can promote parents’ discussions with children around privacy, security, and data
protection. In the meantime, however, white hat hackers have an important role to play and
experiences, such as those of Julia Borowski, tell a cautionary, and expensive, tale.

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 19
CHILDREN’S TECHNOLOGIZED
BODIES
Mapping Mixed Reality

Meenakshi Gigi Durham

Children have always been active participants in techno culture. Archaeological evidence in-
dicates that children were involved with technology as far back as prehistoric times: They used
stone tools in the Paleolithic era (Grimm, 2000; Högberg, 2008; Shea, 2006), wielded daggers
and needles in the Bronze Age (Rega, 2000), threw pots in the first century C.E. (Kamp, 2001).
During the Industrial Revolution, children “toiled in early mills, mines and manufactories”
(Humphries, 2010, p. 1), handling lathes, looms, and lethal equipment. Child labor laws put an
end to all that, but children turned to technological tools for recreation in the 20th century:
Boy Scouts rigged amateur radios (Arceneaux, 2009), children snapped pictures with Brownie
cameras (Olivier, 2007), and budding DeMilles pointed home movie cameras at their families to
create amateur films (Luckett, 1995).
It should not surprise us, then, that in the contemporary moment children have taken to
technologies like the proverbial ducks to water, programming smartphones, downloading
applications, and reconfiguring laptops before they’re even out of preschool. Children’s worlds
are now pervaded by digital technologies to an extent that certain traditional boundaries –
between the “real” and the “virtual,” body and machine, subject and object – are beginning to
blur and break down, for better or worse.
In fact, the media scholar Mark Hansen argues that in today’s media environment, “all reality is
mixed reality” (2006, p. 1) – composed of “fluid and functional crossings between virtual and
physical realms” (p. 2). No longer can we draw clear lines between the “real world” and “cyber-
space,” for it is largely through our engagements with technologies that we experience the world.
As Hansen points out, “technologies work to expand the body’s motile, tactile, and visual interface
with the environment,” mediating “our embodied coupling with the world” (2006, p. 26).
The ease with which children handle technology is a taken-for-granted aspect of con-
temporary life, especially in resource-rich countries. Although it is important to recognize that
children’s access to, and uses of, technology differ depending on contextual features such as
location, socioeconomic status, and developmental stage (Selwyn, 2009), it is still arguable that
in technologically advanced cultures, these tools are seamlessly integrated into the surfaces of
everyday life, unremarkable features of children’s life worlds.
Mobile technologies, especially, are becoming essential elements of daily life in many cul-
tures. These technologies and the communicative conduits they offer wield significant symbolic

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-22 171

 Meenakshi Gigi Durham

value in the social worlds of youth: They constitute the basis of roles, relationships, support
systems, and status among peers (Blair & Fletcher, 2011; Stern, 2007; Thulin & Vilhelmson,
2007). Technologies – especially cellphones – are “imperative in the formation, maintenance
and manipulation of close, intimate relationships” among children and adolescents, and –
perhaps more importantly – provide an “alternate space,” akin to a backyard bike shed, for
explorations of sex and desire (Bond, 2010). Children and adolescents also use the internet, via
social networking and other sites, as a resource for exploring identities (Elias & Lemish, 2009;
Rademacher, 2005), developing and maintaining friendships (Tsoulis-Reay, 2009; Valkenburg
& Jochen, 2009), and sexual education and interactions (Cohn, 2009; Livingstone, 2008; Peter
& Valkenburg, 2008, 2010). During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, children and teenagers’
tech use skyrocketed as they used online platforms and social media apps for education, en-
tertainment, and peer support (Drouin et al., 2020; Götz & Lemish, 2022; Perez, 2020).
In the lives of children and adolescents, then, technologies don’t figure as mere objects –
they are not perceived to be machines or ancillary pieces of equipment. Rather, they are
organisms appended to bodies, functioning with the body as naturally as the cerebral cortex or
the limbs. Children have remarkable physical dexterity with the keypads and screens of these
devices, and they are keenly attuned to their faintest sounds, lights, and vibrations. For many
children and teens, the cellphone is an “organic thing” that operates as part of their lived
materiality: “the mobile phone constitutes an important part of themselves” (Oksman &
Rautiainen, 2003, p. 307; see also Ribak, 2009, who describes the phone as an “umbilical cord”
and Green & Singleton, 2007, whose studies of British youth identify the phone as a “mobile
self ”). The spaces children and teens enter, create, and engage with via computer screens and
gaming consoles similarly constitute interfaces that conjoin embodiment and virtuality.
These interfaces serve as portals for journeys between “real world” and virtual environments.
Technologically, they require physical activity and attention; mentally, they immerse the user in
alternative spaces and experiences. Waggoner (2009) describes technological interfaces as “a
fluid ground between real-world and virtual conceptions” (p. 33).
Because children’s lives are defined by this “mixed reality” and marked by an ongoing
reciprocity between the material and the cybernetic, red flags have been raised regarding the
potential perils and problems associated with children’s bodies in a technologized landscape.
These concerns begin with the health risks associated with the use of technology – seizures,
attention deficit problems, behavioral and emotional disorders – and extend to the social, legal,
and cultural implications of children’s technological activities.

Sexting and Sexual Subjectivities

One such discursive flashpoint has been the practice of “sexting.” Periodically, news stories
narrate cases of young teens sending provocative cellphone messages to peers; these words and
images sometimes go viral, circulating widely among consociates and eventually on the in-
ternet. While adults agonize over the legal and personal consequences of minor children
sexting, kids engage in it for reasons that are often misconstrued as either defiant or guileless.
“No, [it’s not a big deal], we are not having sex, we are sexting,” explained one ninth-grade
boy; and a high school girl surmised, “I think it’s fairly common in my school for people to do
this. They see it as a way of flirting that may possibly lead to more for them” (Lenhart, 2009).
Sexting scenarios are varied: sometimes young couples in romantic relationships exchange
explicit photographs; sometimes messages are sent in the hope of sparking such a relationship;
sometimes text and photos are shared for a lark; sometimes they accrue social capital for the
sender or receiver; sometimes they are circulated vindictively to punish or humiliate an

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individual, usually a girl. In recent high-profile cases, a Maryland teenager sent a video of herself
engaged in a sex act to a group of friends (Stern, 2019); in Vermont, teenage girls sent nude or
semi-nude videos and pictures of themselves to male classmates who asked for them (Rathke,
2011); in the U.K., a 9-year-old girl sent a nude picture of herself to a classmate and was then
identified as a criminal suspect by police (Halliday, 2019). Oftentimes the explicit images were
then circulated widely to schoolmates and others; in other recent incidents, boys who for-
warded sexts were charged under child pornography statutes, and teenage girls committed
suicide after the photographs went viral (Forbes, 2011; Hoffman, 2011; Quaid, 2009; Christian
Science Monitor, 2009).
In most peer-to-peer sexting cases, the creation and initial transmission of the images are not
coerced – kids themselves take and send the pictures. Wireless connections are imagined to
prefigure sensual bonds, impulsive intimacies, loving liaisons. The cell phone photo or video is
intended to perform the seduction.
The image of oneself on a cell phone screen is not unlike a first-person avatar in an online
game; avatars become para-authentic selves whose existences blur with “real” or embodied
selves ( Jin, 2010; Mallan, 2009). New media scholars use the term “presence” to indicate the
illusory state where users no longer perceive the medium as a separate entity. This effect is
greater given the perception of the cellphone as an integral part of one’s anatomy. Sending a
risqué picture of oneself to a paramour, then, is the virtual equivalent of the intimate act of
undressing before a lover. The difference between the two erotic acts is, in one sense, indis-
cernible to the young digital operant; yet the distinction is also of crucial importance in the
contemporary sexual climate.
It matters that sexting involves no physical contact: no touching, no kisses or caresses, no
exchange of body fluids. “We are not having sex, we are sexting,” emphasized a boy in a Pew
Center study; many teens dismissed sexting as “not a big deal.” A survey conducted by the
National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (2008) found that a quarter of their teen re-
spondents viewed sexting as harmless, while the vast majority saw it as “fun” and “flirtatious,”
even when they were aware of the risks, and more recent investigations indicate that adoles-
cents in various regions of the world see sexting as normal (Hasinoff, 2013; Van Ouytsel et al.,
2019). For teens and preteens, sexting represents a version of sexuality that dodges the em-
bodied dangers of sex in “real life” – the perilous prospects of teen pregnancy, rape, and sexually
transmitted infections that have been hammered home to them in an “abstinence only” era.
Sexting, thus, is “safe sex:” disembodied, digitized and sanitized, it offers the possibility of erotic
play without the perils of real-world sexual activity.
This is a logical move for teenagers and children in a conservative climate where they have
been taught to fear sex as the site of disease, coercion, and unplanned parenthood. Research
indicates that “sex positive” sex education – that is, a program of education that acknowledges
the pleasures and prerogatives of sex, as well as the risks – would empower children to make
better decisions about sexual activity (Gresle-Favier, 2010). But many societies are still light
years away from such progressive approaches to dealing with the sexuality of children and
adolescents, and so young people invent ways of exploring sexuality without the physical
entanglements they have been warned against. Sexting is one such invention.
Children and teenagers sext even when they are aware that their messages are likely to be
circulated to unintended recipients. The appeal of translating their sexual bodies into virtual realms
is seemingly irresistible; they are reacting, too, to peer pressure and cultural norms. Girls report
sexting as a response to requests from boyfriends or other males; boys report forwarding sexts as a
response to male peer pressure. But boys sext girls, as well, seeing it as a way to initiate a re-
lationship. Teens who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, asexual, or nonbinary, and

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teens with other gender identities and sexual orientations, (LGBTQIA+) sext, often to pursue
relationships hidden from parents and heterosexual peers. And in a media environment rife with
erotic imagery – in advertisements, music videos, movies, video games, TV shows and toys – the
sexy image is the coin of the realm.
Erotic images play a complex role in contemporary youth cultures. Most people come into
contact with sexually explicit media in adolescence, and they are a tacitly acknowledged ele-
ment of sexual education as well as peer group socialization. Young adults in the 21st century
are not particularly offended or disturbed by pornography, seeing its use as normal and ac-
ceptable (Carroll et al., 2008; Stanley et al., 2018). Indeed, erotic imagery is so much part of
mainstream media culture that it would be difficult to reject it out of hand, and children are
exposed to it almost from birth; it is such an entrenched part of a media-saturated environment.
The pervasiveness of erotica may explain the open attitudes toward pornography among youth,
as the distinctions between mainstream imagery and softcore pornography are growing in-
creasingly blurred and ambiguous. And though the images are not “real” – in the sense that they
are representations, commercially driven signs, technologically created, manipulated and dis-
seminated via artifices that even young audience members recognize – they are also “real” in
that they comprise the lived environment of the 21st century. The photographed, airbrushed,
digitally altered bodies of the women and men in magazines and music videos epitomize de-
sirability and gendered ideals: They offer cues to viewers about how best to perform femininity
and masculinity. Lived sexualities must be understood as deeply imbricated by visual imagery.
Mediated sexualities are influential in young people’s understandings of real-world sexual
interactions (Ward, 2003), and this convergence appears to include visual self-presentation, at
least within the phenomenon of sexting, and to some extent in other online forums. Mendelson
and Papacharissi (2010) found in a study of Facebook that young women “often posed in
exaggerated sexy poses with each other, showing leg or exaggerating their cleavage. … Their
sexy poses were often recognized and complimented through comments from both male and
female friends” (p. 263). This observation dovetails with the overall gendered patterns of
sexting, where girls sext more frequently than boys, and also offers some insight into the cultural
capital associated with sexy self-presentation. Yet the pressure on girls to represent themselves
sexually and the status accrued to boys who collect and share sexted images from girls tends to
reproduce a heterosexual politics of gender inequality that penalizes girls for their sexuality
(Ringrose et al., 2013).
User-generated content is a key aspect of digital media today, and for youth, creating avatars
in online spaces is a way to explore the identity questions that beleaguer adolescence (Beals,
2010). It is not a leap to construe the sexted image as an avatar of sorts – a fabrication that offers
the same possibilities of pleasure and fantasy, but one even more closely bound to the human
creator than a figure in a game in that it is a literal self-image.
The interactive play between gamer and avatar offers a chance to experiment with selfhood,
to “toy with subjectivity, play with being,” as the media scholar Bob Rehak (2003, p. 123) puts
it; on his analysis, the avatar is conjoined with the user’s embodiment, enabling players “to
think through questions of agency and existence, exploring in fantasy form aspects of their own
materiality” (p. 122). The sexted image serves the same purpose for young adolescents ex-
ploring issues of gender and sexuality in a climate that restricts and represses such explorations in
reality. For LGBTQIA+ youth in particular, such explorations are crucial when their sexual and
gender identities are often derogated in real life – but these youth are also more susceptible to
coercion and pressure to sext (Van Ouytsel et al., 2019), and they experience more bullying and
abuse when their social media activity is made public.

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Precisely because we live in an era where the sexuality of minor children is regulated by law
and stigmatized by cultural convention, sexting can have serious implications. The circulation
of sexted images is often intended to shame and disgrace the “sexteen,” resulting in psycho-
logical and emotional harm, even suicide. In addition, sexters can face legal sanctions. The
cultural historian Leo Marx (2010) reminds us that technology is hazardous: “By consigning
technologies to the realm of things, this well-established iconography distracts attention from
the human – socioeconomic and political – relations which largely determine who uses them
and for what purposes” (p. 577). When children translate their bodies into technological forms,
they concede them to the caprices of those who use the technologies for their own, often ne-
farious, purposes, from bullying to cyberporn. My analysis of the phenomenon of sexting offers
insights into these contradictory dimensions of children’s engagements with technologies – their
liberatory potential as well as their regressive and repressive significations.

Mapping Children’s Sexualities in the Contemporary Mediascape

The sexting issue is just one aspect of the technological landscape that today’s youth navigate.
Though handheld technologies offer the illusion of individual control over this landscape, these
technologies are elements of a larger system of technological production whose political,
economic, and ideological premises demarcate and permeate tech usage even to the micro-level
of the individual user. Bound up in the workings of global capital hegemonies, information
communication technologies (ICTs) cannot be viewed naïvely as apolitical machines or
through a utopian vision of progress. Handheld devices – iPads, e-readers, cell phones, laptops –
are conduits for information, some of which can be generated by users, but much of which is
produced and collected by multinational media corporations with avaricious economic and
ideological investments.
The signs and images that flicker on miniature screens are elements of the broader global
mediascape (Appadurai, 1996). The videos, games, apps, and icons downloaded to small screens
replicate and reiterate the larger-scale images and ideographs of movie screens, jumbotrons, and
billboard advertisements; content-sharing and multiplatform products blur the lines among
these media. Increasingly, the mediascape forms the contemporary terrain.
In an environment permeated by the apparatus of media and flooded by mediated images,
children translate and retranslate their embodied locations via cyberspaces and cyberselves that
move across dimensions to act and interact. Children engage actively with technologies. These
engagements can be positive and fulfilling, and they can also reinforce existing risks and power
structures that render some young people more vulnerable than others to technological harms
(see, for example, Livingstone & Smith, 2014; Ringrose et al., 2013). At the same time, the
ideological undercurrents of media representations pervade these processes. Video games, for
example, are notorious for the hyper-masculinity and hyper-femininity of the characters (e.g.,
Cote, 2020; Malkowski & Russworm, 2017), offering patterns of gendered appearance that
reinscribe regressive stereotypes. Images of women and men in advertising idealize hypersex-
ualized bodies: slender and voluptuous for females, muscular and powerful for men. And while
media technologies valorize these physical forms, biotechnologies are easily available as a means
of attaining them, for they are not readily found in nature. Plastic surgeries among minors have
risen significantly in the past decade, the most common of which are optional cosmetic pro-
cedures such as rhinoplasty and breast augmentation (American Society of Plastic Surgeons,
2018). Biotechnologies and media technologies thus function seamlessly in concert to reshape
children’s embodied selves to conform to the mediated images; their developing sexualities are
bound up with media representation and transmission. In these ways, children’s embodiment,

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too, is a form of “mixed reality,” an amalgamation of image and tissue, flesh and fabrication.
These engagements of the physical and the technological are dynamic, fluid, iterative and
ongoing, destabilizing environments, corporealities, and subjectivities.
Jameson (1984) posited that we need new “cognitive maps” in order to learn to function in
mutating and shifting social spaces – maps that would disabuse us of the illusion that we exist in
a libertarian utopia, free of power-based hierarchies and capital hegemonies. The recognition
that children’s lives are imbricated by technologies underscores the urgency of developing
models of theory and praxis that locate children’s technologized bodies in their political,
economic, and social contexts.

SEE ALSO Chapter 17 by Peter and Chapter 27 by Maes and Vendenbosch in this volume.

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 PART III

Concerns and Consequences

Editor’s Introduction

The vast majority of research in the field of children and media has been dominated by concerns
for the effects media might have on them, the implications of media use, and the consequences
for individuals and society at large. This part of the book introduces the main areas of effects
research most heavily investigated, and the controversies over positive and negative implications
for children’s well-being and development.
We open this section with Lenka Dedkova, Hana Machackova, and David Smahel’s
chapter that focuses on the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in
children’s and adolescents’ psychological, social, and physical well-being. Though they pri-
marily focus on the impact on wellbeing, they emphasize the depiction of the complex re-
lationships among ICT use, wellbeing, and other influential factors. This is illustrated in an
introductory conceptual model of inter-relationships between children’s and adolescents’
characteristics, types of ICT use, and the short- and long-term effects on wellbeing. Using
several selected indicators for well-being, they explain the mechanisms of how ICT impacts
well-being (and vice versa) and how the different well-being indicators can be situated within a
research framework. The authors also comment on the methodological challenges of current
and future research on ICT and well-being.
Deborah L. Nichols reviews the introduction of the Baby Einstein set of videos in 1997,
when infants began consuming screen media targeting them directly, although their use has
remained relatively stable over the last decade. The author argues that infants have limited
developmental competencies that make learning screen content challenging. Cognitive over-
load rapidly occurs when the volume and complexity of information typical of screen media
exceed processing capacity. To learn from screen media, infants must understand that the screen
and its contents are both concrete entities and abstract symbols or representations of these
entities. Processing and learning from screen media can be enhanced through content-specific
manipulations and changes to the contexts surrounding babies’ media use. Onscreen content
that incorporates more realistic depictions, social contingency, and higher-order language
strategies, the strategic use of production techniques, and familiar and engaging characters fa-
cilitate learning. Supportive learning contexts arise when infants view the same content re-
peatedly, when parents co-view with them, and when TVs are turned off in the background.
Ine Beyens and Patti M. Valkenburg introduce the widely debated question of whether
there is an association between children’s media use and the development of ADHD. This

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-23
 Introduction to Part III

chapter identifies the most important hypotheses for this association and reviews the main
results of the empirical studies that addressed this association. The available evidence suggests
that there is a small association between media use and the presence of ADHD-symptoms (i.e.,
attention problems, hyperactivity, and impulsivity). More specifically, an increase in violent
media use is significantly associated with an increase in attention problems and impulsivity. The
effect of fast-paced media use on ADHD is not yet clearly understood, as the empirical evidence
is still too scant to allow meaningful conclusions. Altogether, the authors conclude, the findings
underline the crucial need for future research to systematically investigate individual differences
in the association between children’s media use and ADHD as well as underlying mechanisms
that may explain the association.
Maya Götz argues that while the media are, undoubtedly, a part of children’s fantasy world,
the nature of their influence on children’s fantasizing continues to be discussed at length in
public and academia. This chapter presents the state of research regarding this matter and, in
addition, focuses on methodological approaches used to study children’s “inner worlds.” The
existing research proposes considering children’s media use and their fantasy worlds as an in-
tegration process. For example, already during media reception children adopt the perspective
of characters in the story and imagine how they would act in the situation. The degree of
intensity with which children enter into stories can differ greatly between individuals.
Following content reception, they integrate parts of the media into their daily life, especially if
the story and characters are highly attractive. Thus, researchers have found that children in-
corporate elements of the media in their fantasy worlds and identity development.
Kylie Peppler and Maggie Dahn argue that emerging technologies and tools present new
possibilities for creative production within social media spaces. Their chapter focuses on the
affordances of various social media platforms and how they present opportunities to support
how young people interact with and learn from each other online. The authors examine these
ideas by first highlighting relevant research in both the fields of social media and creativity.
They then present examples of creative production and social media from thriving online
communities with embedded social media networks and discuss the implications for research on
creativity. Within these contexts, we are interested in the creative acts enabled by social media
that align with a view of personally valuable everyday creativity, works that sit at the inter-
section of collaborative practice, digital media production, and online peer-to-peer evaluations.
Finally, they discuss the implications for today’s youth, the potential diverse forms of creative
social media hold, and why such vernacular forms of creativity are important for learning and
development.
Nicole Martins and McCall Booth examine how exposure to screen technologies impact
children’s emotional development. After a brief review of how children develop emotional
competence, they discuss the role of screen exposure on how children learn about emotions
from media messages, as well as how youth use media to regulate their emotions. Next, they
briefly review the research that has examined emotional reactions to media portrayals (i.e., fear)
and children’s emotional attachment to media personae. They conclude with directions for
future research.
Erica Scharrer argues that content analyses suggest that children in multiple global loca-
tions are likely to encounter violence or aggression in the media that they spend time within
their daily lives, including television programs, video games, and films. Entertainment media
can be appealing to some children and teens, with evidence of gender differences as well as
personality differences in such appeal. Studies show that substantial proportions of children and
adolescents have seen something online that has bothered them, including violence, cyber-
bullying, and cyberhate. Research has generally supported three main effects associated with
 Introduction to Part III

spending time with violence: learning aggression, desensitization, and fear. Yet, the research
record also shows that such media effects are complex, likely to occur, or to vary in strength
based on a host of factors. Parents and caregivers as well as media literacy education teachers and
facilitators can help shape young people’s attitudes toward and responses to media violence,
with particular promise for approaches that encourage and value the young person’s autonomy
as qualitative research reveals active meaning-making among children when they encounter
violence in texts.
Chelly Maes and Laura Vandenbosch suggest that sexual media messages (SMM) play an
important role in adolescents’ sexuality development. Such messages are embedded in both
mass media (i.e., television, music, video games, and pornography) and user-generated digital
media (i.e., social media, and sexting). The chapter provides an overview of attitudinal (e.g.,
gender stereotypical beliefs) and behavioral implications (e.g., risky sexual behaviors) of ado-
lescents’ exposure to SMM in mass media and user-generated digital media. The authors further
pay attention to the conditionality and indirect nature of these sexual media effects. The lit-
erature points to challenges and future directions in the field of sexual media effects.
Particularly, future research is advised to account for adolescents’ media multitasking when
exploring sexual media effects. Also, the authors encourage researchers to explore possible
beneficial outcomes of sexual media uses, in addition to negative outcomes. Lastly, they call for
the employment of experimental, ESM, and longitudinal study designs and the integration of
open science practices in the field.
Kirsten Harrison and Valerie N. Kemp state that research on ideal-body media use and
body image and eating disorders among child and adolescent media users has been ongoing for
approximately 30 years. Although media content, formats, and technologies have changed
dramatically, the relationship between exposure to thin-ideal media and body image and dis-
ordered eating has stayed remarkably consistent, with average standardized effect sizes tracking
in the modest to moderate range. Heredity, gender, age, and race/ethnicity moderate these
relationships in meaningful ways. Social media have introduced new ways beyond exposure that
engagement with media may be consequential for youth body image. The authors argue that
theory-building must attend to family, peers, and media as overlapping influences in the
ecology of everyday life when conceptualizing modern media influences on body image.
Bradley J. Bond and Sandra L. Calvert introduce the fact that childhood obesity has
reached epidemic proportions throughout much of the developed world. Media have played a
predominantly negative role in this outcome, primarily by marketing high-density, low-
nutrient foods to children in television advertising and in online marketing. Media also de-
monstrate promise in curbing the obesity epidemic by marketing healthy products to children
through television advertisements and by engaging children in advergames that promote
consumption of healthy products and through exergame play that requires physical movement
and expends calories. The authors consider future research directions and policies designed to
reduce obesity.
Amy Bleakley and Morgan Ellithorpe state that substance use among youth persists as a
high-risk behavior that places youth at risk for poor short- and long-term health outcomes and
are often featured across different types of media. Media are an influential socialization agent for
tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use, and youth are consistently exposed to messages that
promote these behaviors. In this chapter, they provide an overview of the extent to which
substances are featured in media content, how exposure to such content affects youth, and
theoretical perspectives to understand and explain the mechanisms through which media affect
youth cognitions, norms, and behavior. They also highlight strategies used to reduce the ne-
gative influence of media and strategic messaging designed to prevent substance use.
 Introduction to Part III

Srividya Ramasubramanian and Patrick R. Johnson’s chapter focuses on how the

media teaches children about the social world around them. They take a multidisciplinary
approach to highlight key concepts and theories from media studies, sociology, and education.
The authors first discuss how children learn about the world around them at different stages of
their lives and they examine media as part of the broader socio-cultural experience of young
people today. Next, they describe the social world that is constructed by mainstream children’s
media content. Finally, they elaborate upon theories about the prosocial and harmful effects of
such media content on children’s perceptions, moral reasoning, and behaviors.
Cynthia Carter focuses on the relationship between children and the news. She claims that
it is argued that it has become something of a truism that children regard the news as “boring.”
Thus, no matter where they live in the world, researchers find children increasingly refuse to
read newspapers, tune into television or radio news, or search out news online. What news they
encounter (particularly teens), largely via social media, is widely regarded, even by many young
people themselves, as unreliable, untrustworthy, and “fake.” The term “boring” is ideologically
loaded with assumptions about children’s civic apathy and runs the risk of becoming a self-
fulfilling prophecy. If adult news is “boring,” argues Carter, it is because it represents a world of
grown-ups doing incomprehensible things, where children’s interests and opinions are rarely
regarded as noteworthy or valuable, and thus largely absent. When news is produced with
children’s civic development in mind, it has the potential to enable them as citizens and em-
power them to develop an ongoing interest in the world. This chapter assesses the contributions
of research investigating issues associated with the role of news for adults and children in fa-
cilitating or hindering children’s development and participation in civic life.
Erica Weintraub Austin and Shawn Domgaard explain that political socialization is a
process that begins in childhood and is especially evident among adolescents as they begin to use
digital technologies. As individuals become aware of the social norms and values in relation to
politics, they gather knowledge and construct an identity, giving them a sense of belonging to a
group, and constructing political decision-making in the process. Social media provide a major
source for political influence, containing multitudes of misinformation, disinformation, and
credible information. Disinformation presents a corrosive influence on democracy and can lead
susceptible individuals to make choices that negatively affect themselves and others. Youth need
to know how to navigate this environment, and media literacy can help them do that. Open
and honest family communication also plays a major role in mediating political efficacy and
civic engagement. Parents can invite participation in political discussions, as well as to listen and
demonstrate engagement. The authors conclude that young people who increase their media
literacy skills and practice communication with family members will be better prepared to meet
the needs of the political environment and participate in competent and meaningful ways.
Esther Rozendaal, Moniek Buijzen, and Eva A. van Reijmersdal claim that over the
past years, children and adolescents’ commercial media environment has changed dramatically.
Driven by technological innovation, advertisers have rapidly adopted new advertising techni-
ques, including brand placement in video games and influencer marketing on social media.
Typically, new advertising practices rely on affect-based mechanisms and are often embedded
within a program or editorial content, which may have important consequences for young
people’s processing of advertising. In this chapter, the authors review the state of the art of
international research literature on young people and persuasion, focusing specifically on to-
day’s commercial media environment. They focus on four important themes: (1) persuasion
processes, (2) persuasion and resistance, (3) advertising literacy, and (4) advertising disclosures.
Based on the extended four-dimensional definition of advertising literacy (conceptual
 Introduction to Part III

advertising literacy, advertising literacy performance, attitudinal advertising literacy, moral

advertising literacy), they propose four focal points for the research agenda.
Sharon R. Mazzarella reviews the extensive research on young people’s gender roles as
constructed in “screen” media – televisions, phones, gaming consoles, and the like. Reviewing
a range of English-language research studies, and heavily but not exclusively within the U.S.
context, this chapter focuses on how television programs represent gender identities to young
people (children, tweens, and teens) as well as how young people use digital technologies such
as gaming and mobile phone selfies to construct and present their own gender identities. The
chapter reminds the reader that both scholars and media producers have a long history of
hegemonically defining gender as a binary. The author concludes with a call to both scholars
and producers to move beyond the binary as well as to acknowledge the intersectional nature of
young people’s identities.
Gustavo S. Mesch focuses on the debate on the social impact of information and com-
munication technologies which is particularly important for the study of adolescent life, because
through their close association with friends and peers, adolescents develop life expectations,
school aspirations, world views, and behaviors. This chapter presents an up-to-date review of
the literature on youth sociability, relationship formation, and online communication, ex-
amining the way young people use the internet to construct or maintain their interpersonal
relationships.
Anneleen Meeus and Steven Eggermont assert that children are growing up in a context
that is increasingly characterized by ubiquitous connectivity, which has distinct implications for
their development. Their chapter aims to provide a brief overview of the various ways through
which media use has been related to children’s mental health and (social) well-being.
Specifically, they discuss how media may constitute a positive force in social contexts, as
they foster greater connection among friends and family members. However, this increased
connectivity can also create additional sources of stress, as children are subjected to heightened
scrutiny from themselves and others. Finally, they discuss how the focus on idealized appear-
ances that is perpetuated by many social networking sites can have adverse consequences for
children’s (appearance-related) self-understanding.
 20
INFORMATION AND
COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGIES AND
WELL-BEING
Lenka Dedkova, Hana Machackova, and David Smahel

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are used daily by a large number of
children and adolescents (Smahel et al., 2020). This has raised questions about the impact on
bio-psycho-social development. A plethora of research stresses that this impact is not universal
but conditional – depending on many factors that determine how individuals use ICT and how
this usage affects them. To describe ICT’s impact on well-being, we provide a conceptual
model (Figure 20.1) to depict the different factors and their complex inter-relationships.
Well-being reflects the individual’s overall quality of life and it has several conceptualizations
(Dodge et al., 2012). We utilize the World Health Organization definition (WHO, 2001) to
identify three key dimensions. Psychological well-being includes the presence of positive affects
and self-evaluations (e.g., satisfaction, self-esteem), and the absence of negative affects (e.g.,
anxiety, mental health disorders; Diener et al., 1999). Social well-being concerns the quality of
relationships with others, and includes social acceptance and social integration (Keyes, 1998).
Physical well-being consists of the perception of health, the absence of disease, and correct
physical functionality (Minkkinen, 2013).
We propose a conceptual model (Figure 20.1) to depict the factors affecting ICT’s impact on
well-being and serve as a basic guide for how to think about these effects. We adapted the
Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model (DSMM) by Valkenburg and Peter (2013)
and tailored its logic to ICT and well-being. In essence, DSMM stresses the mutual relation-
ships between who is using media, how, with what immediate responses, and with what long-
term media effects. These, in turn, reciprocally affect individuals, their choices of activities, etc.
At the left part of our model, we depict the characteristics of children and adolescents that make
them more or less prone to different types of ICT use (as predictors), as well as to different
outcomes of ICT use (predictors and moderators). The usage of ICT (the middle part of the
model) can take many forms, and we depicted several types that seem to be particularly im-
portant in the research on well-being impacts – for instance, the extent to which the ICT is
used socially or excessively. Lastly, the effects of ICT on well-being can be dissected into at least
two main outcomes: short-term effects (e.g., mood alteration) and long-term effects (e.g.,
happiness). The arrows leading from well-being back to children and adolescents and the types
of use suggest that one’s well-being is also, in essence, a characteristic that defines the individual,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-24 185

 CHILDREN‘S AND
ADOLESCENTS‘ TECHNOLOGY EFFECTS ON WELL-BEING
CHARACTERISTICS
TYPE OF USE SHORT-TERM LONG-TERM
EFFECTS EFFECTS
Individual level (e.g., age, • Social/nonsocial
gender, skills, health, • Active/passive Psychological Psychological
emotional state) direct direct well-being direct well-being
• Procrastination/
effects goal-oriented effects effects
Social level (e.g., peers, • Excessive/ Social Social
family, educators, balanced well-being well-being

186
community, SES) • Image-based/
text-based Physical Physical
well-being well-being
Lenka Dedkova et al.

Country level (e.g., •…

technology provision,
values, media)

indirect effects
reciprocal effects

Figure 20.1 Conceptual Model of ICT’s Effect on Well-being

 ICT and Well-being

that (co)determines how one uses ICT, and that determines their immediate responses to the
use (i.e., short-term effect on well-being). We included arrows going from and to well-being
dimensions to stress that they also mutually affect each other.
In the following sections, we focus on each of the three well-being dimensions separately.
Each can have a number of indicators, so we focus in detail only on selected ones.

ICT and Psychological Well-being

A substantial proportion of research on the role of ICT has studied psychological well-being,
also termed as subjective well-being, psychological health, and mental health. This multi-
dimensional concept is captured in research either via a complex general measure or specifically
by selected indicators, such as anxiety, depression, and self-esteem.
Several existing synthesizing studies on children and adolescents are useful in the general
assessment of the direct relationship between ICT and psychological well-being. A systematic
review on studies on adolescents by Best et al. (2014) concluded that ICT usage can have
benefits in the form of higher self-esteem, though there is also a relation with increased de-
pression. However, evidence from recent meta-analyses and synthesizing studies shows that that
the effects are small and mixed (Orben & Przybylski, 2019). If we consider our conceptual
model, there are several explanations for these inconsistencies, which also present directions for
future research.
To start, we need to take into account the specific type of (and engagement in) online
activity (see Best et al., 2014). For instance, in reaction to the widespread use of social net-
working sites (SNS), substantial research attention was narrowed onto this specific activity. A
systematic review (on ages 13–18) by Keles et al. (2020) found the overall relationship of SNS
use with increased depression, anxiety, and psychological distress. Another systematic review by
Piteo and Ward (2020) examined associations between SNS usage and the symptoms of de-
pression and anxiety among 5–18-year-olds. The results point to a relationship with higher
depression and anxiety. However, the authors of both studies recommend caution due to small
effect sizes and not completely satisfactory quality of the examined studies. Piteo and Ward
(2020) also discussed the further need for the differentiation of the type of activity. For example,
Frison and Eggermont’s (2016) study from Belgium showed that, while passive Facebook use
leads to depressed mood, active use increases perceived social support and indirectly leads to a
lower depressed mood. In this sense, the meta-analysis (including an older population) by Liu
et al. (2019) is informative because it differentiated between the types of activities and showed
that interaction, entertainment, and self-presentation were linked to increased psychological
well-being while passive consumption had a opposite relation. These studies provide robust
evidence for the need to focus on more specific activities and their relation to well-being.
Piteo and Ward (2020) and Keles et al. (2020) also stressed that the interpretation of ex-
amined relationships needs to be more complex and take into account mediating and mod-
erating factors for social media use, such as personality traits, perceived social support, and
motivation. The focus on the moderating factors presents a second important area in which we
can enrich our understanding. We need to stress that the nature of the moderation effect is
selected for the studied activity in question. A prime moderating factor is gender. For instance,
as shown by Devine and Lloyd (2012), among Irish 10–11-year-olds, SNS use and online
gaming had a relationship with poorer psychological well-being, but only among girls.
Similarly, Twenge and Martin (2020) showed that there is a relation between digital media use
and poorer psychological well-being among 13–18-year-olds in the U.K.; however, this effect
was larger for girls than for boys. Authors of these studies offer an explanation in the form of

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different patterns of as well as different motives behind engagement in selected online activities,
which substantiate the abovementioned need for the thorough examination of the specific
activities in order to understand their impact on psychological well-being.
The studies focusing on mediating factors further help to understand the mechanism through
which ICT usage may affect well-being. For instance, in an aforementioned review (Piteo &
Ward, 2020), studies focusing on perceived support on SNS found that the relationship be-
tween SNS and depressive and anxiety symptoms was indirect via support. This study also
mentioned other possible mediating factors, such as social comparison and the fear of missing
out. Another example is the study of Donoso et al. (2021) on Chilean 15-year olds, which
showed that the relationship between internet use and poorer subjective well-being was
mediated by problematic internet use. As the authors stressed, the non-problematic internet use
was connected to better subjective well-being.
So far, many of the discussed findings were based on the cross-sectional studies, which posits
another limit, especially if we consider the salient research focus on the impact on well-being.
Studies with longitudinal design help to specify the direction of the examined effects. As we will
discuss further, well-being is not only the outcome, but, as shown in our model, it is also a precursor
for online activities. An illustrating example is the research line on excessive or problematic internet
use and depression. For instance, in a two-wave panel study on Spanish adolescents (age 13–17)
(Gámez-Guadix, 2014) negative outcomes of problematic internet use predicted depressive
symptoms, but the relationship was also reciprocal. Similar findings were shown among 16–19-
year-olds in Finland (Tóth-Király et al., 2021). Thus, the longitudinal studies may be especially
beneficial for our understanding of the mutual effects of ICT use and psychological well-being and
they represent a valuable research line to target the long-term effects of ICT usage.

ICT and Social Well-being

Social well-being encompasses a range of areas connected to relationships with others so it
includes indicators like social support, relationship satisfaction, family environment, and rela-
tional aggression. In this section, we will focus specifically on loneliness (i.e., an unpleasant
experience stemming from evaluating an achieved level of relationships as unsatisfactory; Peplau
& Perlman, 1982). Loneliness is associated with a number of negative outcomes and it is quite
common, particularly in early adolescence (Van Roekel et al., 2010).
Published meta-analyses and systematic reviews focusing on ICT and loneliness show similar
findings. Huang (2017) and Liu and Baumeister (2016) reported that general SNS use was weakly
associated with increased loneliness, and Sarmiento et al. (2020) concluded the same specifically
for Facebook use. Stronger relationships were reported when problematic/excessive ICT use,
characterized by uncontrolled ICT use (see Tokunaga & Rains, 2016, for the overview of issues
with precise definition and measurement), was examined – both for the internet, in general
(Tokunaga, 2017), and social media (O’Day & Heimberg, 2021). Although not all focus on
children and/or adolescents, the meta-analyses by Tokunaga (2017) and Huang (2017) showed no
moderating effect for age, suggesting that the association between ICT use and loneliness is robust
across the lifespan. In the following paragraphs, we provide selected theoretical explanations for
this association and connect it to our conceptual model.
In the first line of argumentation, loneliness functions as a predictor for ICT use: it causes a
negative affect, and ICT represents one of the possible tools for its reduction, as proposed by the
social compensation hypothesis (see Sarmiento et al., 2020). One can use ICT to socialize (i.e.,
reaching out to existing friends or new people), which can be understood to be an active coping
strategy (Teppers et al., 2014). One can also use ICT as a distraction (e.g., browsing, gaming),

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which is an avoidant coping strategy (Teppers et al., 2014) that can nevertheless be effective in a
short-term manner. In both cases, loneliness serves as a motivation to use ICT. This places it
toward the beginning of our model and explains why more loneliness can lead to higher ICT use.
Loneliness can, however, also be placed to the end of our model as a consequence of ICT
use. What matters is how ICT is used, with crucial differentiation between social and non-
social use (Nowland et al., 2018). Social usage includes interactions with other people, re-
gardless of where it takes place (e.g., SNS, multiplayer games). Non-social usage does not
include such interactions; it covers activities like browsing, watching videos, and single-player
games. For social media, analogous terminology of active/passive use has been established
(Frison & Eggermont, 2016). Note that the same activity/app can be used in both ways – for
instance, one can play online games with the others (i.e., socially) or alone (i.e., non-socially).
Social/non-social differentiation is important because it determines the effect of ICT use on
loneliness. If one uses the ICT to socialize – and if these efforts are successful – the loneliness
may decrease. However, if one uses ICT non-socially – and particularly when such usage is
excessive, leading to neglecting existing relationships – the loneliness may increase (Nowland
et al., 2018). These mechanisms underlie the social stimulation hypothesis and the social dis-
placement hypothesis (see e.g., Teppers et al., 2014).
Particularly for social ICT use, social skills and anxieties may be important moderators.
Children and adolescents with higher skills might be more successful in their social usage, thus
benefiting more. Those with lower skills might struggle, even if they use ICT socially, thus
reaping comparably fewer benefits. These arguments underlie rich-get-richer and poor-get-
poorer hypotheses (see Sarmiento et al., 2020) and explain why, for some youth, ICT can lead
to less loneliness, whereas the effect might be null or reversed for others.
Research has identified a number of other potential moderators. For instance, the high
quality of parent-child internet-related communication protected against the effect of heavy
internet use on loneliness among 13–18-year-old Austrian adolescents (Appel et al., 2012).
Research on 10–18-year-old Italian children and adolescents also points to the role of shyness
(Laghi et al., 2013). In essence, the differentiation of internet activity for social/non-social or
active/passive is also a moderator affecting the association between general ICT use and
loneliness. Lastly, loneliness itself can serve as a moderator between ICT use and its outcomes.
For instance, Nowland et al. (2018) argue that lonely people tend to use ICT in ways that
displace offline interactions with online activities, thus strengthening the association between
ICT and other negative well-being indicators, such as depression.
As is apparent, the theoretical explanations for the causal effects of ICT on loneliness are
complex and conditional. There is a shortage of longitudinal data, and most research has focused
on problematic use or on older population (e.g., university students). While some have found
the causal effects from loneliness upon ICT, as well as from ICT upon loneliness (Zhang et al.,
2018, China), others provided support only for loneliness as a predictor, but not as an outcome
(van den Eijnden et al., 2008, the Netherlands) or mixed for different ICT-related motives
(Teppers et al., 2014, Belgium). Clearly, more research with robust designs is needed to dis-
entangle these complex relationships.
It is also important to note that we presented only some possible mechanisms connecting ICT
to loneliness. See Sarmiento et al. (2020) or Tokunaga (2017) for more theoretical explanations.

ICT and Physical Well-being

Physical well-being includes many different indicators in literature, such as exercise, physical
in/activity, nutrition, overweight, body image, physical appearance, physical health, sleep,

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physical abuse, and substance use (Pollard & Lee, 2003). The research about the impact of ICT
on physical well-being among children and adolescents is focused typically on one of these areas
separately. In this section, we focus specifically on sleep.
Across studies, sleep is measured by different indicators, such as time spent in the bed, total
sleep time, sleep disruption, sleep quality, and sleep problems. Sleep can be affected in a short-
term manner (e.g., disruptions after engaging in online gaming) and in a long-term manner
(e.g., general sleep patterns over a longer period of time).
The systematic reviews and meta-analyses give the overall picture for the associations be-
tween ICT usage and sleep by children and youth. Bartel et al. (2015) revealed that computer
use had the largest negative correlations with the total sleep time, and internet use and phone
use had weak associations with the total sleep time of adolescents. The authors concluded that
the relations between technology usage and sleep were small. Another systematic literature
review (Hale & Guan, 2015) examined 21 studies focused on video games and 18 studies on
mobile devices in relation to children and adolescents’ sleep. Out of 21 studies, 18 (86%) found
an association between video gaming and some of the sleep patterns. Out of 18 studies on
mobiles, 15 (83%) found a relation between mobile device usage and at least one sleep out-
come. However, the majority of the studies were correlational. The authors concluded that
research should focus on the causal pathways between the screen time and sleep, and also to
replicate studies with more objective measures.
Several longitudinal studies supported bidirectional causal pathways between ICT use and
decreased sleep (Kang et al., 2020; Mazzer et al., 2018). For example, among Swedish ado-
lescents, Mazzer and colleagues (2018) revealed that time spent with ICT predicted shorter
subsequent sleep duration, but, vice versa, sleep duration predicted time spent with technology.
The authors concluded that many young people probably use their digital devices at night when
they experience sleep problems and that the relationship is bidirectional.
A specific research line focuses on the short-term within-person impact of the ICT usage on
sleep, such as how ICT usage during the day impacts sleep that night. Ecological momentary
assessment (EMA) studies typically assess these types of relationships. For instance, a study on
children aged 9–13 in the U.S. revealed that those who use more social media went to sleep
later, but their sleep duration was not affected (Hamilton et al., 2020).
In research focused on the relations between ICT and sleep, an investigation of possible
moderators and mediators is also needed. The mentioned systematic review (Hale & Guan,
2015) revealed that children’s age and the day of the week are typical moderators. Specifically,
the impact of ICT on sleep could be different when adolescents have to wake up for school the
next day and when the next day is a weekend and they can sleep longer. Another possible
moderator could be a physical activity (Bartel et al., 2015) or parental rules concerning media
usage before and during sleep time (van den Eijnden et al., 2021). Further research on the
moderators and mediators for the relationship between ICT usage and sleep is needed and it
could focus, for example, on the individual characteristics of adolescents.

Conclusions
The described links between ICT and well-being clearly illustrate that the question of how ICT
affects well-being cannot have a straightforward answer. Based on our conceptual model, we
showed that we need to take into account who is using the technology, with what purpose and
how, and how equipped they are to reap the potential benefits or cope with the potential
drawbacks. Moreover, for each well-being indicator, different individual variables and different

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types of ICT use are important; we only hinted at the fact that psychological, social, and
physical well-being are intertwined and impact each other.
Given this complex interplay, research inevitably focuses only on selected relationships in any
single study, which presents a substantial limitation in our understanding. Other limitations
concern research designs. Most of the published research is based on cross-sectional data that
provides limited evidence for the actual impacts of ICT on well-being. Experimental studies or
longitudinal surveys still represent just a minority of studies, thus limiting evidence about both
short- and long-term effects. The number of these studies is nevertheless increasing. Experience
sampling methods or EMA studies, which focus on the short-term effects, also occur more often,
particularly in the examinations of ICT’s impact on physical well-being. These designs also focus
on analyzing within-subject rather than between-subject effects, a separation that is more and
more warranted by scholars who study ICT and well-being (Stavrova & Denissen, 2020).
Our chapter also highlighted other limitations which need to be addressed in future research.
We showed that research insufficiently differentiates between types of technology usage, parti-
cularly in studies on physical well-being. Yet, different usage patterns might lead to very different
well-being outcomes, and we need to take this into consideration. This is also connected to the
issue of using subjective self-reports rather than more objective measures for technology usage.
Though not reflected in our chapter, we also need to emphasize that many studies of ICT and
well-being are often empirically driven rather than theoretically driven (Sarmiento et al., 2020).
Yet, the theoretical explanations are crucial to really advance our knowledge.
Despite these limitations and the variety of factors to consider, based on our overview, we
propose one main conclusion: The impacts of ICT on children’s and adolescents’ well-being
seem to be mostly weak. The meta-analyses that focused on general (rather than excessive) use
often found effects too small to have practical relevance. This does not mean that ICT cannot
have a detrimental impact on some children and adolescents, but it would be wrong to assume
that such effects apply universally.

SEE ALSO Chapter 28 by Harrison and Kemp, Chapter 29 by Calvert and Bond, Chapter 30
by Bleakley and Ellithorpe, and Chapter 37 by Meehus and Eggermont in this volume.

Acknowledgement
This work has received funding from the Czech Science Foundation, project no. 19-27828X.

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SCREEN MEDIA, EARLY
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT,
AND LANGUAGE
Babies’ Learning from Screens

Deborah L. Nichols

Language and Cognition in Babies

Language in humans is unique. It is infinitely generative despite finite constraints (e.g., words,
syntax rules). It is recursive enabling it to build upon itself without limits. It allows for dis-
placement; one can refer to objects, people, or events that are not directly present. Language is
the primary tool for expression and communication, allowing humans to transmit detailed
information across generations and, consequently, create sophisticated cultural adaptations
(Pagel, 2017; Perszyk & Waxman, 2018). Language exerts a powerful influence on the de-
velopment of core cognitive capabilities (Ferguson & Waxman, 2017) as infants are uniquely
primed to rapidly acquire language (National Research Council, 2000). Infants as young as
3 months of age use language to induce the formation of object categories (Perszyk & Waxman,
2019). For this link to develop, infants must become proficient at organizing and interpreting
the constant stream of sensory input they receive. This is accomplished through implicit
learning mechanisms (i.e., statistical learning) that allow humans to detect recurring patterns in
sensory input based on the statistical properties of this input and then to abstract these properties
to form object categories.
Across the first year of life, scholars have characterized the interwoven nature of language
and cognition as a “series of cascading effects that unfold over developmental time, with each
point along the developmental continuum setting constraints upon the next” (p. 233, Perszyk &
Waxman, 2018). An infant’s perceptual systems facilitate this relationship as they are the pri-
mary means through which infants acquire and interpret sensory information (Johnson &
Hannon, 2015). At birth, an infant’s perceptual systems are mostly untuned (i.e., not primed
toward specific stimuli) and capable of differentiating many different sensory properties both
independently (e.g., hearing someone speaking) and together (e.g., seeing and hearing someone
talking). In the contexts of language learning, between birth and approximately 6 months of
age, infants’ sensory experiences shift toward extracting and exploiting regularities in sensory
input in order to establish perceptual constancies (e.g., identify objects under different con-
ditions) that lead to the development of abstractions (e.g., developing a concept of dog as an
animal with four legs and fur). This shift coincides developmentally with the onset of perceptual

194 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-25

 Babies Learning from Screens

narrowing, or selectively attending to stimuli commonly found in the infant’s environment

(e.g., phonemes in their native language) while attending less to stimuli rarely encountered
(e.g., phonemes in other languages; Watson et.al., 2014). Concomitant to this narrowing is an
elaboration of constancies to which the infant is frequently exposed, allowing the infant to
enhance their ability to discriminate and categorize frequently exposed to stimuli (e.g., re-
cognizing the same word across multiple speakers). The same basic neurophysiological processes
occur within and between sensory systems to produce representational structures that operate
similarly despite the manipulation of different input (Watson et al., 2014).
As infants’ interactions with their everyday worlds continue and their linguistic knowledge
grows, language will shape and further refine their conceptual understanding (Clark, 2004) and
their conceptual understanding will help them make inferences about the probable meanings of
unfamiliar words. Eventually, language acts as a representational resource; that is, it can serve as
a framework for encoding or mentally depicting new information. Representational thought is
an important precursor to learning from screen media (DeLoache et al., 2010).

Learning from Screen Media

Learning from screens appears to unfold in a developmentally similar way to language and
cognition although the complex representational demands associated with screen media shift
the timeline from the first year of life to the second. Recall that statistical learning mechanisms
allow infants to implicitly detect and extract regular patterns from sensory input, with infants
proceeding from broad discrimination to selectively narrowing discrimination to frequently
exposed stimuli (allowing for elaboration of multiple exemplars). Between 6 and 9 months of
age, infants demonstrate little awareness that objects on the screen and objects in real life differ.
Barr and colleagues (2007) found that 6 month olds were able to imitate a task in real life that
they observed only on a screen while older infants could not. Pierroutsakos and Troseth (2003)
found that 9 month olds attempted to manually explore toys presented to them on screens
whereas 19 month olds did not. Between 12 and 15 months, infants lose the ability to transfer
learning from screens to real life, and, depending on the complexity of the learning tasks, this
difficulty lasts through at least 36 months (Barr, 2010). Researchers found that infants learned
more from live interactions (i.e., someone is physically present with the infant during the
learning trials) versus interactions modeled by an onscreen actor, referring to this difference as a
“transfer deficit” (Anderson & Pempek, 2005; Barr, 2010). The transfer deficit has been ob-
served across a number of learning paradigms including imitation, object search, problem-
solving, and word learning (e.g., Barr, 2013; Choi et al., 2018; DeLoache et al., 2010; Robb
et al., 2009; Schmitt & Anderson, 2002; Tsuji et al., 2021).
One difficulty in the interpretation of this evidence lies in the conditions under which
learning was contrasted. Studies that found a transfer deficit typically compared learning from
video to learning from a “live” actor. This comparison invariably sets up learning from screen
media to fail. Infants lack experience with, prior knowledge of, and have limited cognitive
capacity for understanding screen content. Conversely, they have extensive experience with,
have developed prior knowledge about, and can subsequently devote greater cognitive capacity
toward understanding objects or events introduced during interactions with a physically present
adult. The transfer deficit is not unique to screen-based media. Rather, screen media are one of
a variety of symbols used to represent particular persons, objects, or events not physically
present. Babies have difficulty learning from any symbols because they cannot simultaneously
process content as both a concrete entity and a symbol of that particular entity, a phenomenon
labeled dual representation (e.g., DeLoache & Burns, 1994). More comparable exemplars for

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 Deborah L. Nichols

evaluation would be other symbolic media like picture books and photographs. When com-
parisons are made across symbolic media, the transfer deficit effect is similarly reproduced (e.g.,
Barr, 2013; Ganea et al., 2008; Hipp et al., 2017; Shinskey, 2021). For instance, infants’ dif-
ficulty in learning from picture books developmentally parallels their difficulty in learning from
screen media (e.g., Barr, 2013).
The difficulty in processing and learning from screen content can be overcome. Evidence
suggests that the degree of correspondence between an infant’s everyday life and screen media’s
forms and content determine whether, how, and how much an infant will learn. By engaging in
numerous daily interactions with persons, objects, and events, infants develop a framework or
routine for what to expect and how to process and learn from these interactions. Once formed,
a routine provides structure for interpreting events, anticipating temporal sequencing, and
drawing inferences from new experiences. Developing a routine around interactions with
screen media, book reading, or other symbol systems provides a framework through which
infants can learn, build, and organize concepts, patterns, and relationships. As knowledge of and
experiences with screen media accumulate, infants’ representational understanding of screen
media grows. Initially, the formation of a routine leads to content-specific learning because
early learning is concretely tied to a stimulus presentation. In fact, research indicates that
learning is more likely to be demonstrated if the same sets of cues present during initial en-
coding are also present during the testing phase (Barr, 2010; Hipp et al., 2017; L. Zimmerman
et al., 2017). Over time and with experience, content-specific learning will generalize to si-
tuations outside the immediate screen media context. Boosting the degree of correspondence
between what an infant knows or has previously experienced and onscreen content occurs
through content-specific manipulations and by participation in supportive contexts surrounding
screen media use.

Screen Media Attributes

The major difficulty associated with learning screen content involves babies’ ability to ade-
quately represent depicted content in memory for later retrieval. There are a number of studies
that demonstrate learning can be improved by manipulating screen media attributes at both
macro-and micro-levels.

Macro-Level Screen Formats

Screen media are typically presented in one of three macro-level formats: narratives (e.g., Daniel
Tiger’s Neighborhood), expositories (e.g., Zoboomafoo), or narrative/expository hybrids (e.g.,
Barney & Friends) (all three airing originally on PBS Kids). Exposure to educational content
presented in narrative formats with dialogue between characters or simulated dialogue between
characters and home viewers is associated with larger vocabularies and more language use
during play, while expository formats with their loosely connected string of vignettes, large
volume of information, and cognitively challenging content is associated with smaller voca-
bularies and less language use during play (Krcmar & Cingel, 2019; Linebarger & Walker, 2005;
O’Doherty et al., 2011). Finally, infant-directed DVDs, a form of expository content, fre-
quently contain impoverished and decontextualized language as well as decontextualized ob-
jects and few social interactions (Fenstermacher et al., 2010; Vaala et al., 2010). Evidence
suggests that exposure to infant-directed DVDs is associated with smaller vocabularies (Krcmar
et al., 2007; F.J. Zimmerman, et al., 2007) likely due to increased exposure to poor language
models and reduced exposure to other language rich activities (e.g., parental talk).

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Micro-Level Screen Attributes

Micro-level attributes are features embedded within screen content to deliver that content. Four
different sets of characteristics have been linked to learning from screen content: the use of realistic
and familiar depictions, the use of social contingency and higher-order language strategies, the
strategic and judicious use of production techniques, and the use of familiar and engaging characters.
While infants attend longer to puppets and animated faces onscreen (Franchak et al., 2016),
they learn more from interactions with live persons. Screen media content that incorporates
more realistic portrayals or situations should result in more learning. Evidence indicates that
learning from screen media, pictures, and picture books was more likely to occur with content
that was more realistic when compared with animation or cartoons (Barr & Hayne, 1999;
Lauricella et al., 2011; Strouse et al. 2018). Further, toddlers were more likely to form a re-
lationship with an onscreen character when that character displayed human needs (e.g., feeding
the character, putting it to sleep; Richards & Calvert, 2016).
Social contingency refers to contingent reactions of onscreen characters to the media user’s
actions. Research investigating the effectiveness of higher-order language strategies tested re-
quests for language or action from the viewer and voiceovers that narrated onscreen activity.
Both experimental and correlational studies indicate that social contingency and language
strategies improved infant learning from screen media (Kirkorian et al., 2016; Krcmar & Cingel,
2019; Linebarger & Walker, 2005; Troseth et al., 2006; Tsuji et al., 2020).
Production techniques include both auditory and visual cues that, due to their perceptually
salient nature, attract and sustain babies’ attention (e.g., sound effects, music; Barr et al., 2009,
2010; Gola & Calvert, 2011). Unfortunately, these techniques are not always matched to im-
portant content. Consequently, children are likely to learn whatever content is paired with these
techniques including unimportant or incidental content (Barr, 2013). Experimentally, learning
was more likely to occur when clips were created by researchers because these clips were simpler
and contained fewer production techniques when compared to commercially produced screen
content. Researchers documented that infant-directed screen media were filled with high con-
centrations of perceptually salient production features (Goodrich et al., 2009). Studies examining
commercially available screen content indicate that little learning occurs (DeLoache et al., 2010;
Krcmar et al., 2007; Robb et al., 2009) with the exception of one study that found language-
learning benefits only after extended viewing (Vandewater, et al., 2010). Barr and colleagues
determined that background music hindered learning, sound effects matched to key content
helped learning, and a combination of background music and sound effects helped learning as long
as the sound effects were matched to key content (Barr et al., 2009; 2010). Collectively, this
research suggests that production techniques can support learning when used judiciously to mark
key content or to enhance the match between onscreen content and real life.
The use of familiar and engaging media characters can help babies to develop a one-sided
relationship with that character (referred to as a parasocial relationship). When this occurs, a
child will expend emotional energy, show interest, and spend more time attending to and
identifying with that character. When toddlers were familiarized with an engaging media
character, they learned more from screen content compared with toddlers who were not fa-
miliarized with the media character (Calvert & Richards, 2014; Howard Gola et al., 2013).

The Contexts Surrounding Screen Media Use

A number of direct and indirect experiences shape the contexts in which infants’ exposure to
screen media occurs. Some of these experiences are supportive of learning while others are

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more likely to diminish learning. Direct learning effects have been linked to repeat viewing, co-
viewing, and constant interruptions from a TV on in the background whereas indirect learning
effects have been linked to TV’s interference with parental attention to and involvement with
their infants.
Repetitive exposure to screen media has been causally linked to babies’ increased learning
from screen media across several experimental contexts including imitation (Barr et al., 2007,
2009); problem-solving (Robb et al., 2009); and word learning (Krcmar, 2010; Vandewater
et al., 2010). Because babies have very little background knowledge and experience with screen
media, repeated exposure is crucial if any learning is to occur.
Parents interact in a variety of ways with their infants while co-viewing screen media
especially child-directed educational content (Mendelsohn et al., 2008, 2010). Joint media
engagement interactions consisted of labeling and clarifying content, responding to infant-
initiated verbalizations, and extending content beyond the screen to make connections with
infants’ everyday lives (Barr et al., 2018; Fidler et al., 2010; Lemish & Rice, 1986; Zack & Barr,
2016). Findings from experimental studies indicate that infants whose parents used these stra-
tegies while co-viewing evidenced better language outcomes (Fender et al., 2010; Strouse &
Troseth, 2014).
Exposure to background TV has been linked to shorter play episodes and less focused at-
tention during this play and poorer language and literacy skills (Kirkorian et al., 2009; Schmidt
et al., 2008; Setliff & Courage, 2011). It is likely that these results stem from the nature of the
auditory content originating from the TV. Because auditory cues are generated intermittently,
they are able to repeatedly recruit attention with little habituation, causing constant attention-
shifting and difficulty concentrating or playing.
Background TV exposure also indirectly affects learning by disrupting parental attention and
decreasing the quantity and quality of parent–child interactions (Pempek & Kirkorian, 2014;
Masur et al., 2016). Other research indicates that infants and toddlers living in households
where there is infrequent and lower-quality parental talk evidence substantially smaller voca-
bularies by age 3 (Hart & Risley, 1995) and diminished academic achievement in elementary
school (Walker et al., 1994). Correlational evidence documents similar associations among
exposure to high levels of adult-directed content on screens, infrequent parent–child talk, and
poor language outcomes (Mendelsohn et al., 2010; Ribner et al., 2021).

Final Thoughts
Babies’ exposure to screen media increased substantially beginning in 1997, due in large part to
the introduction of Teletubbies on PBS in the U.S. and Baby Einstein’s infant-directed videos
during that year. This was followed by designated content for babies and toddlers on special
cable channels for young audiences. For the last decade, their screen media use has remained
relatively stable (Rideout & Robb, 2020). Infants have limited developmental competencies
that make learning screen content challenging. Cognitive overload rapidly occurs when the
volume and complexity of information typical of screen media exceeds processing capacity
(Goodrich et al., 2009). To learn from screen media, infants must navigate a myriad of visual
and verbal stimuli as well as understand the dual nature of screen media; that is, they must
understand that the screen and its content are both concrete entities and abstract symbols or
representations of these entities (DeLoache et al., 2010). Processing and learning from screen
media can be enhanced through content-specific manipulations and through changes to the
contexts surrounding babies’ media use. Onscreen content that incorporates more realistic
depictions of persons and objects, social contingency and higher-order language strategies, the

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strategic and judicious use of production techniques, and familiar and engaging characters fa-
cilitate learning. Supportive learning contexts arise when infants view the same content re-
peatedly, when parents actively co-view with them, and when TVs are turned off while infants
are in the room.
Screen media use is pervasive in babies’ lives. Moving forward, it is critical to continue to
investigate infants’ use of it, the specific structural features and content types that impede or
improve learning from it, and the contexts surrounding its use that can support or inhibit
learning. Much remains to be learned in this regard.

SEE ALSO Chapter 52 by Fisch in this volume.

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CHILDREN’S MEDIA USE AND ITS
RELATION TO ATTENTION,
HYPERACTIVITY, AND
IMPULSIVITY
Ine Beyens and Patti M. Valkenburg

Children’s media environment has changed considerably in the past decades. It has become
more fast-paced, violent, and arousing, and has been targeting children at an ever younger age
(Valkenburg & Piotrowski, 2017). During these same decades, the frequency of the diagnosis of
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) among children has also significantly in-
creased, from about 1.5 percent in the 1970s to 1980s to about 8.5 percent in the 1990s and
early 2000s (Akinbami et al., 2011; Kelleher et al., 2000). ADHD is a behavioral disorder
characterized by elevated levels of attention problems, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that are
age-inappropriate, pervasive, and impair a child’s cognitive and social-emotional functioning
(American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
A widely debated question related to these parallel occurring changes is whether there is an
association between children’s media use and the development of ADHD. Knowledge of this
association is essential not only for academics, but also for parents, educators, and society at
large. Only if we know whether, and (if so) how and why, media influence children, can we
develop tailored prevention and intervention strategies. Meta-analyses and reviews into the
association between children’s media use and ADHD or ADHD-related behavior have shown a
rapid increase of studies published between the 1970s and 2020s (e.g., Beyens et al., 2018;
Nikkelen, Valkenburg et al., 2014). The aim of this chapter is to review this literature and
discuss suggestions for future research.

Conceptualizations and Measures of ADHD and ADHD-Related Behavior

Studies on the association between media use and ADHD differ greatly in their conceptual
and operational definitions of ADHD. Moreover, many of these studies have treated media
effects on attention problems, impulsivity, and hyperactivity as identical and interchangeable.
It is however quite possible that media exposure is differentially related to attention pro-
blems, hyperactivity, and impulsivity (also see Nikkelen, Valkenburg et al., 2014). In this
chapter, we therefore not only review studies that investigated the effects of media on
ADHD as a composite, but also studies that specifically focused on one of the three ADHD
symptoms. We define attention problems as the inability to focus attention to organizing and

202 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-26

 Attention, Hyperactivity, and Impulsivity

completing a task (i.e., children do not pay attention to what they are doing or are easily
distracted). Impulsivity is defined as children’s inability to control immediate actions (i.e.,
children do not think before they act and/or are impatient; Nigg, 2006). Hyperactivity
is conceptualized as excessive physical activity (i.e., children are continuously in motion;
Nigg, 2006).
The majority of empirical studies used a self-report or parent-report measure to assess
ADHD and/or ADHD-related behavior, such as the ADHD questionnaire (Scholte & Van der
Ploeg, 2010) and the distractibility/hyperactivity scale of the Parenting Stress Index (Abidin &
Brunner, 1995). Other studies used teacher ratings (e.g., Ullmann et al., 1999), classroom
observations, or scales based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

Hypotheses on the Media-ADHD Association

The effects of media use on ADHD have typically been attributed to two important char-
acteristics of media: its fast pace (i.e., frequently occurring cuts, edits or scene changes, and
highly active characters) and its violent content.

Fast Pace
Two hypotheses may explain the association between watching fast-paced media
and ADHD or ADHD-related behaviors. The arousal-habituation hypothesis (Nikkelen,
Valkenburg et al., 2014) states that the fast pace of entertainment media may increase
arousal during and after exposure. It is assumed that in the long term children become
habituated to this media-induced arousal stimulation. After repeated exposure, their arousal
system adjusts itself to this continuous stimulation. In the long run, their baseline arousal
level decreases, which in turn leads to boredom, inattention, or hyperactivity during other,
less arousing activities.
The second hypothesis, the scan-and-shift hypothesis (Nikkelen, Valkenburg et al., 2014),
proposes that fast-paced entertainment media teach children to develop an attentional style that
is characterized by scanning and shifting rather than selecting and focusing. As a result, children
are less prepared to cope with other attentional tasks that require effortful attention, such as
playing, reading, or homework ( Jensen et al., 1997).

Violent Content
Two hypotheses may account for an association between violent media content and ADHD.
The violence-induced script hypothesis (Nikkelen, Valkenburg et al., 2014) argues that through
exposure to violent media content, children acquire aggressive scripts. These scripts may lead to
the performance of aggressive behavior, which is characterized by impulsivity and poor in-
hibitory control, such that the frequent activation of such scripts may lead to a learned beha-
vioral style of poor self-control.
A second hypothesis on the association between the violent content of media and ADHD
is the violence-induced arousal-habituation hypothesis (Nikkelen, Valkenburg et al., 2014). As
with fast-paced content, this hypothesis argues that frequent exposure to violent media may
cause such high levels of arousal that it creates a desensitization effect, such that children’s
baseline arousal level declines. This state of under-arousal may ultimately lead to ADHD-
related behaviors.

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 Ine Beyens and Patti M. Valkenburg

Empirical Evidence
The first empirical studies that investigated the effect of media use on ADHD among children
date from the late 1970s (Anderson & Maguire, 1978; Anderson et al., 1977; Tower et al.,
1979). Since then, nearly 60 empirical studies have been conducted, primarily in the U.S. (32
cross-sectional, 20 longitudinal, and 7 experimental studies). These studies focused on a hod-
gepodge of different types of media use, including exposure to fast-paced (e.g., Lillard &
Peterson, 2011) and violent content (e.g., Kronenberger et al., 2005), as well as the time spent
viewing television (e.g., Ansari & Crosnoe, 2016), playing video games (e.g., Chan &
Rabinowitz, 2006), and using social media (e.g., Boer et al., 2020). Thirteen studies focused on
attention problems, six on hyperactivity, and six on impulsivity. Most studies (44) focused on
ADHD as a composite. In this chapter, we discuss research covering all types of media use and
organize the existing literature by the three ADHD symptoms (i.e., attention problems, hy-
peractivity, and impulsivity) and ADHD as a composite.

Media Effects on Attention Problems

Four out of the five cross-sectional studies that investigated the association between media use
and attention problems found evidence for a positive association. Chan and Rabinowitz (2006)
and De Sousa (2011) found that adolescents in the U.S. and India, respectively, who spent more
time playing video games than their peers reported higher levels of inattention than their peers.
The results of Kronenberger et al. (2005) indicated that adolescents in the U.S. who spent more
time playing violent video games and viewing violent television than their peers had poorer
attentional skills than their peers. This was observed particularly among aggressive adolescents.
Similarly, the study by Mazurek and Engelhardt (2013) showed that boys in the U.S. who
engaged more often in problematic video game playing showed more inattention symptoms
than boys who engaged less often in problematic gaming, both among boys with typical de-
velopment and boys diagnosed with ADHD. Finally, however, Linebarger (2015) found no
association between video game playing and attention problems among preschoolers and
school-age children in the U.S.
All four longitudinal studies that investigated the association between media use and at-
tention problems revealed a positive association. In a study among mothers in the U.S., U.K.,
and Europe, Gueron-Sela and Gordon-Hacker (2020) found that more cumulative screen time
among children at age 1 was associated with less focused attention four months later, but not
vice versa. A similar association was observed in the longer term among children in the U.S.:
Zimmerman and Christakis (2007) found that viewing violent and non-violent entertainment
television (but not educational television) under age 3 was associated with attention problems 5
years later. Furthermore, Gentile et al. (2012) found evidence for transactional associations
between overall and violent video game playing and attention problems among 8- to 17-year-
olds in Singapore: Playing video games was associated with attention problems 1 year later, and
vice versa. Likewise, Boer et al. (2020) investigated transactional associations between social
media use and attention problems among Dutch 11- to 15-year-olds. They found that an
increase in adolescents’ social media use problems was associated with an increase in attention
problems one year later, but not vice versa.
Finally, four experimental studies investigated the effect of program pacing on children’s
attention problems, with mixed results. Cooper et al. (2009) found that children in the U.K.
who watched a fast-paced video showed fewer (rather than more) attentional problems than
children who watched a slow-paced video. This seemed to be more pronounced among

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4-year-olds than among 6- and 7-year-olds. In contrast, a study by Lillard and Peterson (2011)
among 4-year-olds in the U.S. found that children who viewed a fast-paced program displayed
more attentional problems after viewing the program compared with children who viewed a
slow-paced program and children who watched no television but engaged in drawing. In a
follow-up study, Lillard et al. (2015) investigated the assumption that the fantastical content
rather than the pace of the program could explain the attentional problems. They indeed found
that it is not fast pacing but fantastic content that is problematic. In a similar vein, Kostyrka-
Allchorne et al. (2019) found that U.K. children who watched a fast-paced video showed more
attentional problems than children who watched a slow-paced video, but only when the
content was realistic.
Together, with two exceptions, the cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental studies
suggest that media use is associated with attention problems, among preschoolers as well as school-
age children and adolescents, although in most studies, the reported associations were small.

Media Effects on Hyperactivity

Only six studies examined the association between media use and hyperactivity: four cross-
sectional and two longitudinal studies. Except for one study (Chan & Rabinowitz, 2006), the
cross-sectional studies found small to moderate positive associations, all in U.S. samples. In a
sample of 3- to 6-year-olds, Miller et al. (2007) found a positive association between children’s
daily television viewing and their activity level. Linebarger (2015) found a positive association
between children’s video game playing and hyperactivity among 2- to 5-year-olds, but not
among 6- to 8-year-olds. However, the association disappeared after adjusting for parenting
style. In a study among 8-to 18-year-old boys, Mazurek and Engelhardt (2013) found that boys
who showed more problematic video game use also showed more hyperactivity symptoms,
among boys with typical development, but not among boys diagnosed with ADHD. However,
Chan and Rabinowitz (2006) found no differences in hyperactivity levels between heavier and
lighter video game players, television viewers, and internet users among adolescents.
The two longitudinal studies yielded mixed results. Ansari and Crosnoe (2016) found that
higher levels of hyperactivity at age four were related to higher levels of television viewing
1 year later among girls but not among boys in the U.S. In contrast, the study by Boer et al.
(2020) among Dutch adolescents showed that social media use did not predict hyperactivity
1 year later, or vice versa. However, Boer and colleagues discovered that adolescents who more
often used social media and who reported more social media use problems also reported higher
levels of hyperactivity.
Overall, the studies seem to suggest that children who spend more time watching television,
playing video games, or using social media than their peers display more hyperactivity symp-
toms than their peers. However, no evidence was found for the assumption that media use may
stimulate hyperactivity.

Media Effects on Impulsivity

Six studies examined the association between media use and impulsivity: two cross-sectional,
two longitudinal, and two experimental studies. All studies revealed a positive association,
except for an experimental study by Anderson et al. (1977). Anderson and colleagues in-
vestigated whether U.S. children who had seen a fast-paced episode of Sesame Street would be
more likely to be impulsive compared to children who had seen a slow-paced episode of Sesame
Street. This prediction was rejected, as the number of impulsive children in the fast-paced

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condition was not significantly larger than in the slow-paced condition. The field experiment
by Gadberry (1980) among 6-year-olds in the U.S. revealed that children whose television
viewing was restricted, showed less impulsivity than children who were assigned to the un-
restricted television viewing group.
The results of the two cross-sectional studies – both among U.S. samples – pointed at
positive associations between television viewing and video game playing with teacher ratings of
impulsivity. A study by Anderson and Maguire (1978) indicated that the number of violent
television programs that children regularly watched was positively related to teachers’ ratings of
children’s impulsivity, although this association was only found among third and fourth graders,
but not among fifth and sixth graders. The other cross-sectional study showed that 9- to 11-
year-old boys (but not girls) who were regular video game players were being observed by their
teachers as more impulsive (Lin & Lepper, 1987).
Finally, the two longitudinal studies also found positive associations between media use
and impulsivity. Gentile et al. (2012) found evidence for bidirectional associations between
overall and violent video game playing and impulsivity among Singaporean children. In
another study, Boer et al. (2020) found that an increase in Dutch adolescents’ social media
use problems was associated with an increase in their impulsivity level one year later, but not
vice versa.
Altogether, at present, the empirical evidence is too scant to allow meaningful conclusions
about the association of media use with children’s impulsivity. The limited empirical work
shows that the pacing of media seems to be unrelated to children’s impulsivity (Anderson
et al., 1977) but that violent content seems to be related to higher levels of impulsivity (e.g.,
Anderson & Maguire, 1978). Other studies also revealed associations between the total time
spent using media (i.e., viewing television, playing video games, or using social media) and
impulsivity.

Media Effects on ADHD as a Composite

By far the most studies have focused on the effects of media on ADHD as a composite. The
meta-analysis of Nikkelen, Valkenburg et al. (2014) revealed a positive but small association of
general media use and violent media use with ADHD. The effect of fast-paced media could not
be assessed in the meta-analysis because too few studies focused on the pace of media content. A
comparison of the effects of television viewing and videogame playing revealed no significant
differences. Furthermore, the association between media use and ADHD was stronger among
boys than among girls, but it did not differ as a function of age.
Likewise, studies that focused on ADHD as a composite that were published after the meta-
analysis of Nikkelen, Valkenburg et al. (2014) generally point at a positive association between
media use and ADHD, both for overall (e.g., Levelink et al., 2020; Ra et al., 2018) and violent
media use (e.g., Beyens et al., 2020; Nikkelen et al., 2016), and for television, computer, and
video games (e.g., Levelink et al., 2020) as well as for internet use (e.g., Morita et al., 2021) and
social media use (e.g., McNamee et al., 2021; Settanni et al., 2018). Some studies elucidated the
boundary conditions of the association between media use and ADHD, suggesting that the
association only holds for boys and not for girls (Nikkelen et al., 2015). In addition, two
longitudinal studies investigated the direction of the media-ADHD association: While one
study found support for small bidirectional associations between problematic internet use and
ADHD among children in Japan (Morita et al., 2021), another study found that an increase in
Dutch children’s ADHD was associated with an increase in children’s violent media use one
year later, but not vice versa (Beyens et al., 2020).

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Conclusion, Critique, and Suggestions for Future Research

The general picture that arises from the empirical studies suggests a positive association of
violent media use with children’s attention problems, impulsivity, and ADHD as a composite.
Unfortunately, the role of the pacing of media content is not yet clearly understood. While
Lillard and Peterson (2011) found that exposure to fast-paced content led to more attentional
problems, Cooper et al. (2009) found that it was associated with fewer attentional problems. And
Kostyrka-Allchorne et al. (2019) and Lillard et al. (2015) showed that it was not the pacing but
fantastic content that was associated with attention problems. The finding that hardly any study
has focused on fast-paced media as a cause of the media-ADHD association is remarkable. After
all, most explanatory hypotheses that are available in the literature attribute the effects of media
on ADHD to its fast pace.
Moreover, the great majority of the studies on media and ADHD are based on simple
input–output designs, which only investigate the association between general media use (input)
and ADHD (output) without exploring what underlies this association. None of the available
studies have investigated the mediating role of the underlying mechanisms that they propose,
such as arousal and executive functioning. In fact, many studies have failed to argue precisely
why media and ADHD could be related. Therefore, there is an apparent need for research that
examines the differential effects of violent and fast-paced content on ADHD and ADHD-
related behavior, while testing the specific mechanisms that may explain these associations.
The far majority of the studies on media use and ADHD employed cross-sectional designs.
This is surprising: While some of the hypotheses on the media-ADHD association lend
themselves to short-term experimental investigation (e.g., scan-and-shift hypothesis), most
other hypotheses assume a longer-term cumulative effect of repeated media exposure (e.g., fast-
pace arousal-habituation hypothesis and violence-induced arousal-habituation hypothesis). To
investigate the latter hypotheses, longitudinal studies are needed. Such studies are also needed to
single out the causal direction of the association. Up until now, it remains unclear whether
media use is a cause or a consequence of ADHD-related behavior: While some studies suggest
that media use is both a cause and consequence of attention problems and impulsivity (e.g.,
Gentile et al., 2012), other studies suggest that media use is a cause but not a consequence of
attention problems and impulsivity (e.g., Boer et al., 2020), and yet other studies suggest that
media use is a consequence but not a cause of ADHD (e.g., Beyens et al., 2020). Apparently,
more longitudinal work is needed to disentangle the direction of the media-ADHD association.
While theoretical arguments exist to expect age differences in the association between
children’s media use and ADHD-related behaviors, the results of the current literature review
and the meta-analysis of Nikkelen, Valkenburg et al. (2014) yielded no robust evidence for a
moderating effect of age. This may be due to the fact that hardly any studies investigated age
differences. While some studies suggest that younger children are more susceptible than older
children to the effects of media use on ADHD (e.g., Linebarger, 2015), more research is needed
to reach any decisive conclusions. In addition, there are some indications that gender and trait
aggression may enhance the association between media use and ADHD-related behavior.
However, while a moderating effect of gender was found in the meta-analysis of Nikkelen,
Valkenburg et al. (2014), the empirical evidence regarding the moderating effect of trait ag-
gression is as yet too weak to allow decisive conclusions, as it has been investigated in only one
study (Kronenberger et al., 2005).
Overall, hardly any of the empirical studies have investigated individual differences in the
media-ADHD association (for exceptions, see, for instance Linebarger, 2015; Nikkelen et al.,
2016; Nikkelen, Vossen et al., 2014). This is remarkable, because it is highly conceivable that

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children differ in their susceptibility to media effects on ADHD. For example, it is likely that
violent and fast-paced media have a small and negligible influence on the great majority of
children but a large influence on a small subgroup of children (Valkenburg & Peter, 2013).
Therefore, there is a crucial need for future research to systematically investigate whether and
how age, gender, and other individual-difference variables may enhance (or reduce) media
effects on ADHD and ADHD-like behavior. After all, only if we know which children are
particularly susceptible to specific media are we able to adequately target prevention and in-
tervention strategies at these children.

SEE ALSO Chapter 20 by Dedkova, Machackova, and Smahel in this volume.

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 23
MEDIA, IMAGINATION,
AND FANTASY
Maya Götz

Influence of Media on Imaginative Activities

In the first decades of television research, a series of studies attempted to answer the question of
how far media constrain fantasies, creativity, or forms of role play. These studies were con-
cerned with evaluating the probably negative impact of the new electronic media, which were
becoming increasingly significant.
Several early correlational as well as experimental studies found negative relationships be-
tween television viewing and children’s scores on tasks considered to be indicators of creativity
and imagination. In one influential study, Williams (1986) began a comparative natural ex-
periment prior to the arrival of television in a Canadian town she named Notel. Comparisons
between children in the pre- and post-television period in Notel, as well as with children in
two other communities, revealed that the Notel children rated higher on tests of creativity in
comparison with children in the two other towns. The Notel scores declined in tests performed
two years after the introduction of television (Williams, 1986).
Valkenburg’s (2001) review of the literature discussed the Reduction Hypothesis that
suggested several possible connections between television and children’s imagination:
Television viewing reduces the time children spend “practicing” other more creative
things; the fast pace and action-oriented stories on television sometimes frighten and stress
young viewers, and so disrupt more imaginative involvement in contemplative activities;
and, the nature of the medium with its “readymade pictures” provides input that is less
stimulating.
Researchers investigated how various media differ as stimuli of creativity and imagination.
One research area focused on whether a televised version of a story stimulates more or fewer
creative ideas, storylines and problem-solving solutions than the same story told verbally (as
in audio or print forms). A series of studies that compared the influence of television with
radio (Greenfield & Beagles-Roos, 1988; Greenfield et al., 1986) confirmed the hypothesis
that processes of imagination (operationalized as any form of representational activity that
creates new entities such as characters or events) were better stimulated by radio than tel-
evision. Rolandelli (1989) explained in the review of these and other studies that the visual
superiority effect of television is confounded by the advantages of the auditory-verbal track
for comprehension.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-27 211

 Maya Götz

Studying television as a stimulant for imaginative play, Singer and Singer claimed that tel-
evision’s visually concrete presentational forms inhibit children’s daydreaming in comparison to
the abstract nature of words in print or spoken language (e.g., Singer, 1980; Singer & Singer,
1981; Singer et al., 1984). They assumed that the ready-made fantasy world of television does
not require a lot of mental effort and the fast pace of the programmes does not leave room for
daydreaming while watching. The researchers claimed that the findings suggest that children
who are heavy electronic media users are less likely to engage in pretend play or other forms of
creativity (Singer & Singer, 2005). A study by Kumari and Ahuja (2010) added that they score
lower in tests on creative imagination. Complementary to this conclusion is the hypothesis that
television may stimulate programme-bound daydreaming. Therefore, daydreaming by heavy
viewers of violence, for example, will be preoccupied with aggressive themes and superheroes
closely related to their favourite television narratives (Huesmann & Eron, 1986). Thus, children
who watched more educational programmes specifically designed to foster fantasy were more
imaginative than the children in the control group (Singer & Singer, 1998).
More recent studies discuss the influence of virtual worlds like Club Penguin or Webkinz and
argue that they can offer a lot to children’s imagination and identity work. According to Marsh
(2010), for example, virtual worlds can be a space in which children can engage in make-
believe and narrative-related play, but it all depends on how these worlds are constructed and to
what extent choices are made possible or restricted. Dellinger-Pate and Conforti (2010) con-
cluded that the game Webkinz harms children’s development of communication skills and social
connectivity. Grimes (2015) argued that virtual worlds provide very limited opportunities for
children’s imagination and make-believe play.
In order to generalize the so far TV-focused view to virtual worlds, Goltz and Dowdeswell
(2016) used the “visualization hypothesis” and “displacement hypothesis” to explain how media
reduce children’s imagination by offering ready-made visual images and manufactured content.
They state that the more immersive the medium, the more senses and psychological dimensions
are captured by this displacement – such as sound, the visual, narrative content, time, space,
physical presence – the more it narrows the individual’s imagination.

Media and the Content of Fantasy-Activities

These studies set the ground for later investigations as the focus of research has been shifting
toward study of the relation of content and children’s fantasy life. Valkenburg and her col-
leagues surveyed 354 children three times, in one-year intervals, and found that exposure to
non-violent programmes was related to an increase in children’s positive-intense fantasy style,
while the preference for violent shows correlates with an aggressive-heroic style (Valkenburg
et al., 1992). This conclusion supports the hypothesis that, ultimately, the types of content
children watch are more important in determining outcomes of fantasy and imaginative play
than the quantity of time spent viewing. A later study found that more imaginative children
preferred programmes of an educational nature typically featured on public broadcasting stations
in the U.S. while less imaginative children preferred action and adventure cartoons with a high
level of violence (Singer & Singer, 2005, p. 67). In a related, longitudinal study, preschool
children who engaged with superheroes were more likely to be physically and relationally
aggressive but did not show prosocial or defending behaviour as modelled by the media
character (Coyne et al., 2017). These findings correspond with studies that investigated the
relationship between imagination, children, and the computer. For example, violent thoughts
seem to be related to playing violent video games (Carnagey & Anderson, 2005).

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A different view is offered by Grimmer who highlights the enormous potential of superhero
play in supporting learning and development in early childhood. She calls for an understanding
of the subjective meaningful appropriation of superheroes, for example, and presents case
studies where superhero play was used to promote positive values and teach children essential
life skills (Grimmer, 2019).
Many researchers in this area of investigation posit that media contents “enter” the imagi-
nation of children. A number of case studies contain rich descriptions that illustrate the potential
connections between media texts and children’s imagination and play; for example, embracing
Ernie from Sesame Street as an imaginary companion in the U.S. (Taylor, 1999); or playing
Batman (Neuss, 1999); aspiring to be like a member of the Spice Girls pop group (Lemish,
1998); or a Pokémon Master in Israel (Lemish & Bloch, 2004). Yet, the analysis of interviews
with parents and specialists (e.g., Jones, 2002), ascertained by collecting exemplars of anecdotal
accounts of children’s talk and play, indicates that there is more to the “story.” Clearly, these
everyday experiences suggest the existence of an intense relationship between media culture
and children’s fantasy world.
The differences seem to depend on the media that present the fantastic elements. For ex-
ample, while pre-schoolers adopted anthropomorphic fantasies on trains (Thomas the Tank
Engine) from picture books, they did not gain this fantastical idea from the TV programme with
the anthropomorphic characters (Li et al., 2019).

Appropriation of Media as an Imaginative Process

The term “fantasy” originates from the Greek “phantazesthai,” meaning “to appear,” “bring to
light,” or to “appear before the soul.” “Phantasia-imagination” is the capacity to create inner
appearances, for internal sense presentation, that resemble external perceptions (Brann, 1991,
p. 21). Thus, the appropriation of media as an imaginative process refers to the ability of
individuals to reproduce images or concepts derived originally from this basic sense, but now
reflected in one’s consciousness as memories, fantasies, and future plans (Singer & Singer,
2005, p. 16).
Media use is a form of experience and involves a range of active imaginary processes, some
of which are initiated with reception. As early as the mid-1950s, Horton and Wohl introduced
the concept of “para-social interaction” and described the various imaginative activities of the
recipient during the reception of television. They argued that, similar to role play, the spectator
is freed from direct compulsion to act and therefore can act out behavioural options and roles in
a notional sense (e.g., Horton & Wohl, 1956; Maccoby & Wilson, 1957).
“Identification” is one of the “umbrella terms” used to describe a typical imaginative process
going on during reception; as wanting to be and seeking to be like (similarity) (Liebes & Katz,
1990). Self-awareness is gradually set aside in this process and replaced, temporarily, by a strong
emotional and cognitive connection to the media character (Cohen, 2001, p. 251). There are
forms of identification that extend beyond actual reception of the text that are regarded as
particularly important for identity development. For example, Rosengren and his colleagues
focused on “long-term identification” with one or more characters (Rosengren et al., 1976,
p. 349), while von Feilitzen and Linne (1975) investigated “wishful identification.”
Qualitative studies with children and young people demonstrate that identification is just
one of the possible forms of an imaginary relationship with media (e.g., Buckingham, 1993a). In
this sense, media are used as a source of symbolic material that children utilize by extracting
elements they consider to be useful for making meaning of their experiences, as well as in
communicating about them and expressing agency (e.g., Buckingham, 1993b; Buckingham &

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Bragg, 2004; McMillin, 2009). In sensory terms, while this experience may be limited to
particular senses, according to the particular medium, emotionally the experience is often in-
tensely absorbed into inner images and concepts, and has deep involvement in identity work
and self-empowerment (e.g., Fisherkeller, 2002; McMillin & Fisherkeller, 2009).
Individual case studies demonstrate via the media traces contained therein that children
process current, social, and biographical topics in their make-believe worlds (Götz, 2014).
These fantasies can be clichéd or characterized by aggression, as documented in a qualitative
study of 70 Dragon Ball Z fans. However, the individual meaning of the fight-dominated
anime series for a child’s fantasy can assume many different directions, some unexpected by
adults. For example, a rather shy boy who is small in stature (Torben, 10 years old) stated:
“Dragon Ball is like a cushion – when I fall it doesn’t hurt, because I imagine I’m a fighter.”
Here we see how media related inner imagination enables him to handle physical pain. While
others like 10-year-old Bülent (with immigration background) related what he gets out of the
Dragon Ball Z and daydreams related to it: “I feel stronger somehow. When someone hits me,
for example at school, then I really scream and hit back hard, like in Dragon Ball. Before that I
never defended myself.” Bülent took from his favourite series an understandable but none-
theless aggressive script, about how to behave in a situation of conflict (Götz, 2014). Thus, for
the child, the relationships between media content and the meaning are very complex and
oftentimes unexpected (Tobin, 2000).
This meaning-making with media can also be found with new technologies like con-
versational agents (Alexa, Siri, etc.). Children develop close emotional ties with artificial beings
and treat them as human-like entities who have feelings (Hoffman et al., 2021).

How to Research the Relationship of Media and Children’s Fantasies

One overarching question that can be asked concerning this research domain is whether some-
thing as complex as fantasy and its relation to media can be understood adequately without letting
children themselves articulate the natural social context in which it occurs in everyday life.
There are a number of ways that children can share with us glimpses into their inner world
of fantasies (e.g., via their symbolic transmission into play, conversation, and artwork such as
drawing). Götz, Lemish, Aidman, and Moon (2005) guided 197 children between the ages of 8
and 10 years of age from Germany, Israel, South Korea, and the U.S. through a fantasy journey
to their “big daydream.” After this process, they were invited to paint a picture of what they
imagined, write a few words about it and then explain during intensive individual interviews
what their fantasies were about and if there was any connection to the media. Each of the
children’s daydream narrations were then assembled into “stories” in the analysis. The sensi-
tizing concept used to investigate the relationship between fantasy and media in this study was
the search for “media traces,” defined as individually acquired pieces of the media. Traces were
identified and compared with the original medium and with the way the child used them in
his/her fantasy in reconstructing their subjective significance as well as in working out the
meaning of media within them. Either explicit or clear implicit media traces were evident in
approximately two thirds of the cases. These ranged from dream worlds that seemed to stem
entirely from a media experience to those that revealed no direct traces whatsoever (Götz et al.,
2005). Given this understanding, and the methodological approaches employed, researchers also
investigated if there are generational differences. Götz (2006) studied a research population of
German adults, born across a spectrum of decades, including participants who did not grow up
viewing television. In addition to conducting a biographical interview, participants recalled and
then drew their Big Daydream when they were 8 or 9 years, just like the children in the study

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mentioned above did. One major finding was that the daydreams were structurally very similar
to the fantasy worlds and activities imagined by children today: Whereas the latter fantasize
themselves as “being special” and imagine that they are pop stars, soap actors, or soccer players,
adults in the study recalled imagining they were stars of the theatre or fighter pilots in World
War II; whereas children today fantasize about travelling to alien planets in space ships, in post-
war times they imagined they were sent in huge ships to explore foreign countries. Although
the media traces in the imagined texts were structurally similar, in the past their origins were
from fewer and other media than available today. Thus, while television and computer games
are the sources for media traces in the fantasies of children living in the beginning of the new
millennium, books, radio, or even pictures from cigarette packets were the sources of material
and the springboard for the imagination in post-war times. On the one hand, media traces point
to the child’s individual appropriation, and they are signs of identity construction, and self-
presentation. On the other hand, they point to the everyday culture in which the child is
growing up and use of the various media available to him/her.
The significance of the latter point was demonstrated in an international study conducted
during the first ten days of the Iraq War (2003). Children in the U.S., Israel, and Germany were
asked to draw a picture of what they imagined was happening in Iraq and what they wanted to
see about this war on television. Dominant national discourses were clearly reflected in the
children’s inner images: Children in the U.S. were hoping for a quick victory, and they had
fantasies such as George Bush killing Saddam Hussein; children in Israel focused on their own
safety and bomb attacks on their country or the role of their prime minister as peacemaker;
children in Germany had sympathy for children and families in Iraq, and their fantasies of U.S.
soldiers included executing Iraqi children with a smile (Lemish & Götz, 2007).
Permeation of national discourses was also evident in a corresponding international study of the
relationship between imagination and natural/industrial disasters in Fukushima, Japan in 2011.
Children throughout the world viewed the same media images, but nonetheless there were clear
national differences. Again, drawings were used to capture what children imagine. In their
drawings and explanations, children in Germany, for instance, concentrated much more frequently
on the abolition of nuclear power. This topic was more central in public discourse in Germany
than it was for children in the U.S. or Brazil. Similarly, particularly significant values or discourses
central in their cultures were reflected, for instance, by children in the U.S., who focused more on
the loss of property; and children in Cuba and Ecuador, who focused on the death of farm animals
and the loss of farmland, especially in the countryside. Besides reflecting national discourse, re-
gional experiences shaped children’s imagination of what happened. Children in the U.S.
Midwest, for example, linked the destruction to earthquakes, children in Brazil to heavy rain-
storms, and children in the Dominican Republic to waves and flooding (Götz et al., 2012).
A different path to gain insight into children’s curiosity and imagination is taken by Canning
et al. (2017). They used the app “Our Story” to explore the narrative affordances of pre-
schoolers to tell their stories of everyday experiences. The method offered the opportunity to
hear and see children’s imaginative worlds, conveyed with their own words. Over two periods
of four weeks the team collected fieldwork data with a multi-methodical approach. The
findings show that photographs or videos by themselves may not have an immediate obvious
significance, but when woven into a narrative, accompanied by text or speech, children’s in-
terests, their imaginative capability and endeavours become apparent. They found that young
children constantly reviewed, added to, and adapted their narrative enquiries and explanations.
In telling their stories with the app, they draw on their experiences and knowledge from
popular culture, use of social media in the home and combine it with other everyday life
experiences (Canning et al., 2017).

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In sum, these studies do affirm the major importance of visual media with regard to chil-
dren’s fantasizing (e.g., Singer & Singer, 2005).

Conclusion
Imagination and fantasy are complex processes that involve various cultural aspects and the
child’s individuality in the topics with which he or she is dealing. These topics and the
materials employed are influenced by the child’s specific social context, family, peers, school,
community and all the child’s previous experiences. Media consumption is part of these
experiences and can take up much of a child’s leisure time activities, depending on the
quantity of time spent with the media and the content chosen. Children learn how to process
these topics through their cultural experiences and, here too, the media are of central im-
portance; for example, in offering pictures and stories that reflect norms and values. Children
acquire these actively and then select, reinterpret and incorporate the acquired materials into
their fantasies. This is not a simple stimulus-response-mechanism, but children do seem to
absorb and use parts of the discourses, values and forms of textual constructions presented
through the media.
Given public concern and scholars’ participation in discussions about children’s well-being,
as well as academic curiosity, it behoves us to continue our studies and to engage in discussion
about media, their content and the question of how they are involved in children’s fantasies and
perspectives.

SEE ALSO Chapter 3 by Krcmar and Chapter 25 by Martins and Dahn in this volume.

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 24
SOCIAL MEDIA AND
CREATIVITY
Kylie Peppler and Maggie Dahn

Introduction
Children and adolescents today are avid social media consumers and creators, as evidenced by
recent usage trends (Anderson & Jiang, 2018; Auxier et al., 2020). A 2018 survey on teens and
social media from the Pew Research Center reported that for the 95% of teens in the U.S. that
own or have access to a smartphone, the most used social media platforms included YouTube
(85%), Instagram (72%), and Snapchat (69%) (Anderson & Jiang, 2018), though notably, the
social media landscape is subject to rapid change as social and cultural trends shift, causing
platforms to rise and fall in popularity within youth communities. For example, Facebook use
among adolescents decreased dramatically between 2015 and 2018 (Anderson & Jiang, 2018;
Lenhart, 2015), and we imagine that the video-sharing platform TikTok would likely be one of
the top platforms of choice on a more updated survey as the most downloaded app of 2020
(Blacker, 2021) and based on its widely reported popularity among young people (e.g.,
Munger, 2020). One report suggests that as many as a third of TikTok’s users may be age 14 or
younger (Zhong & Frenkel, 2020). More recently, parents reported that even for children 12
and under who have not yet met the suggested age requirements of most platforms (generally,
age 13), some use TikTok (13%) and Snapchat (10%), while nearly 80% watch videos on
YouTube (Auxier et al., 2020). As these trends illustrate, engaging with and/or creating content
on social media are some of the main ways young people spend time online, with a marked
uptick in participation in the teen years.
Despite a growing list of parent concerns over young people and their social media use (e.g.,
Klass, 2019; Uhls, 2016), there is little empirical support for negative effects of social media on
adolescent development (Odgers et al., 2020). Ito et al. (2020) suggest that these largely un-
founded concerns distract from attending to how new technologies can be leveraged for positive
youth development, including how to address issues of adolescent mental health. Teen self-reports
of social media’s influence are mixed with 45% reporting that social media has neither a positive or
negative effect on their lives and 31% reporting a mostly positive effect, citing benefits such as
connecting with family and friends (40%), meeting people with shared interests (15%), self-
expression (7%), and learning new things (4%) (Anderson & Jiang, 2018). To this end, emerging
technologies and tools present new possibilities for creative production within social media spaces
as the lines between consumers and producers are blurred in what Jenkins and others refer to as a

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-28 219

 Kylie Peppler and Maggie Dahn

“participatory culture” (e.g., Jenkins et al., 2015). The extent to which youth move fluidly be-
tween consuming and producing media is a by-product of widely available creative tools and the
ways in which users appropriate and use them for creative means.
Instead of dwelling on “misplaced fears” (Ito et al., 2020, p. 5), this chapter focuses on the
affordances of various social media platforms for how they present opportunities to support the
ways young people interact with and learn from each other online. Youth media production via
social media brings often overlooked aspects of creativity to the fore. The purpose of this
chapter is to take a look at the ways in which social media spaces have been leveraged for
creativity, paying particular attention to the ways in which social media supports children and
teens in creative production. Creative production within online learning communities high-
lights the ways youth are appropriating, critiquing, and making novel contributions today. We
examine these ideas by first highlighting relevant research in social media and creativity. We
then present examples of creative production from thriving online communities with em-
bedded social media networks – including Roblox, Scratch, and Ravelry – and discuss the
implications for research on creativity. Finally, we discuss the implications for today’s youth, the
potential diverse forms of creativity social media holds, and why such vernacular forms of
creativity are important for learning and development.

Social Media
At the time the first edition of this chapter was published in 2013, we explained that social
media was made possible by the shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 technology, a more social and
collaborative space where individuals can read content that others have posted as well as post
their own text and multimedia content (Greenhow et al., 2009). Today, social media denotes a
wide array of online spaces with different participation structures and frameworks. Gauntlett
(2018) describes social media as:

the idea that online sites and services become more powerful the more they embrace [a]
network of potential collaborators...sites and apps such as YouTube, Twitter, and
Wikipedia only exist and have value because people use and contribute to them, and
they are clearly better the more people are using and contributing to them.
(p. 9)

By this description, social media can be conceived of as a collaborative testing ground and
powerful force for making and engaging with others that carry potential for democratizing
creativity (Phonethibsavads et al., 2020). As increasing numbers of youth engage with and come
to see the potential of social media as part of a creative production process, online communities
are becoming important sites for creativity that ought to be more closely examined.

Social Media and Creativity

Traditionally, research on creativity has been dominated by cognitive perspectives, studying of
exceptional cases, and situating the source of creativity in individual mental processes (e.g.,
Torrance, 1972). More recently, scholarship on creativity has moved to recognize the genesis
and development of creative ideas as being part of a broader, socially determined process
contingent on a field of experts within given domains (Kaufman & Baer, 2012; Sawyer, 2006).
A systems model of creativity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996) acknowledges the interconnected nature
of individuals, knowledge domains, and a field of experts to support a sociocultural view of

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creativity that recognizes creativity and the creative process as culturally and historically situated
(Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). In Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model of creativity, individuals build
on culturally valued practices and designs to produce new variations of the domain, which, if
deemed valuable by the community (i.e., the field), become part of what constitutes the
evolving domain. Each component of the system (i.e., the individual, domain, and field) in-
fluence one another over time. The presence of a field of experts implies that colleagues and
domain norms are essential to the realization of individual creativity. For example, the inter-
national Pritzker Architecture Prize is selected each year by a jury of experts in architecture and
related fields to honor a living architect with exceptional talent and vision. Such a process
removes the aura of mystery around creativity and instead emphasizes the importance of sus-
tained discussion with peers and an appreciation of the constraints that one works within while
producing creative work.
Most research that has utilized a systems model of creativity refers to a panel of experts to act
as proxy for the “field,” providing evaluations of creative contributions within the community.
In social media, however, several problems emerge with this view, the first of which is that the
“field” becomes more difficult to define. Expertise, for example, is distributed amongst
members and crowd-sourcing is becoming an increasingly common way to determine what
constitutes the most creative contributions (e.g., ratings on Amazon, Yelp, and other online
marketplaces) as creativity is negotiated by members of online communities of practice (Peppler
& Solomou, 2011). Furthermore, what crowds gravitate toward may not be what we consider
to be the most creative contributions. This raises key questions about whether a YouTube
video that receives the most views or likes is indeed the most “creative” contribution to the
community. If not, then how does widespread viewing and sharing of artifacts online relate to
their creativity?
Second, social media call notions of originality, intellectual property, and ethics into
question when remixing proliferates online. Across popular social media platforms (e.g.,
Instagram, Twitter) as well as online maker communities with embedded social media networks
(e.g., Ravelry, Scratch), people remix as they add, change, and interact with others’ con-
tributions. This presents a larger creativity conundrum – since much of the work posted by
young people in social media spaces leverages content created by someone else, to what extent
is what they make and the creativity attributed to it theirs? What happens when several hundred
people collaborate to produce a novel contribution? These questions bring tensions that have
always been true of creative work to the fore; namely, that history has shown us that creative
ideas build on ideas that came before them. Every invention represents a novel synthesis of ideas
floating around at the time. Remix, when you think about it as a novel synthesis of ideas and
not pure imitation, is a reflection of most, if not all, creative contributions, in that no in-
novation exists outside of the cultural and historical context in which it was created.
Attempting to resolve some of these tensions presented by social media spaces, Gauntlett
(2018) and others argue for contextualized views of everyday creativity, where creativity is de-
fined as a process and feeling in direct relationship to one’s personal history and perspective. This
definition of creativity is operationalized as a “process, emotion, and presence” (p. 255) that
supports people finding their voices via creative activity that leads to positive social and personal
development. This notion defines creativity as a novel act as judged by the individual in respect to
their own personal history (not the field’s) and an internal sense of making something worthwhile.
Such a perspective is salient especially with regard to youth online communities, where the
personal act of creativity is a driving force in production. Whether a youth’s work is on par with
the contributions of famous artists or Nobel Prize winners is somehow beside the point. What
matters more to youth, and arguably to anyone who dabbles in the act of creative production, is

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the feeling of creating something that is novel to them at a particular moment in time, a personal
view of creativity that is perhaps more conducive to healthy development and learning than
seeking the appraisal of a field of (likely inaccessible) experts.
The examples in this chapter focus on creative acts enabled by social media that align with
this view of personally valuable everyday creativity (Gauntlett, 2018), works that sit at the
intersection of collaborative practice, digital media production, and online peer-to-peer eva-
luations. In the following, we present three examples of creativity in social media that span a
range of popular communities with social media environments, including youth work in the
online game platform, Roblox; the digital art/computer programming tool, Scratch; and the
Do-it-Yourself (DIY) online fiber arts community, Ravelry.

Social Gaming Communities: Roblox

Though most young children do not engage with what we traditionally think of as social media,
more are engaging in social media networks within online gaming, or what we might call social
gaming. For example, 32% of 5 to 8 year olds in the U.S. play games and interact with their
social features “often” or “sometimes” (Rideout & Robb, 2020). For older children and teens,
these social interactions via online games increase (Roblox, 2020). In the global online game
platform, Roblox, users create and play their own 3D games and the games of other users. The
Roblox platform contains an ever-expanding number of user-generated games, spanning from
small mini-games to sprawling game narratives that entail hours of gameplay. Approximately
half of the Roblox community is under 12-years-old, with ⅔ of the total community being
under 16 years of age (Roblox, 2020), making it one of the most broadly adopted user-
generated game platforms of the second decade of the 20th century. As of 2021, there were
over 18 million games created by over 7 million developers that can be translated into a variety
of languages in the freely available Roblox immersive creative game engine.
Much like Minecraft, Roblox contains a system of “Friend Requests” and monitored
messaging where users may chat with whomever they like, whether in-game or in a private
chat. The Roblox central dashboard contains recommendations and recently played games,
where users can see how many “Likes” a game has and how many active users are playing each
game. Popular games will commonly attract more viewers with eye-catching updates. Every
user account is searchable, so users can send friends requests and see when friends are in games.
In a survey Roblox gave over 3,000 of its teen users in the U.S., 62% reported that they like
to have conversations with their friends when they meet up on Roblox (Roblox, 2020). In
light of the COVID-19 pandemic, over half (52%) of these teens noted that they were spending
the same or more time with their friends on online gaming platforms than before with 40%
reporting that their friendships with online friends became even stronger during the pandemic
(Roblox, 2020).
In these online gaming environments like Roblox or Minecraft, peer pedagogies emerge as
users engage with one another through their designs (Dezuanni, 2019). The ways that ideas are
judged as creative within these online gaming communities echo Peppler and Solomou’s (2011)
study of creativity within the Quest Atlantis environment. This study examined how ideas
emerge and spread (i.e., were “spreadable”) throughout this community, calling attention to the
ways that creativity is a cultural endeavor, shaped and persisted through the actions and values
of many people. This study additionally provided insight into how a domain can evolve over
time with the addition of new members of a community, who build on the ideas of prior work
and try new combinations. In the case of Roblox, examining how ideas from one user’s game
translates into similar games flooding the Roblox marketplace, or the revenue generated from

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in-app purchases that users develop for their games, can be viewed as evidence in the spread of
ideas deemed valuable within the Roblox community.

Remixing Creativity: Scratch

Scratch, the multimedia-rich programming environment, was originally designed for young
people ages 8–16 in Boston and Los Angeles to create their own interactive stories, animations,
games, and art by combining and manipulating stacks of building-block-like commands
(Resnick et al., 2009). Since its introduction in 2008, the online Scratch community has been
translated into over 70 languages and grown to over 70 million users of all ages around the
world. Programmed objects can be any imported two-dimensional graphic image, hand-drawn
or downloaded from the Web, making Scratch particularly appealing to novice programmers
wanting to create culturally meaningful and personally expressive work (Peppler, 2010).
Example projects include a diverse range of video games, animations, and simulations from a
game about caring for a pet to an animated breakdancing character to a simulation of making a
sandwich. What makes the Scratch virtual community particularly vibrant is the open-source
nature of project creation, which affords easy remixing of projects, and continues to drive the
publication of new projects to the Scratch server, especially from first-time users (Scratch,
2021). All projects on Scratch are given a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License
by default, which stipulates that anyone can reuse assets and/or code from a project as long as
they credit the originator of the design being remixed. Furthermore, Scratch remembers this:
modifying another user’s project and resaving it automatically generates a note that credits and
links back to the original project. This provides an entree into the benefits of open-source
licensing, particularly in a global context where heated discussions around intellectual property
and copyright pervade multiple industries. While educators have bemoaned remix practices
as cheating, others have argued that this type of production is a form of everyday creative
activity, requiring interpretive flexibility or re-purposing the functionality of everyday objects
(Kafai et al., 2011).
The online social media space has become much more than just a space to display creativity
through unique projects in Scratch. For example, there are large numbers of youth that work
together in the online environment to create a series of projects called Role-Playing Games or
RPGs. These groups consist of several hundred to several thousand members and typically
participate through text-based role play in the gallery comments. Such expansive online col-
laboration practices were not intended by Scratch’s creators, which speaks to the power of
online communities of determining how designs are enacted, as well as inspiring large numbers
of people to participate across multiple modes; in this case, not just youths’ work in Scratch, but
the exploration of the medium (i.e., the Scratch social platform) can elicit creative modes of
thinking and interaction. For many novel contributions in Scratch, we can’t attribute the
creative act to any particular individual, or quantify them using any traditional measures of
creativity; in such cases, the notion of the “individual” in the system’s view of creativity is lost.
However, as the 10-minute credits sequence at the end of a film indicates, a creative act
does not have to be fueled by the individual in isolation, but rather in the coordinated efforts
of a collective.

Online DIY Communities: Ravelry

DIY tools and communities play a crucial role in the social media landscape, bridging the
traditional divide between digital and physical media. Particularly relevant to this discussion are

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tools and communities that extend beyond the screen and into the physical world. Vibrant
online communities are organized around the design and creation of a wide range of art media
and real-world artifacts, including robots, technology-enhanced clothing, scrapbooks, and
scientific instruments. Participants build projects and then document, discuss, and display them
on DIY and arts-centered social media sites like Instructables and DeviantArt, along with more
traditional media sites like Flickr, Vimeo, and YouTube. These communities attract and
support adult hobbyists as well as budding youth scientists, designers, and engineers.
Sometimes called “the Facebook of knitting” (Battan, 2021), Ravelry is a social networking
site that enables people who knit, crotchet, quilt, and weave to organize and share their projects
and processes with other fiber craft enthusiasts. Ravelry brings low-tech fiber crafts to a
technology-enabled online community, thus broadening opportunities for its members to share
and communicate with others via social network. As a social media space, it operates within a
larger interest-driven ecology to support members in organizing the projects they have made or
would like to make, soliciting feedback, and connecting with others who share their specific
fiber crafts-related interests (Pfister, 2014). To participate in the Ravelry community, members
show their creations as evidence of their identities as knitters, and the artifacts they share are
then vetted by the community at large (Hellstrom, 2013). Importantly, Ravelry markets itself as
a platform open to members of all experience levels from those just picking up yarn and knitting
needles to make their first project to experienced knitters working with more complex patterns
(Pfister, 2014), though subcommunities within Ravelry allow members to search for appro-
priate levels of personal challenge. In addition to accommodating different levels of expertise,
Ravelry is open to all ages, meaning that its members orient around shared interests, practices,
and purpose rather than by age, thus creating an intergenerational affinity network that em-
phasizes connection and learning among members (Ito et al., 2018). For example, Pfister’s
(2014) study of the Harry Potter-themed Ravelry community, Hogwarts at Ravelry, describes how
community members ranging from pre-teens to those in their mid-70s oriented around shared
purpose, culture, and identity within a connected learning environment, rather than by skill level,
technique, or years of experience (notably, the group’s original creator was a 10-year-old girl).
Social media networks like Ravelry bring ideas around community vetting, popularity, and
creativity to the foreground. Ito et al. (2018) describe how Amy, a 17-year-old member of the
Hogwarts at Ravelry community described above, interviewed for a study of Ravelry.com
(Pfister, 2014) found that on the social media platform, one of her designs had been “favorited”
over 1,000 times and over 400 people indicated they wanted to make her design. Herein lies a
tension with everyday creativity as Gauntlett described it – though Amy created something that
was personally meaningful to her (in this case, a hat inspired by her interest in Harry Potter), she
simultaneously made something that was valued and garnered interest from her wider com-
munity of fiber crafts enthusiasts. Because it was of value to the community, was the hat design
therefore more “creative” than it would have been had Amy been the only one to take a
personal interest in its making? Or conversely, does its popularity (and evidence that others
wanted to replicate the same pattern) evidence that its creativity is limited to a point in time, a
particular cultural and historical moment? Perhaps as Gauntlett (2018) explained, a creative
process may indeed attract attention from others, though this “may be secondary to the process
of creativity itself, which is best identified from within” (p. 15).

Conclusions and Implications

Young people use whatever is at hand in their production practices, including the tools and
networked social media spaces to share work with a distributed online network. In doing so,

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they are avid consumers and producers of media, garnering increasing levels of expertise with
new media and broad exposure to cultural forms of production (Peppler, 2010). Framing social
media spaces as sites for positive development provides a starting point for understanding online
creative production (Ito et al., 2020). Social media spaces can be leveraged for creativity as
young people engage in creative production, share their processes and products with others, and
participate in interest-driven, networked communities.
There is a need for further research to investigate how exposure and production is dis-
tributed among youth across a variety of demographics. Research suggests that while all youth
have heavy media exposure (e.g., Auxier et al., 2020), the platforms used and the ways youth
engage on these platforms varies by income-level (Anderson & Jiang, 2018). This gap is a
potential place where schools and after-school communities could contribute to creating
equitable opportunities by allowing youth more time for open, meaningful exploration of tools
and communities.
While much of our discussion has focused on the positive implications of social media for
creativity, there are some caveats as well that call for further research. For example, the purpose
and value of assessing acts of creativity must be carefully considered. Furthermore, closer ex-
amination is needed of the impact that external reward systems (like stars or “liking”) in social
media have on creative output and youth identities. Given open questions of how creativity is
practiced and assessed in online social media spaces, future research should aim to cultivate more
equitable and inclusive opportunities for young people to produce creative work online.

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MEDIA AND EMOTIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
Nicole Martins and McCall Booth

Screen technologies provide countless opportunities for children to observe, experience, and
learn about emotions. Young children may experience some of their first fears as a result of
exposure to a scary movie or television program, feel sadness as they begin to empathize with a
favorite television character, and build their first non-familial attachments with media personae
on Instagram. American children spend more time with media than any single activity, and as a
result, many of their social interactions happen via iPads, computers, and cell phones rather than
face to face. In this chapter, we address the role of screen technologies in children’s emotional
development and elucidate areas that are ripe for future research.

Emotional Competence
In the first few years of life, children rapidly acquire the social and emotional skills that help
them form connections with others (Denham, 1998). Emotional competence, a crucial
factor in this development, refers to a child’s ability to express, understand, and manage
their own emotions as well as to recognize emotions experienced by others. Emotionally
competent children form close and satisfying relationships with peers and adults (Denham,
1998), avoid risk-taking behaviors (Trentacosta & Fine, 2010), and experience academic
success (Denham & Brown, 2010). Conversely, children who struggle with emotional
competencies struggle with both internalizing (e.g., sadness, depression, social withdrawal)
and externalizing behavioral problems (e.g., aggression, delinquency; Wang & Liu, 2021).
Longitudinal work in this arena shows that these positive and negative effects persist into
adulthood ( Jones et al., 2015).
There are a variety of factors that influence children’s emotional competence. Child age and
cognitive development (Coskun et al., 2019), sibling relationships (Sawyer et al., 2002), teacher
interactions ( Jennings & Greenberg, 2009), and parental attachment (Psychogiou et al., 2019)
all play an important role, particularly in the first six years of life (UNICEF, 2014). Research
also shows that exposure to media messages may contribute to children’s emotional compe-
tencies. In fact, scholars have argued that media play a pivotal role in children’s emotional
development (Dorr et al., 1983; Flynn et al., 2019). Despite this claim, little empirical research
has examined the effects of media exposure on children’s emotional development.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-29 227

 Nicole Martins and McCall Booth

Learning about Emotions

A key skill of emotional competence is the ability to recognize and interpret the emotions of
others. Studies show that children from 3–4 years old reliably match facial expressions in others
to verbal labels for emotions such as anger, sadness, and happiness (Widen & Russell, 2003).
More complex emotions like fear, surprise, and disgust are typically mastered later (Widen &
Russell, 2003). Programs made for this age group, like Sesame Street, regularly incorporate
emotion recognition into its curricular goals. A recurring vignette on the program, for example,
features Murray Muppet, who asks young viewers to “name that emotion!” of the various
characters he encounters on the street.
But do these programs work? Little research on this topic exists. Early studies of Sesame
Street, however, have found that exposure to the program helped preschoolers identify emo-
tions and emotional situations (Bogatz & Ball, 1971). More recently, Rasmussen and colleagues
(2016) found that preschoolers in the U.S. who watched the program Daniel Tiger’s
Neighborhood exhibited higher levels of emotion recognition than the control but only when
accompanied by active parental mediation (i.e., parent-child discussion of televised content).
Older children can also learn about emotions from media messages. Calvert and Kotler’s
(2003) work in the U.S. examined how second through sixth graders gained different types of
information from their favorite programs. The researchers found that not only do children
remember lessons from programs rated educational/informative (E/I), but that they reported
learning socio-emotional lessons (i.e., overcoming fears, labeling feelings) more often than
informational or cognitive lessons (i.e., history, science). Moreover, Götz and Schwartz (2014)
interviewed teens from 17 countries and found that media entertainment helped them to not
only convey their inner feelings but to recognize and respond productively to the emotions in
themselves and others.
Another key component to emotional competence is emotion regulation; that is, the ability
to monitor, evaluate, and modify one’s emotional reactions (Denham, 1998). Research with
preschoolers has found that exposure to prosocial programs can positively influence children’s
emotion regulation strategies. For example, Rasmussen and colleagues (2019) examined the
relationship in the U.S. between preschoolers’ exposure to Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and its
accompanying mobile app and preschoolers’ use of emotional regulation strategies in 121
parent-child dyads. The researchers found that children who both watched the program and
used the app employed the emotional regulation strategies taught in the program more fre-
quently one month later than the children in the controls.
Among older children, the social sharing of emotions is a frequently used emotion regulation
strategy. Indeed, social media affords adolescents new opportunities for emotion regulation
(Vermeulen et al., 2018). People share emotions to satisfy two needs: the need for personal
expression and the need to receive feedback (Choi & Toma, 2014). Turning to others online
for help fulfills both of these needs, particularly when face-to-face interaction is not possible
(Zaki & Williams, 2013). In support of this idea, Vermeulen, Vandebosch, and Heirman (2018)
found that although adolescents in Belgium (14–18 years old) preferred sharing emotions face to
face, they made very conscious decisions about what and how to share their experiences. The
researchers found that the teens tended to use Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram to share
positive emotions, and Twitter and Messenger to share and or manage negative emotions. The
authors argued that positive emotions were more likely to be shared on platforms like Snapchat
and Instagram because receiving likes and positive comments on their positive emotions “al-
lowed them to capitalize on these emotions” (p. 218). By contrast, Twitter felt more anon-
ymous, which allowed adolescents to vent negative emotions without the fear of judgment.

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No research to date has addressed the long-term effects of repeated exposure or use of screen
technologies on the emotional development of children and adolescents. Clearly, longitudinal
studies are required to fully explore the relationships discussed above.

Media and Fear

Much of the research examining the effects of media exposure on children’s emotions has
narrowly focused on the media’s ability to produce fear and anxiety. Indeed, recent movies like
Goosebumps and The House with the Clock in Its Walls are just a few examples of scary content
marketed specifically to children, and video games like Hello Neighbor are specifically designed
to “jump scare” young gamers. Thus, there are ample opportunities for children to experience
fear as a result of media exposure.
Children often experience fear after exposure to entertainment media. A nationally re-
presentative survey in the U.S. found that 62 percent of parents of children aged 2 to 17
reported that their child had become scared that something they saw on television or in a movie
might happen to them (Gentile & Walsh, 2002). Similarly, Cantor and colleagues (2010) found
that exposure to entertainment media led to fright reactions in 76 percent of the children in
their study (M age = 8.5 years). These reports are similar to what has been observed in studies of
European children. For example, Korhonen and Lahikainen (2008) interviewed children aged 5
to 6 in Finland in 1993 and again 10 years later. They found 80 percent of the children reported
TV-induced fears at both time points.
Horror movies in particular, seem to have the biggest effect on fear. Movies like Scream and
Scary Movie are frequently mentioned as fright-inducing, along with recycled favorites like
Friday the Thirteenth and Poltergeist however, even children’s programming including classic
Disney movies, were often associated with childhood fears (see Götz et al., 2019, for review). In
the Cantor et al. (2010) study, the movie The Ring was mentioned most often as the cause of
fright reaction. What is notable about this finding, is that the movie was rated PG-13. Given
that all the children in the study were younger than the MPAA recommended age for viewing,
the finding raises the question as to whether parents are aware of what their children are
watching or whether movie ratings are not taken seriously, or both.
Yet horror is not limited to movies. Video games are rife with horror-filled content. A
popular horror game, Five Nights at Freddy’s, has been specifically created to scare young players.
Children play as a night guard in a pizza restaurant and must survive five nights as they are
hunted by animatronic characters trying to kill them. The game is controversial because even
though it is rated for children 12 and up, all the merchandising and toys associated with the
game have been actively marketed to children as young as 6 (Dingman, 2018). To date, there
are no published studies that have examined fear effects of horror games among children.
Fear reactions are not limited to entertainment media. Children also report fear after ex-
posure to news. Riddle and colleagues (2012) found that 42 percent of elementary school
children in the U.S. in their study reported something they had seen in the news made them
scared. Wilson, Martins, and Marske (2005) found that children and adolescents in the U.S.
who were heavy viewers of news were more frightened by high-profile child kidnapping stories
than were lighter viewers. There is some evidence to indicate that cultural context influences
whether entertainment media or news drives fear reactions. For example, Lemish and Alon-
Tirosh (2014) asked Israeli and U.S. college students to retrospectively report a fright reaction
to television experience in their childhood, as part of a larger cross-cultural study (Götz et al.,
2019). The authors found that while U.S. students recalled being afraid of horror films and
thrillers as children, these were rare in the Israeli sample. Israeli students reported more fear after

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exposure as children to news stories such as suicide bombings and movies about real-life events
(i.e., the Holocaust). The authors speculated that this difference was due to access and cultural
context: Israeli students had less experience with horror-thriller movies because they were not
available to them as children; scary news items, however, were more commonly viewed in the
homes of Israeli families at that time, given the nature of the ongoing Israeli-Arab conflict and
collective memory of past national trauma.
Clearly, media can frighten children and adolescents. But exposure to fright-inducing
content does not impact children all the same way. An important moderating factor to consider
is the age of the child. Research on cognitive development indicates that, in general, young
children react to stimuli in terms of their perceptual characteristics, whereas older children
respond to more conceptual aspects of the stimuli (for review, see Götz et al., 2019). In other
words, preschool children (up to age 5) are more likely to be frightened by something that looks
scary but is actually harmless than by something that looks attractive but is actually harmful. For
older children (approximately 9–11 years of age), appearance becomes less important; the
behavior of the character is much more important.
In support of this idea, Hoffner and Cantor (1985) tested the effects of character appearance
on elementary schoolers’ perception of a protagonist. The researchers created four versions of a
storyline where the major character was either attractive and grandmotherly or ugly and
grotesque. The character’s appearance was factorially varied by her behavior; she was either
kind or mean. Children were then asked to judge how nice or mean the character was, and to
predict what would happen next in the story. The researchers found that preschoolers were
more influenced than older elementary schoolers by the character’s looks and less influenced by
her kind or cruel behavior. As the age of the child increased, the character’s looks became less
important and her behavior in the story carried more weight.
An additional developmental characteristic to consider are responses to fantasy content.
Research on child’s fears shows that young children are more likely than older children and
adolescents to fear things that are not real (i.e., monsters). As children mature, they acquire
knowledge regarding the objective dangers posed by different situations, and thus become more
responsive to realistic threats and less responsive to fantastic threats. Support for this idea comes
from the Cantor et al. (2010) study that found that the percentage of children frightened by
fantasy programs decreased with age. In a random survey of children in the Netherlands,
Valkenburg, Cantor, and Peeters (2000) also found a decrease in fright responses to fantasy
content in their sample of 7–12-year-old children. In this study, fantasy characters like mon-
sters, ghosts, and witches frightened younger children more often than older children. While
what frightens children may change as they age, it is clear that fear remains an important facet of
the child media experience, no matter the medium.

Emotional Relationships with Media Personae

A sizable body of work on the relationship between media and emotions has focused on
parasocial relationships with media characters and personalities. A parasocial relationship is an
emotional, one-way attachment that develops between an audience member and a media
personality (Horton & Wohl, 1956). The parasocial relationship develops much like a tradi-
tional interpersonal relationship, but is unique in that it lacks reciprocity. Despite the uni-
directional aspect of parasocial relationships, they are markedly similar to other relationship
development patterns. Individuals tend to report parasocial relationships with media person-
alities who appear to possess desirable qualities: namely they are similar to the audience
member, socially attractive, and authentic (Cohen, 2009). Such parasocial relationships also

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have similar life cycles when compared to real-life friendships, as they are often initiated,
maintained, and dissolved in similar ways (Eyal & Dailey, 2012).
These parasocial bonds, then, have implications for children’s learning. Lauricella et al.
(2011) examined U.S. toddlers’ learning of a seriation sequencing task from socially meaningful
video characters. In their experiment, the researchers randomly assigned 48 toddlers to a socially
meaningful character video demonstration (e.g., Elmo), a less socially meaningful character
video demonstration (e.g., Dodo, a character new to the children), or a no exposure control
group. The results revealed that toddlers learned the task better from Elmo than from Dodo.
The authors argued that children in the less meaningful video condition performed worse on
the sequencing task because the majority of the attentional resources went to trying to un-
derstand who Dodo was rather than focusing on what Dodo was doing. Once children were
given Dodo toys to play with, their ability to learn from Dodo improved. A later follow-up
study by the same team of researchers showed that children’s learning from Dodo was greatest
when they exhibited strong parasocial bonds (Gola et al., 2013).
Parasocial relationships are especially appealing to adolescents, as they begin to establish au-
tonomy from their parents but have not yet established real-life social bonds with their peers (see
Giles & Maltby, 2004). In particular, parasocial bonds are important for marginalized youth who
may have a more difficult time developing strong real-life bonds with similar others. In support of
this idea, Bond (2018) examined parasocial relationships among U.S. lesbian, gay, and bisexual
(LGB) adolescents, and compared their responses to a sample of heterosexual adolescents. LGB
adolescents were more likely to select LGB media personae as their favorites, particularly if they
lacked real-life LGB friends. Repeated media exposure, perceived similarity, and attraction were
positively correlated with parasocial relationship strength for all adolescents, but loneliness con-
tributed to parasocial relationship strength for LGB adolescents only. Bond argued that parasocial
relationships filled a relationship void left by the absence of real-life LGB peers. LGB adolescents
were also more likely than heterosexual counterparts to report favorite media personae among the
two most important sources of information about school, romantic relationships, and substance
use. It seems that parasocial relationships provide opportunities for learning about a variety of
different topics, particularly among those who are relationally deficient.

Directions for Future Research

The research presented here suggests that the media can influence children’s emotional de-
velopment. However, the bulk of this research has focused on the media’s ability to produce
short-term fear and anxiety among children. We know very little about the media’s power to
benefit child well-being, especially in the long term. Well-being can be studied in a variety of
domains, but in recent years it is defined as the “balance point between an individual’s resource
pool and the challenges faced” in psychological, social, and physical matters (Dodge et al., 2012,
p. 230). Given children’s reliance on others for emotion regulation (Morris et al., 2017; Sala
et al., 2014), it is no surprise that external factors like media consumption may influence various
emotional and psychological outcomes. This leads to questions such as: Are adolescents’ social
sharing behaviors related to healthier self-concepts? Are parasocial bonds in childhood related to
a healthier sense of self in adulthood? Questions about how media use may enhance or impair
emotional well-being and how these relationships develop over time is undoubtedly an im-
portant line of media research (see Nabi & Prestin, 2017).
Another issue concerns the role of screen technology on children’s emotional development
beyond television and film. Given the rapid development of new technologies, it is essential we
consider their role in the lives of children. It was suggested earlier that video games are a

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potential cause of fear; however they are increasingly being explored as potential learning tools.
For example, Flynn, Richert, and Wartella (2019) have suggested that children’s parasocial
relationships with media characters could be used to teach important emotional lessons in digital
games. The authors suggested that children’s parasocial relationships with game avatars can
encourage perspective taking, which in turn helps the child develop empathy. Even in situa-
tions where the avatar is not similar to the child, certain types of digital games (such as virtual
reality) may be more conducive to encouraging perspective taking. Studies have suggested that
participants perform both mental (Beaudoin et al., 2020) and physical tasks (Reinhard et al.,
2020) differently when they are asked to embody a virtual avatar of a different age than their
own. Embodiment in gameplay can help children connect with a variety of characters and
storylines, and therefore may be a means for promoting emotional development.
A final issue concerns the role of emotions as the impetus for media selection. Mood
management theory (Zillmann, 2000) assumes that people choose media content in order to
regulate their affective states. Simply put, people choose media to maintain a good or positive
mood, or to improve a bad or negative mood. Indeed, a large body of evidence suggests that
viewers selectively expose themselves to media portrayals in order to better or maintain current
moods and/or states (Knobloch-Westerwick, 2006). Despite this assertion, there is little work
that has examined how well mood management theory explains media selection in child and
adolescent populations. Given the increasingly younger ages at which children and adolescents
have access to digital devices (Pew Research Center, 2020), it is important for researchers to
explore how this age demographic utilizes media for mood regulation.
Emotional development is crucial in helping children form healthy mature relationships.
Future research should continue to examine the role media may play in children’s emotion
learning, their own emotional experiences, and their overall emotional competence.

SEE ALSO Chapter 23 by Götz in this volume.

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 26
MEDIA VIOLENCE: COMPLEX
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN
YOUNG PEOPLE AND TEXTS
Erica Scharrer

Young people throughout the world are likely to encounter aggression or violence in the media,
through verbal, physical, and social forms of intentional harm. In the U.S., content analyses
(Signorielli et al., 2019; Smith et al., 1998) found an average of 13 to 22 acts of physical aggression
per hour in Saturday morning television (a timeslot dominated by cartoons) and 4.5 to 6 per hour
in primetime (a time when many children and teens are present in the audience). Violence was the
most frequent health risk behavior (compared to sex, alcohol use, and bullying) depicted within
TV programs popular with 14- to 17-year-olds in the U.S. (Bleakley et al., 2018). A content
analysis of the favorite programs listed by 10- to 14-year-olds in the Netherlands found that 51%
contained physical aggression, 43% verbal aggression, and 24% indirect (done behind someone’s
back) aggression (van der Wal et al., 2020). Among dramatic programs for children in Indonesia,
between 9% and 21% of characters were involved in physical aggression (Hendriyani et al., 2016).
Verbal aggression and physical violence, respectively, were present in 37% of children’s cartoons
in Pakistan, whereas 28% were found to have “destructive violence” – serious forms of violence
involving weapons, explosives, or war (Zulficar, 2018).
Violence takes place in a substantial proportion of popular video games, even those labeled as
appropriate for young people (Haninger & Thompson, 2004; Thompson & Haninger, 2001).
Hartmann, Krakoiak, and Tsay-Vogel (2014) examined 28 popular first-person shooter games and
found unrealistic consequences, dehumanized victims, and/or narrative justifications for violence.
Studying interactions among individuals playing games together, researchers have found instances
of profanity, verbal aggression, slurs, and/or sexual or gender-based harassment (Fox & Tang,
2016; Holz Ivory et al., 2017). Within 90 movies targeted toward adolescents in the 1980s, 1990s,
and 2000s, Coyne et al. (2010) found an average of 28 acts of violence per film. Films rated PG-13
have been found to have more instances of gun violence than those rated R, with the violence in
the PG-13 movies often portrayed as unrealistically bloodless (Romer et al., 2017).
Responses to an open-ended question asking what bothers children their age online were
studied using a large sample of 9- to 16-year-olds from multiple European nations (Livingstone
et al., 2014). A long list of varied risks and concerns were identified, with cyberbullying and
exposure to violence among the most frequent. Among Australian youth, there were slightly
more mentions of cyberbullying and other online conduct issues and slightly fewer mentions of
seeing something gory or graphic (Green et al., 2013). Hurtful interactions with peers occurring
either online or offline were mentioned specifically as concerning by one fifth of youth from

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South Africa and the Philippines and one third of those from Serbia (Byrne et al., 2016). A
review of research found median cyberbullying victimization prevalence ranged from 5% or 6%
of adolescent samples in Australia, Sweden, and Germany to 23% in Canada and China
(Brochado et al., 2017).

The Appeal of Violence in Entertainment Media

Violence, hate, and bullying online are largely concerning and bothersome to young people.
Yet, violent, aggressive, or fear-inducing content in entertainment media like movies, televi-
sion programs, and video games can be at least somewhat appealing to some children and teens.
In a meta-analysis that included 65 studies with research participants from multiple geographic
locations both above and below the age of 18, Weaver (2011) found that men and boys as well
as those higher in trait aggression liked violent media content more so than girls and women
and those lower in trait aggression. Hoffner and Levine (2005) meta-analyzed 38 studies and
found young people who were high sensation seekers and had higher trait aggression, as well as
boys more so than girls, were more attracted to frightening media.
Van der Wal and colleagues (2020) determined that those high in trait aggression as well as
boys were more likely to list television programs with physical aggression as favorites compared
to those low in trait aggression and girls, respectively, in data collected in the Netherlands. Boys
also listed favorite programs with realistic, graphic, justified, and rewarded aggression more so
than girls. In a longitudinal analysis with 890 children from the Netherlands, Beyens,
Piotrowski, and Valkenburg (2020) found that frequency of exhibiting ADHD behaviors
predicted exposure to violence in the media, suggesting that young people high in impulsivity
and hyperactivity are among those more likely to seek arousing content.

Media Effects
Regardless of its appeal, parents and caregivers often have concerns about the implications of
media violence (Riddle & Di, 2020). Media effects are complicated phenomena that take shape,
variously, depending on variables pertaining to young people themselves, features of the media
content in question, and situational or contextual factors. Research has explored three main
categories of potential effects (Comstock & Scharrer, 2007). Media violence can (1) teach
young people aggression – by stimulating aggressive thoughts, encouraging attitudes favorable
toward aggression, and/or providing models for aggressive behavior; (2) desensitize audiences
so that they become accustomed to violent exposures and such exposures no longer register as
alarming; and/or (3) produce fear or anxiety responses which can trigger nightmares and other
sleep disturbances.

Aggression
Anderson and colleagues (2017) examined data from adolescents and young adults from
Australia, China, Croatia, Germany, Japan, Romania, and the U.S. and found amounts of self-
reported exposure to media violence predicted self-reported aggressive behavior regardless of
the country in which participants resided. Holding normative beliefs about aggression – a
measure that taps views of whether aggression is deemed acceptable – mediated the relationship.
In a study by Mitchell, Ellithorpe, and Bleakley (2021), frequency of exposure to popular films
among a U.S. sample of adolescents was multiplied with amount of violence found in the films
to create an exposure to film violence variable. That variable predicted whether the respondents

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reported having been involved in a physical fight over the past six months. Bleakley and
colleagues (2017) found that within a sample of Black adolescents in the U.S., exposure to
violence in films targeted specifically to Black audiences predicted self-reported aggression
whereas exposure to violence in other, more “mainstream” films did not.
Anderson et al. (2010) meta-analyzed studies conducted in the U.S., Australia, Germany,
Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Japan and found significant effects of
violent video game playing on aggressive behavior. No differences emerged within the ex-
periments or cross-sectional surveys and only very slight differences emerged within the
longitudinal surveys based on country of origin (Western compared to Eastern). Slater et al.
(2003) studied middle-school students in 20 schools in ten regions of the U.S. and found a
mutually reinforcing “spiral” phenomenon: young people high in aggression had higher sub-
sequent exposure to violent media, and higher violent media use predicted higher subsequent
aggression. Being a victim and being a perpetrator of cyberbullying have also been found to be
correlated. For example, data from over 5,000 youth from ten countries show “excessive”
internet use (in addition to other factors) predicts being a victim as well as a perpetrator of
cyberhate, a particular form of cyberbullying in which victims are targeted due to one or more
aspects of their identity (Wachs et al., 2021).
There is some indication that exposure to real-life violence in the geographic region in
which the child resides is more important to outcomes pertaining to attitudes about violence.
Tarabah, Badr, Usta, and Doyle (2016) surveyed over 200 children in Beirut, Lebanon between
the ages of 8 and 12 and found much stronger statistical support for the relationship between
witnessing or learning about real-world violence – including war, abuse, and use of deadly
weapons – compared to self-reported exposure to violence in television programs and video
games in predicting “proviolence” attitudes.

Desensitization
A desensitization effect of media violence exposure has been considered variously as a cognitive
(what do young people think about violence?), affective (how do they feel?), and physiological
(how do their bodies register concern?) response (Potter, 1999). For example, Madan, Mrug,
and Wright (2014) found that previous levels of exposure to media violence predicted lower
heart-rate responses when college-aged experimental participants in the U.S. were exposed to
violent clips from films, an indication that they had become relatively more accustomed to
seeing violence. Bushman and Anderson (2009) found in the U.S. that those who had played
violent video games took longer than control-group members to help when a staged fight
broke out, rated the fight as less serious, and were less likely to notice the fight than those who
played non-violent games. Vossen, Piotrowski, and Valkenburg (2017) used a longitudinal
approach to find that violent media use was a negative predictor of sympathy (feeling sorry that
something unfortunate has befallen someone) but not empathy (identifying with that person or
situation oneself) among 10- to 14-year-olds in the Netherlands. Yet, in another study with
emerging adult (college student) participants in the U.S., the amount of violent video gaming
was associated with reduced empathy, which, in turn, predicted lower levels of self-reported
helping behaviors among males, in particular (Fraser et al., 2012).

Fear, Worry, and Anxiety

Many children and adolescents readily remember a media text that scared them and such ex-
posure can have both temporary and lasting consequences (Götz et al., 2019). Using interviews

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with more than 200 Finnish children, Korhonen and Lahikainen (2008) discovered that media-
induced fears are quite common, cause nightmares and other disturbances, and stem from
exposure to media depictions of monsters and imaginary creatures, guns, accidents, and war.
About one third (35%) of a sample of U.S. children in kindergarten through sixth grade re-
ported being frightened by something seen in the news, with natural disasters – hurricanes,
tsunamis, tornadoes, etc. – the most frequently listed concern, and such fears increasing with the
age of the child (Riddle et al., 2012). In a meta-analysis of 31 studies, Pearce and Field (2016)
found a small but significant effect (r = .18) of scary movies and television content on trouble
sleeping, experiencing fear, anxiety, or sadness among children. Effects sizes did not differ
according to whether the content was fictional or factual, suggesting that children are similarly
(although, again, modestly) impacted by both types.
In-depth interviews and the analysis of open-ended survey responses from Israeli children
and teens suggest that a substantial number express the view that news is too scary and sad,
especially when it is about violent events including murders, attacks, and bombings (Alon-
Tirosh & Lemish, 2014). Kleemans, de Leeuw, Gerritsen, and Buijzen (2017) found that ne-
gative emotions were stimulated when a sample of 8- to 13-year-olds in the Netherlands saw a
violent news story in the lab, but were impacted less when the story was modified to contain
more positive or hopeful components.

The Role of Parents/Caregivers and Teachers/Schools

Children’s responses of fear, worry, and anxiety associated with exposure to media violence can
be lessened by parents’ active mediation (defined as attempts to help children understand and
critique what they see), although such success was confined in one study to the younger
children within a sample of 8- to 12-year-olds (Buijzen et al., 2007). The utterance of critical
comments or questions by adults while young people are exposed to media violence can de-
crease the likelihood of an aggressive response (Nathanson & Cantor, 2000). Velki and Jagodić
(2017) found significant correlations between time spent watching television, playing computer
games, and using the internet, respectively, and peer nomination scores for physical aggression,
verbal aggression, and electronic aggression (the latter similar to cyberbullying) among 880 10-
to 15-year-olds from Croatia. Yet, engaging in media use together with parents moderated
many of these relationships, concluding that having parents/caregivers present during media
interactions is a protective factor.
Recent research has pointed to the importance of “autonomy supportive” parental med-
iation, where rules and restrictions imposed by parents (restrictive mediation) or active med-
iation are undertaken in a manner that leaves room for the young person’s own opinions and
provides an explanation (Valkenburg et al., 2013). A study showed that autonomy supportive
restrictive mediation (but not autonomy supportive active mediation) was associated with lower
media violence use, which, in turn, was linked with fewer ADHD-related behaviors among
Dutch 10- to 14-year-olds (Nikkelen et al., 2016). Autonomy supportive restrictive mediation
predicted lower media violence exposure, which, in turn, was associated with lower aggression
concurrently (but not longitudinally) in similarly aged children in another study also conducted
in the Netherlands (Fikkers et al., 2017).
Rosenkoetter and colleagues (2009) examined outcomes associated with participation in a
media literacy education program among nearly 500 U.S. children in first through fifth grade.
Intervention-group members outscored control-group members at the posttest on attitudes
critical of TV violence, had lower identification with violent superheroes, and reported lesser
amounts of time spent viewing violence, but were not different in aggressive behavior. Fingar

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and Jolls (2014) found U.S. middle-school students participating in media literacy education
showed increased agreement that media violence can contribute to aggression, fear, and de-
sensitization compared to students in control groups. Yet there were very few differences
among participating and nonparticipating students in scores on an aggression scale.
Krahé and Busching (2015) studied a five-week school-based intervention among 627 se-
venth and eighth graders in Germany and found support for an indirect effect of media literacy
on aggression that took place through a reduction in exposure to media violence. Bickham and
Slaby (2012) studied the impact of a series of interactive lessons focused on media violence on a
sample of fifth-grade students in the U.S. Participants had increased agreement that violence can
be portrayed unrealistically and glamorously in the media and that media violence can have a
negative impact compared to control-group members. Yet, by comparison to the control
group, participants reported a small but significant greater intention to use a verbally aggressive
response to an anger-provoking scenario.

Centering Child Voices

Valkenburg and Piotrowski (2017) identify two major paradigms at play in research about
children, adolescents, and media, one that views children as vulnerable – emphasizing pro-
tection from negative media influence – and one that views children as empowered – em-
phasizing an autonomous capacity to negotiate media as well as daily life. The latter paradigm
often places interpretations of media texts at the center of the analysis, using qualitative methods
to understand young people’s meaning making processes. For example, in-depth interviews
with 12-year-olds in primary school in Barcelona revealed that young people consider the
intensity of violence, the degree to which a fictional portrayal of violence seems realistic, and
motivations of the aggressor in their interpretations of media violence (Aran & Rodrigo, 2013).
When asked to write about why there is violence in entertainment media, qualitative data from
a sample of sixth graders in the U.S. show that the students largely identified the entertaining
qualities of violent media texts as both an explanation for and a defense of media creator practices
(Sekarasih et al., 2015). In a separate study using a similar prompt, U.S. sixth graders expressed
either ambivalence about the presence of violence in media or acceptance, often citing media
creators’ desire to turn a profit to endorse the practice (Sekarasih et al., 2016). For example, a
student wrote that producers, “put violence in because violence appeals to many people. The
more people it appeals to, the more people watch or buy their products” (p. 376).
Yet, qualitative data also suggest that media education can facilitate early adolescents’ cri-
tique of the ways in which violence is depicted (Scharrer & Wortman Raring, 2012). For
example, one sixth grader said, “When I played Super Smash Brothers it had a lot of violence
without consequence. Like you get slashed by a sword and you get back up. Or you get blown
up by a bomb (but) you don’t die,” and another wrote,

One example of violence done by ‘good guys’ was when Harry Potter fought
Voldemort….One example of justified violence was that Harry Potter fought
Voldemort because Voldemort was going to hurt people. One example of rewarded
violence was when Harry Potter was praised for defeating Voldemort.
(pp. 360–361)

In-depth examinations of children’s meaning making underscores their agency as media users,
showing their ability to consider the nuances of violent media texts and the forces and factors
that explain the creation and circulation of those texts.

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 Erica Scharrer

Conclusions
It is clear that children and adolescents around the globe encounter aggression and violence in
the media that they interact with in their lives. Such media interactions have the potential for a
number of troubling cognitive, affective, and behavioral effects, although those effects are often
complicated in nature, frequently limited to some outcomes, some media forms, some members
of research samples, and/or some conditions. There is also evidence that young people actively
construct meaning from violent media texts, sometimes find such violence appealing them-
selves, and widely recognize its appeal for audiences, in general.
Parental mediation can make a difference, but the evidence for its effectiveness can also be
limited. Media literacy instruction also appears to have the potential to intervene in the for-
mation of positive attitudes toward aggression, increase critical thinking about media violence,
and, in some cases, inspire less media violence exposure. Yet, media literacy education op-
portunities are often rare and, according to the research evidence, may not be sufficient to
disrupt the potential for media effects on aggression or other outcomes. Conceiving of both
parental mediation and media literacy as the “solution” to the problem of media violence also
obscures the responsibility of media industries themselves to address the issue. Overall, it seems
that research and practice pertaining to media violence and children should balance vulner-
ability and empowerment, and strive for the support of the growth of autonomy in youth
participation in a media culture.

SEE ALSO Chapter 23 by Götz and Chapter 25 by Peppler and Dahn in this volume.

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MEDIA AND SEXUAL
DEVELOPMENT
Chelly Maes and Laura Vandenbosch

Introduction
Scholars highlight the role of sexual media messages (SMM) in adolescents’ sexuality devel-
opment (L’Engle et al., 2006), next to peers and parents. Sexuality development includes the
exploration of sexual feelings and beliefs (e.g., one’s sexual orientation) and intimate behaviors
(e.g., kissing). Adolescents use SMM to discover their emerging sexual feelings (Cooper et al.,
2016), construct their sexual and gender identity, and even retrieve information about sexual
activities (L’Engle et al., 2006). As these uses occur for both mass and user-generated digital
media, the current chapter gives an overview of existing literature on the role of media in
adolescents’ sexuality.

SMM in Mass Media and User-Generated Media

A multitude of SMM are embedded in mass media content (most dominantly in television,
music, video games, and pornography) and user-generated media (such as social networks and
sexting). Adolescents most often listen to music with 87% of adolescents in the U.S. listing to
music daily (Rideout & Robb, 2019). Popular music lyrics frequently refer to casual sexual
relationships and disregard detrimental consequences of sexual interactions (Holody et al.,
2016). Also, women are often sexually objectified (Flynn et al., 2016).
Similarly to music lyrics, popular television content typically neglects negative outcomes of
sexual interactions (e.g., STDs) (Ortiz & Brooks, 2014), includes sexual gender stereotypes
(e.g., women are sexually submissive, men are sexually dominant) (Sink & Mastro, 2017), and
casual sexual relationships (Ortiz & Brooks, 2014). A little more than half of the adolescents in
the U.S. is exposed daily to such SMM on television (Rideout & Robb, 2019).
In pornography, SMM are depicted in a more explicit manner. This content focuses on
sexual satisfaction and ignores the emotional and physical complexities of sexual interactions.
Moreover, women are more sexually submissive than men, sexually objectified (Fritz & Paul,
2017), and the target of verbal and physical aggression (Bridges et al., 2010). Pornography
use varies across countries. For example, in the U.S. 78% of boys and 41% of girls watch
pornography (Maheux et al., 2021). In Croatia, 90% of boys and 43% of girls use this content
(Milas et al., 2019).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-31 243

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Regarding video games, female characters are often sexualized (e.g., by presenting them as
sexual objects) and sexual gender stereotypes are typically present (Lynch et al., 2016). For
almost a quarter of the adolescents in the U.S., video gaming is part of their daily media routine
(Rideout & Rob, 2019).
As for user-generated media, 63% of adolescents in the U.S. visit social media platforms,
such Instagram, on a daily basis (Rideout & Rob, 2019). The literature mostly points to sexy
self-presentations online with 51.7% of adolescents engaging in such online posting behaviors
(Kapidzic & Herring, 2015). Such self-presentations include pictures in which one has a se-
ductive gaze, suggests sexual readiness, and/or has a sexy appearance (van Oosten et al., 2017b).
More intimate sexual interactions include adolescents’ sexting via instant messaging tools (e.g.,
Van Ouytsel et al., 2019) or “the sending of self-made sexually explicit messages, pictures, or
videos via the computer or mobile phone” (Van Ouytsel et al., 2019, p. 1). Similar to porno-
graphy use, sexting rates vary across countries with 41% of Belgian adolescents engaging in this
online sexual behavior, and 28.4% of Irish adolescents engaging in sexting (Morelli et al., 2021).

Empirical Evidence of Sexual Media Effects

In the following sections, we provide an overview of existing research on attitudinal and beha-
vioral effects of mass produced SMM (i.e., television, music, video games, and pornography) and
user-generated SMM (i.e., social media and sexting). Longitudinal studies have especially been
employed in pornography (e.g., Baams et al., 2015) and social media use research (e.g., van
Oosten et al., 2017a). The attitudinal sexual outcomes of viewing television (e.g., Vandenbosch &
Beyens, 2014) and listening to music (ter Bogt et al., 2010), have mainly been explored in cross-
sectional research, while experimental methods were primarily used for examining video games
(e.g., Vandenbosch et al., 2017). No experimental research is used for sexual behavior given the
ethical boundaries of such research in adolescents. When reviewing the research below, the most
recently available longitudinal and experimental research were favored above cross-sectional re-
search due to the robustness of these designs in testing a directionality in the examined links.
Moreover, cross-sectional research on sexual media effects has often been labeled as inconsistent
(Shafer et al., 2013), potentially because of its rather weak methodological design.

Direct Links between Media and Sexual Cognitions

Five different attitudinal outcomes of SMM have been most extensively examined. A first
outcome refers to sexual permissiveness or having positive attitudes towards sex with casual
partners. Literature from countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, and the U.S. consistently
demonstrates that the more adolescents watch television (e.g., television programs; cross-
sectional; Vandenbosch & Beyens, 2014), listen to music (Hip-Hop and Punk; cross-sectional;
ter Bogt et al., 2010), use social media (sexy self-presentations; longitudinal, van Oosten et al.,
2017a), and watch pornography (general pornography; longitudinal; Doornwaard et al., 2015),
the stronger their sexual permissiveness (e.g., casual sex) (Coyne et al., 2019). In terms of other
media activities, such as sexting, the research among adolescent is lacking.
Further, a great body of research has studied how media contribute to gender stereotypical
beliefs (Ward & Grower, 2020), in which men are expected to be sexually assertive and
dominant, while women should be more passive and have less sexual agency. Some studies from
Belgium, France, China, and the U.S. demonstrated that the more adolescents watch television
(music television; longitudinal; Vangeel et al., 2019), listen to music (general; cross-sectional
research; North & Hargreaves, 2008), play video games (violent video games; cross-sectional;

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Bègue et al., 2017), and watch pornography (general pornography; cross-sectional; To et al.,
2012), the more they endorse sexual gender stereotypical beliefs. Others did not find such links for
television viewing (romantically themed television; longitudinal; Vandenbosch & Eggermont,
2011) or pornography use (general pornography; longitudinal; Peter & Valkenburg, 2011a). In
terms of adolescents’ social media uses, the scarce available research indicates that adolescents
present themselves in a gender stereotypical way (cross-sectional; Kapidzic & Herring, 2015). One
study showed engagement with and exposure to others’ sexy online self-presentations can be
predicted by adolescents’ own gender stereotypical beliefs over time (longitudinal; Van Oosten
et al., 2017b). As for studies exploring adolescents’ sexting behaviors, research is lacking regarding
the endorsement of sexual gender stereotypes.
Tied to such gender stereotypical beliefs is the sexual objectification of, mainly, women and
girls. Sexual objectification of girls reflects gender stereotypical belief that women need to use
their appearance to attract a male suitor. Media can endorse sexually objectifying beliefs about
women in adolescents. Specifically, literature from the Netherlands and Belgium shows that the
more adolescents view television (non-explicit and semi-explicit sexual television content;
cross-sectional; Peter & Valkenburg, 2007), listen to music (pop, hip-hop, R&B, punk, and
hardhouse; cross-sectional; ter Bogt et al., 2010), and watch online pornography (general
pornography; cross-sectional; Maes et al., 2019), the more they view women as sex objects. No
research has addressed whether engagement in sexting increases self-objectification processes.
Relatedly, objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) postulates that regular
exposure to women being sexually objectified in media leads to self-objectification (i.e., observing
one’s own body from the perspective of an observer). Studies from Belgium, the U.S., and
Germany consistently show that the more adolescents are exposed to sexually objectifying
content in television (sexualizing sitcoms; longitudinal; Vandenbosch & Eggermont, 2014),
listen to music (rap and hip-hop; cross-sectional; Volgman, 2014), play video games (i.e.,
playing as a sexualized avatar; experiment; Vandenbosch et al., 2017), use social media (sex-
ualized Instagram images; longitudinal; Skowronski et al., 2021), and watch online porno-
graphy (general pornography; cross-sectional; Vandenbosch & Eggermont, 2013), the more
they objectify themselves. Interestingly these results occur among both boys and girls and little
inconsistent findings have been noted in the field (Karsay et al., 2018).
Studies further demonstrate that SMM may in some cases influence (1) adolescents’ sexual
experience, and (2) the safety of sexual interactions. In particular, literature from the U.S. and the
Netherlands indicates that the more adolescents view television (movies; longitudinal; O’Hara
et al., 2012), listen to music (popular music; longitudinal research; Brown et al., 2006), use social
media (general social media; longitudinal; Reitz et al., 2015), and engage in sexting (general
sexting; cross-sectional; MacDonald et al., 2018), the higher and riskier their sexual activity. Both
cross-sectional and longitudinal designs have been employed to confirm these associations for all
media except sexting. As for pornography uses, findings are inconsistent as some studies found
positive relations (e.g., Luder et al., 2011), while others found no statistically significant relations
between online pornography use and risky sexual behaviors (e.g., Peter & Valkenburg, 2011b).

Moderated and Mediated Links Between Media,

Sexual Attitudes and Sexual Behavior
To understand the abovementioned relations, media effects theories have helped to identify
which viewers are more susceptible and which responses to SMM explain these effects.
Moderators. The most frequently examined moderators are demographic factors of media users,
with gender being one of the most examined factors. The 3AM model (Wright, 2011) underlines

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that boys and girls have different understandings of key sexual variables, such as gender stereo-
typical beliefs, which causes them to respond differently to SMM. However, research examining
this conditionality is often mixed. For example, Doornwaard et al. (longitudinal; 2015) only found
an association between pornography use and sexual permissiveness among boys, whereas Peter
and Valkenburg (longitudinal; 2010) found no moderating role of gender in the Netherlands.
Also, individuals’ responses to SMM, such as the perceived realism of SMM (see cultivation
theory, Gerbner, 1998) can strengthen a user’s relatedness between SMM and sexual outcomes.
For example, in one study in the U.S. the perceived realism of pornography strengthened the
relation between sexual permissiveness and exposure to such content (longitudinal; Baams et al.,
2015). Other response factors are identification and parasocial interaction with a media char-
acters, yet they are rarely examined.
Mediators. Sexual media effects can be explained by the way adolescents process, interpret,
and experience SMM. First, the literature points to affective processes which include emotional
responses, such as sadness or inspiration. SMM can evoke such affective responses which, in
turn, may suppress or enhance the impact of SMM. For example, the longitudinal study of van
Oosten et al. (2015) in the Netherlands demonstrated that viewing sexual music videos can
predict affective engagement, such as feelings of pleasure, which, in turn facilitate girls’ ac-
ceptance of token resistance (i.e., a gender stereotypical belief that when women say “no” to
sex, they actually mean “yes”).
SMM can also evoke physiological responses, such as excitation and arousal. In turn, such
heightened degrees of physiological responses can make users more responsive to SMM. This
mediator has been most widely studied and supported when exploring effects of pornography
viewing (e.g., Peter & Valkenburg, 2008).
Lastly, social cognitive theory (Bandura, 2001) points to sexual cognitions as possible med-
iators. After exposure to SMM, individuals are believed to experience a change in sexual cognition
that in turn will change their behavior congruent with the changed cognition (Bandura, 2001).
Several cognitions have already been well-studied as mediators between adolescents’ media uses
and sexual behavioral outcomes, including perceived peer norms (Ward et al., 2011).

Shortcomings and Future Research

A substantial amount of research has suggested that adolescents’ uses of media can influence
their sexual attitudes and behaviors. Overall, the effects are small and the consistency of media
effects across studies often depends on the type of media activity and the type of sexual out-
come. There are several shortcomings within the field.
First, scholars should pay attention to media multitasking when exploring the impact of
SMM. Nowadays adolescents are able to use different technological devices simultaneously.
Such media multitasking behaviors can decrease cognitive involvement with SMM, which may
enhance SMM effects since this implies a non-skeptical processing of SMM. Via experience
sampling method (ESM) studies, which include structured diary techniques to appraise sub-
jective experiences in daily life, researchers can accurately measure adolescents’ multitasking
habits, and – even – skeptical responses during and after media interactions.
Moreover, such ESM studies may be crucial to address a second shortcoming within the
field: studies on beneficial outcomes of SMM. Recent research in Belgium shows that negative
and positive sexual messages co-occur in youth-oriented series (Maes & Vandenbosch, 2021a).
As such, in addition to negative outcomes of biased sexual messages, media uses may also
promote positive sexual outcomes in adolescents (e.g., acceptance of one’s own sexuality; Maes
et al., 2021b). Existing research hints at these possible positive outcomes with, for example, the

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study of McLaughlin & Rodriguez (2017) in the U.S. showing a link between exposure to
homosexual characters on television and less discriminatory beliefs toward sexual minority
groups. Given a reduced memory bias in ESM, ESM may be particularly useful. Users in ESM
research can actively identify whether they have been exposed to positive or negative SMM or
even both, leading to a more accurate understanding their media uses.
Further, longitudinal and experimental research on sexual media effects studies is scarce.
Ethical considerations often limit researchers to conduct experimental research (e.g., showing
pornography to adolescents is illegal). Via the employment of longitudinal research, scholars can
examine causal and indirect relations, explore the uni-or bidirectional nature of sexual media
effects, and study both within-and between-person effects. The latter has been understudied in
the field of sexual media effects, though it allows researchers to more accurately examine
person-specific sexual media effects (Beyens et al., 2021). As such, scholars are encouraged to
employ longitudinal and experimental designs.
In sum, the literature shows that SMM can play a role in adolescents’ sexuality development,
though effects are small and some shortcomings need to be accounted for by future research.

SEE ALSO Chapter 19 by Durham and chapter 20 by Dedkova, Machackova, and Smahel in
this volume.

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MEDIA, BODY IMAGE, AND
EATING DISORDERS
Kristen Harrison and Valerie N. Kemp

Significance of Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are more common than most people realize. U.S. prevalence estimates for
disordered eating range from about 14% (boys and men) to almost 20% (girls and women) by
age 40 (Ward et al., 2019). For comparison, 19% of U.S. youth are obese (Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). Eating disorders can also be deadly: A meta-analysis
of U.S. mortality studies showed that if 1,000 people were observed for a year, about five
would die from anorexia nervosa (Arcelus et al., 2011). One-fifth of these deaths were from
suicide, suggesting comorbidity with other conditions (Arcelus et al., 2011). Researchers in
the U.S. ( Johnson et al., 2002) and Europe (Van Alsten & Duncan, 2020) have linked eating
disorders with depression, anxiety disorders, attempted suicide, chronic pain, infectious
diseases, insomnia, and cardiovascular and neurological problems. Over time, food restric-
tion increases the risk of obesity, even among youth who are not obese to begin with
(Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2006).

The Sociocultural Influence of Media

Research on media’s contribution to body image and disordered eating has been ongoing
for over 30 years. A full review is beyond the scope of this chapter, but two meta-analyses
provide big-picture summaries. Grabe et al. (2008) analyzed 141 studies involving 15,047
female participants and found that media exposure was mildly to moderately related to
decreased body satisfaction and increased eating pathology. Effects on thin-ideal inter-
nalization and eating behaviors were comparable for adolescents and adults. More recently,
Huang et al. (2020) analyzed 127 studies from ten countries and found similar results. The
average effect, with negative values indicating poorer body image and more disordered
eating, was −.29 for adolescents and −.16 for adults. There was no difference by nationality
or gender.
Eating disturbances can begin before puberty (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), so it
is important to include preadolescents in studies. Research with elementary school girls
(Harrison & Hefner, 2006; McGladrey, 2013) and boys (Harrison & Bond, 2007) showed
similar effect sizes by gender, with key differences in relevant media content and outcomes. In

250 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-32

 Media, Body Image, and Eating Disorders

recent research, identification with superheroes was related to body image among U. S. boys
(Roberts et al., 2021), whereas Kpop (Korean music entertainment) was related to body image
among South Korean girls (Kim & Han, 2021).
Given the ubiquity of media in children’s lives worldwide, it is important to understand how
(1) media depict body ideals; (2) researchers have theorized media’s influence on body image
and disordered eating; (3) engagement with media relates empirically to these outcomes; and
(4) vulnerability to influence varies. This chapter addresses these issues and concludes with
ongoing debates for the digital age.

Print Media
Daniels et al. (2016) found that appearance was the most common article topic in North
American preteen and teen girls’ magazines (Daniels et al., 2016). Ballentine and Ogle (2005)
analyzed the framing of “body problems” in Seventeen from 1992 to 2003. Excess weight was
framed as fixable with consumer products and services but readers were urged to celebrate their
natural beauty. Such conflicting messages may be confusing or appear hypocritical to
marketing-savvy adolescents (Ballentine & Ogle, 2005).

Screen Media
Greenberg et al. (2003) coded 1,018 characters in 56 U.S. prime-time television programs
and found that over 30% of female and 12% of male characters were underweight. Body
image itself was a theme in 28% of 213 analyzed episodes of 19 television shows popular
with U.S. youth (Kinsler et al., 2019). A comprehensive analysis of 14,959 children’s tel-
evision characters from 24 countries revealed national differences in the proportion of fe-
male characters who were very thin (Götz & Lemish, 2012). In addition, the study found
that male characters were more likely to be overweight than female characters, and that too
differed by nation.

Internet
On pro-eating-disorder (pro-ED) websites, young people discuss disordered eating as a lifestyle
choice. An analysis of 12 pro-ED sites revealed themes of control, success, sacrifice, and
transformation through “thinspirational” photographs of extremely thin bodies (Norris et al.,
2006). Rodgers and Melioli (2016) reviewed 67 quantitative and qualitative studies from
18 countries and found that thin-ideal content is ubiquitous on the internet and that internet
use, especially engagement in photo-related activities, is associated with poorer body image and
eating concerns among youth.

Social Media
Content themes on social media platforms are often signaled by hashtags. Ghaznavi and
Taylor (2015) analyzed 300 #thinspiration images on Twitter and Pinterest and reported that
many showed protruding hipbones (46%), ribs (37%), and collarbones (27%). In a similar
study on Tumblr, 97.7% of the images were coded as thin and over 70% of the text men-
tioned weight loss (Wick & Harriger, 2018). Clearly, the thin body ideal remains marketable
across media platforms.

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 Kristen Harrison and Valerie N. Kemp

Popular Theories for Explaining Effects

The most popular framework in scholarship on this topic is probably social comparison theory
(Festinger, 1954), which holds that people are driven to evaluate themselves via comparison
with reasonably similar targets. When the self is judged as inferior, negative self-evaluation can
motivate behavioral change. Supporting research reveals a stronger effect of thin-ideal media
use on poor body image, disordered eating, and endorsement of the thin ideal for youth with a
tendency toward this type of comparison (Tiggemann, 2005).
Recent research in the U.S. (Harrison & Hefner, 2014) and Austria (Naderer et al., 2021)
tested whether disclaimers informing viewers of digital modification (i.e., Photoshopping)
might reduce ideal-body media effects on body image. Unfortunately, not only do disclaimers
fail to reduce social comparison, they may exacerbate body concerns (Harrison & Hefner,
2014). It seems logical that artificial images would be deemed unsuitable for comparison, but
paintings, drawings, and sculptures – all artificial renderings – have been used to celebrate
beauty and inspire its pursuit for millennia.
Another popular framework, objectification theory (Noll & Fredrickson, 1998), defines
objectification as adopting an observer’s view of the self. Self-objectification in girls is correlated
with disordered eating and body dissatisfaction and can be primed by ideal-body media
(Harrison & Fredrickson, 2003). The theory is especially relevant to social media like Instagram
and Facebook, which actually show users how observers will see them. Self-objectification has
been linked with posting and modifying selfies on social media (Terán et al., 2019).
Social cognitive theory (Krcmar, 2020) predicts that if thinness and its attainment are
consistently rewarded or unpunished in media, viewers will be motivated to model those
behaviors. Accordingly, studies on children (Dittmar et al., 2006) and adolescents (Harrison,
2001) show that thin-ideal media use is associated with dieting. However, this theory does not
address the emotional components of disordered eating (American Psychiatric Association,
2013). Binge eating and restricting food can soothe unpleasant emotions that arise from a
disconnect (i.e., self-discrepancy) between who one is and who others expect one to be
(Strauman et al., 1991). Self-discrepant adolescents experience more emotional distress than
non-discrepant adolescents in response to ideal-body television (Harrison, 2001), so bingeing or
restricting could be used for coping.
Whereas social scientists tend to emphasize media effects on health, critical/cultural and
feminist theorists focus on how media uphold power structures like patriarchy and capitalism.
They argue that media socialize young people to discipline their bodies through promoted
methods and products (Bordo, 1993) to become what Michel Foucault called the “docile body”
(Azzarito, 2010). Regardless of which theory one prefers, attempts to conceptualize media,
peer, and family influences separately are outdated. Parents, peers, and commercial media
mingle as agents of influence on social networking sites. Modern theory must acknowledge the
ecology of these overlapping influences (Perloff, 2014).

Research Findings

Experiments
Meta-analyses show that ideal-body media exacerbate body concerns in both girls and boys
(Grabe et al., 2008; Huang et al., 2020). An experiment with YouTube health videos showed
increased self-objectification among 14–15-year-old U.S. girls who saw appearance-framed
videos instead of health-framed ones (Aubrey et al., 2020). For U.S. adolescent boys, exposure

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to the televised muscular male ideal increased depression and muscle dissatisfaction (Agliata &
Tantleff-Dunn, 2004). In a rare longitudinal experiment, Stice et al. (2001) gave U.S. ado-
lescent girls a subscription to Seventeen and tracked them for 15 months. Girls with low social
support who received the subscription reported more bulimic symptoms over time.
Experiments on social media effects reveal similar findings. For instance, Kleemans et al.
(2018) exposed European girls aged 14–18 to Instagram photos manipulated with appearance-
enhancing filters. Girls with a tendency toward social comparison who saw these photos felt
worse about their bodies than girls who saw unmanipulated photos.

Surveys
Most cross-sectional surveys of adolescents reveal moderate correlations between ideal-body
media exposure and drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction, and body shame (Grabe et al., 2008;
Huang et al., 2020). Cross-sectional surveys on social media extend the focus beyond exposure.
For instance, Terán et al. (2020) explored selfie-sharing behaviors on social media among U.S.
girls aged 14–17. Sharing of selfies did not predict poorer body image, but editing selfies did.
Longitudinal surveys also reveal modest but durable correlations. Three years after the island
of Fiji first received television, disordered eating was more common among Fijian girls than just
after TV’s introduction (19 versus 8%), and vomiting to control weight increased from zero to
7% (Becker et al., 2002). For prepubescent girls in Australia, viewing appearance-focused
television programs predicted decreased appearance satisfaction a year later (Dohnt &
Tiggemann, 2006). Likewise, U.S. girls’ television exposure predicted a thinner ideal adult
body shape a year later (Harrison & Hefner, 2006). For U.S. boys, reading video gaming
magazines predicted a greater drive for muscularity a year later (Harrison & Bond, 2007).
Longitudinal research on social media parallels these findings. For example, Tiggemann and
Slater (2017) followed 438 Australian adolescent girls and found that Facebook use predicted
increased body surveillance a year later. Further, having more Facebook friends predicted in-
creased body surveillance, thin-ideal internalization, and drive for thinness a year later.

Qualitative Approaches
Intensive interview methods can reveal nuances that questionnaires miss. U.S. adolescent girls
interviewed by Milkie (1999) resisted media-body ideals but felt pressured to lose weight to
impress peers who embraced those ideals. McGladrey (2013) asked U.S. girls aged 9–11 to
make collages of their beauty ideals and found that Black girls incorporated images of Black
celebrities (e.g., actress Angela Bassett) with Disney princesses to make their personal ideals
“Blacker.” These reports illustrate the complexity of the media-body relationship, especially for
adolescents of color.

Moderators of Vulnerability to Influence

Four broad classes of variables – genetics and body image disturbance, gender, age, and race and
ethnicity – moderate media effects on body image. With a sample of U.S. twin girls and women
aged 12–22, Suisman et al. (2012) reported heritability of thin-ideal internalization at about
40%. Body image disturbance functions similarly and may reflect unmeasured heritability.
Wilksch et al. (2017) tested shape and weight concerns (SWC) as a moderator of three in-
terventions to reduce disordered eating among Australian adolescents. For two of the inter-
ventions, there was a boomerang effect: eating concerns and meal skipping were higher

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afterward among high-SWC adolescents. Vulnerable adolescents are both more affected by
ideal-body media and more likely to seek them out (Thomsen et al., 2002).
Some studies of gender as a moderator have shown no differences (e.g., Harrison, 2000b),
whereas others (e.g., Harrison, 2000a) have shown stronger relationships for girls than boys.
Research by Ho et al. (2016) on adolescents aged 12–19 in Singapore showed that music video
viewing and comparing the self with celebrities predicted body dissatisfaction and drive for
thinness among girls, whereas magazine reading and music video viewing predicted body
dissatisfaction and drive for muscularity among boys.
Age is a moderator primarily in early childhood, as effect sizes for adolescents and adults are
comparable (Grabe et al., 2008; Huang et al., 2020). A meta-analysis using samples with average
ages as young as 10.25 yielded correlations of .50 for thin-ideal internalization and .48 for
perceived pressure to meet that ideal, with no differences by age or ethnicity (Cafri et al., 2005).
Media exposure predicts disordered eating and idealization of thinness for girls and boys as
young as five (Dohnt & Tiggemann, 2006; Harrison, 2000b; Harrison & Hefner, 2006), but
effect sizes are small for children who are just learning about body ideals.
Research on race as a moderator points to stronger relationships for White youth, with
important qualifications. In a study with elementary school girls in the U.S., Harrison and
Hefner (2006) found no Black-White difference in the correlation between mainstream (mostly
White) media exposure and disordered eating. However, Harrison and Fredrickson (2003)
observed increased self-objectification among adolescent girls exposed to women’s sports. For
White girls, watching lean athletes increased self-objectification, whereas for Black girls,
watching muscular athletes did.
For girls of color, ethnic identity may be protective. Latina girls aged 13–18 who viewed
sexualized images of White women felt better about their own bodies if they drew upon their
ethnic identity when defining themselves (Schooler & Daniels, 2014). However, there were no
racial or ethnic differences in adolescents’ appearance-related social media consciousness
(ASMC; Choukas-Bradley et al., 2020), measured with items like “If an unattractive picture of
me is posted on social media, I feel bad about myself.” Only gender mattered, with ASMC
predicting disordered eating for girls but not boys.

Ongoing Debates for the Digital Age

After more than 30 years of research, there is little disagreement that media exposure exacer-
bates young people’s body concerns. Ongoing debates begin with the question of whether this
is truly a problem given established media effects on obesity. It is time to put this question to
rest; disordered eating and obesity are not opposites. Neumark-Sztainer et al. (2007) found that
unhealthful weight control tactics like fasting and over-exercising were most common among
overweight children and predicted an increase in obesity risk five years into adolescence even
for normal-weight children (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2006).
A second debate concerns pro-ED websites as places for youth with eating disorders to
exchange support (Mento et al., 2021). Eating disorders can be isolating, so efforts to shut down
pro-ED sites (Gavin et al., 2008) block their access to community. Adolescent users of a pro-
AN website expressed relief that they could “come out” to online friends (Gavin et al., 2008).
The question of whether and how body-relevant media may be more helpful than harmful, and
for whom, remains to be answered.
A third debate concerns the significance of modest effect sizes in research with nonclinical
samples. Critics argue that direct effects of media are overestimated and that peers are a stronger
influence (Ferguson, 2018). This argument loses heft when applied to social media, where peer

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and media influences mingle, and overlooks the role of peers in spreading celebrity culture
among friends offline. Finally, when samples combine genetically vulnerable youth and non-
vulnerable youth (Suisman et al., 2012), the overall effect size represents few in the sample. We
urge researchers to avoid committing the fallacy of division by assuming that what applies to the
sample as a whole applies equally to everyone in it.

Future Directions
Children consume media within home and community contexts. Future research should ex-
plore these contexts as moderators and sites for intervention and prevention (Stice et al., 2001).
Developmental research is also needed to determine when thin-ideal internalization begins and
when it leads to dieting (Harrison, 2000b). Since the thin ideal is represented most in
Westernized media distributed around the world (Götz & Lemish, 2012), more content analyses
and effects studies are needed to examine media-body concerns among youth worldwide,
grounded in diverse cultures and circumstances.
Finally, it is important to note that just as young people are agentic (Gavin et al., 2008;
Thomsen et al., 2002), so are modern media. Social media platforms like TikTok have algo-
rithms that control selective exposure to media content by feeding users more of the content
they have “liked.” Research on the interplay between youth engagement and media algorithms
would help inform intervention and education so children and adolescents can become more
active co-producers of healthful media relationships.

SEE ALSO Chapter 20 by Dedkova, Machackova, and Smahel and Chapter 29 by Calvert and
Bond in this volume.

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 29
MEDIA AND CHILDHOOD
OBESITY
Sandra L. Calvert and Bradley J. Bond

The world is experiencing an unprecedented childhood obesity crisis in which nearly 20 percent
of 5-19-year-old children are overweight or obese, a four-fold increase in excessive or abnormal
body fatness since 1975 (WHO, 2017). Serious health problems associated with obesity include
diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers, sparking global concerns about how to protect
children from this epidemic (WHO, 2017). The childhood obesity crisis has largely been at-
tributed to environmental factors, including media exposure (Robinson et al., 2017). This chapter
examines the relationship between media exposure and childhood obesity, including the me-
chanisms by which media may contribute to or curtail the childhood obesity epidemic.

The Contribution of Media to Childhood Obesity

Although the relation between media exposure and adiposity is complex, scholars have pro-
posed four major mechanisms by which media may contribute to childhood obesity: (1) food
advertising’s influence on increased caloric intake, (2) overeating during media exposure,
(3) increased sedentary behavior during exposure, and (4) media disruption of sleep (American
Academy of Pediatrics, 2011).

Food Advertising
Among the mechanisms by which media exposure could contribute to childhood obesity, food
advertising has received the most attention and empirical support. An analysis of 2017 Nielsen
data revealed that food and beverage companies and restaurants spent approximately 14 billion
dollars in the U.S., 80% of which was for unhealthy products. The least healthy products were
directed at children, teens, and minority families (UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and
Obesity, 2021).
Content analyses have consistently found that most televised food advertisements targeted at
children fall into one of five categories: (1) sugar-coated cereals, (2) candy/sweets, (3) salty
snacks, (4) soft drinks, and (5) fast-food restaurants (Institute of Medicine, 2006). One study
demonstrated that approximately 84% of all television advertisements and 96% of advertise-
ments in children’s programs viewed by 2–11-year-old U.S. children were low in nutritional
value (Powell et al., 2013). The over-abundance of television advertisements for low-nutrient

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foods is not unique to the United States (Horgen et al., 2012). For example, a collaboration of
13 research teams representing North America, South America, Australia, Asia, and Western
Europe found that the foods advertised to children were predominantly low in nutritional value
(Kelly et al., 2010).
Content analyses of online media reveal similar patterns in food marketing to those of tele-
vision. Websites (Alvy & Calvert, 2008) and social media platforms like Facebook (Brownbill
et al., 2018) and YouTube (Coates et al., 2019) frequently contain food ads targeted at children,
most often for foods high in calories and low in nutritional value. The media advertising land-
scape, then, is saturated with foods that are low in nutritional value. When a child is in front of a
screen, exposure to foods that are high in fat, sugar, or salt is likely. Children, particularly the
youngest ones, may be especially vulnerable when exposed to marketed food products because
they do not understand the persuasive intent of commercial content (Calvert, 2008).
Systematic reports by the National Academies (Institute of Medicine, 2006), the U.K. Food
Standards Agency (Hastings et al., 2003), and the European Commission (Matthews et al.,
2005) concluded that certain kinds of advertisements directed at children increase the risk for
adiposity, that food marketers spend considerable monies distributing these kinds of com-
mercials, and that children before age 8 have considerable difficulty understanding commercial
intent. Specific marketing techniques, including branded characters and product placement, are
often used to blur the lines between entertainment and advertising to child audiences, thereby
increasing product demands and purchases while fostering brand loyalty (Calvert, 2008).

Marketing Food to Children

Branded Characters. Branded characters are media personalities created by a company to promote
a specific product (e.g., Ronald McDonald promotes McDonalds and Tony the Tiger re-
presents Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes) or already popular licensed characters that are used for
marketing. Associating a branded character with a food product can create positive feelings
toward the food, even influencing perceptions of taste (McGale et al., 2016). Preschool-aged
children from lower versus higher SES backgrounds were more likely to request foods and
drinks associated with branded characters, and their parents were more likely to purchase those
products (Horowitz et al., 2017).
Product Placement. An increasingly prevalent media practice, product placement surreptitiously
integrates brands into entertainment media content. Exposure to product placement increases a
consumer’s familiarity with a product, resulting in a preference for a given brand (Calvert, 2008).
Australian 3–9-year-old children exposed to candy placements embedded in a film were nine
times more likely to choose the marketed products during shopping than those exposed to a
comparable film without the candy placements; effects were most pronounced for the youngest
children (Beaufort, 2019). Similarly, Austrian 6–11-year-old children selected unhealthy snacks
that had been integrated into the plot of a short film more so than children who viewed the same
film with the product presented solely in the background (Naderer et al., 2018).
Gaming. Branded products integrated into game content and narratives (i.e., advergames), or
players being rewarded with additional game features after watching advertisements (i.e., re-
warded advertising) can foster favorable attitudes toward products (Smith et al., 2020).
Advergames generally promote poor-nutrient foods and beverages and can influence food
selections (Harris et al., 2012). For example, U.S. 4–5-year-old children were exposed to a
bowling advergame that placed a popular animated character with healthy or unhealthy snacks
on the screen. Children who remembered the character being onscreen subsequently chose
snacks that the character was paired with, but they did not understand that the character had

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influenced their choice (Putnam et al., 2018). Similarly, children who played a game where
they were rewarded with new game features by watching advertisements were more likely to
choose a subsequent snack that was consistent with those advertisements (Smith et al., 2020).
Viral Marketing. Creating a buzz about food products by encouraging individuals to explore
and distribute product information by word-of-mouth can maximize exposure to a promo-
tional message, particularly for child audiences (Calvert, 2008). In one analysis, viral marketing
tactics (largely in the form of links to social media platforms shareable with friends) were the
most frequent means of increasing brand exposure, and were more popular on food websites
targeting children than general audiences (Vandevijvere et al., 2017). Consistent with these
findings, social influencers on YouTube who marketed unhealthy snacks influenced 9–11-year-
old U.K. children’s overall intake of unhealthy snacks when compared with influencers who
had non-food products (Coates et al., 2019).

Overeating During Media Use

Food marketing may influence the consumption of poor-nutrient foods, but mere exposure may
prime an individual to eat simply by stirring up appetite. When people eat on television, those at
home may do so too – likely due to priming thoughts of food or to imitation of observed on-screen
food consumption. Indeed, children consume a large number of foods and beverages during screen
exposure (Robinson et al., 2017). More research is needed to understand the underlying link
between children eating during media exposure and the potential for obesity outcomes.

Media as a Sedentary Behavior

According to the displacement effect, the amount of time spent with media influences the total
time available for other pursuits, including physical activity (Mutz et al., 1993). However,
meta-analyses yielded weak relations between television viewing and both body fat percentage
and lower levels of physical activity among children, leading to questions about a displacement
effect (Marshall et al., 2004).

Media, Sleep, and Obesity

Media exposure could also increase obesity because it disrupts children’s sleep. Insufficient and
irregular childhood sleep patterns are associated with weight gain and obesity (Miller et al.,
2015). However, the causal patterns between media exposure, sleep patterns, and obesity are
not well understood. Time spent with media may displace time needed for sleeping, screens
may emit light or noise that disrupts sleeping patterns, media content may over-stimulate
children immediately prior to scheduled sleep time, which can lead to both obesity and sleep
troubles (Wolfson & Richards, 2011).
Though these four aspects of media consumption have been argued to contribute to
childhood obesity, food and beverage marketing is the most documented reason for explaining
the role of media in the childhood obesity problem. We turn now to theories that can be used
to explain this relation.

Theoretical Explanations for Advertising and Marketing Effects

Several cognitive and behavioral theories are well suited to predict why children may be
vulnerable to marketing techniques. Taken together, the cognitive and behavioral theoretical

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approaches reflect a common theme: young children have difficulty recognizing and under-
standing that the intent of commercial messages is to sell them products.

Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning describes the implicit and unconscious relation that develops between a
stimulus and a response. In the case of food marketing, the advertisement can create positive
emotional experiences that become associated with an actual product or with a branded
character that represents that product (Calvert, 2008). For example, the positive associations
between branded characters and perceptions of better cereal taste (McGale et al., 2016) could be
the result of associating positive feelings with the character.

Social Cognitive Theory

In Bandura’s (2009) social cognitive theory, children can learn behaviors by observing social
models. For a behavior to be cognitively acquired, a child must observe the behavior of others,
learn the consequences of that behavior, and encode that information to determine the ap-
propriateness of imitating the observed behavior in future situations. Behavior that is perceived
as leading to reward is more likely to be imitated than behavior that is punished. For example, if
children view a television commercial where other children are rewarded for eating a candy
bar, the viewers may be more likely to imitate the observed behavior and request or purchase a
candy bar for themselves.

Information Processing Models

Information processing models describe how stimuli are received, interpreted, stored, and re-
trieved (Calvert, 2008). Children have limited cognitive resources to deploy at any given time.
When children play advergames, for example, they must invest cognitive resources to win the
game. Consequently, children may only process the advertising messages implicitly, making it
difficult to simultaneously defend themselves against any embedded commercial messages. This
distraction may be compounded by the emotional and entertaining experiences of gaming,
which may decrease children’s ability to build a rational defense against marketed products.
Although it could be argued that the advertisement would go unprocessed, research supports
that implicit processing through mere exposure can influence familiarity with a product and
later preference for that product (Bornstein, 1989).

Processing of Commercialized Media Content Model

The processing of commercialized media content model proposes that significant pressures
weaken individuals’ defenses against advertisements throughout childhood and adolescence
(Buijzen et al., 2010). Before age 5, children perceive advertisements primarily as entertain-
ment, failing to understand their persuasive intent to sell. Due to limited cognitive ability,
automatic responses to bright colors or lively music can create positive attitudes toward the
advertised product. By middle childhood (ages 6–9), a child can sometimes understand the
persuasive intent of an advertised message. During late childhood (ages 10–12), a child becomes
more critical of persuasive messages, yet peer influences can interfere with the ability to defend
against an advertisement. During adolescence (ages 13–16), youth gradually achieve the levels

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of processing needed to be critical of commercial messages, but peer pressure and identity
formation can still influence adolescent consumers.

Persuasion Knowledge Model

In the persuasion knowledge model, consumers use their knowledge of persuasive tactics to
interpret, evaluate, and respond to advertisements (Friestad & Wright, 1994). Recognizing the
intent of marketers allows consumers to critically analyze, discount, and reject the advertised
message. However, if consumers are not consciously aware of the persuasive intent of an ad-
vertisement, their cognitive defenses are lowered and they will process the message differently.

Using Media to Promote Health

Exposing children to healthy messages on television and in electronic games can influence their
diet and levels of physical activity. If marketing devices like product placement and branded
characters can increase the desire for low-nutrient foods among youth, the same marketing
techniques could potentially increase the desire for high-nutrient foods. For example, Belgian
children who viewed a popular character endorse fruit were more likely to increase their in-
terest in fruit snacks than children who had not viewed the character (Smits & Vandebosch,
2012). When shown a chocolate bar/broccoli pairing with no branded characters on the
packaging, 22 percent of 3-to 5-year-old children preferred the broccoli to the chocolate bar.
When images of Sesame Street’s Elmo character were on the vegetable’s packaging, however, 50
percent of children chose the broccoli (Cole et al., 2010).

Healthy Product Placement

Online gaming experiences could modify the dietary habits of children by marketing healthier
foods and beverages and by promoting active lifestyles. For example, 9-to 10-year-old children
from low-income families were more likely to select healthy snacks after playing an advergame
in which they gained points for consuming bananas and juice and lost points for consuming
sodas and chips, when compared to children who played the advergame with the opposite
incentives (Pempek & Calvert, 2009). Similarly, 7–12-year-old children who played an ad-
vergame using a character who was rewarded for consuming fruit subsequently selected more
fruits as snacks (Harris et al., 2012). These studies suggest that persuasive gaming messages may
improve children’s health behaviors via classical conditioning.

Exergames
Exergames are movement-based gaming that can help stem the pediatric obesity epidemic by
increasing players’ heart rates and energy expenditure in school, community, and home en-
vironments. Exergame play in an inner-city youth development center improved 10–15-year-
old children’s physical fitness (Flynn et al., 2018), cooperative exergame play at school reduced
weight for overweight and obese youth (Staiano et al., 2018, and exergame play at home with
social support from a coach reduced 10–12-year-old children’s BMI scores as well as improved
their cardiometabolic health and physical activity levels (Staiano et al., 2018). These findings
support the use of exergames as part of a physical fitness curriculum that can traverse children’s
school and home environments.

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Policy Options and Recommendations

Media Literacy
Media literacy includes the ability, among others, of individuals to critically analyze the pro-
duction techniques and impact of media messages. Improving media literacy is a potential
school-based method of reducing the influence of media on children’s consumption of poor-
nutrient foods and sedentary behaviors (Institute of Medicine, 2006). Programs designed to
reduce screen time via school-based interventions that included teachers and an outreach
program to parents have reduced weight gain in 3rd–4th grade children (Buchanan et al., 2016;
Robinson et al., 2017). Nevertheless, the efficacy of a national school-wide curriculum in the
U.S. remains unknown.

Practitioner Training
Practitioner training is needed as parents trust those who work most closely with their
children. The American Academy of Pediatrics (2011) recommends that pediatricians counsel
parents on monitoring their children’s media accessibility (e.g., amount of viewing, content
of programs viewed, removing televisions from children’s bedrooms). Teachers are another
potential resource to educate children and parents about marketing practices and potential
health issues from exposure to unhealthy foods and beverages. Schools can provide a setting
to use exergames as an engaging physical activity for physical education classes (Staiano &
Calvert, 2011).

Advertising Regulations
Restrictions on advertising could reduce children’s exposure to poor-nutrient foods and bev-
erages. Both the U.K. and countries that are part of the European Union have regulatory and
self-regulatory policies designed to protect children from the promotion of foods and beverages
that can lead to obesity (e.g., ASA, 2017; ICC, 2019). Survey research suggests that these
regulations can influence family dietary behaviors (Silva et al., 2015).
The primary argument that has been made for federal regulations on advertising poor-
nutrient foods involves the cognitive inability of children to distinguish persuasive messages
from entertainment, but advertising restrictions are complicated by the possibility of reduced
financial support for children’s programming and First Amendment protections for U.S. ad-
vertisers (Institute of Medicine, 2006).
Financial incentives related to government taxation could be used to fund nutrition edu-
cation campaigns and programs (Institute of Medicine, 2006). Taxing food advertisements may
be difficult, however, given the political unpopularity of taxes and the likely backlash from the
food and beverage industry. Alternatively, governments could encourage the marketing of
high-nutrient foods through subsidies.

Recommendations for Future Research

More longitudinal and experimental studies are needed, especially randomized controlled trials,
in the areas of intervention and the influences of newer media on obesity outcomes. Such
studies could provide evidence for the establishment of media literacy and intervention pro-
grams as a way to stem the childhood obesity epidemic.

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Race and income are possible moderating variables that have been understudied and warrant
future research. Youth from ethnic minority and/or low-income families spend more time with
media than youth from White and/or high-income families do (Rideout & Robb, 2019;
Rideout & Robb, 2020), they are disproportionately exposed to advertisements about un-
healthy foods (Backholer et al., 2020), and they have higher rates of obesity (Fryer et al., 2020).
Children who are genetically predisposed to obesity also merit further consideration.
Scholars must keep pace with the constantly evolving definition of “media,” particularly as
media consumption relates to dietary habits and physical expenditure. Teens are exposed to an
average of 189 food advertisements a week on social media platforms (Kent et al., 2019) and
exercise science has started to place value on immersive virtual reality as a means of increasing
physical activity among obese children (Polechonski et al., 2020).

Conclusions
Obesity rates continue to escalate throughout the developed world. Although eliminating the
childhood obesity epidemic is a complex puzzle composed of genetic dispositions and many
critical environmental influences, the impact of media on children’s consumption of high fat
and low-nutrient foods has received considerable empirical support. The same marketing
techniques used to sell unhealthy products can also be used to improve the health of children
and adolescents. Concerted long-term research, educational, and policy efforts are needed to
transform the media environment from one that may be increasing obesity to one that produces
healthy outcomes for the youngest and most vulnerable citizens of our world.

SEE ALSO Chapter 20 by Dedkova, Machackova, and Smahel, Chapter 28 by Harrison and
Kemp, and Chapter 50 by Jordan and Walters in this volume.

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MEDIA AND ALCOHOL,
TOBACCO, AND DRUGS
Amy Bleakley and Morgan Ellithorpe

Substance use among youth persists as a high-risk behavior that can lead to adverse health
outcomes through adulthood. Media are an influential socialization agent for tobacco, alcohol,
and marijuana use, and youth are consistently exposed to messages that promote these beha-
viors. About 155 million youth around the world engage in smoking (Reitsma et al., 2021) and
drinking alcohol (World Health Organization, 2019). Fewer report using drugs; however
marijuana use is rising (United Nations, 2020) and vaping is an increasingly popular delivery
method for tobacco and marijuana. Across all substances, use increases markedly with age (Jones
et al., 2019). Substance use may affect youth outcomes via short-term health and social effects,
long-term substance use, and comorbidities that persist into adulthood (Hall et al., 2016).

Substance Use in Media Content

Portrayals of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and other substances are common in content featured in
media popular with youth, including television (Barker et al., 2019; Flynn et al., 2015) and
films (Bleakley et al., 2018; Ellithorpe et al., 2017), social media (Hendriks et al., 2018; Krauss
et al., 2017), music and music videos (Cranwell et al., 2017; Cranwell et al., 2015), and
YouTube videos (Lim et al., 2021; Primack et al., 2017). Portrayals are generally positive in
media (Hendriks et al., 2018; Stevens et al., 2020), including infrequent depictions of con-
sequences. Tobacco use in top-grossing movies is lower now than in the early 2000s; however
the number of tobacco incidents is increasing and remains common in youth-rated movies
(Polansky et al., 2020; Tynan et al., 2017). Vaping, which is more popular with youth com-
pared to cigarette smoking, is currently less common in films (Tynan et al., 2017), but prevalent
on social media (Ketonen & Malik, 2020) and YouTube (Yang et al., 2018).

Effects of Exposure to Substances in Media

Media are one of many contributing factors to youth risk-taking (Fischer et al., 2011). Jackson
and Bartholow (2020) organize the processes into interpersonal (i.e., personal identity, social
identity, social norms) and intrapersonal (i.e., attitude formation, expectancies) effects within
the context of alcohol advertising and youth drinking.

268 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-34

 Media and Alcohol, Tobacco, and Drugs

Alcohol
A robust literature demonstrates links between alcohol advertising (Berey et al., 2017; Jackson
& Bartholow, 2020) and alcohol-related content on positive alcohol-related expectancies
(Collins et al., 2017; Dal Cin et al., 2009), norms (Elmore et al., 2017; Jackson et al., 2021), and
drinking behaviors (Sargent et al., 2006; Tucker et al., 2013). Most research on alcohol use
tends to focus on legacy media such as television, movies, and music; however, studies on social
media have demonstrated similar associations (Curtis et al., 2018; Geusens & Beullens, 2017;
Moreno et al., 2016).

Tobacco
In 2012, the Surgeon General concluded that exposure to smoking in movies causes young
people to start smoking (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2012). Healthy People
2020 and 2030 objectives in the U.S. include a reduction in youth exposure to tobacco
marketing in media (Tynan et al., 2017). Exposure to smoking in entertainment media and
tobacco advertising are both related to youth smoking (Sargent et al., 2009).

Marijuana and Other Drugs

There are fewer studies that investigate media effects associated with exposure to content
featuring marijuana and/or other drugs because alcohol and sex are more ubiquitous in media
content and there are a host of ethical/legal issues involved with studying drug use in minors.
However, pro-marijuana messages created by youth on social media are “ubiquitous and
overwhelmingly positive” and are associated with lower risk perception (Roditis et al., 2016)
and increased marijuana use (Park & Holody, 2018). Time spent with television, video games,
and the internet in Saudi Arabia (AlSayyari & AlBuhairan, 2018) and listening to music in U.S.
(Primack 2009) has also been shown to be associated with increased substance use.

Relevant Theoretical Mechanisms

Theories on Psychological Processes and Effects

Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) (Bandura & McClelland, 1977) posits that youth learn from
media and that learning is likely to be translated into behavior when (a) the role model is similar
to the viewer, (b) the behavior and/or context are realistic, (c) the role model is attractive, and
(d) the behavior is positively reinforced. This effect takes place through processes of “priming”
or acceptance of stereotypes and schemas (Ward, 2003) and scripts (Eggermont, 2006). The
Reasoned Action approach (TRA, TPB, IM) (Ajzen, 1991; Fishbein & Ajzen, 2011) can also
be used to explain the effects of media content on behavior because the behavioral, normative,
and control beliefs that guide behaviors are learned from direct experience or from significant
others and has been used to explain how media exposure affect other risk behaviors.

Theories on Media Use/Selection and Effects

The Reinforcing Spirals Model (Slater, 2007, 2015) conceives media use as “dynamic” and
“endogenous” (Slater, 2015). That is, media use is shaped by social and individual factors, and in
turn, influences beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in a bidirectional process. Support for these

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mutually influential processes have been demonstrated, for example, with substance-related
media use and alcohol consumption (Tucker et al., 2013) and exposure to music video channels
and cigarette smoking (Slater & Hayes, 2010) in the U.S., and alcohol-related social media use
in Belgium (Geusens & Beullens, 2020).
The Differential Susceptibility Model of Media Effects (DSMM) stipulates that media effects
are transactional; that is, there is a reciprocal relationship between media response states, media
use, and behavior. The DSMM asserts that some youth are more vulnerable to media effects
than others based on three categories of factors: dispositional (e.g., personality, cognitions),
developmental (e.g., cognitive, social, and emotional development), and/or social (e.g., con-
texts such as parents or cultural norms) (Valkenburg & Peter, 2013).

Approaches to Reduce Negative Media Influence

Top-Down Regulations
Advertising for any illegal good or service is outlawed in many countries, including illegal
substances. For example, advertising for tobacco products on television and radio has been
banned in the U.S. since 1971, and the 1999 Master Settlement Agreement restricted outdoor
advertising for tobacco products near schools. However, such ads are less regulated in online
spaces (Radesky et al., 2020). Companies have used a variety of digital marketing strategies to
reach youth, including influencer posts and music videos – especially for the rapidly growing
e-cigarette market (Huang et al., 2014; Radesky et al., 2020). Alcohol advertising is not
restricted by the federal U.S. government, but some states and municipalities have restricted its
placement near schools or banned messaging targeting minors. Marketing of alcohol products
too has moved to online spaces (Jernigan & Rushman, 2014; Radesky et al., 2020). Black youth
are particularly targeted for online tobacco and alcohol marketing (D’Amico et al., 2017; Soneji
et al., 2019).
Private trade groups have also created guidelines that affect the likelihood of youth exposure
to substance use in media. For example, in the U.S. the MPAA weighs tobacco use in films in
determining ratings. However, there is no stipulation that tobacco use is an automatic R-rating,
despite calls from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Research finds
that substance use depiction is present but limited in the ratings levels meant for the very
youngest consumers (G, PG, TV-Y), but beyond that lowest age rating alcohol and tobacco use
are prevalent with little distinction between content intended for tweens and teens compared to
adults (Gabrielli et al., 2016; Polansky et al., 2020). It should be noted that films produced in
the U.S. have similar alcohol content but less tobacco content than those produced in Europe
and South/Central America (Barrientos-Gutierrez et al., 2015; Kollath-Cattano et al., 2016;
Thrasher et al., 2014).

The Role for Parents in Media and Substance Use

Parents play a large role in their child’s substance use in a variety of ways (Rusby et al., 2018;
Stoolmiller et al., 2012). In the media context the role of parents is generally parental med-
iation, classified originally by three dimensions: rules and regulations, communication about
media, and co-viewing Collier et al., 2016). Rules and regulations involve restricting exposure
to perceived negative content (a.k.a., “restrictive mediation”). Parental restriction of films with
mature ratings is associated with reduced likelihood of early-onset alcohol use, current alcohol
use, binge drinking, tobacco use, and illicit drug use (Cox et al., 2018; Tanski et al., 2010).

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Communication about media, also often called “active mediation,” involves instruction and
evaluation of the media content. A parent might explain to their child why substance use is
dangerous or point out inaccuracies in content that glamorizes substance use. Meta-analysis
suggests overall a small but significant protective effect (Collier et al., 2016). Lastly, co-viewing
involves using the media content together. This may come with communication about the
content (“active co-viewing”) or not (“passive co-viewing”). Passive co-viewing of risky
content tends to be associated with riskier behavior (Collier et al., 2016), as it leads children to
place more importance on the content due to the presence of their parent.

Media Literacy Interventions

Media literacy interventions are designed to help people avoid negative media effects by in-
oculating them against future effects and/or countering an already-existing effect (Potter, 2013).
They tend to focus on imparting message analysis and evaluations skills, as well as knowledge
about media content and effects. Meta-analyses and systematic reviews find that, while needing
more clarity and standardization, media literacy interventions are generally effective in reducing
youth risk behaviors including substance use (Hindmarsh et al., 2015; Xie et al., 2019).

Strategic Messaging to Prevent Substance Use

Counter-messaging
Intervention messaging in substance use has a long history of research. Mass-media (e.g., tel-
evision, radio) campaigns targeting adolescents and emerging adults have generally had mixed
effectiveness according the meta-analyses of English-language studies, and more systematic
research is needed (Anker et al., 2016; Carson‐Chahhoud et al., 2017). For example, a sys-
tematic analysis of mass-mediated anti-illicit drug campaigns aimed at youth in Australia,
Canada, and the U.S., found a mix of no effect, positive effect, and unintended negative effects
(Allara et al., 2015). Campaigns using newer technologies, e.g., mHealth (mobile-health)
campaigns, seem to be more promising – likely due to the ability to micro-target with in-
dividualized messaging (Marsch & Borodovsky, 2016; Mason et al., 2015).
There are some risks of unintended message effects with anti-substance use messaging. A
boomerang effect (Byrne & Hart, 2009) is a lagged response in the opposite direction of the
intended effect. Message processing can lead to the wrong conclusion, or psychological re-
sistance to the intended conclusion can occur (Byrne & Hart, 2009). For the former, messaging
targeting current users can inadvertently create cravings for the substance by its mere mention.
Campaigns can also inadvertently create a descriptive norm that substance use is common,
making it seem more desirable (Byrne & Hart, 2009; Hornik et al., 2008). Psychological re-
sistance can occur in the form of psychological reactance, or a negative response to a perceived
affront to freedom of choice (Miller et al., 2006; Miller et al., 2020). In this case, recipients
understand the intended message meaning, but reject it due to the sense that the message is
telling them what to do. Regardless of the mechanism, boomerang effects are common and are
an important factor to consider in persuasive anti-substance use messaging.

Graphic Warning Labels

Warning labels also communicate risk information. The World Health Organization (WHO)
has recommended graphic warning labels and plain packaging – packaging without marketing

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content – as a deterrent to tobacco use; over 100 countries have adopted some form of this
recommendation (Canadian Cancer Society, 2016). Findings across studies in multiple coun-
tries suggest that adolescents notice the graphic warnings, exposure is associated with negative
emotional responses (e.g., fear, disgust, anxiety), and there is an association between exposure to
graphic warnings and reduced smoking initiation among adolescent non-smokers and increased
quitting intention among current adolescent smokers (Drovandi et al., 2019; Hwang & Cho,
2020).

Conclusion
Media are influential in the promotion of substance use among youth. Strong evidence links
media content to youth cognitions, norms, and behaviors. Theoretical mechanisms that em-
phasize reciprocal, dynamic processes and differential susceptibility recognize the role of au-
dience and contextual factors in media selection and effects. Approaches to reduce and prevent
exposure to substance-related content and its effects include regulations, parental involvement,
and media literacy, as well as messaging efforts like graphic warning labels. Future directions in
research include more rigorous studies on the effects of exposure to marijuana given its in-
creasing popularity, how combinations of different substances onscreen may affect behavior,
and studies that more closely analyze social media content and how the content is linked to
cognitive and behavioral outcomes.

SEE ALSO Chapter 20 by Dedkova, Machackova, and Smahel in this volume.

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MEDIA AND LEARNING OF
THE SOCIAL WORLD
Srividya Ramasubramanian and Patrick R. Johnson

Media and Learning of the Social World

Children and young people are social creatures who observe, learn, and understand themselves
and others through the real world and mediated experiences (Isbouts & Ohler, 2013;
Subrahmanyam & Smahel, 2011; Walsh & Ward, 2008). News stories and fictional narratives
are common ways children learn about social identities, values, and hierarchies. This chapter
focuses on how media narratives teach children how to navigate the social world, the roles and
expectations of various social groups, and how to develop social relationships with members of
various groups. These lessons shape their sense of self and others and how they identify
themselves within social contexts (Bovill & Livingstone, 2001; Dill-Shackleford et al. 2017;
Lemish, 2015; Ramasubramanian et al., 2020).
It is critical for those working with young people to understand what types of media
messages youth use and how youth shape and are shaped by the media. It is important to
consider the different social contexts children are a part of and the complex ways media are
interwoven into the co-construction of their social worlds (Paus-Hasebrink et al., 2019).
Towards this end, the current chapter takes a multidisciplinary, intersectional, and global
perspective to synthesize literature from media studies, sociology, and education. It reviews the
role of media within the socialization of children, the ways in which such learning differs
through various developmental stages of children’s lives, the social world represented within
children’s media and their effects on children’s perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. It has
implications for researchers, educators, and policymakers who work with young people in both
formal and informal settings such as schools, neighborhood groups, online communities, and
youth organizations.

How Children Learn about the Social World

Children’s abilities to develop schemas, or scripts, is a critical part of their development and of
their learning of the symbolic in the social world. These scripts, which include things as simple
as taking a bath or getting ready for bed, are seen in children as young as three years (Hudson
et al., 1997). Toddlers begin to understand that people and objects are distinctly different from
themselves (Piaget, 1930). This distinction creates a trajectory of learning through which a child

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 S. Ramasubramanian and P.R. Johnson

can acculturate into their greater social world over a period of time. Observations during these
early stages of life provide children with many of the scripts, or schemas, which they hold into
adolescence and adulthood. From ages 2 to 7, children are still unable to rationalize the logic
or symbolism of what they see. Because of this, as children experience the social world through
media, they begin to develop scripts to organize, or operationalize, what they are being
exposed to.
By age 7, children are in the gradual process of developing the cognitive and emotional
maturity to distinguish fact from fiction. Therefore, they are much more likely to confuse facts
with fantasy narratives as they construct their real world from these mediated experiences
(Nikken & Peeters, 1988; Woolley & Ghossainy, 2013). As children develop more concrete
understanding of the social world, they continue to create schemas in which to organize groups,
ideas, and experiences into manageable chunks (Wartella & Pila, 2020). Their models about the
world around them change to fit the social needs that are developmentally appropriate (Calvert,
2020). As children grow up, they have a better grasp of fantasy versus fiction. They emerge into
adolescence having undergone a series of arguably drastic shifts in their learning of the social
world around them.
Adolescence marks significant role transitions, conflicts, and choices, which are shaped by
several factors such as peer group and media. Come adolescence, this socialization also involves
how teens understand themselves, as well as how they educate their parents. For example,
LGBTQ teens use LGBTQ content and models to rationalize how the world sees them and
therefore how their parents can understand their gendered and sexual identities (Mares et al.,
2021). In some regards, these become the stereotypes children hold into their adolescence and
adulthood.

Media as Agents of Socialization for Children

Sociocultural experiences such as learning from community interaction are also central to
meaning making (Vygotsky, 1930/1981). From a sociocultural perspective, learning about the
social world is influenced by individual cultures and experiences with people and objects within
the culture, rather than a generalized experience for all children based only on their age group.
What adults such as family members, teachers, or other community members share with
children have a significant impact on how scripts are internalized. These connections are then
shared with peers, who too shape meaning making, and the cycle creates a cultural knowledge
that is communicated among its members. Children develop differently depending on the
sociocultural landscape they experience and live within (Thi Kim Anh & Marginson, 2013).
From this perspective, media as cultural products and institutions serve as learning agents in
how children develop their perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of the world. Media are
important institutions of cultural socialization for children, which are enmeshed and embedded
within other social institutions such as family, education, faith groups, and so on. For instance,
Nathanson (2010) has emphasized the role of parental mediation through methods such as co-
viewing and active conversations that can significantly influence how children perceive and
make sense of media content.
It is also true, though, that the time spent with media by children is increasingly becoming
higher than with other agents of socialization such as schools and families (Rideout & Robb,
2019; Smahel et al., 2020). Due to the digital revolution, rapid media proliferation, the con-
vergence of media formats, and relatively low costs of data access, children and adolescents have
greater access to media at a younger age than previous generations. It is not uncommon for
children from middle-class families in many parts of the world to own their computers, tablets,

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and cell phones from a very young age (Rideout & Robb, 2019). Indeed, young people are
considered by some as “digital natives” since they are born and socialized into digital tech-
nologies from a very young age (Burn et al., 2010).
We also need to contend with the fact that almost all aspects of everyday social relations and
practices of children are increasingly being shaped by and embedded within media and com-
munication systems (Livingstone, 2009). Therefore, knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes about the
world around them are “mediatized” in ways such that technology and everyday living are
intertwined (Couldry & Hepp, 2017). So much so that media-free times and places for children
are becoming increasingly difficult to carve out and even imagine. Multiple media use, media
multitasking, and cross-media usage are especially the norm in several industrialized and
wealthy nations. Conversations with friends and family about news and entertainment are
common ways to bond with others. This has especially been true during the COVID-19
pandemic, when children’s screen time has skyrocketed due to virtual schooling, social dis-
tancing, and lockdown measures (Götz & Lemish, in press). The focus of the conversations
during this time has been on the educational benefits of media and the importance of digital
literacy for social connectedness, especially in places heavily impacted by the deadly virus
around the world (Sarwatay et al., 2021).

The Social World in Children’s Media Content

The media world offers children the opportunity to experience social worlds beyond what is
available in their immediate surroundings. They teach children what it means to be human,
how to understand one’s positionality in society, and what it means to be an insider or outsider
within a social group. Narratives allow children to consider various social scenarios and throw
light on the ways in which social relationships are constructed communicatively within those
contexts. For children who are immersed in mediated worlds, their understanding of the world,
especially the social world, is heavily shaped by the images, narratives, and information they
routinely consume in the media.
Cultivation theory describes how growing up in a media-saturated environment shapes
viewers’ sense of social reality, which in turn influences behaviors and beliefs (Bilandzic &
Busselle, 2008; Gerbner, 1998). Although this theory was first applied to television research, it
has now been applied to the broader media-rich environment that children inhabit such as
video games (Martins et al., 2009). The cultivation differential suggests that heavy media users
are more likely than light media users to have a biased perception of the world around them.
One of the implications is that even fictional stories can have psychological effects, just like
factual information. Their perceived reality is closer to the mediated world rather than the “real
world.” These biased perceptions are called “first order effects” and the ways in which these
perceptions shape values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors are termed “second order effects”
(Hawkins & Pingree, 1980; van Mierlo & van den Bulck, 2004).
A related concept is symbolic annihilation (Tuchman, 2000), which refers to the absence and
invisibility of certain social groups within media and other symbol systems in our societies.
Social groups that are considered low status within social hierarchies based on gender, race,
social class, religion and other such identifiers are often erased from the media landscape in
systematic ways. Existing studies indicate that racial/ethnic minorities are consistently under-
represented in media in general, across various genres, and in programming for children more
specifically (Behm-Morawitz & Ortiz, 2012; Hamlen & Imbesi, 2020; Martins et al., 2009;
Williams et al., 2009). For instance, Williams and colleagues (2009), found that 89.5% of lead
characters and 85.5% of secondary characters are male. Similarly, lead characters in TV shows

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targeted at preschoolers continue to be predominantly male and white (Peruta & Powers, 2017;
Hamlen & Imbesi, 2020). Asian, Latinx and Indigenous characters are especially under-
represented. Dill-Shackleford and colleagues (2016) call for more inclusive media representa-
tion and counter-stereotypical portrayals, especially of multiply marginalized groups, within
children’s media.

The Effects of Media on Children’s Learning About the Social World

Social learning theory (Bandura, 2001) asserts that sociocultural influences are critically important
to human behaviors and attitudes. Children develop their understanding of the social world
through symbols and environmental events. These symbols are ways in which people can
communicate their experiences and have shared social values. These symbols are also learned from
modeling, and the models became something for people to imitate. Through abstract modeling of
media characters and narratives, children are constantly learning how social systems operate and
indeed at a macro-level, these experiences change the overall socio-political environment in
which they live. Whereas there is the potential for dramatic social change, media, within this
framework, also has the capacity to affect children’s perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors.
Another important dimension of social learning theory is the role of media in learning about
moral reasoning. From ages 5 to 7, much of children’s concept of morality is defined by
physical consequences of actions (Kohlberg, 1975). Many of the cartoons and movies that
children interact with prominently feature a hero/villain dichotomy where the heroes’ actions
are rewarded, and the villains physically punished. This allows for children to learn the dif-
ferences between being morally right or wrong, thus positioning good against evil, and creating
a lasting schema of the world. When children watch media narratives, they learn what is morally
right and wrong based on whether media characters are punished or rewarded in both explicit
and implicit ways. For example, when a child watches PAW Patrol and they see the Kitten
Catastrophe Crew being physically punished for doing bad things, it teaches them that if one
were to do something bad then they too would face consequences. As children become
adolescents, they develop conventional morality and enact the values they began learning in the
first stage in their interpersonal relationships (Kohlberg, 1975). These relationships also help to
establish social norms and social groupings, which are sometimes defined by the cultural texts
members consume, including from the media. This is oftentimes affirmed when understanding
children’s learning of gendered social and moral norms about ideas such as sexuality and body
image (Aubrey & Harrison, 2004).
Within media contexts, affective disposition theory posits that moral judgments about media
characters influence enjoyment of media (Raney, 2004; Zillmann & Cantor, 1977). When a
character’s behavior is seen as moral, then there is an attachment to or care for the character.
Raney (2004) contends that the stronger the reaction to the character, the greater the enjoy-
ment. For instance, Baker and Raney (2007) found that traditional gender roles, as evidenced
through superheroes in children’s cartoons, socialize children to elevate moral behaviors at-
tached to male characters.
Children use media as a model that therefore not only informs their learning of the social
world, but also influences their behaviors within it. The literature on children’s media and
social representations from around the world over the last few decades has documented popular
media stereotypes of different social groups and the serious negative consequences they could
have on such topics such as aggressive behaviors, low self-esteem, cyberbullying, eating dis-
orders, and other negative effects (Livingstone, 2014; Ringrose et al., 2013). Among older
children, for instance, Ward, Vandenbosch, and Eggermont (2015) surveyed nearly 600 Belgian

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boys about their reading of men’s magazines of various sorts. They found that reading these
kinds of magazines led to objectifying women and was significantly related to gender stereo-
typed beliefs even six months later. However, scholars show that when such messages are
mediated through parent-child discussions, media literacy initiatives or exposure to more po-
sitive counter-stereotypical role models, these biases can be reduced (Nathanson, 2010;
Ramasubramanian, 2007; Ramasubramanian et al., 2020).
Social learning theory can also include how children learn socially necessary concepts such as
trust and empathy to build positive social relationships. Preschoolers, for example, were found
to learn best from character models that exhibited the strongest character trait of trust
(Schlesinger et al., 2016). Children’s interactions with the media often include rich connections
through parasocial relationships. For example, U.S. teens wishfully identify with popular
Japanese manga comic heroines and adopt mannerisms and attitudes of the characters whom
they idolize (Ramasubramanian & Kornfield, 2012). They treat media characters as real friends,
often positioning them as social partners to fill voids within their current social environment.
These parasocial relationships, which are enhanced through increased digital and social media
exposure, create deep emotional attachments that, in turn, teach children about social ex-
periences they will encounter.
Through coordinated media initiatives, a variety of media spaces (such as streaming TV,
social media networks, online magazines, blogs, interactive museum exhibits, video games, and
the like) can bring about social change in meaningful ways to help children mitigate social
stereotypes. For instance, Ramasubramanian (2016) demonstrates how alternative transmedia
storytelling through fictional TV streaming series such as East Los High that included a majority
Latinx-American cast of young actors as well as a non-fictional interactive storytelling space
such as Question Bridge that examines Black masculinity through a question-and-answer video
format are community-engaged media initiatives that have successfully addressed difficult topics
such as teenage pregnancy, sexual health, racism, and gendered violence. Social media, in
particular, are powerful spaces for collaboration and civic engagement to cultivate political
participation, community-building, and other ways of developing active citizenship among
young people (Ramasubramanian & Darzabi, 2020; Ramasubramanian et al., 2020). For in-
stance, the online magazine, Latinitas, serves as an exception in the otherwise predominantly
white space of children’s media to create opportunities for young Latinas in Texas to express
their opinions through online spaces.

Conclusion
If one were to collectively consider the cognitive, sociocultural, and moral perspectives of child
development, then the context of media influence becomes increasingly more relevant to how
children and adolescents come to learn about the social world. From a generational perspective,
cohorts of young people experience similarities in how they experience the world around us.
Terms such as millennials, Gen Z, and so on take on specific cultural meanings in terms of the
shared patterns of social experiences and expectations across generations. The roles and ex-
pectations that children are socialized into could vary vastly across different cohorts, geo-
graphical regions, cultural contexts, and communities even within societies.
Despite rapid proliferation of digital technologies around the world among young people,
the speeds and rates of adoption of media technologies are slower for socially marginalized kids,
especially those from lower income groups (Götz et al., 2018; Paus-Hasebrink et al., 2019;
Ramasubramanian, 2016). Several content analytical studies examine how social groups are
portrayed across various media types and genres. However, only a few of these systematic

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studies focus specifically on children’s media content. More work is needed on children and
adolescents’ media representations of social groups around the world, especially among cul-
turally, economically, and linguistically marginalized groups who are systematically ignored,
neglected, and misrepresented in the media.
Critical media effects perspectives (Ramasubramanian & Banjo, 2020) suggest that it is
important to consider questions of power, intersectionality, context, and agency in under-
standing how media influence and shape social worlds, including for children. As Alper and
colleagues (2016) and Jordan and Prendella (2019) argued elsewhere, one needs to consider the
“invisible children,” especially those who do not belong to Western Educated Industrialized
Rich Democratic (WEIRD) nations to get a more nuanced theoretical and practical perspective
on how various types of media shape children from different subcultures around the world
across various age groups. Through media literacy initiatives in the long-term, trauma-informed
approaches to media education, and greater representation of marginalized groups in children’s
programming (Ramasubramanian et al., 2020; Scharrer & Ramasubramanian, 2015), we can
make the media world that children inherit, inhabit, and influence, more culturally inclusive,
socially relevant, and politically active.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Nancy Jennings for her helpful feedback and Emily
Riewestahl for her assistance with proof-reading.

SEE ALSO Chapter 40 by Leon-Boys, Rivera, and Valdivia, Chapter 41 by Elias and Abdulaev,
and Chapter 42 by Nolf, d’Haenens, and Joris in this volume.

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CHILDREN’S CITIZENSHIP
AND THE NEWS
Cynthia Carter

Introduction
It has become a truism that children, no matter where they live in the world, regard the news as
“boring,” largely refusing to read newspapers, tune into television or radio news, or search out
news on the internet.1 What news they do seek out, largely via social media, is widely regarded,
even by many young people themselves, as often unreliable and untrustworthy (Ofcom, 2020).
One consequence of this view has been that few scholars have investigated children’s re-
lationships to the news and its role in facilitating their development as informed and active
citizens. The term “boring” is still largely misunderstood but, nevertheless, assumed to be
accurate. It is thus imperative this ideologically loaded assumption about children’s civic apathy
is unpacked, particularly at a time when there is widespread concern around “fake news” and
evidence suggesting children often find it difficult to differentiate between factual, trustworthy
news from that which is deliberately or unintentionally untrue (Tamboer et al., 2020).
When children say adult news is “boring,” they often mean it represents a world of adults
doing largely incomprehensible things, where children’s interests and opinions are rarely re-
garded as noteworthy (unless they are doing something bad) or valuable (extraordinarily good).
When news is produced with children’s civic development in mind, it has the potential to
enable them as citizens, empowering them to develop an ongoing interest in the world (Carter
et al., 2021; Messenger Davies et al., 2012).
As Lemish (2007a) suggests, if children are citizens (“being”) rather than citizens in the making
(“becoming”) they “need access to the mediated public domain of television news – both as an
audience whose needs and interests are taken into consideration as well as participants whose
opinions and concerns are being voiced” (2007a, pp. 136–137). Of course, these arguments are also
relevant for thinking about how best to reach young audiences online with a civic purpose in mind.
This chapter assesses the contributions of research investigating the role of news, both adults’ and
children’s, in facilitating or hindering children’s development and democratic participation.

Defining Childhood and Children’s Citizenship

As already noted, there are those who regard children as “citizens in the making” whilst others
see them as always already citizens with rights and responsibilities. Each position rests on certain

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-36 285

 Cynthia Carter

conceptions of the child which establish different stances on their citizenship and relationships
to the news.
For some, childhood is marked by a series of psychological and physical developments
(Piaget, 1969). It is presumed to be a period of innocence and vulnerability gradually leading to
adulthood; lack of worldly experience makes children susceptible to corruption (by “bad”
adults), so it becomes the responsibility of adults (“good” ones) to protect them. Some take the
view, to varying degrees, that children therefore ought to be shielded from the news, parti-
cularly violent events, because prolonged exposure may lead to psychological trauma (Riddle
et al., 2012). For others, childhood is regarded as a social construction and thus an arbitrary and
changing category (Ariès, 1962; Jenks, 1992). From this perspective, children are already ci-
tizens with rights and responsibilities, and therefore should be engaging with the news.
Bennett (2008) proposes two distinct conceptual approaches shaping scholarly study of
children’s citizenship and news. In the first, associated with child development models already
described, it is assumed children’s political awareness and ability to cope with the news builds as
they mature. In Bennett’s second approach, linked to social construction theories of childhood
also outlined above, children are regarded as citizens, but they are nevertheless disenfranchised
by the news, thus undermining their interest and, potentially, their active political participation.

Adult News
Scholars have investigated the role of the news media in children’s political socialization, po-
tential negative effects of news exposure, the representation of children, and the child audience.
The studies examined here illuminate how this research has tended to view children – as
politically naïve whose news consumption needs gradual encouragement to prepare them for
adult life; as innocents in need of protection from news about a violent world; and as helpless
victims (or victimizers themselves) of personal violence.

News and Children’s Political Socialization

Research on children’s political socialization goes back at least six decades. Early studies pre-
sumed it entailed learning and internalizing accepted norms, values, and behaviours of the
prevailing political system. It was founded on a top-down model of communication assuming
“what was thought necessary for citizens to learn was a single set of facts, beliefs and behaviours
reflecting a unified political system.” Families, schools, and news media were to be the
“conduits in transmitting to the neophyte citizens what mature citizens knew and practiced”
(McLeod, 2000, p. 46). The child was viewed as a passive recipient of information passed on by
authoritative, adult sources.
By the 1970s, researchers examined youth political socialization through developmental stages
(Conway et al., 1975). Rather than passively absorbing news content, children ought to be en-
couraged to express their views as they mature as a way of gradually becoming political. From the
1990s to the present, concerns over declining civic knowledge, political participation, news con-
sumption, and literacy have prompted renewed engagement with socialization theories (Brites et al.,
2017; van Deth et al., 2011; Hadar-Shoval & Alon-Tirosh, 2019). Recent research has focused on
the opportunities and challenges around the development of children’s civic engagement and news
literacy, particularly in digital news environments (Clark & Marchi, 2017; Mihailidis, 2014) and to
counteract the rise of “fake news” (Marchi, 2012; Ofcom, 2020; Tamboer et al., 2020).
However, some researchers advise caution in assuming children’s greater engagement with
the news will reinvigorate the public sphere and create the “healthy citizen.” It is also important

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to note journalism scholarship has tended to assume the merits of children’s news engagement
from largely White, middle-class perspectives. Socialization within the family, school, and news
settings generates “class-distinctive news orientations.” Lindell and Sartoretto (2017) argue the
media facilitate class fragmentation in news tastes legitimating social distinctions and hierarchical
social differences, thus feeding contemporary class antagonisms (see also Brites, 2014).

Negative Effects of News Violence

In contrast to those who emphasize the importance of news in children’s political socialization,
others warn care is needed when exposing children to adult news. Violent stories, in particular,
may cause children emotional harm (van der Molen & Konijn, 2007). Some argue certain facts
and images are inappropriate for specific age groups and therefore recommend limited exposure
to the news (Riddle et al., 2012) and/or parental co-viewing and explanation about the context
of news stories (Root et al., 2015). Others, however, suggest parental co-viewing or restricting
children’s access to violent news does little to mitigate their fears and may induce greater
sadness. Whilst mediation should increase civic knowledge, it may also result in long-term
negative effects and lower emotional resilience (De Cock, 2012). Götz et al. (2019) conclude
the wealth of media today make it inevitable children will find out about negative news events,
so if they don’t “understand and assimilate the events, their fear increases, and it is more likely
that they will respond inappropriately to situations” (2019, p. 14).
Effects studies have generated important insights into children’s responses to news and raised
awareness about the possible short-and long-term emotional harm children may experience
after exposure to violence and other types of news children find frightening (i.e., war, terrorism,
kidnapping). Much of this research has emerged from the fields of psychology and medicine,
focusing on individual, psychological intervention to limit emotional harm.

Representing Children
Children’s views are rarely heard in adult news, even when they are at the centre of a story.
Asking children for their opinions on this, Carter et al.’s U.K. study (2009) found whilst some
express anger over their exclusion from adult news, others make positive suggestions to why
children should be included. “I think all children’s ideas are important, just as important as
adults, they just don’t let us say anything because they think that adults’ ideas are more sensible
than children’s” (“Nat,” Bournemouth, boy aged 9) (2009, p. 26). Kaziaj’s (2017) study looking
at the representation of children in Albanian television news found it to be constructed via an
“adult gaze” which marginalizes and silences children’s voices, thereby reinforcing “the
dominant perspectives of adults on children as vulnerable and dependent” (2017, p. 99).
Avgitidou and Stamou’s (2013) analysis of Greek press coverage of child perpetrators of
school violence concludes news stories tend to normalize discourses around children as passive
victims of global (world violence, violent video games) or local (poor parenting) factors (2013,
p. 182). In so doing, such narratives reproduce children’s subordinate status in society.
Similarly, Kuş et al’s (2016) research on children’s representation in the Turkish national press
demonstrates they often show up as victims of avoidable adult negligence, traffic accidents, child
abuse, and murder. For some, these stories are positive because they encourage the public to put
pressure on the state to better protect children’s rights. Others, however, conclude such re-
presentations may disempower children by sensationalizing their suffering (2016, p. 136). To
address concerns raised by both views, there is a need to establish standard journalistic principles
ensuring children’s rights are upheld.

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Children’s images are frequently used to symbolize the brutality of war, famine, genocide,
and the plight of refugees to arouse adult sympathy and humanize events (Mortensen et al.,
2017). For example, in 2015, newspapers around the world featured the shocking photograph
of 3-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Khurdi whose body was washed up on a beach in Turkey.
Some news outlets included his full name which, according to Guardian reporter Ian Jack,
served to “represent a step on the journey to thinking of them as like ourselves” and, similarly, a
columnist in Canada’s National Post asserted, “Kurdi could have been anyone’s child, which is
why, I think, the image was so powerful” (2017, p. 83).

Child News Audiences

Lemish’s (1998) research with kindergarten-aged children in the U.S. and Israel challenges the
view they find adult news to be boring. Interest in the news is related to the socio-political
context (if it is seen to be important to everyday life) and parental mediation – an inclination
towards protectiveness in the U.S., versus exposure and family discussion in Israel (1998,
p. 502). American children tend to be less interested in news, whilst Israeli children’s interest
grows with age. A sociocultural understanding of the context of children’s news consumption
suggests children in each country are “socialized into very different sets of expectations toward
their news media and its role in a democratic society” (1998, p. 501).
Tamboer et al.’s (2020) Dutch focus group research with 55 young teenagers notes many
find the news to be “difficult and boring” but nonetheless follow it because they feel it is
important to be well informed to realize “citizenship, professional and social goals” (2020,
p. 11). For many, the term “boring” relates directly to regarding the news as “repetitive, and
negative, and lacking connection with early adolescents” (2020, p. 13). And yet, this ad-
mittedly complicated expression of interest in the news often goes unacknowledged. Brites’
(2014) Portuguese study comes to a comparable conclusion, where she notes the important
role played by news literacy education in children’s willingness to be informed and civically
engaged (2014, p. 130).

Children’s News
Whilst scholars are increasingly investigating children’s news production, content, and audi-
ences, the corpus of research remains limited. Whether or not children engage with news, many
countries have developed children’s news programmes, newspapers, and websites believing
them to be important for social and civic development. Much of the existing research examines
teens’ news engagement rather than news especially produced for this audience, with the focus
resting on their use of adult news, social media, news produced by youth for youth, and
engagements with satirical news programmes, such as The Daily Show.

News Production
The dearth of children’s television news programmes globally is partly due to their high cost
compared to dramas, cartoons, or other types of shows that can be sold, resold, and endlessly
repeated worldwide. Additionally, advertisers appear to prefer promotional slots next to “fun”
programmes rather than “serious” ones, thereby providing even less incentive to create factual
programmes (Carter et al., 2021). Where children’s news exists, it is largely provided by public
service broadcasters (PSBs) who have statutory or historical obligations to the civic develop-
ment and engagement of children.

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One of the few in-depth, newsroom ethnographies of children’s news was undertaken over two
decades ago by Matthews (2008). His study of Newsround found although the programme is not
subject to the same economic pressures as commercial children’s news providers, it still has
to maximize audiences to justify its relevance for its young audiences. As a result, producers tend to
highlight “entertaining” stories over “serious” ones, and emotional reactions over reasoned ones to
attract and keep audiences (2008, pp. 269–272). Stories are overly simplified, sometimes resulting in
de-contextualizing events, making them more “palatable” rather than “intelligible” (2008, p. 274).
Kleemans and Tamboer’s research (2021) examines decisions made by producers at Jeugdjournaal,
the Dutch PSB children’s news programme, around balancing the need to inform children whilst
not causing them undue distress. Here, the focus is on “consolation strategies” producers use to
achieve this balance. The first strategy consists of avoiding reporting very negative or violent topics.
Since it is often not feasible to do so when certain stories are widely circulating, a second strategy, the
“sandwich formula,” is used, reporting “child- friendly” events directly before and after negative
items to diminish emotional impacts. Are these strategies still relevant in an age when children are
routinely exposed to negative events via a wide range of digital media, ask the authors, before
concluding this makes an even stronger case for the importance of children’s news pertinent to their
“cognitive and emotional needs.”
Studies looking at news produced by children and young people themselves represent a
growing genre of research. For instance, Clark and Monserrate (2011) have examined how
student involvement in high school journalism in the U.S. has made important contributions to
their political socialization, helping to create a wider sense of civic belonging and community.
Carter (2019) has assessed how some young girls have engaged in the production of news and
political commentary. Examples include the 7-year-old American, Hilde Lysiak, who launched
a community newspaper, 10-year-old British girl Maelo Manning who started a political blog
to create a space to express her views and directly engage with other young people, and
Palestinian Jana Tamimi, who at age 12 became a citizen journalist covering the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. In each of these cases, the girls became aware of how many regarded them
as unusual for their age, but also for their gender, challenging preconceptions about “appro-
priate” interests and behaviours for girls.
With a focus on teenagers, Clark and Marchi’s (2017) ground-breaking book Young People
and the News, summing up ten years of ethnographic research, conceptually and empirically
explores the complex relationships between youth, journalism, and politics, taking a “user-
centred” approach, focusing on how young people are producing, consuming, and sharing
news, practices they collectively define as “connective journalism.” Their research demonstrates
young people are not apathetic and disengaged. “Adults,” they suggest, “have to trust that
young people engaging in the participatory practices of connective journalism are creating a
story, not just telling one” (2019, p. 199).

News Content
One of the strengths of children’s news is that it often emphasizes understanding and context in
the stories it reports (Buckingham, 2000, p. 45). However, adult producers make certain as-
sumptions about children’s news interests, knowledge, and cognitive abilities, which they re-
gard as different from and less developed than adults’ (Alon-Tirosh & Lemish, 2014).
Moreover, they tend to believe there is a narrow range of topics children find engaging, which
some scholars regard as inaccurate and often insufficiently challenging for their audiences
(Matthews, 2010). Concurring with this point, in Carter et al.’s (2009) U.K. research, children
indicated a wide array of interests including immigration, war, healthy food, fair trade, animal

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testing, after-school care, healthcare, speeding cars, partisan politics, and much more. Thirteen-
year-old “Samer” from Cardiff insisted that “(kids) have things to say about recycling, animals,
pollution and everything” (2009, p. 26).
In Israel, children’s news has developed because it is believed children need to follow the
news to participate in a society long troubled by conflict. Nevertheless, they are also regarded as
innocent and vulnerable, so negative content tends to be “presented in a gentle, balanced
manner that will not cause unbearable emotional load. Including soothing, reassuring (at times
even optimistic) aspects is viewed as vital” (Alon-Tirosh 2012, p. v). Emphasis is placed on
constructing “age-appropriate” news light-hearted in style and tone without infantilizing the
audience, removing gory details whilst remaining serious and authoritative (Alon-Tirosh &
Lemish, 2014, p. 108).

The Child News Audience

Nikken and Götz’s (2007) comparative research on children’s postings about the Iraq war on
children’s websites in the Netherlands and Germany concludes they were important avenues
through which children were able to participate in civic life. In both countries most children
opposed the war, expressed strong emotions, did not appear to be particularly fearful, and
showed concern about the impact of war on ordinary people. Children argue the authors,
“should also be given the opportunity to participate in contemporary debates. By writing to a
children’s channel or program, children can become politically active and very much involved
in their own society” (2007, p. 117).
Similarly, Carter (2007) examined children’s email and message board postings on the
Newsround website after the bombings in London in 2005. Many children went on to the
programme’s message boards to discuss with each other what had happened, with a number
making links between this event and Britain’s support for the Iraq war. Message boards, which
sadly no longer exist, were valuable resources for children’s development as citizens “where
many must feel they are being listened to and their views are valued” (2007, p. 138).
In the early days of the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, U.K. television news, including
Newsround, played a central role in informing children about the facts and reassuring them about
society-wide efforts being made to keep them, their families, and friends safe. Despite having
asked the U.K,’s media regulator, Ofcom, in November 2019, to reduce its television bulletin
hours in order to increase its online presence, during the first lockdown, Newsround increased its
television and online provisions to ensure children stayed well informed and to provide them
with coping strategies to minimize fears and worries (Carter et al., 2021).
Evidence from the U.K. as part of a 42-country survey of children’s (aged 9–13) engagement
with news, both adult and children’s in the early days of the first Covid-19 lockdown confirms
they were well informed about the facts and did not feel too frightened. Conversely, children in
those countries where they were not well informed, and where no children’s news provision
exists, tended to demonstrate higher levels of misinformation, fears, and anxieties. The inter-
national study highlighted the crucial role of child-appropriate news that takes into con-
sideration, age, cultural context, language, and different forms of knowledge and how these can
play for children’s wellbeing during a crisis (Götz & Lemish, 2022).

Conclusions
Much has been made of the potential of online environments to draw children to the news (Bakker
& de Vreese, 2011). Their growing political engagement, particularly teenagers on social media

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platforms, demonstrates they are not inevitably apolitical (Clark & Marchi, 2017). A growing body
of research demonstrates children of all ages are often keenly interested in environmental issues, for
instance, where they want their concerns about the planet’s future to be heard (Banaji &
Buckingham, 2013). The activities of climate activist Greta Thunberg offer a pertinent example of
this. Issues of racial justice have also come to the fore, with widespread support amongst young
people globally for the Black Lives Matter movement (Lawson et al., 2018).
Some thus regard it as an enormously positive and long overdue development that in March
2021 the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child adopted its “General Comment No.
25,” writing into law children’s digital rights of access to information, to produce and dis-
seminate content across formats and platforms from a plurality of sources, including news media
and to give “due weight” to the views of children. However, others remain cautious about the
democratic potential of digital worlds for children – they are not inherently democratic spaces
in which to nurture children’s citizenship. To tap into their democratic potential, children first
need improved civic education and critical media literacy skills to engage with online news and
information (Clark & Marchi, 2017; Wallis & Buckingham, 2016). Digital media do not
produce active citizens. Instead, they provide spaces that may be used to develop new citi-
zenship practices and forms of engagement bridging the public and private spheres, linking
news, entertainment, and political communication in ways that do not simply lead to ever more
commercialized and limited forms of citizenship (Hermes, 2006, p. 295).
Passive, top-down models of news provision from journalists to audiences have been giving
way to more interactive and participatory forms of citizen engagement. That said, even in
children’s news the inclusion of their voices remains limited (Alon-Tirosh & Lemish, 2014;
Carter et al., 2021). The road to children’s sustained civic enfranchisement lies in the ongoing
development of engaging, innovative, and increasingly interactive news formats, including
those produced by children, using old and new media, where their ideas and opinions are
actively valued and genuinely heard.

SEE ALSO Chapter 33 by Weintraub Austin and Domgaard and Chapter 46 by Papaioannou in
this volume.

Note
1 I use the term “children” to refer to people below the age of 18. The term “young people” is often
used to refer to children in their teen years (see Jenks, 1992).

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 33
PROCESSES AND IMPACTS OF
POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION
Erica Weintraub Austin and Shawn Domgaard

Children and adolescents are in a continual transitional state, in which influences of peers,
family, school, and media all change the way they perceive themselves and others. The idea that
parents directly transmit political values and attitudes to their children is changing, in which one
large study of parent-children dyads found that perception of parent values differed from
adoption of those values themselves (Hatemi & Ojedi, 2020). One factor in the disparity is
youth’s increased use of media, which can affect political knowledge, norms, attitudes, values,
and eventual participation (Ohme & De Vreese, 2020). Those born between 1985 and
2015 will constitute the largest voting bloc by 2028, maintaining this majority for decades
(Griffin et al., 2020).
Although younger generations are showing a trend of improved political participation as
they become old enough to vote, many countries around the world are finding increasing
threats to democracy, including barriers to voting, economic inequality, and political polar-
ization (Harvard Kennedy School, 2021; Ziblatt, 2021). In the U.S., despite – or because of –
increasing participation, efforts in 2021 gained momentum to stiffen voting eligibility and
accessibility, disproportionately affecting communities of color and those eligible to vote in the
future (Cassidy & Foley, 2021; Corasaniti & Epstein, 2021). Alongside these policy battles, an
international threat to civic participation has exploded in the form of misinformation and
disinformation, mainly driven by media distribution (Dermendzhiyska, 2021). This dis-
proportionately affects these communities because inequities compromise trust in institutions
(Austin et al., 2021; Edelman, 2021). These dynamics make political socialization a compelling
topic for examination.

The Socialization Process

Socialization to public affairs is well under way by the time they are 8 years old (e.g., Niemi &
Hepburn, 1995), but children do not simply assimilate into the existing milieu. They seek
information and information sources that can promote learning, engage in activities that fa-
cilitate the process (such as media use), and continually evaluate their progress toward these
goals in a reciprocal process of interaction (O’Keefe & Reid-Nash, 1987). Products of socia-
lization include relevant knowledge, confidence and abilities for action, motivations, behaviors,
and self-reflection. At the heart of political socialization is the struggle for whether systems or

294 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-37

 Processes and Impacts of Political Socialization

corporations dictate decisions or whether individuals, as autonomous beings, get to make those
decisions themselves (Glasberg & Shannon, 2010). Information is increasingly structured to
flow through social media, resulting in new consequences in how it can misinform, de-
motivate, or harm democratic processes if not navigated properly (Bak-Coleman et al., 2021).
The socialization process relies heavily on media use in many societies, since it is interwoven
into all those things motivating young people to see themselves as political, such as social justice
issues, globalization, science issues, or cultural controversies. Political socialization can be de-
scribed as the result of the current political structure and culture, and the motivating factor for
those that seek to change or transform it (Andersson, 2020). As young people learn the social
norms and values displayed in political messages they receive, they construct their knowledge
over time and integrate it into group identity, and eventually into behavior. Although other
sources play a role in this process, media outlets and especially social media are major sources for
political news and messaging (Shearer & Matsa, 2018).

The Role of Personal, Environmental, and Behavioral Factors

Consistent with social cognitive theory (Bandura, 2001), current socialization models assume
that personal, environmental, and behavioral factors interact asymmetrically, at different times,
and with unequal strength depending on the content, context, and individual factors (Grusec &
Davidov, 2010). Meanwhile, competencies and decision-making styles learned in one context
may be applied in another. Social Identity theory also offers some insight into how the in-
fluence of in-group/out-group norms and expectations play a role in socializing individuals as
to what is appropriate or not in a person’s political/cultural environment (Tajfel & Turner,
1986). This has led to what some researchers call “political sectarianism” at the root of political
social division, and creates environments focused on tribalism and identity rather than nuanced
policy and discourse (Finkel et al., 2020).

The Role of Media

Youth today actively construct meaning from the context and culture of their upbringing.
For instance, in areas of intractable conflict, children are more aware and politically socialized
earlier because of the relevance of political news and media (Bar-Tal et al., 2017). Political
socialization through media also relies on access, in which 96% of youth in Europe have
access to internet, while only 40% of youth in Africa are able to connect, yet overall almost
70% of the world’s adolescent population has access to internet in some way (International
Telecommunication Union, 2020). This cedes a great deal of civic education to children’s
rapidly evolving and increasingly independent media environment, in which they consume
multiple hours of screen-time a day, with increasing use during the COVID-19 quarantine
(Nielsen, 2020). Digital media technologies facilitate the rapid exchange of information
sharing, and algorithms developed by companies ensure that this is easy to do, with content
that is appealing to same-minded audiences.
Digital environments can be difficult places for trusted information to thrive, since ado-
lescents may be highly influenced by peers or sources they like that may not share credible
information (Edgerly et al., 2020). This problem can be exacerbated by times of crises or
emotionally charged events, such as an election or a health crisis during which misinformation
may be shared at rates higher than accurate information (Vosoughi et al., 2018). Misinformation
may be innocently spread as a result of confusing or incomplete information sharing.
Disinformation, however, is intentionally shared false information that makes use of principles

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of persuasion preying on emotions and sometimes imitating credible news sites to spread
propaganda (Starbird et al., 2019).
Disinformation feeds on people’s inherent biases to make political topics into issues of identity,
and thereby socialization through media becomes a reinforcement of identity through informa-
tion (Dermendzhiyska, 2021). Disinformation has been cited as one of the most urgent crises
facing youth today because of its degradation of trust in science and scientists, corrosion in health,
slower progress on social justice issues, and lower public confidence in politics and government
(Tynes et al., 2021; UNICEF, 2020). These types of consequences can be avoided through
education on how to recognize and navigate media environments fraught with false information.

Making the Most of Media

The extent to which children and adolescents gain public affairs knowledge, competencies, and
attitudes from their media use likely depends on their skills for understanding the intent behind,
and the form, content, and context of, various types of programming, often referred to as media
literacy (e.g., Aufderheide, 1993; Austin et al., 2006; Kahne et al., 2012; Livingstone, 2003).
Youth need these skills to help dampen their emotional responses to false information and find
the credible information necessary to make good political decisions. These skills make youth
better able to assist their communities and become more civically engaged through reliable
information (Austin et al., 2021).
Many youth learn how media work from a very young age, where one study in the U.K.
showed 61% of children 5–15 years old owned their own tablet, and 55% owned their own
smartphone (Ofcom, 2020). This early exposure to technology can lead to using it in new and
innovative ways. In June 2020 the president of the U.S., Donald Trump, held a rally with far
smaller attendance than the campaign expected. The reason: young users of TikTok, persuaded
and instructed by fans of Korean pop music, had signed up as hundreds of thousands of ticket
holders with no plans to attend, intentionally sabotaging the attendance of the rally (Lorenz
et al., 2020). This type of political engagement was unprecedented, foreshadowing future forms
of social media mobilization in politics. Although mostly harmless in this instance, the use of
social media influencers could provoke more dangerous results if motivated by conspiracy or
misinformation.
As this example illustrates, social media must be respected as a powerful tool, and not as
something inherently negative or positive. A tool can be used to destroy or to build. Many of its
features facilitate the rapid spread of credible or false information in an emergency. Searchable
research databases and credible journalism provide for easily accessible digital spaces, both for
cross-checking information and for creating fake infotainment (Tynes et al., 2021). Research of
Dutch youth shows that adolescents are engaged with news on social media, although it is a mix
between social connection and professional news outlets, and then use the information to
inform their own citizenship (Drok et al., 2018).
Some efforts exist to make it easier to promote digital literacy online with some beneficial
results, such as the conceptual framework of credibility evaluation developed by researchers
using data from Bangladeshi citizens on social media (Barua et al., 2020). Online international
crowd sourcing is gaining momentum as another possible solution, with some research sug-
gesting large groups of youth working together to fact check, verify public messages, and
sharing messages from experts can slow the spread of false information (Uakkas & Omrani,
2020). Another study created a card game used in classrooms across the U.S. that helped
children recognize false information, and helps them practice these skills in a safe environment
(Chang et al., 2020). Helping youth find ways to stop misinformation begins with seeing it as a

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collective problem, and through working together, either through gamification, education, or
civic participation, they can then begin to see it as a necessary skill for their future.
The most important variable facilitating knowledge gain may be the use of multiple sources –
not the use of particular sources. In an analysis of Australians aged 8–16, Notley and Dezuanni
(2019) found that the majority of youth lack confidence in verifying whether a news article is false
or not, and that they lack the skills to do so. Using multiple sources provides the opportunity to
compare and contrast alleged facts but requires an ability to do so, making media literacy a vital
skill for political socialization. Teaching digital literacy can help youth understand how images and
messages can be digitally altered to spread disinformation. Learning about these possibilities at a
younger age can magnify the voices of marginalized communities (Koonce, 2017) and empower
them through media literacy (Celeste, 2019).

Beyond Knowledge Gain

Knowledge is only one important outcome of information source use. Attitudes and efficacy
toward civic participation comprise other important socialization outcomes ultimately pre-
dictive of political behavior. Social media offers many opportunities for younger generations to
utilize such experiences, but these opportunities do not always come easily. Youth mobilization
to contest social and scientific issues in Australia, for example, has happened in spite of, and not
because of, these new forms of media (Chen & Stilinovic, 2020). Offering civic education can
help balance the democratization of digital spaces, but understanding how those environments
work is still necessary for youth to competently take action based on their knowledge.

The Family’s Role

Substantive discussions taking place in the family can motivate active processing and can shape
opinions as well as cognitions. Adolescents can gain both information and self-confidence through
such conversations, including their attempts to influence their parents and significant caregivers.
Research in the U.S. suggests that parents who engage in open and frequent communication
with their children about politics, positively influenced greater civic engagement and political
participation in their children in adulthood, mediated by political efficacy (Graham et al., 2020;
Hoffman & Thomson, 2009). Parents are also influenced by their children in such discussions,
and political socialization can happen as parents listen to their children’s perspectives and beliefs
as they develop, as documented in another study of parents in the U.S. by Pedraza and Perry
(2020). Parents can provide insights from their experience, but can also learn from the cultural
and technological changes their children encounter.
Finally, classic research about family communication norms can help explain media-specific
discussions and effects. The Family Communication Patterns (FCP) Model, developed by Jack
McLeod and Steven Chaffee (Chaffee, McLeod, & Wackman, 1973), has shown that parents
teach children how to manage and interpret information in general, which in turn affects the
way children approach and internalize any information source. The FCP model conceptualizes
parent–child communication as taking place along two relatively independent dimensions. The
first, called socio orientation, reflects the parent’s desire for harmonious interpersonal re-
lationships through the emphasis of conformity and control. The second dimension, called
concept orientation, reflects an emphasis on sharing and challenging ideas. Ironically, children
in families low on socio orientation and high on concept orientation may model their parents
more than those from families emphasizing conformity. Meanwhile, children from families
emphasizing both orientations can experience internal conflict because open discussion seems

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important but so does family harmony and control. Children from concept-oriented families
tend to consume more public affairs programming, know more about public affairs, get more
involved in civic activities, are more skeptical of advertising, and have parents more likely to
discuss media (Chaffee et al., 1973).
It is unclear how well the model applies to the digital era, but it seems unlikely that parental
influence on youths’ information seeking would have little relevance to newer media forms. In
general, there has been a lack of research on direct and indirect parental communication in-
fluences on youths’ political socialization processes. Instead, much research energy about par-
enting tends to focus on more immediate concerns such as parental influence on problematic
internet use, a topic ridden with definitional problems, methodological inconsistencies and
culturally specific sampling limitations resulting in analyses unable to detect much parental
influence whatsoever (e.g. Nielsen & Rigter, 2020). There is a need to update research that has
shown that non-traditional sources of public affairs information (e.g., late-night shows, satirical
current affairs programs) can serve an effective educational role, particularly when combined
with a skeptical attitude (e.g., Pinkleton & Austin, 2004; Pinkleton et al., 2012) and openness to
additional information sources (e.g., Kohut et al., 2007). The family communication context
undoubtedly continues to play a significant direct and indirect role in youths’ media use and
expression related to public affairs.

The Need to Take Young People Seriously

In sum, youth have the potential to become engaged and important forces in civic affairs. Because
they also tend to represent a particularly diverse demographic, young people pre-and post-voting
age can serve as effective messengers in communities that have language and cultural barriers
to campaign participation (Kawashima-Ginsberg, 2011; Shea, 2004). Media literacy can provide
a catalyst for improved civic engagement, especially helping communities of color and those
targeted by misinformation (Austin et al., 2021). Their involvement tends to be predicted by
their knowledge of the process, their understanding of how to participate, and their belief that
their participation matters (Austin et al., 2008; Green, 2004; Livingstone et al., 2007; Young
Voter Strategies, 2011). The predictors of their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors relevant to
civic affairs therefore represent an important topic for continued attention.

SEE ALSO Chapter 32 by Carter, Chapter 46 by Papaioannou, and Chapter 54 by Hobbs in

this volume.

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 34
PERSUASIVE MESSAGES AND
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
ADVERTISING LITERACY IN
CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
Esther Rozendaal, Moniek Buijzen, and Eva A. van Reijmersdal

Over the last two decades, children and adolescents’ commercial media environment has changed
dramatically. Driven by technological innovation, advertisers have rapidly adopted new adver-
tising techniques, including brand placement in video games and influencer marketing on social
media (Buijzen et al., 2010; Calvert, 2008; De Veirman, Hudders, & Nelson, 2020). Typically,
new advertising practices rely on affect-based mechanisms and are often embedded within pro-
gram or editorial content (Calvert, 2008; Wright et al., 2005), which may have important con-
sequences for young people’s processing of advertising. In this chapter, we review the state of the
art of the international research literature on young people and persuasion, focusing specifically on
today’s commercial media environment. We focus on four important themes: (1) persuasion
processes, (2) persuasion and resistance, (3) advertising literacy, and (4) advertising disclosures.

Child and Adolescent Processing of Persuasive Messages

Drawing upon the rich theoretical and empirical work on adult persuasion processes, Buijzen
et al. (2010) developed a framework for children and adolescents’ Processing of Commercial
Media Content (PCMC). Similar to dominant adult persuasion models (Eagly & Chaiken,
1993; Meyers-Levy & Malaviya, 1999; Petty & Cacioppo, 1996), the PCMC framework as-
sumes that persuasion can occur through several processes. Under some conditions, people
process a persuasive message systematically and carefully (referred to as the systematic process)
and at other times, they rely on simple cues or shortcuts, using low-effort mechanisms to
respond to a message (the heuristic process). In addition, a third even less elaborate process was
distinguished, the automatic process, which is characterized by a primacy of automatic, affec-
tive, and subconscious reactions.
The three persuasion processes are characterized by varying levels of cognitive elaboration in
response to a message – that is, the recipients’ level of processing of the available information in
the immediate persuasion context (Petty & Cacioppo, 1996). Cognitive elaboration, in turn,
relates to the recipients’ motivation and ability to process the message effortfully (Eagly &
Chaiken, 1993). Systematic, heuristic, and automatic persuasion processing may each lead to
attitude formation or change, which may in turn affect consumer behavior. However, the

302 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-38

 Media Advertising and Consumption

specific mediating mechanisms via which attitude change may occur differ in accordance with
the processing route taken.
Systematic persuasion processing is based on relatively extensive, deliberate and effortful
cognitive elaboration. For systematic processing to occur, people must be highly motivated and
able to process all available information. For youth, it is relevant to distinguish between two
levels of systematic processing. At the most elaborate level, critical systematic processing, an
awareness of the persuasive nature of the message is involved, with the recipient actively ap-
plying the relevant persuasion knowledge or advertising literacy. Children who do not yet
possess the relevant persuasion knowledge and information processing skills are unlikely to
reach this level of processing. At a less elaborate level, noncritical systematic processing involves
high awareness of the message or brand, without awareness of its persuasive intent. In the
systematic process, persuasion mechanisms leading to attitude change involve active learning
mechanisms and formulation of cognitive responses, such as pro-and counter-argumentation to
message claims and deliberation over the message source (Petty et al., 2005).
Heuristic persuasion processing is characterized by a moderate level of cognitive elaboration.
Compared to the systematic process, the recipient uses merely moderate to low motivation and
ability to process the message. Within the heuristic process, the recipient looks for an easy way
to form an overall evaluation of the product or brand, relying on relatively simple and low-
effort decision strategies. Consequently, advertising defenses are less likely to affect this type of
processing compared to systematic processing (Livingstone & Helsper, 2006). The mechanisms
leading to persuasion involve relatively passive learning and information retrieval mechanisms,
such as social learning and consumer cultivation (Shrum et al., 2005). Current marketing
practices rely heavily on this type of processing, given the increased focus on emotion-and
entertainment-based strategies in persuasive messages rather than information and rational
argumentation.
Finally, in automatic persuasion processing, advertising exposure leads to attitude change
without explicit attention to or awareness of the persuasive communication (Meyers-Levy &
Malaviya, 1999): Recipient motivation and ability to process are not required. Advertising
defenses are unlikely to be activated, because recipients are often unaware that they are being
targeted. Highly embedded and stealth forms of marketing rely on this type of processing.
Explicit recall of the persuasive message and the advertised product or brand will be low, yet
implicit brand memory and attitude changes can be detected, for example through implicit
recognition and association tests (Yang & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2007).
In the automatic persuasion process, persuasion occurs through implicit and affect-based
learning mechanisms, such as evaluative conditioning (i.e., pairing a brand with affective stimuli
such as celebrity endorsers or pleasant pictures) and affect transfer (i.e., the positive affect as-
sociated with the media experience transferring to the brand). In this process, brand exposure
leads to more fluent processing when the brand is encountered again. This facilitated processing
fluency leads to a sense of familiarity, which in turn may result in positive affect toward the
brand. For example, the positive affect associated with an entertaining advergame (i.e., an
online game designed to promote a brand) becomes transferred to the brand outside conscious
awareness (van Reijmersdal et al., 2012).

Persuasion and Resistance in the Commercialized Media Environment

The effects of advertising on children and adolescents have often been divided into two general
types: intended effects (e.g., children’s brand preferences, purchase requests, consumption) and
unintended effects (e.g., materialistic orientations, parent–child conflicts, unhealthy eating

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habits). The most important precursor of both types of effects is advertising-induced change of
attitude toward the product or brand. Because each level of processing can lead to attitude
change, systematic, heuristic, and automatic processing may each lead to intended and unin-
tended effects.
However, even though the level of processing may not affect the type and strength of the
persuasion outcome, it may have consequences for the occurrence of children’s resistance to
persuasion. Resistance, in the child and advertising literature mostly referred to as advertising
defenses, dovetails with the concept of advertising literacy (knowledge and understanding of
advertising). As indicated above, the retrieval and application of advertising-related knowledge
requires the most elaborate level of processing; critical systematic processing. At this level, an
awareness of the persuasive nature of the message is involved, with the recipient actively re-
trieving and applying the relevant advertising knowledge as a defense against persuasion.
In short, for resistance to occur, children should process the message at the most elaborate
level (Buijzen et al., 2010; Rozendaal et al., 2011). The likelihood of critical systematic ela-
boration is determined by the recipient’s ability and motivation to process a message, which in
turn is predicted by the characteristics of the message, its context, and the recipient (Petty et al.,
2005). In the current commercial media environment, several factors may withhold children
from processing persuasion at the most elaborate level. Importantly, the nature of contemporary
advertising, combined with children’s limited consumer experience and cognitive skills, makes
it difficult to engage in critical systematic processing.

Elaboration Difficulties Associated with the Commercial Media Environment

Two characteristics of today’s commercial media environment may limit young people’s
motivation and ability to process a message on the critical systematic level: the affect-based
nature and the integration of persuasive messages within the medium context. First, content
analyses have revealed that the advertisements young people are most likely to see do not
employ classic informational appeals. Rather than presenting arguments or discussing the
benefits associated with owning the product, child-directed advertising employs emotional
appeals, fast-paced editing techniques, and dynamic formal features (Wicks et al., 2009).
With regard to emotion-based advertising, there are several tactics that marketers frequently
rely upon. First, there is the consistent focus on fun and play in advertisements, with scenes
filled with happy and excited children. Second, child-directed advertising often employs
popular media characters that children feel a great deal of affinity and loyalty towards, including
well-known celebrities such as SpongeBob Squarepants and Pokémon. Third, many nontraditional
advertising techniques rely on the mechanism of processing fluency, evaluative conditioning,
and affect transfer, such as advergames that are merely designed to evoke happy and aroused
feelings, which are then transferred to the advertised brand.
Such affect-and emotion-based persuasion mechanisms all link to lower-level processing, in
particular automatic processing. Thus, the emotional content will distract children from using
relevant advertising knowledge as a critical defense. In other words, the affect-based nature of
children and adolescents’ commercial media environment is likely to limit their motivation and
ability to process an advertising message elaborately and, accordingly, to retrieve and apply their
conceptual advertising knowledge as a defense.
The same difficulties apply to integrated advertising formats, in which the persuasive message
is embedded within the medium context. Buijzen et al. (2010) distinguished between three
types of message-context integration. First, format integration refers to the level of integration
between the message format and the editorial context. Examples include advertorials in

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magazines or websites which are designed to resemble editorial articles or website content.
Second, thematic integration refers to the conceptual fit or congruence between the persuasive
message and its context. This may include, for example, placement of ads around thematically
congruent content, such as placement of the Bridgestone brand logo in a car racing game, or an
advertisement for Barbie dolls and toys in the Barbie magazine.
Third, narrative integration refers to the semantic or conceptual relevance of the persuasive
message within the narrative of the surrounding media context. For example, children’s pro-
grams based on brands, such as Bratz and Pokémon, can each be seen as program-length
commercials for the corresponding action figures and other brand extensions, including toys,
magazines, and music. The level of integration between the persuasive message and its context
is likely to have important consequences for the persuasion process. Crucially, integration links
to the ability to recognize the message and its persuasive intent (Friestad & Wright, 1994).
When the persuasive message is highly integrated with the editorial context, its persuasive
nature will be recognized less easily, which in turn is unlikely to lead to critical systematic
processing.
In sum, due to their affect-based and integrated nature, nontraditional advertising messages
rely heavily on low levels of message elaboration and, therefore, children are unlikely to retrieve
and apply their advertising knowledge as a critical defense (Buijzen et al., 2010; Owen et al.,
2013). Indeed, findings of several studies confirm that children’s knowledge of nontraditional
advertising formats does not influence the actual or intended effects of these formats (Owen,
et al., 2013; van Reijmersdal et al., 2012).

Elaboration Difficulties Associated with Maturation

In addition to the difficulties that are related to the commercial media environment, young
people’s motivation and ability to process an advertising message on a critical systematic level
will be further limited by their relatively immature advertising and consumer skills (e.g., ad-
vertising literacy, marketplace experience, brand memory, and consumption autonomy). For
example, critical systematic processing requires domain-specific knowledge which these chil-
dren often still lack.
In addition, children’s immature cognitive abilities are likely to limit their motivation and
ability to process persuasive messages at the critical systematic level. Specifically, to actually
enact their advertising knowledge as a defense, children will need to master the “stop and
think” response, which involves the cognitive control to stop and recognize the persuasive
nature of the message, and to think about the persuasive message in some considerable depth to
help defend against it. Young people’s ability to “stop and think” may depend upon the de-
velopment of two cognitive abilities: executive functioning and emotion regulation, which do
not fully mature until mid-adolescence (Lapierre & Rozendaal, 2019). Rozendaal et al. (2011)
have argued that without the development of these two abilities children will not be able to
exercise adequate control of cognitions (i.e., the “stop” part of “stop and think”), which would
allow for critical evaluation of advertising (i.e., the “think” part of “stop and think”), and thus
engage in critical systematic persuasion processing.
Executive functioning is defined as the “higher order, self-regulatory, cognitive processes
that aid in the monitoring and control of thought and action” (Carlson, 2005, p. 595).
Executive functioning involves a set of skills that develop throughout childhood. Specifically,
three aspects of executive functioning are relevant for critical systematic processing: inhibitory
control (the ability to withhold or delay a pre-planned response and to interrupt a process that
has already started), attentional flexibility (the ability to fluidly shift attention under cognitively

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or affectively taxing conditions), and working memory (the part of memory that keeps in-
formation immediately accessible for the planning and completion of complex tasks).
When translating these insights to the ability for critical systematic processing, it is plausible
that young people with immature executive functioning will have a difficult time using ad-
vertising knowledge as a defense while processing advertising (Hoek et al., 2020a). Specifically,
because children are less able to control inhibitions, they will be more likely to immediately
respond to the perceptually salient and appealing features of the message. Then, because these
children have a hard time shifting and controlling their attention, they will be unable to shift
their attention away from the affect-based message to focus on their advertising knowledge.
Finally, due to their immature working memory abilities, children under the age of 12 will be
unable to process the persuasive message and, at the same time, retrieve and apply their ad-
vertising knowledge as a critical defense.
Emotion regulation is defined as “the behaviors, skills and strategies, whether conscious or
unconscious, automatic or effortful, that serve to modulate, inhibit and enhance emotional
experiences and expressions” (Calkins & Hill, 2007, p. 160). This can include subduing or
amplifying negatively or positively valenced emotions. With so much of the content in con-
temporary advertising centered on emotional cues, it is suggested that children’s ability to
process these messages depends on their ability to modulate emotional responses to the message
(Lapierre & Rozendaal, 2019). Children with less of an ability to control affect via emotion
regulation are more likely to be overwhelmed by emotional cues, such as happy children or
popular media characters. Yet, as children mature and develop the ability to use effective
emotion regulation strategies, they become less likely to get caught up in the message’s
emotional appeal. During adolescence (ages 12–18), they become capable of controlling the
emotional impulses that are evoked by the advertisement and become more likely to process the
message on the critical systematic level.

Advertising Literacy in the Commercialized Media Environment

Current insights in youth’s persuasion processing call for a revision of the conceptualization of
advertising literacy. In the child and advertising literature, advertising literacy is generally de-
fined as knowledge of advertising intent and tactics (for an overview see Rozendaal et al., 2011;
Wright et al., 2005). However, this focus on conceptual knowledge might be too narrow. In
the broader context of media, literacy has been defined as “the ability to access, analyze,
evaluate, and create messages across a variety of contexts” (Christ & Potter, 1998, p. 7). In other
words, the concept of literacy should not only entail the ability to identify and understand
media messages, but also to deal with those messages critically. Drawing on progressing insights
into persuasion processing, we have demonstrated in this chapter that conceptual advertising
knowledge alone does not automatically result in the ability to critically deal with the current
commercial media environment.
There is a need for a reconceptualization of advertising literacy that contends with the
changes in the commercialized media environment. Specifically, Rozendaal et al. (2011)
proposed to extend the current conceptualization of advertising literacy (i.e., focusing on
conceptual advertising literacy) with two dimensions. First, advertising literacy performance
takes into account the actual use of conceptual knowledge of advertising while being exposed
to it. The insights presented in this chapter suggest that even if children have the necessary
conceptual advertising knowledge in place, it does not necessarily follow that they actually
retrieve this knowledge when confronted with advertising and apply it as a critical defense.
Therefore, the theoretical distinction between conceptual advertising literacy (i.e., having

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advertising knowledge) and advertising literacy performance (i.e., retrieving and applying ad-
vertising knowledge) should be emphasized more strongly.
Second, attitudinal advertising literacy includes low-effort, attitudinal mechanisms that can
be effective in reducing children’s advertising susceptibility under conditions of low elabora-
tion. Assuming that children primarily process advertising on a less elaborate level, they might
need attitudinal rather than cognitive defenses. For example, general critical attitudes toward
advertising (e.g., disliking of advertising) have been shown to automatically generate negative
affect when processing a specific advertisement, which, in turn, is transferred to the adver-
tisement and advertised brand (Zuwerink & Devine, 1996). This suggests that general critical
attitudes might be more successful in altering children’s responses to advertising messages. For
critical attitudes to function as an attitudinal defense, children are less dependent on executive
functioning and emotion regulation skills because they operate via a less cognitively demanding
mechanism. Thus, attitudinal defenses can be successful in reducing children’s advertising
susceptibility, even when they are not motivated and able to process an advertising message
elaborately (Rozendaal et al., 2012).
In addition, Hudders et al. (2017) proposed that a moral dimension of advertising literacy
should be distinguished. Moral advertising literacy reflects individuals’ ability to develop
thoughts about the moral appropriateness of specific advertising formats and comprises the
general moral evaluations individuals hold toward these formats and toward advertising in
general, including its persuasive tactics. Hudders et al. argue that the possession of a set of moral
dispositions toward advertising and its various techniques is more relevant than ever, con-
sidering the fact that the bulk of contemporary advertising formats can in many cases be de-
scribed as covert marketing.

Increasing Transparency Through Advertising Disclosures

Because integrated advertising – also referred to as “native advertising” – embeds commercial
messages into entertaining and seemingly noncommercial content, children and adolescents
often fail to identify its persuasive character (van Reijmersdal & Rozendaal, 2020). This lack of
transparency jeopardizes consumers’ right to know when they are being subjected to adver-
tising. Moreover, if children do not recognize the persuasive character of sponsored content,
they are unlikely to activate their advertising literacy, and defend themselves against its per-
suasive appeal. To help media users to determine when digital content is sponsored, guidelines
and regulations are being developed in Europe and the U.S, (European Commission, 2018;
Federal Trade Commission, 2015). The key issue is that integrated advertising should be made
recognizable by using distinct disclosures, such as “paid partnership with brand X” on Instagram
and “This video is created in collaboration with brand X” on YouTube.
Several studies conducted in Western countries, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, have
experimentally investigated the effects of disclosures of sponsored content on minors (e.g., De
Jans et al., 2018; De Jans & Hudders, 2020; Hoek et al., 2020b; van Reijmersdal et al., 2017,
2020). These studies showed mixed effects of disclosures regarding enhancing minors’ re-
cognition and understanding of sponsored content. Furthermore, a meta-analysis of disclosure
studies in several mainly Western countries found that disclosure had smaller effects on re-
cognition of sponsored content as being advertising among minors than among adults and
disclosures also led to less resistance among minors in terms of negative brand attitudes (Eisend
et al., 2020). In a study by Rozendaal et al. (2021) in the Netherlands, children indicated to
hardly pay attention to textual disclosures, which is likely to explain the lack of effects of
disclosures on advertising recognition found in some previous studies. The study also revealed

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confusions regarding the formulations “collaboration” and “paid collaboration,” which may
explain why some studies found effects whereas others did not. If children do not notice or
understand the meaning of a sponsorship disclosure (due to vague or complex formulations),
their opportunity to process and make sense of the disclosure is low. As a result, the disclosure
will be less effective in triggering children’s advertising literacy and critical coping strategies
(van Reijmersdal et al., 2020).

Setting the Agenda for Future Research

Based on the extended four-dimensional definition of advertising literacy (conceptual adver-
tising literacy, advertising literacy performance, attitudinal advertising literacy, moral advertising
literacy), we propose four focal points for the research agenda. First, future research should
focus on advertising literacy performance by investigating the conditions under which children
retrieve their conceptual advertising literacy and use it as a defense against advertising. Second,
future research should further examine if and how children’s attitudinal and moral advertising
literacy can alter children’s responses to persuasive messages. Third, there is a need to under-
stand the specific ways in which literacy affects the persuasion process, for example investigating
the assumption that conceptual, attitudinal, and moral advertising literacy operate via different
mechanisms (i.e., high versus low elaboration).
Finally, future research should reveal if and how interventions aimed to stimulate advertising
literacy, such as advertising disclosures, can change the persuasion process in children. Scholars
could draw from the more developed adult persuasion and information processing literatures.
Incorporating findings and theories from the adult literature (while also keeping in mind the
tremendous developmental differences between children and adults) into the child literature
would represent an enormous step forward for the field and would, at the same time, offer
compelling tests of how these theories apply to developmental contexts.

SEE ALSO Chapter 16 by Chan and Chapter 5 by Buckingham and Willett in this volume.

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 35
REPRESENTING AND
CONSTRUCTING GENDER IN
CHILDREN AND YOUTH MEDIA
Sharon R. Mazzarella

Introduction
Before delving into a discussion of media and gender roles, it is imperative to first clarify the
difference between anatomical sex and the cultural construct of gender. While sex is simplistically
considered to be determined by biology – X and Y chromosomes that make one born a girl, a
boy, or intersex – gender is socially constructed. As Butler (1990, 1993) and other scholars have
explained, gender is both learned and performative. The culture in which we are born and
raised teaches us how to enact gender in a way that it deems appropriate, typically related to
one’s anatomical sex. While most cultures subscribe to and reproduce a binary definition of
gender – either female or male – the reality is that gender is a spectrum and it is fluid. The
construction of children’s gender identity is a function of a range of interacting forces including
cultural artifacts such as media content. Moreover, young people often employ those artifacts
when performing their own gender identities.
While scholars have studied gendered messages in a plethora of media content forms used by
young people, given space limitations, this chapter focuses exclusively on “screens” – televi-
sions, phones, gaming consoles, and the like. According to the American Academy of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry (2020), U.S. children aged 8–12, for example, spend four to six hours a
day on screen time, while U.S. teens spend nearly nine hours. Reviewing a range of English-
language research studies, and primarily within the U.S. context, this chapter focuses on how
television programs represent gender identities to young people as well as how young people
use digital technologies to construct and present their own gender identities.

Theoretical Grounding
The theories and methodologies employed by scholars studying media and children’s gender
roles vary based on the questions asked. Most scholars seeking to understand the effects of such
content employ quantitative methods – content analysis, experiments, and/or surveys. Such
studies typically are grounded in Cultivation and/or Social Learning/Social Cognitive
Theories. Cultivation Theory (e.g., Gerbner et al., 1980) asserts that media, particularly tele-
vision, cultivate ideas about reality in viewers’ minds. Heavy viewers, which children in most
high resource countries are, are more likely to be affected by this television reality. Social

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-39 311

 Sharon R. Mazzarella

Learning/Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1994) proposes that children are more likely to attend to
and learn from models with whom they can relate, who are similar to them – thus they are
more likely to identify with someone of their own sex, especially another child.
While a large body of the research on media and children’s gender roles is guided by the
above theories, other scholars take a poststructuralist perspective, typically informed by Feminist
and Queer Theories which understand gender as constituted through and within performances
(Fisher & Jenson, 2017). Typically scholars cite the work of Judith Butler (1990, 1993), employ
qualitative and/or critical textual analysis methods, and link their research questions to cultural
and systemic issues.
In the sections that follow, I integrate scholarship from all of these approaches.

Gendered Messages in Television Content Consumed by Young People

Children’s Television Programs

While children today attend to a range of “screens,” studies have shown that television is still
paramount. A recent study by the Pew Research Center (Auxier et al., 2020), for example,
found that 88% of U.S. parents surveyed reported their child uses a television. In addition,
television content is also viewed on a variety of other screens. For these reasons, I focus ex-
tensively on television content. Studies of the gender roles in children’s television date to the
1970s. Over 50 years, regardless of platform, and with little variation related to genre or
country, studies have documented an underrepresentation of female characters in children’s
television (e.g., Al-Shehab, 2008; Aladé et al., 2020; Aubrey & Harrison, 2004; Götz & Lemish,
2012; Hendriyani et al., 2016; Thompson and Zerbinos,1995; and more). Regardless of how
such studies have operationally defined the “gender” variable, the percent of characters coded as
female has averaged around 35%. For example, Aubrey and Harrison (2004) found that male
characters in U.S. programs watched by young children outnumbered female characters by
more than 2:1, a statistic echoed in a later study of U.S. children’s television (Smith & Cook,
2008), a study of U.S. children’s superhero cartoons (Baker & Raney, 2007), a comparative
study of children’s television across 24 countries (Götz & Lemish, 2012), and a recent study of
U.S. preschool television programs (Walsh & Leaper, 2020).
The discrepancy is even more pronounced when looking specifically at characters with
STEM-related jobs in U.S. children’s programs where 77% of such characters were male and only
21% female (Aladé et al., 2020). Lemish and Russo Johnson’s (2019) study of U.S. and Canadian
children’s programs found that when looking solely at human characters, the ratio was roughly
50/50, but producers were more likely to default to male representation for non-human char-
acters, with female robot/machine characters a “particularly dismal” 10–15% (p. 12).
Looking beyond presence and moving into portrayals, in what has become the most cited
baseline study of children’s programs in the U.S., Thompson and Zerbinos (1995) found males
were likely to be more aggressive, ingenious, and task-oriented, while females were more
relationship-oriented, affectionate, and more likely to ask for help. While Aubrey and Harrison
(2004) found more gender neutrality than earlier studies, male characters were still shown in
more active pursuits, and females were more likely to be attractive and frail. Smith and Cook
(2008) found that females in U.S. children’s television were four times more likely than males to
be shown in sexy attire and to have unrealistic body shapes, while Baker and Raney (2007)
found that U.S. female superheroes were more attractive and appearance-obsessed. More re-
cently, Kahlenberg (2017) found U.S. female characters were more likely to be thin, very
attractive, and interested in romance, but not to the extent as in previous studies. In fact,

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Kahlenberg found evidence of female characters who transgressed those stereotypes as well as
females who evidenced academic and practical intelligence as well as dominance (p. 226).
Kahlenberg (2017) and other recent studies have documented some changes from the
conventional stereotypes (Lemish, 2010). For example, in one of the only truly intersectional
studies I located, Keys’ (2016) critical textual analysis of Doc McStuffins and Dora the Explorer
observed that these lead female characters of color challenged stereotypes of race, gender, and
class in that they were “leaders, heroic, inquisitive, clever, and adventurous” (p. 365).
Hentges & Case (2013) found that while male and female characters on kids’ cable channels
such as Disney were behaving more similarly than found in previous studies, both were be-
having in more “masculine” ways such as physical aggression, evidencing a devaluing of
“feminine” characteristics. The authors concluded that “gender atypical boys, boys who display
feminine behaviors, are simply not represented in children’s television programming” (p. 330).
Indeed, based on a qualitative analysis of U.S. television programs, Kelso (2015) documented
that fictional representations of gender-nonconforming children were “practically non-
existent” (p. 1073), while news coverage tended to highlight only extreme examples and/or
pitiable children.
Both quantitative and qualitative studies either outside of a U.S. context (including Indonesia,
India, Kuwait, Egypt, Canada, Sweden and more) or in comparison with U.S. television docu-
ment similar stereotyping (Al-Shehab, 2008; Das & Kini, 2018; Götz and Lemish, 2012;
Hendriyani et al., 2016; Lindstrand et al., 2016; Sheikh, 2017). Most notably, in a study com-
paring children’s television across 24 countries, Götz and Lemish (2012) documented the per-
vasiveness of gender stereotyping of role, age, and body type in television content traveling the
world. Boys were more likely to be antagonists; girls to be members of a group or team; adult
characters were more likely to be male; teen characters were more likely to be female; and female
characters were more likely than male characters to be thin, with blond or red hair.
Country-specific studies, support Götz and Lemish’s findings. For example, Al-Shehab
(2008) recorded the underrepresentation and stereotyping of female characters in children’s
programs on Kuwait’s national channel, while Hendriyani et al. (2016) found a consistent
underrepresentation of females in Indonesian children’s programs since the 1980s – the only
socio-cultural characteristic studied that did not progress over the decades.
A study examining the children’s television landscape in India (Das & Kini, 2018) identified
a preponderance of boy-centered programs, both Indian and imported, and found girl char-
acters in Indian animated programs were “coy, caring and passive and demoted to secondary
roles” (p.346). This parallels Sheikh’s (2017) textual analysis of the Pogo children’s network
animated program Chhota Bheem. The program, popular in India, Pakistan, and other South
Asian countries, underrepresented female characters and portrayed them as passive, sexualized,
domestic, and in need of rescuing. Similarly, in their analysis of the two main characters of Mike
the Knight, a British-Canadian animated television program airing on Swedish television,
Lindstrand et al. (2016) found title character Mike was brave, responsible, active, and ad-
venturous while Evie, the lead female character, was more passive, comedic, trouble-prone and
likely to fail at tasks.

Tween/Teen Television Programs

Scholars studying programs popular with tweens and/or teens, have found the under-
representation of female characters in roughly the same proportions as in programs for younger
children (e.g., Ellithorpe & Bleakley, 2016; Gerding & Signorielli, 2014). But as with programs
targeting young children, the teen television landscape is complex and evolving. While, for

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example, Ellithorpe & Bleakley (2016) found a significant underrepresentation of female

characters in U.S. television programs popular with 14–17-year-olds, they found more gender
diversity in programs targeted to girls than those targeted to boys, a result that parallels Gerding
& Signorielli’s (2014) finding that males outnumbered females by 3:1 in U.S. tween programs
targeted to boys while there was a more even split in programs for girls. Moreover, multiple
studies of U.S. teen dramas, including those popular with teens in other countries, found girls to
be thin, concerned with their appearance, and more likely to receive comments on that ap-
pearance (Gerding & Signorielli, 2014; Van Damme, 2010). Girls were more likely than their
male peers to be presented in a sexualized manner (McDade-Montez, et al., 2017; Van Damme
& Van Bauwel, 2010) despite an overall trend toward “gender equity” in representations of
sexual activity and consequences (Ortiz & Brooks, 2014).
Moving away from the gender binary, Sandercock (2015) examined the popular teen–focused
Canadian program Degrassi and the U.S. program Glee for their representation of central trans-
gender teen characters. Sandercock observed that while these groundbreaking portrayals chal-
lenged some assumptions, they continued to reproduce stereotypes related to trans lives. One step
forward, another step back.
Lemish (2010) revealed the role television producers around the world can play in bringing
about a more comprehensive and sustained change in television gender portrayals. Based on her
interviews with 135 “quality” producers of children, tween, and teen programs from 65 countries,
Lemish documented the struggle (e.g., economic pressure) many producers encounter when
attempting to produce programs that challenge gender stereotypes. Still, based on her interviews,
Lemish remained optimistic that “television images have the power” to break out of the gender
binary, and work “toward advancing gender equality, if we act to do so” (p. 177).
For example, Jane’s (2015) analysis of the Cartoon Network’s program Adventure Time,
which airs in the U.S., India, Australia, New Zealand, and across Southeast Asia, found it was
not only populated by roughly equal numbers of female and male characters, but also featured
“trans- and multi-gendered characters,” role play, cross-dressing, and characters whose per-
sonalities/traits deviate from traditional stereotypes for their gender (p. 243). Moreover, the
program works to highlight the fluidity of gender identity while also including trans and queer
subtexts, all while achieving commercial success.
While television continues to command much of young people’s screen time, so too do newer
digital devices that youth use for gaming and sharing pictures. I turn to those in the next section.
Moreover, while thus far I have discussed gender representations on the screen, since newer media
allow for interactivity, I also shift the focus how young people use these technologies in their own
gender presentations.

Young People, Digital Technologies, and Gender Presentation

Digital Media and Gender

In most high resource countries, the digital divide between girls and boys has all but closed.
According to the Pew Research Center, U.S. boys, for example, spend nearly an hour more a
day on screens than do girls (Livingston, 2019), but half of teenage girls (50%) are near-constant
online users, compared with 39% of teenage boys (Anderson & Jiang, 2018). A glance at low
resource countries, however, reveals a different picture with the least resourced countries
having a 31% gender gap (both adults and children) while others, including but not limited to,
Nigeria, Kenya, India, Pakistan, Ghana, and Vietnam reporting gaps in the low to mid-teens
(Singh, 2017).

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Gaming
The Pew Research Center reports that most U.S. teen girls and boys play video games, but that
“gaming is near universal for boys” (Anderson & Jiang, 2018). Scholars across a range of
countries have examined “video gameplay [as] a context for the performance of gender”
(Crowe & Watts, 2014; Thorhauge & Gregersen, 2019, p. 1462), and contrary to earlier reports
that girls did not play video games, more recent studies find a more complex, nuanced, and
often negotiated relationship between gender and gaming.
Numerous studies document dramatic differences in the gendered content of popular games
themselves. A detailed literature review by Blackburn & Scharrer (2019), identified numerous
studies documenting that male characters typically outnumber female characters by as much as
5:1, that they are more likely to be central characters, and exhibit hypermasculine traits in-
cluding aggression. Female characters are more likely to be in secondary roles and hypersex-
ualized. These findings are more pronounced for the more “hardcore” games focused on
shooting, fighting, and action.
A recent survey of several hundred Australian parents of preteens (Mavoa et al., 2018) found
that boys started playing the online game Minecraft at younger ages than girls, opted to play in a
more competitive mode, and frequently watched Minecraft YouTube videos. According to the
authors, these findings demonstrated the gendering of children’s actual game play as well as
children’s gendered place in the broader gaming culture. Similarly, Vilasís-Pamos & Pires’
(2021) focus groups of Spanish teens revealed that both male and female gamers “negotiate their
social position in their gaming practices” (p. 13), however, girls continue to occupy a secondary
space in the gaming culture and/or opt to play anonymously to avoid male judgment.
Thorhauge & Gregerson (2019) found differences in the gratifications experienced by Danish
tween/teen girls and. For boys, gaming served as social, team play while girls experienced
gaming as an escape from their intense online and offline social lives.
Girls and young women still occupy a subordinate place in gaming culture which is “in-
visibly organized by a patriarchal, binary understanding of gender” (Fisher & Jenson, 2017,
p. 88). However, this is not impossible to challenge, particularly when girls are provided re-
sources, space, and freedom to push back such as girl-focused gaming “camps” especially when
creating their own games (Fisher & Jenson, 2017; Jenson & de Castell, (2011). Kim’s (2009)
study of games produced and marketed exclusively for girls and women in Japan, for example,
found that such games function as spaces for female players to experiment with their identities
and fantasies.
The opportunity to experiment with one’s gender identity leads some young gamers to
“gender bend” – adopting an avatar/identity different than their binary identity. In an eth-
nographic study of teen U.K. players of the massively multi-player online role-playing game
Runescape, Crowe & Watts (2014) documented a trend of mostly male players adopting a female
online identity despite it not providing any play advantages. The male teens perceived this as
an opportunity to symbolically experiment with identity, since within the Runescape world,
such gender bending was “not in conflict with the wider issues of masculinity” (p. 224) in
the real world.
While easy to dismiss as “just a game,” recent scholarship has documented a link between
early gaming and girls’ choices to pursue college degrees in STEM fields. Hosein (2019) found
that, depending on their socio-economic status, U.K. girls who were heavy gamers (more than
nine hours/week) at ages 13–14 were more likely to be studying for a STEM degree at uni-
versity. Hosein concluded that these “girls were self-socialising or self-determining their
identity groups through gaming” (p. 226).

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Selfies
One of the most ubiquitous uses of digital technologies by teens and tweens has been the use of
smart phones for taking and posting selfies – typically defined as a self-photo taken either at
arm’s length or in a mirror (Naezer, 2020). Selfies have been found to play a role in young
people’s presentation of a gendered self (Mascheroni et al., 2015; Naezer, 2020).
Based on focus groups/interviews with 11–16-year-olds in Italy, the U.K., and Spain,
Mascheroni et al. (2015) found that both girls and boys engaged in impression management
through selfies, but boys tended to “distance themselves” from the practice, labeling it as
“feminine.” Moreover, there was a sexual double standard, with girls posting sexualized images
of themselves, only to be chastised by the boys studied. But Mascheroni, et al. concluded that
girls’ relationship with selfies is more complex than it appears and that they actively navigate
within dominant cultural discourses. Similarly, in an ethnographic study of Dutch adolescent
girls and “sexy selfies,” Naezer (2020) observed that girls “perform complex, intersectional
identities in interaction with dominant discourses about sexiness” as well as “the materiality of
their bodies” (p. 41). In another study of Dutch adolescents, van Oosten et al. (2017) found that
girls were more likely to both post and look at others’ sexy online images. However, both boys
who manifest a hypermasculine orientation and girls who manifest a hyperfeminine orientation
were equally likely to post and view such images.
Overall, scholars have documented that posting selfies is important components of 21st-
century young people’s gendered identity work, findings that are worthy of additional study.

Concluding Thoughts
The study of media and young people’s gender roles has had a prominent place in Media
Studies scholarship for several decades. However, there is a long tradition of scholars defining
gender in a purely hegemonic binary way – television characters are coded as either female or
male, for example. When scholars have moved away from a gender binary in their coding, they
have coded some characters as “other” for the purpose of excluding them from further analysis.
Certainly content creators have only recently moved to construct gender more fully and fluidly,
and scholars should study those attempts. Moreover, studies of media content and of children/
tweens/teens themselves have tended to isolate gender as a single variable, ignoring the fact that
young people’s gender intersects with a range of axes of identity including their race, class,
ability, and more. So it is time for children/youth Media Studies scholars to acknowledge and
address the complexity of young people’s intersecting identities.

SEE ALSO Chapter 6 by Lemish in this volume.

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 36
INTERNET MEDIA AND
PEER SOCIABILITY
Gustavo S. Mesch

Online communication has become central in the social life of late childhood and adolescence.
Such extensive use of online communication elicits mixed reactions among adults. Scholars and
practitioners have expressed concern that online communication leads to shallow relationships,
risks of online solicitation and cyberbullying. In contrast, it has also been argued that online
communication provides opportunities for identity exploration, access to social support and in-
formation, and the opportunity to develop meaningful and diversified relationships. In this
chapter, we address these issues, reviewing the central theoretical perspectives and recent research
findings on the association between online communication and sociability.
The ability of the internet and cell phones to facilitate constant contact, especially with
geographically remote individuals, has caught the popular imagination and the empirical at-
tention of researchers studying the sociability of children and adolescents. Prior to the in-
formation age, the social choices of children and adolescents were severely restricted by time
and place. Their lack of geographical mobility and their requirement to attend school reduced
their social circle to friends they met in the neighborhood, at school, and at extracurricular
activities. Contact with peers was possible at specific times that usually overlapped school and
extracurricular activities. However, new communication technologies support constant contact
with peers and the formation and maintenance of new and geographically dispersed contacts
(Webster et al., 2021).
Thus, the central themes that have dominated the research are the extent of the overlap of
online and offline peers, the structure of social networks and the effects of online contacts on
social involvement. This chapter will discuss these themes and the existing empirical evidence
supporting them.

The Overlap of Online and Offline Social Ties

Children and teens are frequent users of online communication. A study of teens aged 13 to
17 years old in the U.S. showed that 95 percent of adolescents have access to smartphones and
89 percent go online multiple times a day, 71 percent use more than one social media platform
(Lenhart, 2015a). As to sociability, 57 percent have met new friends online and 77 percent of
those who had met a new friend online reported that they had never met them in person,
indicating high rates of online exclusive friendships within this age group (Lenhart, 2015b).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-40 319

 Gustavo S. Mesch

Online communication has become an integral part of the culture of children and youth. Its
widespread diffusion is associated with the network effect, indicating that the extensive use of
email, instant messaging, and social networking sites by teens is the result of its diffusion
through social networks, generally face-to-face ones. There is also evidence that teens who
interact socially eventually use multiple types of communication channels concurrently)
Lenhart, 2015a). In other words, not only is the adoption of specific applications social in
nature, but their use may also depend on the nature of existing social networks.
The extent of overlap of online and offline social ties is a central topic of investigation. Early
studies were concerned that online ties did not overlap with offline ties, a fact that can have effects
on adolescents’ social involvement and security. The displacement-reduction hypothesis assumed
that participation in online communication motivates children and adolescents to form superficial
online relationships mainly with strangers that are less beneficial than their real-world relationships
(Valkenburg & Peter, 2009). In contrast with this view, a longitudinal study of teens aged 14–17 in
the U.S. suggest that online-only friendships may offer protective benefits as suicidal ideation was
attenuated among youth who reported the presence of one or more online-only friends (Massing-
Schaffer et al., 2020). As children and adolescents have increasingly adopted online commu-
nication as a typical mode of everyday communication with their peers, studies have shown an
increasing overlap between online and offline ties. For example, the report of the EU Kids Online
study indicates that most children (87 percent) who communicate online are in touch with people
they already know in person (Livingstone et al., 2011). In a study of emerging adolescents that
compared the networks of “friends” in social networking sites, instant messaging, and face-to-
face, the results showed that there was a partial but substantial overlap between participants in
online and offline networks. Half of the closest instant messaging friends’ names were also listed as
the closest face-to-face friends. Furthermore, 49 percent of respondents’ face-to-face friends were
also the top social networking site friends. The findings indicate that the offline and online worlds
overlap substantially (Subramayan et al., 2008).
How do online, offline, and mixed-mode friendships differ? A study based on a Dutch social
networking site (n = 2188), compared the quality of online, offline, and mixed-mode
friendships. Consistent with earlier studies (Mesch & Talmud, 2006), differences in quality
between online and offline friendships were found and remained significant over time, but
those between mixed-mode and offline friendships decreased over time (Antheunis et al.,
2012). Similarly, a study in the U.S. of teens aged 14–17 that compared online-only friendships
and in-person friendships found significant group differences in friendship quality. On average,
a higher quality of in-person friendships compared to online friendships was reported (Massing-
Schaffer et al., 2020).
Another study of adolescents (ages 16 to 19) used interactions in the public space of a social
networking site (the “wall”) as the unit of analysis and investigated whether the characteristics
of online “friends” are similar to or different from the characteristics of young social net-
workers. The study found that on average only 54 percent of the interactions were with others
who belonged to the same ethnic group, and 42 percent were with others of the same gender.
While there is strong public concern that ill-intentioned adults will contact children, the results
of this study indicate that most of the wall interactions were between individuals belonging to
the same age category (74 percent of the interactions). Indeed, propinquity was high, as
89 percent of the interactions were with people from the same state (Mazur & Kozarian, 2011).
A study investigated the association between the strength of ties and type of communication
channel among early adolescents in Belgium. The study looked at the individual’s entire face-
to-face network to investigate whether the strength of ties predicts the use of face-to-face and
online communication. All media formats (face-to-face, SMS, phone calls, email, instant

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 Internet Media and Peer Sociability

messaging [IM]) were used to maintain strong ties, making it possible for pupils to stay con-
nected with their friends at times when face-to-face communication was not possible. Texting
was used for maintaining strong ties, and telephone calls were associated with close friendships
and were used more within cliques. IM served a dual function as it helped to maintain close ties
but was also often used between less close friends (Van Cleemput, 2012). Thus, close friends are
more likely to communicate through a variety of communication channels: face-to-face
meetings, phone and cell phone conversations, and online communication.

Online Communication and Relational Closeness

The association between online communication and relational closeness is particularly inter-
esting. Early studies argued that online communication is of lower quality than face-to-face
communication and is not well suited to sustaining intimate relationships and conveying per-
sonal messages. An American study of adolescents investigated the frequency, content, and
timing of texting with parents, peers, and romantic partners through grades 9–12. Analyses
showed that texting frequency follows a curvilinear trajectory, peaking in eleventh grade.
Adolescents discussed a range of topics, predominantly with peers. Communication with
parents was less frequent, but consistent over time. Approximately 65 percent communicated
with romantic partners, texting heavily on topics like those discussed with peers (Ehrenreich
et al., 2020). These findings reflect the important and complex functions of online activity and
virtual socialization for the development and maintenance of relationships in adolescence in the
information age.
Studies have concluded that online communication may facilitate the development of in-
timacy and closeness. The internet attribute hypothesis suggests that certain characteristics of
online communication may be conducive to self-disclosure and intimacy (Valkenburg & Peter,
2007; Desjarlais & Joseph, 2017). A study based on a large sample of Dutch adolescents aged 12
to 17 years investigated the extent to which online communication stimulated or reduced
closeness to friends, and whether intimate disclosure of personal information online affected
their closeness in online relationships. The authors found that adolescents perceived online
communication as effective in disclosing personal information. Furthermore, online commu-
nication with others who were met online proved to have a negative effect on the perceived
closeness to friends (Valkenburg & Peter, 2007, 2009). An Israeli study with a large re-
presentative sample of adolescents provides one possible explanation for the perception of less
relational closeness of online ties – the length of communication. Online friends are acquainted
for less time than face-to-face ones, so they are perceived as less meaningful (Mesch & Talmud,
2006). Nevertheless, as time goes by, and as the topics of conversation expand from a small
number of shared interests to a wide range of broader areas, the perceived connection is as-
sumed to grow closer. Recent studies suggest that the effects of online communication on
teens’ well-being over time might be different for each individual (Beyens et al., 2020).
The content of the communications appears to be very important to perceived closeness to
friends. A study on the effect of the use of social networking sites for self-esteem and well-being
among adolescents found that the use of the friends’ networking sites stimulated the number of
relationships formed on the site, the frequency with which adolescents received feedback on
their profiles, and the tone of the feedback (positive or negative). Positive feedback to profiles
was positively associated with well-being and self-esteem (Valkenburg et al., 2006). Thus,
online communication has a real effect on relational closeness, but this effect is dependent on
self-disclosure, length of the relationship, and the positive content of the communication
(Desjarlais & Joseph, 2017).

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Benefits of Online Communication

Young people conduct their social life both online and offline, and their overlap leads to
perpetual communication with peers. When youngsters come home from school, they keep in
touch with their school friends and remote friends through online communication. This
continuous contact provides a sense of co-presence, of being together with others in a mediated
environment – either remote or virtual. Conversations that started at school continue after
school through mediated connections (Nesi et al., 2018). Online communication is often used
as an efficient channel to enable multiple social networks to coordinate face-to-face meetings.
Thus, the most general benefit of being connected online is belonging to social groups and
participating in their activities and exchanges (Ehrenreich et al., 2020). At the same time, given
the vast majority of young people who do have such access, the question of who benefits the
most seems reasonable. One perspective argues that online communication replicates unequal
social skills. The “rich-get-richer” hypothesis proposes that those who already have strong
social skills and social networks benefit the most from the internet. This approach assumes that
existing social connections or competence may be an antecedent of frequency of use of online
communication, and teens with strong connections to school-based peers use online com-
munication to seek out additional opportunities to interact with them.
It is also reasonable to assume that online communication is more prevalent among peer
group networks that are very active socially. Recently, it has been argued that high use of social
networking sites supports introverts’ acquisition of social competences that in turn expands the
peers’ network. Thus, computer-mediated communication increases the feelings of being more
capable of interacting with friends. However, the social compensation hypothesis provides a
different perspective. According to this view, online communication is more beneficial for
socially anxious and isolated youth. Online communication may compensate for a lack of social
network ties. In addition, socially anxious adolescents may feel more at an advantage in
communicating intimate and personal experiences online (Bargh & McKenna, 2004; Teppers
et al. 2014). A study that investigated early adolescents’ use of Facebook over time found that
peer-related loneliness was related over time to using Facebook for social skills compensation,
reducing feelings of loneliness, and having interpersonal contact (Teppers, et al., 2014).
Consistent with this perspective, a recent study explored the moderating role of loneliness in
the relationship between attitude toward online relationship formation and psychological need
satisfaction in online friendships. Participants included 1,572 adolescents who completed
measures of loneliness, attitude toward online relationship formation, and psychological need
satisfaction in online friendships. Attitudes toward online relationship formation were positively
related to psychological need satisfaction in online friendships. In addition, lonely adolescents
would report more positive attitudes toward online relationship formation and higher psy-
chological need satisfaction in online friendships compared to nonlonely teens (Ang, 2020).
Studies have examined introverts’ attitudes to online communication, and the association
between self-disclosure and the formation of online relationships. A study based on a large
sample of Canadian youngsters who completed a survey in Grade 9 and then in Grade 12 found
that socially anxious adolescents are more likely to rely on online communication and to report
higher friendship quality (Desjarlais & Willoughby, 2010).
In contrast, the social diversification perspective focuses on ICT as a space of social inter-
action and its meaning for children and youth. This approach emphasizes the potential of ICT
for empowering children and young adults of disadvantaged social groups. Unlike other social
groups that are geographically more mobile and exposed to a more diverse focus of activity,
adolescents lack geographic mobility and are limited to social relationships that involve

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individuals like them. According to this perspective, the internet might support the expansion
of social relationships including access to information, knowledge and skills that are unavailable
to teens restricted to certain residential areas and teens from ethnic minorities (Talmud &
Mesch, 2020). The innovative aspect of the internet is to provide opportunities for activities
that induce social interaction, a space for the expansion and diversification of social relationships
(Talmud & Mesch, 2020). As Mazur & Kozarian (2011) found in their study of older ado-
lescents, despite the partial overlap of online and offline ties, online communication tends to
diversify the structure of peer networks and expose youngsters to others who share their in-
terests regardless of their age, gender or location.
This approach has proven useful in the understanding of the use of online communication
among adolescents belonging to socially disadvantaged groups. For example, a study that
compared the use of ICT in Israel among Arabs and Jews found that Jewish adolescents living in
a Western type of nuclear family and with an individualistic orientation tended to use com-
munication technologies in a way that did not differ greatly from patterns observed in other
Western societies. Network expansion was achieved by meeting new buddies online, but with
the goal of moving on as fast as possible to cell phone and face-to-face meetings. By contrast,
the Arab adolescents used cell phones to maintain local ties at times or in situations where face-
to-face communication was not possible. In addition, their use of online communication re-
flected their living as a minority group in a traditional enclave surrounded by a Westernized
Jewish majority. In such an environment, the adolescents used communication technologies to
overcome the limitations of residential segregation, and to create ties that crossed gender lines
and were not accepted in their collectivistic and traditional society (Hijazi-Omari & Ribak,
2008; Mesch & Talmud, 2007).
Diversification is very likely to take place, but not at the expense of existing relationships.
The use of technologies that require previous acquaintance, and even membership in the same
social circle, can be used to coordinate group activities and continue conversations that started
at school. At the same time, online communication is used to reach out to strangers and their
unique resources. The extent to which online communication is used to access resources not
available in the peer group was at the center of a study of online practices of young adolescents
in a large rural area in California. The study identified a group of adolescents that relied on the
internet for information diversification. In planning their vocational future, these adolescents
engaged in social capital-enhancing activities. They were able to communicate with adult
professionals outside their personal and parents’ social networks. Thus, online communication
with strangers could be a capital-enhancing activity to access information on vocational and
professional programs (Robinson, 2011).
Mesch (2018a) investigated the role of race and ethnicity in the self-reported strength of the
social ties of young adolescents in the U.S. on Facebook. The study found a positive re-
lationship between ethnicity, the motivation to create online weak ties, and describing a po-
sitive experience in meeting a contact online (Mesch, 2018a). Consistent with the social
diversification hypothesis, the study found that African Americans in contrast to White
Americans used Facebook to increase the number of online weak ties.

Online Communication and Cyberbullying

Concomitant with increased use of the internet has been increased reporting on cyber-
harassment, sexual solicitation, and cyberbullying (Patchin & Hinduja, 2006; Tokunaga, 2010).
Online bullying is an overt, intentional act of aggression against another person; including
making rude or nasty comments about others online, spreading rumors, and distributing short

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video clips that are offensive or embarrassing to the victim (Rosen, 2007). Prevalence rates of
bullying and cyberbullying are highly variable because of how it is defined (Brochado, et al.,
2017). A meta-analysis of 25 studies concluded that the average percentage reported who were
bullied was around 20 percent (Tokunaga, 2010). Victims of online bullying were more likely
than non-victims to be the target of offline bullying as well (Smith, 2015).
By utilizing information and communication technologies, bullying enjoys the advantage of
several characteristics of the medium that transform the essence of the phenomenon as we know
it. First, communication that lacks non-verbal cues, status symbols and proximity to the victim
may lead to lack of inhibition and negative perceptions of others, resulting in an increase in
online bullying. Second, offenders exploit the internet’s relative anonymity. Third, the online
environment provides a potentially large audience for the aggressive actions, which might
appeal to perpetrators, and provide them with positive feedback on their actions. Past studies on
real-life bullying have shown the importance of the audience, as 30 percent of bystanders were
found to express attitudes supporting the aggressors rather than the victims. The longer the
bullying persists the more bystanders join, and the more the bystanders join the worst are the
consequences (Saarento & Salmivalli, 2015). Fourth, the large audience may amplify the ne-
gative effects of online bullying on the victim, as the harassment is being watched by all known
acquaintances even beyond the school and neighborhood (Mishna et al., 2010).
For several reasons the effects of cyberbullying might be more pronounced than those of
traditional bullying. In traditional bullying the possibility exists of physical separation between
the aggressor and the victim, but in cyberbullying physical separation does not guarantee a
cessation of acts such as sending text messages and emails to the victim. Anonymity and the
absence of interaction may make the aggressor still less inhibited and increase the frequency and
power of cyberbullying (Tokunaga, 2010).
An important factor facilitating cyberbullying are group norms i.e., beliefs of what is actually
done by most peers. A study that collected data from sixth- to eleventh-grade students found
that perceptions of one’s peers approve the behavior, increasing the likelihood of sending in-
sulting messages online (Sasson & Mesch, 2014). Parents have a protective role, as it was found
in a study of teens aged 12 to 17 in the U.S. that investigated the role of parent–child con-
nection on social networking sites on negative online experiences of young adolescents. The
study found that children reporting having a parent as a social networking friend are less likely
to be victims of cyberbullying (Mesch, 2018b).

Conclusion
Based on the evidence presented in this chapter, it is reasonable to conclude that online
communication fosters offline links and provides children and adolescents with opportunities to
maintain and expand their social ties to new connections. In line with the social diversification
perspective, constraints of locale and age can be overcome through online communication,
facilitating connections with ties that provide access to valuable resources of information on
hobbies, specific interests, and vocational prospects. In contrast to early perspectives such as the
displacement-reduction hypothesis, online communication is rarely an escape from offline
contexts; rather, durable online and offline ties are mutually embedded and reinforcing. With
the passage of time the online/offline comparison is becoming a faded and even false di-
chotomy. Many ties operate in both cyberspace and the physical realm. They do not exist only
online – instead, adolescents use online contact to fill the spells between face-to-face meetings,
and to coordinate joint activities and work. Computer-mediated communication supplements,
arranges, and amplifies in-person and telephone communications rather than replaces them.

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The internet offers ease and flexibility regarding whom one communicates with, what medium
to choose, when to communicate, and the communication’s duration. Certainly, these con-
clusions are temporary as internet research is still young. Given that the technology is constantly
evolving, more studies should continue investigating the field.

SEE ALSO Chapter 12 by Livingstone, Chapter 14 by Ling, and Chapter 39 by Lim in this volume.

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 37
MEDIA AND CHILDREN’S
MENTAL HEALTH
Anneleen Meeus and Steven Eggermont

Introduction
Over the course of their development into adolescence, children are faced with a range of
important formative tasks that lay the groundwork for adult life (Harter, 1999). During this
period, children begin to display the first signs of becoming more independent from their family
as they start the construction of a separate, stable, and coherent identity (Harter, 1999), and
begin to establish relationships with others (Hartup, 1979). These changes take place in a
context that is rife with media. More recently, the advent of mobile devices has entailed an
unprecedented privatization of media use and ubiquitous access to content, which poses ad-
ditional difficulties for parents to effectively manage their children’s media use, and has distinct
implications for young people’s development (Lim, 2016). Unlike previous generations, chil-
dren now have the ability to stay connected to others potentially any place, and at any time. As
they are at a pivotal time in their life, these technological advances may be especially impactful
for children’s (mental) well-being. On the one hand, this new media landscape may allow for
effective ways to interact with one another, consequently fostering greater social well-being
through increased connections among friends and family members (Padilla-Walker et al., 2012;
Quinn & Oldmeadow, 2013b). Likewise, these online modes of interactivity have been found
to translate to valuable forms of social support, providing individuals with additional tools to
cope with negative affect (Ellison et al., 2007; Frison & Eggermont, 2016a).
On the other hand, however, this connectivity also comes at the cost of increased social
scrutiny (Manago, 2015), which has been linked to mental health issues such as depressive
symptoms (O’Keeffe et al., 2011), stress (Fox & Moreland, 2015), and a lowered self-esteem
(Meeus et al., 2019). A major focus within this debate has been on the role of social net-
working sites in promoting negative mental health outcomes. Scholars have highlighted how
online environments created by social media tend to be increasingly appearance-focused, and
often produce an idealized version of reality (Rousseau, 2021). Empirical data among ado-
lescents and young adults suggests that exposure to such idealized imagery may indeed ne-
gatively affect users’ perceptions of their own lives (Chou & Edge, 2012) and their own
appearance (Holland & Tiggemann, 2016). Because children are now also turning more and
more to social media, these concerns may be equally relevant for younger age groups.
Especially for older children, such as preadolescents, perceptions of physical appearance

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-41 327

 Anneleen Meeus and Steven Eggermont

become highly salient to their feelings of self-worth (Harter, 2012), and may therefore be
vulnerable to media-related influences.
In what follows, the current chapter provides a brief overview of the various ways through
which media use has been related to children’s mental health and (social) well-being.

Social Connectivity
Children are growing up in an environment that is increasingly mediated through technology.
Within the field of media studies, much scholarly attention has traditionally been devoted to the
study of negative effects on users’ mental health, such as media-induced fear (e.g., Valkenburg
& Buijzen, 2008), depression (e.g., O’Keeffe et al., 2011), or decreased well-being (e.g., Ivie
et al., 2020). A large portion of children’s media use is undeniably social, however, and may
therefore also hold positive effects for their psychosocial development (Liu et al., 2019).
Although these positive effects have received less attention, they may nonetheless play an
important part in children’s mental well-being (Coyne et al., 2014b). Indeed, a substantive body
of research has recognized the importance of social relations for individuals’ overall happiness
and well-being (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Sandstrom & Dunn, 2014), while a lack of social
connection has been identified as a major risk factor for poor mental health (Ryan & Deci,
2001). In a world characterized by the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic, social
media platforms also played a crucial role in the sustenance of social ties (Rideout et al., 2021).
The direct impact of the virus, combined with the subsequent economic uncertainty and social
isolation of the lockdowns, all had a profound effect on individuals’ mental health (de Miranda
et al., 2020). Children and adolescents were no exception, and reported greater levels of stress,
concern, anxiety, loneliness, and depressive symptoms (de Miranda et al., 2020; Ellis et al.,
2020; Rideout et al., 2021). It is believed that the disruption of social bonds due to the virus
may have been especially impactful for young people, who are developmentally sensitive to
social stressors (Ellis et al., 2020). In this vein, preliminary studies showed that social media
make for promising tools to alleviate certain negative consequences by keeping young people
informed, while serving as venues for community, support, and self-expression (Rideout et al.,
2021). Importantly, social media also allowed children to stay connected to family and friends,
providing a valuable background for children’s socialization (Rideout et al., 2021).
The first, and arguably most influential, socialization context for children is that of their
family (Harter, 1999). Growing up in a healthy family climate is recognized as one of the single
most important contributors to children’s mental health, the implications of which can be so
long-lasting they shape individuals’ adjustment in later life (Laible & Thompson, 2007). Because
the bulk of children’s media use takes place in the home environment, the family context may
be particularly likely to affect, and be affected by this use.
More recently, increasing research attention has been devoted to the positive role media can
play within the family environment (Coyne et al., 2014b; Padilla-Walker et al., 2012).
Specifically, by their mere nature, media devices may serve as important venues of interaction
between family members, allowing them to maintain close relationships or to contribute to
family functioning by facilitating the coordination of household activities (Blair & Fletcher,
2011; Devitt & Roker, 2009; Padilla-Walker et al., 2012; Rudi et al., 2015). The use of media
for parent–child communication seems to increase with children’s age, suggesting that parents
use technology as a tool to adapt to children’s increasing maturity and drive for autonomy
(Rudi et al., 2015). In addition, devices such as mobile phones have also been found to actively
contribute to the quality of the parent–child relationship by promoting children’s self-disclosure
toward their parents (Meeus et al., 2020), while parent–child social networking has also been

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shown to contribute to higher connectivity (Coyne et al., 2014a). Moreover, even forms of
media that are not inherently interactive, such as videogame use, may be used as a positive force
in families, as shared media use has been related to increased parental involvement (Coyne et al.,
2014b) and family connection (Padilla-Walker et al., 2012). For girls, co-playing videogames
together with parents has also been linked with greater parent–child connectedness (Coyne
et al., 2011).
Among younger children, on the other hand, tablet devices – which do not lend themselves
as easily to shared use – have rapidly become a preferred platform choice. Enabled by their
parents, a majority of children start using mobile devices in their first year of life (Kabali et al.,
2015). About half (43%) of children as young as 2 to 4 years old, and almost two-thirds (61%) of
5- to 8-year-olds, now own their personal tablet (Rideout & Robb, 2020). While less is known
about the uses and effects of tablet use among these younger age groups, preliminary evidence
suggests that shared tablet use among parents and children may equally entail positive family
outcomes, such as reduced conflict (Beyens & Beullens, 2017).

Peer Pressure
As children grow into adolescence, they start to experience an increasing interest in their peers
(Zeijl et al., 2000). The development and maintenance of friendships is a key aspect of an
optimal childhood (Hartup, 1979), and contributes significantly to individuals’ mental well-
being and future (social) functioning (Harter, 1999). In this vein, social media in particular offer
an ideal setting for children and adolescents to practice the social skills needed for fulfilling
relationships (Valkenburg et al., 2011). Given that peer interactions are progressively taking
place online, the use of social networking sites is consequently also related to friendship benefits
such as feelings of belonging (Quinn & Oldmeadow, 2013a). Interestingly, research seems to
suggest that this increased peer connectivity comes at the expense of displaced family time (Lee,
2009; Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 2008). As children grow older, developmental needs drive
them to prioritize peer interactions over family communication, which, in turn, also colors
their technology use. Consequently, children’s time with their parents may be especially prone
to a media-induced displacement effect (Meeus et al., 2020).
Nevertheless, while online peer communication generally benefits children’s mental well-
being, these social bonds may also be perceived as a source of stress (Byrne et al., 2007). It has
been noted that the high self-disclosure levels that typically mark qualitative friendships can also
turn maladaptive due to an increase in the risk of co-rumination, or individuals’ tendency to
“frequently discuss and rehash problems” (Rose et al., 2007; Stone et al., 2011, p. 752). This
was also evident during the COVID-19 crisis, where scholars noted that higher levels of media
use were not only related to less loneliness, but also to more depression (Ellis et al., 2020;
Rideout et al., 2021). Scholars suspect that the stress surrounding the outbreak of the pandemic
may have led to more virtual rumination among children and adolescents, unintentionally
escalating existing concerns (Ellis et al., 2020).
Moreover, because they are so preoccupied with social standing, leaving a positive im-
pression on others may become an increasingly time-consuming and stressful challenge for
children. In this vein, the high visibility and persistence of social media content could also
subject children to heightened scrutiny, both by themselves as well as by others (Chua &
Chang, 2016; Fox & Moreland, 2015). The interactive flexibility afforded by mobile devices
may invoke the perception that one is continuously connected to – and evaluated by – their
online friends or followers. Not only is this online validation often easily measured through
quantifiable likes, tags, or comments, but it is usually also endurable and highly visible to other

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users, thus raising the stakes for successful online identity management (Chua & Chang, 2016;
Meeus et al., 2019).
As a result, children are faced with an omnipresence of demands associated with the “ideal
self ” they want others to see and validate (Chou & Edge, 2012). These demands can result in
increased feelings of psychological distress (Chen & Lee, 2013), stress and negative affect (Fox &
Moreland, 2015), problematic media use (Van Deursen et al., 2015), and lowered self-esteem
(Chua & Chang, 2016). For many, the construction of an “ideal self ” is also largely based on
standards concerning outward appearance (Chua & Chang, 2016). Indeed, the highly visual
nature of social media platforms requires users to choose how they visually present themselves
to others. Research has shown that most people tend to highlight physically attractive (albeit
not completely unrealistic) aspects of the self (Mendelson & Papacharissi, 2010; Vogel & Rose,
2016). This way, social media use may also have important implications for children’s self-
understanding, especially in relation to their physical appearance (Holland & Tiggemann,
2016). Scholars have noted that a preoccupation with one’s outward appearance that is con-
tingent upon others’ evaluations can lead to fragile self-esteem (Manago, 2015; Meeus et al.,
2019). As such, young people may (partly) base their self-esteem on online social approval in
the form of likes, as opposed to a more intrinsic locus of causality, which leaves their self-worth
vulnerable to outward influences (Deci & Ryan, 1995; Meeus et al., 2019).

Idealized Content
Similarly, exposure to others’ idealized imagery online can leave young people unhappy with
their own lives and appearance (Sherlock & Wagstaff, 2019; Vogel & Rose, 2016). Exposure to
idealized content has been linked to a range of adverse outcomes such as decreased self-esteem,
depressive symptoms and anxiety (Sherlock & Wagstaff, 2019), facial dissatisfaction (Wang
et al., 2019), as well as negative body image and even disordered eating (Holland & Tiggemann,
2016). Theoretically, these outcomes are commonly rooted in social comparison theory, which
describes how people compare themselves to others as a means of self-evaluation (Festinger,
1954; Rousseau, 2021). The orientation of social comparisons can either be up- or downward,
depending on one’s perception of whether the comparison target is either worse or better off
than oneself, although upward comparisons occur more frequently. Especially in the context of
social media, social comparison is believed to be commonly directed upward, as most users tend
to be exposed to content that is positively biased (Vogel & Rose, 2016). Against this idealized
reference point, one’s own situation may be regarded as subpar. It is such negative comparison
that is recognized as particularly harmful to individuals’ mental health (Vogel et al., 2014). In
this vein, studies have found adolescents’ life satisfaction and negative comparison to be re-
ciprocally related, such that negative comparisons on social networking sites decreased life
satisfaction over time, whereas, in their turn, lower scores on life satisfaction lead to more
negative comparison (Frison & Eggermont, 2016b).
Recently, concerns have also been voiced over the rising tendency of advertisers to employ
social media as a means to tap into young target audiences (Hendriks et al., 2020; Knoll, 2016).
Indeed, exposure to idealized advertisements may equally invoke unfavorable self-evaluations
among young people (Monro & Huon, 2005). Moreover, advertisers are now also increasingly
turning to influencers to market their products. This may be especially worrisome, given that
influencers generally appear as more similar to the perceiver, thus making both negative com-
parisons (Chae, 2018), as well as individuals’ vulnerability to the promoted content more likely
(Hendriks et al., 2020). While research into this area is still in its infancy, early evidence indicates a
negative impact of influencers’ content on social media users’ mental health (Chae, 2018).

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Conclusion
In this chapter, we first discussed how media can become embedded within the family context,
and can serve as a positive force that adds to connectivity between parents and children. As
such, these technologies may further enhance, as well as actively contribute to (e.g., through
increased options for self-disclosure) existing social relationships, which directly translate to
children’s well-being.
For older children, developmental needs incite an increasing orientation towards their peers,
which is also reflected in their media use. Social media in particular offer an ideal context to
rehearse the social skills needed for optimal peer relationships. In their turn, social bonds with
peers have been shown to play a critical role in children’s identity formation and overall well-
being, as well as their future social competence. However, this increased peer connectivity also
comes at the cost of displaced family time, which may negatively affect children’s satisfaction
with family life. Moreover, the omnipresence of social media through mobile devices con-
stitutes an additional source of pressure in the lives of young people. As they are connected to
others potentially all the time, users may become subject to heightened scrutiny – both by
themselves as well as by others. The drive to leave a favorable impression that is well-liked and
validated by others may increase feelings of stress and problematic media use, and lead to a
fragile self-esteem that is contingent on online approval. Finally, we demonstrated that exposure
to others’ idealized content may equally hold negative effects for young people’s well-being,
especially in relation to their self-worth and appearance-perceptions.
In sum, the current chapter further attests to the fact that media play an important role in the
psychosocial development of children and adolescents. This was also very evident during the
last tumultuous years characterized by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Having been pre-
vented from interacting in-person, children and adolescents employed media as a means for
information and support, and as a way to connect to significant others such as their friends and
family members. The effect of these technologies on their mental health, however, depends on
various developmental, personal, technological, and situational factors. A wealth of research
indicates that the same media device can be used in a positive as well in a negative manner, and
that one must be wary of simplistic generalizations regarding the influence of these technologies
that are interwoven with our lives in so many differential ways. Parents who seek to restrict
their children’s media use by simply limiting the time that is being spent with media devices
should therefore also be mindful of not disregarding their potential benefits. Indeed, the in-
creased social connectivity that is afforded by media may be essential for children’s optimal
development, and may help parents in finding a balance regarding children’s increasing drive for
autonomy and persistent need for guidance. In this vein, media literacy programs that educate
families on how to increase the beneficial potential of media use, while minimizing unwanted
outcomes, may be a more fruitful approach. Future research may therefore address ways to go
about these challenges, and help further optimize the role media can play in children’s
development.

SEE ALSO Chapter 20 by Dedkova, Machachkova, and Smahel in this volume.

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 PART IV

Contexts and Communities

Editor’s Introduction

Children’s media use is embedded in contexts and cannot be fully understood independently of
them. Contexts comprise physical spaces, such as bedrooms, and social arrangements, such as
families and peer groups. In addition, there are much larger social constructions of communities
to be considered: for example, nationality, ethnicity, class, and immigrant status. Authors
presented in this part of the handbook explore how various contexts in which children grow up
and their media use and meaning are intertwined in complicated ways.
Peter Nikken’s chapter opens this section with a reminder that the media landscape has
changed considerably in the last decades leading to more use of electronic screens by children,
paralleled by more concerns among parents about potential risks of online media and about how
to manage their children’s media consumption. Generally, parents can apply different effective
parental mediation strategies in child-rearing, like restricting media use, being actively engaged
in co-using media, or empowering their children via active mediation. Screens, however, are
very often used outside of the home context and on an individual basis. Therefore, parents very
often also try to supervise their children’s media use from nearby while doing their own chores
or they rely on screens as “babysitters.” Moreover, parents also can be distracted from parenting
their children when they use media for themselves. The author discusses the consequences for
children’s development of these new ways of media use in the family.
Sun Sun Lim argues that young people’s peer culture encompasses norms and conventions,
shared interests and activities, and unique modes of communication. Mobile phone enabled and
online media constitute an increasingly important part of young people’s lives worldwide. Her
chapter explores how young people integrate their media consumption into their peer culture
focusing on three facets: media use in face-to-face interaction, mobile phone peer culture, and
online peer culture. It delves into salient trends such as gender norms in smartphone use, youth
social and political activism, and demarginalization of youths on the fringe. The chapter also
provides a closer examination of youth subcultures that are media-based and media-facilitated
including pro-anorexia, K-pop fans, and LGBTQ groups.
Diana Leon-Boys, Michelle M. Rivera, and Angharad N. Valdivia argue that media
allow minority children to bridge their experience as members of a minoritized culture and of a
mainstream with which they must interact. Children live in a mediated transnational world,
navigating belonging, interpretation, and identity. Minority child audiences actively engage
with global media through their local cultural experiences. Yet the majority of research on

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-42
 Introduction to Part IV

children has been conducted on WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and
Democratic) children. The chapter begins with an examination of the category “minority” as
this varies across national spaces, foregrounding the concept of minoritization as a verb rather
than the noun “minority.” The authors proceed to examine research on representations of
minority children, with a special effort to include data across a global terrain. Next, they explore
research on policy implications, ending with suggestions for further research.
Nelly Elias and Narmina Abdulaev continue this line of scholarship with specific at-
tention to immigrant children. They argue that like their parents, immigrant youngsters par-
allelly follow two different integration paths: outward integration (e.g., acquiring host language
skills, adopting local youth culture, and socializing with local peers) and inward integration
(e.g., instilling native linguistic skills, preserving the homeland culture, and maintaining ties
with co-ethnic relatives and friends). To succeed at these demanding processes, young im-
migrants have to maximize the resources at their disposal, including various media devices,
contents, and platforms in the host language and in their mother tongue. The chapter provides
an overview of the principal media uses by immigrant youngsters and their families aiming to
facilitate their incorporation into the new culture while preserving their original cultural
identity and maintaining family unity despite growing cultural gaps.
Ans De Nolf, Leen d’Haenens, and Willem Joris shed light on Western media re-
presentations of Muslim and refugee youth as well as their usage of the media and social media
platforms. Both “groups” were researched separately, yet the evidence points to many inter-
esting similarities, with both a positive and a negative impact on intergroup relations. First,
traditional media portray them as a homogenous group, threatening the livelihood and (future)
jobs of the local, non-Muslim population. Muslim and refugee youth are often avid social
media users, using smartphones to connect with like-minded others, but also to influence
mediated representations by advocating for their rights and emphasizing the positive aspects of
their religion or way of life. Second, social media let them build an online identity and connect
with their peers for emotional support. Finally, both groups are highly susceptible to cyber-
bullying and fake news. The authors conclude that digital and social media overall have a
significant impact on the lives and wellbeing of Muslim and refugee youth regardless of their
actual living situation.
Vikki S. Katz discusses how unequal access to the internet and devices that can connect to
it – digital inequality – affects millions of young people around the world. But this form of
inequality manifests in different ways depending on where children and adolescents live, af-
fecting their daily lives and access to opportunities differently as a result. This chapter explains
and summarizes research at three interlocking levels of digital inequality: in digital access, skills
and practices, and outcomes, and explains why this form of social inequality is crucial to un-
derstanding how children’s and adolescent’s media engagement affects their developmental
trajectories today, and likely will in the future.
Dina L.G. Borzekowski calls readers’ attention to the fact that available content and re-
search on children and media differ strikingly between high-income and low- and middle-
income countries (HICs versus LMICs). Her chapter suggests that in just the last decade, the
problem of access has changed considerably. Children and adolescents from LMICs receive
broadcast, but more so, frequently use the internet and social media. Available content comes
mostly from high-income countries, although in-country production companies and user-
generated material are emerging. Other than evaluations of preschool programming, most
research on use and effects is superficial. The author concludes with a call for action since given
that almost 90% of those 14 years and under live in LMICs, it is time to support children’s
media and research in these parts of the world.
 Introduction to Part IV

Kate Prendella and Meryl Alper focus on disabled children as an important but over-
looked media audience. They argue that disabled children and adolescents grow up in an ableist
world that discriminates against people with disabilities and denies them full representation in all
aspects of society, including in the media. Content analyses have found that only 1–8% of
leading characters in popular children’s TV shows and movies in recent years had a disability
and that such characters were more likely than non-disabled characters to be depicted as violent,
helpless, in need of rescue, or to ultimately die. Disabled children have not just been excluded
from positive on-screen depictions, but they are simultaneously erased as an audience in mass
media research. The authors discuss approaches to including children with disabilities in au-
dience reception studies, as well as new research directions for understanding children with
disabilities as active readers, viewers, and consumers of media with desires, beliefs, and as-
pirations of their own.
Tao Papaioannou’s chapter reviews recent literature on youth and participatory politics
within the realm of civic learning. It examines how children and adolescents make selective use
of digital technologies for civic purposes given the participation opportunities and challenges
that digital media offer and media literacy interventions promoting varied civic and digital forms
of media literacy. Finally, the chapter identifies strategies to further enhance digital engagement
including pedagogical practices augmenting youth interest in lifestyle politics and information
analysis in response to the spread of misinformation. The review includes recent research that
aims to provide new insights into advocacy scholarship and practice, as a new starting point for
further research, validation, and debate.
Jean Stuart and Claudia Mitchell build on the idea of youth as knowledge producers
concerning issues in their own lives and highlight in this chapter how participatory visual
methods can play a key role in working towards social change. Drawing on examples that
highlight the potential for policy and community dialogue, the chapter focuses on the use of
tools and methods such as photovoice, participatory video/cellphilming, digital storytelling,
blogging, and community radio. The examples come primarily from research across
Indigenous settings in Canada and work with youth in under-resourced areas in South Africa.
The chapter considers implications for further work in a range of areas including ethics,
multimodal platforms, and community archiving.
 38
MEDIA AND THE FAMILY
CONTEXT
Peter Nikken

The family exerts a tremendous influence on children’s media use; i.e., channeling risks and
opportunities from exposure, creating the media-ecology for children, and shaping their con-
sumption patterns and attitudes toward the media. Likewise, the media shape family life, including
the physical location of family members in the household and the quantity and quality of ex-
changes that occur on- and offline within the family unit (Mascheroni et al., 2018). This chapter
considers the relationship between children’s media use and the surrounding family context.

Media in Family Life

The ways in which media are consumed within the family context have shifted considerably in
the last few decades. Children of all ages nowadays have access to a vast variety of mobile,
personal, and interactive media devices, and to the contents they deliver. As a result, children
in, for example, Europe (Smahel et al., 2020), the U.S. (Twenge et al., 2019), and Australia
(Huber et al., 2017) have significantly increased the time they spend on these devices. Even
children aged 0 to 6 years in both high- and low-income families in the Netherlands have
strongly increased their daily media use (Nikken, 2021). Contemporary devices are not only
more mobile than traditional television and VHS/DVDs, but are also geared to individual use.
Therefore, children’s media use is no longer confined to the physical family environment.
Children often have access to multiple electronic screens in their bedrooms – primarily laptops,
smartphones, and game consoles (Ofcom, 2017; Rideout, 2019), and use their mobile devices
outside of the house. From another perspective, some things are still very much the same as they
have been. Watching audio-visual content, be it via traditional television sets or via online
platforms, remains the dominant type of media use for children of all ages and in most countries
(Ofcom, 2017; Rideout, 2019).

Managing Children’s Media Use

The enormous expansion of media offerings has increased the burden on parents’ competencies
to raise their children in today’s societies (Mascheroni et al., 2018). More than half of the
French parents, for example, have concerns about their children’s use of screens (Danet, 2020).
Particularly worrisome for parents are: the possible harmfulness for children’s social-emotional

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-43 339

 Peter Nikken

development and their online safety; the risk of excessive, possibly addictive screen use; and the
difficulty of keeping up with their tech-savvy children and monitor what children are engaged
in on their personal small screens (George & Odgers, 2015).
In order to manage their children’s media use parents apply parental mediation, sometimes
very consciously, at other moments less intentional. Warren (2001) defined parental mediation
as any strategy parents use to control, supervise, or interpret media for their children, and which
can be considered key to overcoming media’s potential negative effects and fostering positive
outcomes. According to an observational study by Domoff et al. in the U.S. (2019) most
parental mediation is child-driven, i.e., parents react to children’s use of screens and whatever
they encounter online, whereas children, in turn, try to negotiate the rules and screen time
limits with their parents. Moreover, parents also react to children’s characteristics, like their
temperament, in allowing media use (Nabi & Krcmar, 2016). Basically, there are three major
parental approaches (Valkenburg et al., 1999), though later studies have extended these up to at
least six (Nikken, 2018):

• Restrictive mediation regarding time, location and type of device, and objectionable media
content or online interactions;
• Active mediation, i.e., positively or negatively oriented parental engagement aimed at im-
proving social-emotional or cognitive outcomes and at incorporating the provision of in-
structions, additional facts and information, emotional support, and normative evaluations
• Intentional co-use of media products together with the child, mostly for fun or relaxation,
and as opposed to active mediation without critical discussions;
• Supervision, or staying nearby to keep an eye on the child when s/he is using an electronic
screen on his/her own;
• Monitoring, i.e., checking the child’s online activities, at another location by tracking
applications or afterward in the child’s device (e.g., going through browser history or social
media conversations); and
• The use of technical restrictions such as “parental controls” provided by media devices to
block (in)appropriate content and regulate the length of use.

Contemporary technologies and changing family situations constantly ask for new manifesta-
tions of parental guidance of their children’s media use, like participatory learning (Schofield-
Clark, 2011). Also, among Belgian parents deference was found next to supervision, whereas
co-using manifested itself as helper and buddy (Zaman et al., 2016). Finally, next to intentional
strategies, parents also influence their children’s screen use by, for example, creating the media-
ecology at home and by their own media use (Nikken, 2017). With screens in the child’s
bedroom or used outside the house, it is more difficult for parents to co-use media with the
child, supervise the child, or apply active and restrictive mediation.
The extent to which and how parents manage their children’s media use varies, depending
on factors related to the child, the family situation, and the parent. Most parental mediation
studies have shown that mothers are usually more engaged in guiding their children’s media use.
Generally, girls also are more often mediated, in particular with co-use and active mediation,
whereas boys more often encounter time restrictions on their media use.
Parental mediation also varies with the parents’ socioeconomic status, although studies
provide an inconclusive picture. Earlier TV studies indicate that more educated parents more
often apply active and or restrictive mediation, whereas less educated parents more often co-
view (e.g., Valkenburg et al., 1999). More recent studies on digital media use have shown that
less educated parents now more often co-use and restrict their children’s media use, or turn to

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technical restrictions (e.g., Nikken & Jansz, 2014). Less educated parents may be less confident
about their own parenting abilities and therefore just simply limit their children’s use of media
to prevent potential risks. Finally, other important factors in mediation include, for example,
parent accessibility and involvement, and family communication and parenting style
(Livingstone et al., 2015). For parents who lack the support of a partner, and for lower-income,
or ethnic minority and immigrant families it may, therefore, be more difficult to offer their
children a media-rich environment or have a good discussion with their children about the
quality of media content and about being in contact with others safely through social media.

From Family Co-Use of Media to Supervision

Sharing media can be a bonding experience for the family (e.g., Connell et al., 2015).
However, because media devices nowadays are more and more geared to individual use, more
accessible to younger users, and more often used during the whole day, shared family media use
is becoming less of a routine for both older and younger children. A Belgian study (Beyens &
Eggermont, 2014) even showed that children are provided their own media devices to allow
multiple family members to watch their own shows at the same time or avoid rows between
siblings. Screens are also condoned as an escape for children in households where parental
disparity and family conflicts are at stake, to mask or compensate for the emotional tensions that
may exist between parents (Mares et al., 2018). This instrumental use of media is not the same as
the strategy of supervision, where parents keep an eye on how their children use a device from
nearby and can react to media content (Nikken & Schols, 2015).
Since solitary media use may have several backdrops, parents are discouraged from using
screens as an instrumental tool, i.e., especially as a pacifier, in their childrearing practices (AAP
Council, 2016). Relying on the all-time everywhere accessibility of screen devices enables out
of routine use at any time and place, which in turn can lead to screen addiction, less sleep, lower
school performance, and less outdoor play, etc. Moreover, solitary media use increases the risk
that children encounter inappropriate online content that is not regulated by professional
production procedures.
Parents in the Netherlands nowadays often report that they rely more on supervision than on
co-use, especially parents with younger children (Nikken & Schols, 2015). Supervision and co-
use are expected to be more beneficial for children than instrumental use, although research on
the effects of these strategies on children is still relatively sparse. From the work that has been
done, we know that the effects of co-use are mixed and dependent on the type of material that
is shared. Co-viewing educational material can lead to more and better parent–child interaction
with infants (Pempek et al., 2011) and increase children’s learning (Collier et al., 2016). The
mere presence of an adult during co-viewing probably increases children’s arousal and cognitive
resource allocation (Rasmussen et al., 2016), and may communicate to children that the content
is important, thereby resulting in increased levels of attention. Connective co-use with ado-
lescents (i.e., engaging in media with the intent to connect with adolescents) is directly asso-
ciated with less media use, and it moderates aggressive and prosocial behavioral outcomes that
are linked to violent media use (Padilla-Walker et al., 2018). However, in the case of in-
appropriate media content, co-use may also backfire and lead to the endorsement of aggression
and stereotypical sex roles, as it may imply parents’ tacit approval of that content (Chakroff &
Nathanson, 2008). Whether supervision has the same outcomes as co-use is yet to be re-
searched. One limitation, at least, is that tech-savvy children may quickly change the appli-
cations on their devices from appropriate to inappropriate content when their parents are not
paying attention.

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Although there is not much work on peer and sibling co-use, it appears that it may operate
differently than the presence of parents. Sibling co-viewing of television programs and films is
common and in particular affecting the length of children’s media use, whereas friends typically
impact the types of desired content (Edwards et al., 2015). More work is needed, however, to
understand how siblings and friends shape children’s enjoyment levels, attitudes, and learning
while co-using media.

Background Media
In many households, it is custom that multiple screens are on the whole day and used by
different family members. Sizeable percentages of U.S. parents, for example, reported that the
television is on for half or most of the day regardless of whether someone is attending to it or
not (Lapierre et al., 2012). This phenomenon of a television or another big screen left on
regardless of whether anyone is watching while children are in the room, is called “background
media.” This is of concern, because electronic screens typically include content designed for
older individuals. Rideout and Hamel (2006) more than a decade ago already showed that
young children in the U.S. are likely to be exposed to background television, especially in
single-parent, one-child, and lower-income households. In today’s media-saturated households
the chances of background media have increased.
Although the content of background media may be largely incomprehensible for young
children, it may still be very distracting since it contains language and sound effects that are
difficult for young children to ignore (Pempek et al., 2014). The risks of background media for
children’s development are threefold and not only apply to very young children. First, back-
ground media may interfere with other activities that demand cognitive processing. Schmidt
et al. (2008) examined solitary play among infants and toddlers when adult-directed television
was on and when it was off. They found that children played for shorter amounts of time, used
less sophisticated forms of play, and displayed shorter bouts of focused play when background
television was on compared to when it was off. Moreover, with background television children
were more likely to move from toy to toy in each new play session, indicating that while
looking at the TV for very short moments, the ongoing play scheme may have been forgotten
or it may have been difficult to reinstate. Also, Pool et al. (2000) among Dutch eighth-graders
found that watching a Dutch-language soap opera while working on their homework reduced
accuracy and speed on both a paper-and-pencil task and a memorization task. Refocusing
attention may thus tax both younger and older children’s limited cognitive resources and may
have consequences for their social-emotional and cognitive development.
Second, a relationship between background media and lower reading ability in children
exists. Parents in households with the television always or most of the time on read less to their
children (Vandewater et al., 2005). Furthermore, other background media impact students’
ability to comprehend television program narratives they are engaged in, whereas answering
instant messages dramatically reduces parallel reading efficiency (Uncapher et al., 2017). The
time to read a text passage could, for example, increase from 29 minutes when not texting to
49 minutes while simultaneously texting.
Background media, finally, was found in several studies in the U.S. to also alter the quantity
and quality of interactions between family members (Madigan et al., 2020). Kirkorian et al.
(2009), for example, observed that when the television was on, parents were passive and re-
latively inattentive to their children and less likely to interact with their youngsters. In similar
vein, with background media, the number of words and utterances, and the number of new
words spoken by parents to their toddlers decreases (Pempek et al., 2014), whereas background

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media during dyadic play between mothers and their infants at the age of 13 months negatively
predicts infants’ vocabularies four months later (Masur et al., 2016). With fewer quantitative
and qualitative verbal interactions between children and their caregivers, children get fewer
opportunities to practice their language abilities. Moreover, the constant flow of background
noise from the devices may also mask the conversations that are going on in the household,
hampering children’s learning of new words or expressions.

Effects of Media on Family Interaction

Media can bring families closer together as they provide opportunities for shared experiences
and mutually experienced positive affect. Despite this potential, it appears that contemporary
media, like mobile phones and laptops, more often diminish family interaction when members
are together, or instigate family members to separate from each other to enjoy media in-
dependently and in isolation, as was found in the U.K. (Livingstone, 2007). Parallel family
media use nowadays is common with all family members engaged with their own mobile
devices (Domoff et al., 2019). For many parents, this type of media use feels worrisome and
according to the research children’s solitary screen use may indeed get out of hand. Nielsen
et al. (2019) reviewed 27 studies from countries like Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Poland,
Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, and the U.S. and found that the proportion of adolescents that
meet the criteria for problematic internet use ranges from 4% to 25%, whereas 9% to 30% show
signs of problematic online gaming. Moreover, a review by Sahu et al. (2019) found that
another 6% to 16% may be at risk of overusing their mobile phones. This excessive use is
associated with feelings of insecurity, bad sleeping habits, impaired parent–child and school
relationships, psychological problems (like compulsive buying, pathological gambling, low
mood, tension and anxiety, and leisure boredom), and behavioral problems like hyperactivity
and other conduct issues.
Solitary screen use by children, however, is not the only problem that families face. Parents
themselves can be a risk too. Lemish et al. (2018), for example, during playground visits in Israel
and the U.S. noticed that although mobile phones are not the only distracting factor by parents
and their children, high use of phones by the parents was significantly correlated with parents’
disengagement from their children as compared to other distractors. The individual use of
devices like mobile phones while ignoring the presence of others, is termed “phubbing” and is
widespread. Being phubbed, however, may lead to feeling socially excluded, thus impacting
children’s development. Parents’ mobile device use is indeed associated with decreased atten-
tion to caregiving, and changes in child conduct, such as problematic externalizing and in-
ternalizing behaviors in children up to 5 years old (McDaniel & Radesky, 2018) or anxiety and
depression in adolescents (Stockdale et al., 2018). Thus, the use of mobile devices during
parenting activities may be infrequent and brief, but it can be a potent distraction that reduces
the parent’s responsiveness to children with considerable impact over time.
Despite the distraction and the using-media-apart-together problems that come with
modern technologies, some applications may encourage family members to interact more often
and more intensely with each other, increasing bonds among family members. As noted above,
co-used educational material enhances the learning potential of these media, when parents
respond to educational television by asking their children questions about the material and
reinforcing the messages conveyed (Kirkorian et al., 2009). Likewise, family-oriented video
games are often cited as a source of positive caregiver–child interaction, that permit multiple
players to participate in fun, non-violent competitions. There is evidence, however, that even
the joint use of video content is not always optimal for children’s development. Watching video

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content together, even appropriate educational materials results in less communication between
parents and children both in quality and quantity as compared to joint book reading and toy
playing (Nathanson & Rasmussen, 2011). Also, despite the reports that parents believe that
video games can bring them closer to their children, caregiver–child co-playing in many fa-
milies is a relatively rare phenomenon. Dutch parents who play video games themselves, and
who have positive attitudes toward games for children, however, more often join their children
(Nikken & Jansz, 2006).
One technology that not only has the potential to promote increased caregiver–child in-
teraction but also appears to facilitate this connection is mobile phones. Both parents and
adolescents report that they use cell phones to stay connected to one another (Blair & Fletcher,
2011). This technology also gives both parents and adolescents a sense of control in regulating
interactions. Moreover, family members employ social media applications, texting, and email to
stay in touch throughout the day despite spatial separation. For example, Gee et al. (2016)
found in the U.S. that even in educational settings children use mobile devices for contact with
home asking for support from their parents and that parents via online applications on their
mobile phones often even over-control their children’s whereabouts.

Conclusion
When we consider the relationship between children and the media, it is important to place this
association within the broader family context. Even if children consume media alone, their
family continues to shape their interpretation and responses to the content they use. Family
dynamics can shape what children take from the media and, likewise, media influence family
dynamics. These issues should be explored and, because our knowledge is mostly based on
North American samples, continued work outside of the U.S. would be very beneficial.
Moreover, future work should explore whether and how newer technologies are adopted by
families and how they shape family dynamics, including the power dynamics between parents
and children. Continued research in this area will help us answer these questions.

SEE ALSO Chapter 41 by Elias and Chapter 43 by Katz in this volume.

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 39
MEDIA AND PEER CULTURE
Young People Sharing Norms and Collective
Identities with and through Media

Sun Sun Lim

Introduction
As children and adolescents develop, they are socialized by their peers as well as by adults. These
peer groups play the critical socializing functions which imbue in young people a sense of their
peers’ norms, values, and behavioral patterns (Handel et al., 2007). While they imbibe the adult
cultures that surround them, they also absorb the peer culture that underpins and sustains their
interactions and relationships with other young people (Brown & Klute, 2003). Peer culture
encompasses norms and conventions, shared interests and activities, social and instrumental
interaction and the unique modes of communication deployed in all of the aforementioned
elements. During the periods of adolescence and early adulthood in particular, peer culture
assumes an important role in young people’s lives because their emotional center shifts away
from the family (Arnett, 2010). Key constituents of young people’s peer culture, given the
priorities of their life stage, often include shared interests and involvement in leisure pursuits
such as play, sports, shopping and media (Larson & Verma, 1999). Print, broadcast, and online
media constitute an increasingly important part of young people’s lives in both industrialized
and developing countries and are invariably woven into their peer culture (Arnett, 2010). The
ways in which young people integrate their media consumption into their peer culture is the
focus of this chapter. Specifically, it discusses how young people incorporate media content into
their peer interactions and appropriate a variety of communication platforms to socialize with
their peers, thus generating distinctive traits, norms, practices, codes, and shared identities that
make up their unique peer culture(s). The chapter is structured according to the three salient
ways in which young people around the world today interact with one another: face-to-face,
via the mobile phone, and over the internet’s myriad communication channels including social
media, virtual games, and discussion forums. The chapter then provides a closer examination of
youth subcultures that are media-based and media-facilitated.

Media in Face-to-Face Peer Culture

Face-to-face interactions with peers are a key facet of youth development as they gradually
mature and shift from the social world of their families, towards that of their peer groups. As
Pasquier (2008) observes, “[c]ultural preferences and practices are at the very heart of the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-44 347

 Sun Sun Lim

organization of youth sociability, the base on which one elaborates individual and collective
identities” (p. 457). Indeed, extensive research has gone into how media content and devices
are appropriated by young people for socialization with peers, as both material for conversation
and as a platform for communication.
Prior research has found that as young people interact in school and in leisure settings, media
content is often commandeered as a topic of discussion (Suess et al., 1998). Peer interaction
about media content also generates norms about what constitutes acceptable content for the
group and determines which media they should consume (Nathanson, 2001). In this regard,
media content’s ability to traverse different social milieux and technological platforms is what
makes it an excellent source of connection for young people in their peer interactions. In
analyzing the worldwide popularity of Pokémon, Buckingham and Sefton-Green (2003) dis-
covered that children in the U.K. could engage with Pokémon via television cartoons, com-
puter games and trading cards, and translate this knowledge into social interaction, be it of a
playful, friendly, or competitive nature. This “portability” (Buckingham & Sefton-Green,
2003, p. 388) of children’s knowledge about the cartoon thus entrenched Pokémon as a prime
ingredient in their peer culture. With growing convergence across media genres and platforms,
the portability of media content will become even more palpable, further enlarging the roles
that media will assume in young people’s peer cultures. A more recent study of elementary
school children in Australia found that in a class where children discussed picture books de-
picting social issues, they drew upon their out-of-school knowledge derived from platforms
such as YouTube and Minecraft to demonstrate their interpretive competence (Wilson &
Rennie, 2019).
Shared media use is another important way in which media content infuses young people’s
peer culture. With the rapid diffusion of mobile media devices such as smartphones, tablets,
laptop computers, and hand-held video games, face-to-face encounters with peers are likely to
involve a physical convergence around these devices, and a joint viewing of media content. As
observed by Suoninen (2001) of European youth, visiting friends to play electronic games or
watch videos is a popular activity, with some teenagers planning special video nights where they
watch a series of movies that may not have met with parental approval, thus fostering a thrilling
sense of shared deviance. The rising ubiquity of smartphones with location-based services and
always-on, always-available internet access in some countries has also introduced a culture of
documenting face-to-face peer interactions and sharing amongst the peer group. Singaporean
teen girls, for example, take camera phone photographs during outings with friends and share
them on-the-spot via Bluetooth or Facebook for their friends to view and access (Lim & Ooi,
2011). Through this instantaneous capture and dissemination of peer encounters, these young
people construct shared memories that serve to enhance their sense of group identity.
Augmented reality games such as Pokémon Go have leveraged the extensive multimedia and
geolocation capabilities of smartphones to further enrich social interaction among young people
as they meet up face-to-face to catch Pokémon “in the real world” through their phones,
promoting physical activity, shared experiences, and relationship building (Das et al., 2017;
Yang & Liu 2017).

Mobile Phone Peer Culture

The dominant mode of peer interaction amongst young people today is mobile phone com-
munication given the ubiquity of these devices (Vanden Abeele, 2016). Conventions and trends
in peer-to-peer communication via text, voice, or photos constitute the cultural dimensions of
young people’s mobile phone interactions with their networks of friends. Mobile phone peer

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culture comprises idiosyncratic communication practices and linguistic codes in the form of
truncated, alphanumeric text-ese, which come with their own tacit rules of adoption and
standards of social acceptability, including even around the use of punctuation, smileys, and
other emoticons (Baron & Ling, 2011).
On an instrumental level, young people’s use of the mobile phone to identify their friends’
whereabouts and micro-coordinate serendipitous gatherings has created a peer culture where
“mobility and flexible scheduling are central” (Castells et al., 2007). Ling and Yttri (2002) noted
from their study of Norwegian teens that this practice of vaguely specifying where to meet
before progressively firming up appointments, while not unique to young people, is especially
developed amongst teenagers. Such flexibility hinges on always being accessible to others,
which in turn creates an always-on intimate community that keeps in perpetual intermittent
contact, with its members constantly updating one another on all aspects of their personal life,
from the mundane to the weighty (Ito, 2004). This culture of communication also enables
young people to engage in a live, stream-of-consciousness narration of daily events that enables
them to live out and share in each other’s lives, as seen in a Canadian study (Caron & Caronia,
2007). Clearly, these communication processes are of more than instrumental value, and serve
to fortify the socio-emotional aspects of relationship building amongst young people. Indeed,
Taylor and Harper (2003) identified the “gifting” function of text messages amongst young
people in the U.K. While not laden with meaning in and of themselves, text messages are
exchanged in a process of performativity where young people display their commitment to
friendship, thereby seeking to cement social ties. For instance, the communication culture
within a peer group can comprise forwarding text messages from one peer to multiple other
members of a peer group network, with an expectation of reciprocity within the network. Such
activities help to establish shared conventions and meanings amongst a group of peers, thus
forging a sense of collective identity (Green & Haddon, 2009).
As mobile phones have diffused throughout the world, youths from the Global South have
also leveraged their affordances to enrich their social interaction. Lesitaokana’s (2018) study of
young people in Botswana found that although many are poor and do not have formal em-
ployment or income to sustain mobile subscriptions, they save up airtime from parents and
partners for text messaging and accessing social networks rather than voice calls. Texting is
much more discreet than voice calls and is thus ideal for communicating with one’s peers
without inviting judgment or sanction from elders. Notably, buying mobile phones airtime for
one’s girlfriend is regarded as an expression of affection. However this practice also reflects
patriarchal beliefs of traditional gender roles and in adverse circumstances, can become a
conduit for males’ control over their girlfriends. This finding was echoed by studies of
smartphone adoption by Nigerian girls (Onyima & Egbunike, 2019) and Palestinian girls in
Israel (Hijazi-Omari & Ribak, 2008). Such gendered peer norms around young people’s media
device and content consumption demand closer investigation because they seed long-term
gender biases and practices that they may carry into adulthood.
Apart from the communicative functions of mobile phone communications, the mobile
phone’s role as an item of signification is also important amongst young people. With its
constant presence, portability and ease-of-adornment, the mobile phone is ideal for this pur-
pose. Young people have been observed to personalize their phones through physical em-
bellishments or the use of accessories to represent a shared peer identity as evidenced for
example in Japanese street youth practices (Okada, 2006) and amongst young Korean females
(Hjorth, 2009). In more resource-scarce societies such as Nigeria, adolescent girls covet
smartphones as symbols of prestige and urban sophistication, making these devices courtship
tools that young males exploit to woo their female counterparts (Onyima & Egbunike, 2019).

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Online Peer Culture

Online communication platforms enable young people to extend their peer interaction beyond
their face-to-face encounters with one another. This multitude of online platforms, including
discussion forums, instant messaging, social networking services such as Instagram and TikTok,
and virtual worlds such as Minecraft and Animal Crossing, each with its own set of affordances,
communication cues, styles and rhythms, offers additional means by which young people can
nurture their peer cultures. The proliferation of online platforms, media genres and interaction
modes have facilitated the emergence of many trends in youths’ online peer culture but this
chapter focuses on two especially meaningful ones – political activism and demarginalization.
While there used to be a widely held misperception that young people are politically
apathetic, there is rising awareness of their growing involvement in social and political activism
worldwide, facilitated and amplified by pervasive internet use (Earl et al., 2017; Vadrevu & Lim,
2012). The past decade has seen youth activism flourish online and offline – from the Umbrella
Revolution in Hong Kong (Shen, Xia, & Skoric, 2020), to the Black Lives Matter movement
in the U.S. (Clark, 2016) and climate change activism emblematized by the Swedish teen “eco-
warrior” Greta Thunberg (Boulianne et al., 2020) – media has played an integral role in serving
as a point of convergence for discussion, advocacy, and mobilization of, for and by youth.
Platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram offer a diverse and flourishing goldmine
of popular culture artifacts that youth appropriate for political expression, forging virtual water
coolers for youths of diverse political views and orientations to interact (Literat & Kligler-
Vilenchik, 2021). While such popular culture artifacts comprising videos, image-based memes,
and game metaphors often expressed political views in a funny and disparaging manner that
appealed to young people, the users’ comments did not necessarily reflect greater understanding
across political divides. Nevertheless, the potential for online platforms to offer youths an
avenue for engaging with social issues and debates exists and will continue to be explored in a
multitude of creative ways.
Demarginalization of youths who are (and perceive themselves to be) on the fringes of society
is another notable online peer culture trend. While the online world can reproduce offline societal
schisms, it also possesses greater elasticity to engender inclusiveness. For example, Autcraft is a
community centered on a Minecraft virtual world that supports children with autism who are
passionate about maker culture. The Autcraft community’s unique form of maker culture paves
the way for children with autism to engage in self-expression, sociality, and learning as they create
and share their innovations and resources (Ringland et al., 2017). Separately, there is encouraging
evidence that for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit Disorder, a
platform such as Minecraft can help promote positive social interactions among neurodiverse
children due to its affordances to facilitate a peer culture of cooperation, social modelling, at-
tention, and performance in a safe and supportive milieu (Zolyomi & Schmalz, 2017).
Indeed, it has been well established that online interactions provide young people with a
relatively less risky environment in which to acquaint themselves with the norms and rules of
their peer groups, helping them to “work out identity and status, make sense of cultural cues,
and negotiate public life” (boyd, 2008 p. 120). By observing the mutual interactions, valida-
tions, and admonishments of peers in the socially networked online setting, young people learn
to interpret social situations and manage their public personae both online and offline.
Furthermore, in text-based chat rooms or graphically rich virtual worlds such as Minecraft or
Animal Crossing in which young people participate via avatars, the visual anonymity and
disembodiment relieve them of the pressures of self-presentation and impression management
(Holloway & Valentine, 2003; Lim & Clark, 2010).

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Media and Youth Subcultures

Youth subcultures arise when peer interaction is of such intensity that it develops into an
identifiable subculture with distinct beliefs, values, and practices. Media can be components of
youth subcultures either as focal points for the subculture’s interest, or as conduits for a sub-
culture’s members to interact and foster their collective identity. I refer to the former as media-
based subcultures and the latter as media-facilitated subcultures. It should be noted that the two
are not mutually exclusive since there are media-facilitated subcultures that are not media-
based, e.g., online pro-anorexia groups, whereas media-based subcultures are almost always
media-facilitated, e.g., fan groups. The internet in particular, given its ubiquity and versatility,
has become a prime platform for the assertion of youth subcultures.
In media-based youth subcultures, a keenly shared interest, in particular media genres or
media personalities, forms the foundation for peer group interaction. Notable youth sub-
cultures have been centered around different types of music, where their members display
strong identification with the attitudes and styles of particular musical genres and their
leading artistes. Notably, the rise in the global popularity of Korean pop has seen bands such
as BTS garner a geographically diverse fan base from across and beyond Asia, Europe, and
North and Latin America, who collectively identify as the BTS ARMY (Ju, 2019). These
fans have had significant influence on BTS’ success including their mass voting power that
led to the group winning the 2017 Billboard Music Award. They engage with each other and
the band itself via social media, sharing their analysis of BTS’ music videos and lyrics,
crowdfunding campaigns for BTS’ UNICEF campaign and even mobilizing in support and
defense of BTS against mischaracterizations or racism (McLaren & Jin, 2020). Their fandom
can thus extend into activism and provide a potent platform for youths to engage with social
issues. The dynamics within online fan communities is another interesting manifestation of
young people’s peer cultures.
As seen above, young people use the media to facilitate their interactions with peers and
particular youth subcultures have been especially empowered by the internet and computer-
mediated communication (CMC). CMC affords young people a degree of privacy and
anonymity that cannot be experienced in face-to-face communication and provides peer
cultures that are considered more “deviant” with a safe and non-judgmental sphere for in-
teraction. Building on earlier work by scholars such as Gailey (2009) who found that “pro-
ana” websites, blogs, and social networking sites help anorexics by providing common spaces
to interact and build a sense of community, recent research has delved into young people’s
use of more image-based platforms such as Instagram. Ging and Garvey (2018) argue that
pro-ana “thinspiration” images on Instagram mainstream the condition and help to broach
discussion of eating disorders and self-mutilation within the broader context of gendered
expectations and teen pressures, thus furthering understanding of (cyber)bullying, depression,
self-harm, and gender equality. Another youth subculture that has found solace online is
LGBTQ teens. For example, the platform Tumblr provides LGBTQ youths in the U.S. with
a diverse liberal public sphere where they can seek support and validation, while being
introduced to new ideas and interactions that pave the way for discussion and learning
(McCracken, 2017). Importantly, although their posts are visible to the public, Tumblr users
operate under pseudonyms and are thus shielded from the scrutiny of families, employers,
friends, and other institutional authorities. Users are also able to conceal gender, national,
religious, and racial affiliations unlike in other platforms where these are used to silence and
harass them. On Tumblr, LGBTQ and other marginalized youth enjoy a greater sense of
security and privacy within an online “private” public space.

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Conclusion
The media constitute a cornerstone of young people’s peer culture that is at once alluring and
difficult for them to disengage from. Be they part of mainstream youth or youth subcultures,
young people today are avidly appropriating media content and channels to interact with their
peers and in the process they foster norms, conventions, shared practices, and collective
identities within their peer groups. As internet-ready smartphones rise in ubiquity and tech-
nological convergence gains pace, so too will the convergence of young people’s face-to-face,
mobile and online interactions. With the seamless connection of young people’s offline and
online interactions, and the intensification of the latter, there will be greater opportunity for
peer cultures to be invigorated, asserted, and shared across multiple realms, both mediated and
face-to-face. Young people are hard pressed to engage in ceaseless impression management,
especially online. But will such seamlessness intensify “context collapse” (Wesch, 2009) where
people from different realms of one’s life converge, further challenging young people’s ability to
negotiate the competing social expectations imposed by different peer groups? Being constantly
connected to their peers both online and off, will young people find the pressure of adhering to
peer norms overwhelming and deindividuating? Where and how will young people carve out a
personal space for themselves if they seek to resist the influences of media-centered and media-
facilitated peer culture or to subvert oppressive norms? Is it even possible for them to do so? It is
imperative that future research considers these questions as it tracks the evolving position of
media in young people’s peer culture.

SEE ALSO Chapter 36 by Mesch in this volume.

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 40
MEDIA AND MINORITY
CHILDREN 1
Diana Leon-Boys, Michelle M. Rivera, and Angharad N. Valdivia

Categorization
National origin, race and ethnicity, religion, and regionality can all render a child a “minority.”
First, what counts as a minority in one setting can be a majority in another, with spatial and
temporal variance – thus the categorization of minority children becomes more complex in
relation to global issues as inequality is difficult to measure across countries (Sahel et al., 2020).
Second, in many settings the discourse of minoritization does not exist, that is there is not a
research category nor data collected on minority children per se. For instance, the multinational
EU Kids Online (Sahel et al., 2020) project mentions “minority” in relation to frequency and
not to ethnicity or nationality. As well, “minority” overlaps with immigrant children, as im-
migration status often results in minoritization. In Latin America, within individual countries
indigenous populations are minoritized, and regional prejudices against neighboring countries
minoritize more children. The same applies globally. The Europe-wide EU Kids Online
project represents some of the challenges to finding data about minority children and media.
Lobe et al. (2007) assert that while multinational researchers need to:

avoid overstating homogeneity within countries [and so downplaying the importance

of socio-demographic, regional or cultural divides within a country], they must also
avoid overstating heterogeneity across countries [and so reproducing national ste-
reotypes or exaggerating difference].
(p. 35)

Yet there is relatively little attention paid to heterogeneity within countries – the level at which
minoritization is usually experienced by children. For instance, in the U.S. until the 2000 Census,
an overwhelming majority of studies adopted a binary Black and White racial model to study
minority children. Following the 2000 acknowledgment of a growing Latina/o population,
minority children research expanded to include children of recent or past Latin American origin.
Projects are more attentive to gender than to race, ethnicity, or religion (e.g., Chassiakos et al.,
2016; Garmendia et al., 2011). Moreover, the category of “risk” potentially includes minority status
through “violent or hateful content.” For example, Hasebrink et al. (2009) single out one of the risks
as “racist/hate material/activities” (p. 7) and “biased information, racism, blasphemy, and health

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-45 355

 Diana Leon-Boys et al.

advice” at the intersection of content and values/ideology (p. 8). EU Kids Online studies used to
discuss “hateful content” in terms of pornography status (e.g., de Haan and Livingstone, 2009) or list
racism as one of a series of risks that includes “self harm, suicide, pro-anorexia, drugs, hate/racism,
gambling, addiction, illegal downloading, and commercial risks” (Livingstone & Haddon, 2009,
p. 3). More recent EU Kids Online projects (Smahel et al., 2020, p. 65) operationalize “hate
messages that attack certain groups or individuals (e.g., people of different colour, religion, na-
tionality or sexuality).” In all of the above religious minority status is implicitly part of the content
and experience of “hate/racism,” reminding us that religious discrimination reaches minoritized
children via media (Downing, 2003). Particular countries’ efforts to track, prosecute, and prevent
cyberhate do not elucidate how much of this hate is experienced by minoritized children, illus-
trating the difficulty of studying minority children and media transnationally with the definition of
“minority” shifting not only in terms of time and space but also within large research projects.
Given that media circulate transnationally, minority children’s identification and engage-
ment with particular characters, situations, and particular media is a dynamic area of study that
has to be both globally and locally contextual, disaggregating the heterogeneity of children.2
More complex issues of hybrid identities and popular culture further trouble how minority
children and the media are studied. This chapter explores a context of transnational flows of
media consumed by a heterogeneous and globally dynamic population of minority children.
We respond to Buckingham’s (2008) call for scholars to engage a more holistic approach to
research on children and the media by examining text, production, and audiences together, thus
providing a “wider analysis of the ways in which both … are constructed and defined” (p. 227).

Minority Children and Representation

Research on media representation finds that dominant culture children are over-represented,
backgrounding or erasing minorities. The circulation of children’s media follows transnational
patterns of production leading to widely available media that over-represents White children
and/or produces a color-blind media ecology in U.S.-produced and globally circulating media.
Conversely, the near lack of production of children’s media in Africa results in the severe
under-representation of characters and themes from that continent that might appeal locally and
globally. Regional media production nodes in places such as India, Japan, and the U.K., as well
as a smaller output from other countries in Asia, Europe, and Latin America follow this pattern
of over-representation of White children, in live action and cartoon content (Aladé et al., 2020;
Dill-Shackelford et. al., 2017; Harewood & Valdivia, 2005; Keys, 2016; Olson, 2017). Schlote
and Otremba (2010), for example, find that cultural diversity in children’s television was often
represented as a problem. In a study about the U.S. and Canada, Lemish and Russo Johnson
(2019) find that whereas “the majority of human characters on children’s TV are Caucasian” …
female characters are twice “as likely to be portrayed as persons of color or as racially ambig-
uous” (p. 14). In general, studies of minority children suggest that there has been a change from
near exclusion, to symbolic annihilation, to a multicultural palette foregrounding White
children and backgrounding minority children, to some representations of hybrid and am-
biguously ethnic children with the potential of addressing and interpellating a wide range of
identities (Leon-Boys, 2021; Leon-Boys & Valdivia, 2021; Valdivia 2009, 2011).
As of 2020, both legacy television and streaming platforms bore out traces of ongoing global
migration and racial tensions. Netflix and other streaming platforms (including Hulu and
Disney+) have included sections such as “representation matters” collection or “celebrate Black
stories” lists, showcasing some work created by and featuring people of color, illustrating that
real life political culture issues, such as the Black Lives Matter movement and border crossings

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have influenced programming and the foregrounding of pre-existing material. Although to date
we do not have quantitative data on what percentage of these collections is children’s content, a
perusal of the titles features children and families, especially animated content. As well, family
television shows, such as the Party of 5 (2020) reboot about a Latinx family’s separation, narrate
a story about children left behind because of deportation. Whereas a 2020 report by Television
Business International finds that “…while strides are being made to improve inclusivity and
representation on screen, children’s television is still often poorly served” (Layton, 2020), we
find hopeful inclusion of topics and characters in contemporary programming.

Minority Children and Media Use

Minority children’s media use varies in relation to their socioeconomic class, ethnicity, and other
intersecting vectors of difference such as religion and region. Recent U.S. census data (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2019) reveal that increasing racial diversity is most prominent within children
under 15 years of age. Conversely, White children under 15 are now the minority in their age
category. Unsurprisingly, access to “new” media is highly correlated with socioeconomic status
(SES) in the U.S. and in many countries with wide income gaps, including some in Europe,
especially those with relatively weak investment in public education and culture. The COVID
pandemic has upended “common sense” about near universal access following anecdotal evidence
of children sitting outside of fast-food drive-throughs to catch free WiFi to access their online
education (e.g., Ebrahimji, 2020). The digital divide is still with us. In the U.S., ethnic differences
in access to digital telephony, internet/WiFi, cable, video game ownership, HD-ready tech-
nologies, and DVR machines at home roughly map out over the SES of ethnic groups and thus
predict the level of access and engagement for ethnic children.
Some national studies on the role of media in the lives of children find that use varies much
more significantly by race and SES factors than by gender (Rideout & Katz, 2016; Rideout &
Robb, 2020). Media use does not equal media access. Indeed, a paradox is that children in higher
income households report less media use, due to availability of extra-curricular activities not
affordable by lower SES families. African American children spend more time than White chil-
dren with media yet read slightly more (13 minutes) than White children. Children from lower-
income households watch more over-the-air educational and commercial television than the
recorded and pre-selected material viewed by higher income children. Lesser access to cable or
satellite is related to SES. Uneven access to digital/new media signals a growing “app gap” (p. 21)
emerging across lower-income households. A statistically significant proportion of lower-income
families exhibit much less use of newer mobile devices in relation to higher income families’ use of
digital games, videos, and apps on cell phones, and iPads. Tablet technology and home computers
are more prevalent among children in higher income families. Confirming the intersectionality of
SES and ethnicity, Pew Research Center data confirms that teen cell phone users from the lowest
household incomes are also the most likely to use their portable handsets to go online (Madden,
2010) while 78 percent of White teens, 75 percent of African American teens, and 68 percent of
Hispanic teens have cell phones. Among those who own four or more internet-connected de-
vices, minority groups (10 percent African American, 12 percent Hispanic, and 9 percent “other”)
lag behind the 69 percent of White adopters of multiple internet-enabled devices. U.S. public
libraries that provide free access to internet, sought primarily by lower SES populations, especially
youth, have developed policies that both ensure access and limit time of use (Valdivia, 2020).
As another indicator of differential usage, African American and Hispanic children are more
likely to engage in “media multitasking” (watching television while completing homework or
listening to music devices while playing a video game) than White children in this same age

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range (Rideout, 2011, p. 27). “Generation M,” ages 8–18, (Rideout et al., 2011) comprises
young people across ethnic groups with expanded access to media inside and outside of the
home through the proliferation of mobile devices while the increased use of new media has not
displaced their heavier use of television and music. Use of “television” or “watching TV”
currently takes place on various platforms, however, including streaming services and YouTube
via laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc. (Rideout & Robb, 2019). Furthermore, Rideout and
Katz (2016) found that race-related disparities of access continue to increase in terms of
minority youth watching more television on new technological platforms.
Multitasking describes media use among youth populations as opposed to reports and studies
that focus on “displacement” narratives about old media technologies (Scantlin, 2008, p. 58). The
app gap and notable digital divide point to the salience of SES in predicting online access and use,
and signal disparities in use and access among ethnic and racial minorities in the U.S. More studies
are needed that examine minority children as interactive subjects online. Whereas scholars
continue to study children’s online content creation (Drotner, 2020; Jansz et al. 2015), data on
minority children remain scarce. In 2000, public discourse noted children’s increasing online use,
yet by 2021 scholars know that children are prosumers in the convergent media ecology, con-
suming and producing digital media through widely dispersed mobile digital technology. A Kaiser
Family Foundation study focusing especially on minority youth, in The New York Times reported
“If your kids are awake, they’re probably online” (Lewin, 2010), which seemed alarming then but
now has become thoroughly normalized, especially in pandemic times.
Worldwide, scholarship considers the complex intersectional engagement with “new”
media. For instance, Hijazi-Omari and Rivka Ribak (2008) studied mobile phone use among
Palestinian teen girls in Israel, exploring their complex and mediated relationships as they face
constraints by men, parents, and community. González Hernández (2008) studied youth in
Tijuana as an interpretive community negotiating television viewing across the Mexico–U.S.
border. Spry (2010) explored mobile media use in the schools and homes of Australian and
Japanese youth and argues that within policy and public discourse around mobile media
children’s voices are ignored (p. 16), with significant implications as rising adoption rates of
“new” media technologies provide minority youth with expanded opportunities for the
creation and dissemination of media. This sampling of research illustrates the rich possibilities
for learning about minority children and media usage.
In 2011, Northwestern University conducted the first national study in the U.S, focusing
on children’s media use by race and ethnicity. Surprisingly, to date there has been no study
like it. Among other things, the study found that “in the past decade, the gap between
minority and White youth’s daily media use has doubled for Black and quadrupled for
Hispanic children” (Rideout et al., 2011, p. 2). The report further found that race-related
media use differences in children are still quite prevalent through their various studies even
when the researchers controlled for factors like parent education, geography, and single or
two-parent households. Lauricella et al. (2016) found that Black and Hispanic children were
more likely to have their own television sets whereas White children were more likely to
own their own portable players, e-readers, and laptop computers (p. 15). Much more work
remains to be done on this area of studies.

Minority Children and Diasporic Use of Media

Children become minoritized through voluntary and involuntary mobility across the globe.
Whether discussing ethnicity, religion, nation, or other minority status, much research assumes
distinct and mutually exclusive categories. Issues of diaspora and hybridity also need to be

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considered in relation to children, media, and the globe. With widespread population mobility,
children are likely to have many national affinities, either through personal experience or
through their parents and culture. Global production and circulation of media articulates
children to these transnational and diasporic flows and potentially provides them with an outlet
for creative engagement across national boundaries. Instantaneous digital communication
challenges previous categories of community defined by geographical proximity. In fact, studies
suggest that children respond to their minoritized status by consuming transnationally available
media with their peers and relatives in locations of origin and by producing media to distribute
at least locally to assert their hybrid subjectivity.
For example, a third-generation Jewish child in the U.S. might have diasporically migrated
from Germany, to Cuba, and then to the U.S. and thus possesses national, linguistic, racial, and
religious identities and affiliations that might be quite diverse and internally contradictory. This
child’s media consumption might range from religious series in Netflix, digital games in non-
English languages, Caribbean music in Spanish from Cuban cousins, and anime material from
Japan. Scholarship within diaspora studies and media has yet to pay more attention to children
(Retis & Tsagarousianou, 2019).
Worldwide studies (de Block & Buckingham, 2007) explore the mediated experience of
children as they face migration and therefore minoritization. Vargas (2009) documents transna-
tional girl teens’ media usage and production in their efforts to remain connected after being torn
from beloved relatives. Elias and Lemish (2009, 2010) similarly find that Soviet teens in Israel use
the internet as a resource to stay connected and develop transitioning identities as they seek to
create a safe ground to assuage the loneliness of their transnational lives. Studies that are able to
capture these types of micro-level efforts to retain transnational ties rely on small sample family and
group methodology (Dill-Shackleford et al., 2017; Katz, et al., 2017; Moran, 2011), yet suggest
both the painful disruption and the active use of media on the part of teens to regain a sense of
belonging and reimagination of their shifting identities. For instance, Park & Lemish (2019) find
that Korean-American youth use their smart phones to navigate their Korean heritage and their
place within the U.S. Children and youth, as do all segments of the population using media, face a
blurred dividing line with digital technologies, which offers prosumerism as an option.

Conclusions
Minority children are not a new global phenomenon, but we need to study them and to
develop standardized ways of operationalizing the category. Each new media technology
presents children and youth with new opportunities and challenges (Valdivia, 2020).
Minoritized children experience additional intersectional issues that result in different uses and
production of media in relation to normalized representations of whiteness. Ongoing research
documents a widening gap of media usage – with minority children using more legacy media in
new platforms, as well as differentials in terms of access to round the clock internet, which limits
their access to new technologies, with SES and minority status functioning in tandem. The
global pandemic, 2020–2021, shed light on these disparities as most of the world’s children
pivoted to digital learning, with access to electricity, internet, and digital technologies unevenly
available. As nations continue to grapple with their racial and ethnic diversity, transnational
media corporations are ahead of national efforts to track ethnic trends in media consumption to
attract desirable/profitable minority audiences. Yet minorities are not easily understood. Hybrid
racial and ethnic identities of media consumers complicate data in media reports using
monolithic categories, disregarding the hybrid racial make-up of Latina/os or Asians in the
U.S., for example. Where does the Afro-Latino or Blasian child fit in the data set? Minority

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 Diana Leon-Boys et al.

categories must also be expanded across religion and nation, significant vectors of difference that
impact the daily lives and media practices of children. Review of the literature reveals a need for
further work in these areas. Ethnographic approaches have been useful in bringing awareness to
activities taking place in the homes of minority children, such as “media brokering” (Katz,
2010). However, U.S. studies provide data on the adoption rates of media and technologies
across ethnic and racial groups, but do not address how technologies are integrated into
minority children’s daily practices. What are these youth filming, uploading, creating, texting,
sexting? What are their skill levels? How are their media practices managed, policed, con-
strained, and/or enabled within their schools, families, religious institutions? How does identity
contribute to media usage and production? Minority children represent the inevitable and
prevalent movement of populations and media, and as such are a bellwether as to our ability as
nations and cultures to include population flows and acknowledge that diasporas and the re-
sulting hybridity are the norm rather than the exception.

SEE ALSO Chapter 41 by Elias in this volume.

Notes
1 The authors wish to thank Sienna Gudino who provided research assistance, without which this
project could not have been carried out.
2 Indeed, our Research Assistant Sienna Gudino noted this in her research reports:there is seldom
disaggregation for minority children.

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 41
IMMIGRANT CHILDREN
AND MEDIA
Nelly Elias and Narmina Abdulaev

Immigration and integration into a new society are among the most complex processes in an
individual’s life, characterized by numerous losses, confusion, and challenges that eventually
lead to significant personal changes. While the research literature usually pays more attention to
changes characteristic of adult immigrants, the experience may be no less difficult for children
and adolescents. Like their parents, immigrant youngsters miss their familiar culture and pre-
vious social networks. In parallel, the more rapid adoption of the new language and culture by
immigrant youth may widen cultural gaps between them and older family members, thus
weakening parental authority and family cohesion.
Accordingly, we should differentiate between the two adaptation processes that im-
migrant youth undergo simultaneously: outward integration (e.g., acquiring host language
skills, adopting local youth culture, and socializing with local peers) and inward integration
(e.g., instilling native linguistic skills, preserving the homeland heritage, and maintaining ties
with other co-ethnics) (Elias & Lemish, 2008). To succeed at these demanding processes,
young immigrants have to maximize the resources at their disposal, including media in the
host and native languages. This chapter provides an overview of the principal media used by
immigrant children and adolescents seeking to facilitate their incorporation into the new
culture – while attempting to preserve their original cultural identity – and maintain family
unity despite growing cultural gaps.

The Role of Television in Young Immigrants’ Social and Cultural Adaptation

The role of television in immigrant children’s lives had drawn some research attention already at
the end of the 1980s when Zohoori (1988) compared television use patterns among immigrant
children from various African, Middle East, and Asian countries and their native-born coun-
terparts aged 6–12 in the U.S. The findings showed that immigrant children suffered from a
lack of close relationships with local peers. Hence television characters were among the first
North Americans to whom they were introduced and with whom they could easily “interact.”
Similar findings were found in several recent studies as well (see, e.g., Barroso et al., 2020;
Cycyk & Scheffner Hammer, 2020), showing that the host television programs helped im-
migrant children from the Latin America countries in the U.S. learn the new culture and create
para-social relations with the popular TV characters. The research literature also suggests that

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 Nelly Elias and Narmina Abdulaev

television provides immigrant children with opportunities for host language learning since their
parents are usually unable to assist them in this process (Barroso et al., 2020; Katz, 2011).
No less important is the role of television in shaping immigrant youth’s ethnic identity. In
this regard, studies conducted in the U.S. on teenage immigrants from India (Durham, 2004)
and their Latina counterparts (Mayer, 2003; Morales & Simelio, 2016) found that Indian films
and Latin American telenovelas played a vital role in the young immigrants’ construction of
ethnic identities and in maintaining their connection to the distant homeland. Similar trends
were revealed in the recent studies on immigrant youth from Latin America in the U.S. re-
garding other media formats, such as news (Hughes, 2018), educational television programs
(Siyahhan & Lee, 2018), and drama series (Takeuchi & Ellerbe, 2018).

Digital Media as a Cultural, Social, and Emotional Support Resource

Because of its unique characteristics, such as cultural and linguistic diversity, accessibility, inter-
activity, and anonymity, the digital media provide young immigrants with the valuable cultural,
social, and emotional resources needed for personal growth and empowerment. Overall, the
studies identified four principal functions that these media fulfil for immigrant youth: (1) a source
of information and cultural knowledge about the new society and the homeland; (2) a platform for
online contacts with co-ethnics and native-born peers; (3) a tool for preserving one’s native
language and improving host language skills, and (4) a channel for self-expression.

Source of Information and Cultural Knowledge about the

Host and the Home Countries
One particularly urgent aspect of immigrant youth’s relocation into a new society is the need to
adjust to a new lifestyle and cultural demands. The research literature suggests that immigrant
adolescents find the digital resources a handy tool in their conscious efforts to satisfy this need.
The information sought by immigrant adolescents online extends along a continuum from the
macro-level of news, politics, and the local culture to the micro-level of practical information
related to everyday life, behavioural patterns or youth fashion, as was found in studies of im-
migrants from Latin America in the U.S. (Casado et al., 2019; Cingel et al., 2019; Levinson &
Barron, 2018; Marchi, 2017). Moreover, Elias & Lemish (2009) revealed that immigrant youth
from the former Soviet Union to Israel had greater trust in the host country’s websites and were
more willing to adopt the new values and codes of behaviour suggested there than those
proposed by local peers or teachers.
Furthermore, the various websites also serve as a window to life in a distant homeland. This
role is crucial because, in many cases, up-to-date news from the homeland may be unavailable or
distorted by the host media. The research literature thus indicates that immigrant youth search for
online news to obtain information about current events in their countries of origin while using
online resources to preserve and strengthen their original ethnic, religious, and cultural identities.
These digital practices foster the formation of young immigrants’ hybrid identities originating in
the home and host cultures as was found in Park & Lemish’s (2019) study of the first and second-
generation Korean youth in the U.S. (also see Bucholtz, 2019; Park, 2021).

Interpersonal Communication
The digital media have been lauded for their dual capacity as a mass medium and an inter-
personal communication medium and the ability to transcend temporal and geographical

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boundaries. Such versatility renders it particularly attractive to immigrants who suffer a sudden
decrease in communication resources due to migration. In this regard, the research literature
points to a significant increase in immigrant adolescents’ use of email and instant messaging
software to communicate with family and friends residing in their countries of origin. These
strengthened relationships with loved ones bring about a feeling of stability and emotional
support into the immigrant youngsters’ lives as was found in studies of immigrants from Mexico
in the U.S. (Cycyk & Scheffner Hammer, 2018); from various Latin America countries in New
Zealand (De Jacolyn et al., 2021); from Ukraine in Canada (Kharchenko, 2020); from East Asia
in the U.S. (Kwon, 2017) and from Lithuania in Ireland (Vildaite, 2018). In addition, the
internet accessed mainly on mobile phones is the primary tool for young children to maintain
close contact with their grandparents who have remained in the country of origin. This
communication helps immigrant children preserve family ties crucial for their emotional well-
being (Share et al., 2018; Tezcan, 2021; Xu et al., 2018; Zhao & Flewitt, 2020).
Furthermore, several studies revealed that the digital media are also used to build the first
meaningful contacts with local peers (Bucholtz, 2019; Dekker et al., 2016; Elias & Lemish,
2009; Kim, 2018; Kim et al., 2009; Yu, 2018). The purpose of these online relationships varies
from contacts of a romantic nature to instrumental functions, such as improving host language
skills or obtaining information about life in the host country. Moreover, Elias & Lemish (2009)
emphasize that online contacts were described by immigrant youngsters from the Former Soviet
Union in Israel in more favourable terms than was face-to-face communication with local peers
whom they met in the neighbourhood or school.
The digital media thus play an essential role in maintaining young immigrants’ close re-
lationships with people from the same country of origin. This process, called “bonding social
capital” by Putnam (2000), is considered significant because it strengthens ties with family and
co-ethnic friends who might be in a position to provide emotional support. At the same time,
the internet enables these youngsters to make connections with host residents, thus enhancing
their “bridging social capital” and their socio-cultural adaptation to the host society (Bucholtz,
2018; Casado et al., 2019; Kim, 2018; Park, 2021).
In this regard, the study by Amzaleg and colleagues (Amzaleg et al., 2015; Elias et al., 2020)
of the college students from Ethiopia in Israel revealed the decisive role of online study groups
in these youngsters’ integration into the social circle of the native-born peers. First, the online
study group encouraged a positive interaction of an academic nature between the immigrant
and the native-born students, which led to initiating Facebook friendships with fellow students,
some of whom became friends in the offline reality. Thus, the initial contacts formed online
broke the social isolation of Ethiopian students and enabled the formation of meaningful social
ties between them and the native-born Israelis. Similarly, Kneer et al. (2019) point to the role of
social media in the peer coaching of refugee children from Syria in the Netherlands, which
helped them form friendships with native-born adolescents and contributed to a better un-
derstanding of the host society’s culture and norms.

Improving Native and Host Language Skills

Several studies have explored the role of digital media in native language and literacy main-
tenance among immigrant youth. Accordingly, Lam & Rosario-Ramos (2009) found that using
their native language online helped young immigrants from various countries in the U.S.
maintain and even improve their mother tongue proficiency – an observation of particular
importance because they seldom used their native languages in writing. Similarly, Park &
Lemish’s (2019) study of Korean youngsters in the U.S. emphasized the central role that the

365
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smartphone’s use plays in maintaining their mastery of the Korean language, through con-
necting to the homeland culture and preserving ties with co-ethnic friends and relatives. In
addition, immigrant youngsters search for opportunities to learn and practise the host language
online. Accordingly, Stewart (2014, 2017) showed that immigrant adolescents from the Latin
America countries in the U.S. used social media for practising interpersonal communication in
English that they did not always conduct face-to-face due to the low level of the host language
proficiency. Hence, while being embarrassed to converse with local peers in the offline reality,
they felt more confident to initiate a conversation in English on social media (for similar
findings see also Elias & Lemish, 2008; Lam & Rosario-Ramos, 2009).
Finally, considering the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, several studies point to a
significant digital gap between immigrant and native-born children. For example, a study
conducted in Slovenia on immigrant children from former Yugoslavia, China, and Slovakia
emphasized these children’s lack of digital literacy and the technological equipment suitable for
distance learning (Gornik et al., 2020). Likewise, Popyk’s (2021) study, conducted in Poland,
indicated that immigrant children from Lithuania, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine experienced
more difficulty (compared with their native-born peers) using computers for learning purposes
and reported having comprehension difficulties while studying new material or preparing
homework using a computer. On the other hand, these children also found several advantages
in their new daily routine, such as having more frequent computer-based communication with
the family. In addition, children who were embarrassed to approach a teacher or other students
in the offline reality felt more comfortable asking questions online and initiating a conversation
with their classmates.

Channel for Self-Expression

Recently we are witnessing the proliferation of YouTube channels and other online platforms
used by immigrants for self-expression (e.g., Mallapragada, 2017; Malmberg & Pantti, 2020;
Zhang & Zhao, 2020). However, the focus of these studies was on young adults, whereas little
research has been made so far on the immigrant children and adolescents. In this regard, Leurs’s
(2018) study of online forums of adolescents who immigrated from Morocco to the
Netherlands deserves special attention. The study revealed that this platform allowed the im-
migrant youngsters to have their own space free of the majority’s influence and maintain lively
discussions on religious matters. Moreover, online forums allowed a dialogue on sensitive issues,
such as sex and sexuality that these youngsters could not share with their parents. In addition,
social media platforms and networks are used by young immigrants for alternative re-
presentation, for refuting the stereotypes about their ethnic communities, for introducing their
ethnic culture (e.g., food, music and the like) to the native-born friends, thus celebrating their
hybrid and hyphenated identities (Park & Lemish, 2019; Watt et al., 2019).

Media Use in Immigrant Families

The studies conducted to date have found that the roles and effects of media in immigrant families
may be situated along two axes: cultural integration versus preservation of the original language
and culture, and family integration versus the escalation of parent-child tensions and the widening
of intergenerational gaps. Regarding the first axis, the research literature shows that immigrant
parents, who are often concerned about their children’s loss of proficiency in their mother tongue
and shared cultural heritage, perceive homeland media as a means of maintaining their children’s
language skills and affiliation with their culture of origin. Children, however, usually reject and

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resent these efforts. Accordingly, a study conducted in Greece found out that children of Albanian
immigrants prefer to consume media in the majority language, despite their parents’ attempts to
preserve the Albanian language and culture (Mattheoudakis et al., 2020).
Nevertheless, immigrant children might be less resistant to their parents’ attempts to improve
their native language skills when some cultural brokering is practised. Katz’s study of Latin
American immigrant families in the U.S. revealed that while watching programs in Spanish,
parents, and children cooperatively negotiated the meanings of particular events to reach shared
understandings. In this manner, parents facilitated their children’s native language facility by
introducing them to more sophisticated Spanish vocabulary and necessary contextual in-
formation. Similarly, while watching the local news in English, the children translated words
that their parents were unfamiliar with, whereas the parents explained to them the significance
of the local news event (Katz, 2010, 2011).
In parallel, immigrant families must cope with another significant challenge – weakening
internal family ties. Consequently, homeland television broadcasts are used to preserve family
unity and satisfy parents’ and children’s need in “family time” (Barroso et al., 2020;
Kharchenko, 2020; Makarova et al., 2019). Accordingly, Elias & Lemish (2008, 2011) showed
that although most immigrant children in their study were uninterested in specific talk shows or
films broadcast on Russian channels, they enjoyed viewing them with their parents for the sake
of spending leisure time together. Furthermore, among families in which children refused to
watch television in Russian, joint television viewing usually involved programs of global reach
and appeal, such as international sporting events, reality shows, and Hollywood films. This
served to circumvent the tension of choosing between two possibilities – assimilation or pre-
servation of the homeland culture – by finding shelter in what both generations perceived to be
a “neutral” cultural background.
On the other hand, television viewing could also intensify intergenerational conflicts in
immigrant families. In this regard, several studies showed that immigrant children criticized
their parents’ intensive viewing of homeland channels, as it prevented them from watching the
host television programs that were important for their cultural adaptation (Ogan, 2001; Siew-
Peng, 2001). Immigrant parents, on their part, claimed that host television programs and
characters provide a negative example and adversely affect their children (Barosso et al., 2020).
While most studies on media use in immigrant families focused primarily on television,
Rydin & Sjöberg (2008) investigated online practices among refugee families from the Middle
East countries in Sweden. Their findings provide initial insights into the parents’ attempts to
recruit the digital media for strengthening their children’s attachment to the home country.
These attempts, however, were mostly ineffective, as their children preferred to chat with
friends in their immediate vicinity. Likewise, Sun et al. (2020) found that while immigrant
parents from various countries in the U.K. use the internet to preserve the homeland culture
and heritage, their children turn to the local websites and embrace British culture.

Conclusions
The research literature underscores the pivotal role of mass media in the young immigrants’ lives,
who struggle with integration into a new socio-cultural environment, bonding with their ethnic
communities, and the conflicting demands of bridging these different cultures. As such, media are
highly significant in their integration process and their hybrid identity construction, as they enable
these youngsters to connect to their original culture and at the same time to learn the norms and
values of their host society. The media roles in immigrant family dynamics are of significance as
well, as they shed light on processes of family inward integration and intergenerational cultural

367
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transmission. Furthermore, media use of transnational immigrant families deserves special atten-
tion since children in these families are not only separated from their familiar culture but also from
their grandparents and friends who remained in the homeland.
Finally, the findings presented in this chapter call for more cross-cultural studies, aimed to
promote a better understanding of the media-related aspects of the young immigrants’ in-
tegration process that are unique to a specific immigrant group, differentiating them from those
of a universal nature. Likewise, the research of immigrant children’s and adolescents’ self-
expression on YouTube, Tik-Tok, and Instagram is in its formative stages. Hence, future
studies could shed light on the online experiences of immigrant youth who became “micro-
celebrities” or “influencers” and of their young followers in the host and homeland countries.
In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the challenges it created for the educational system all
over the world, call for more studies on the immigrant children’s experiences with distance
learning and the obstacles they must overcome during their academic and social adaptation.

SEE ALSO Chapter 40 by Leon-Boys, Rivera, and Valdivia in this volume.

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 42
MUSLIM YOUTH:
REPRESENTATIONS AND
MEDIA CONSUMPTION
Ans De Nolf, Leen d’Haenens, and Willem Joris

Introduction
From a very young age, just like other children and adolescents, Muslim youth start to explore
the world around them through radio, television, and, increasingly, interactive screen media –
that is social media platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram (Vanwynsberghe et al.,
2020). These social media, which seem to have become embedded in the very fabric of society,
carry implicit and explicit value assumptions, and have a definite impact on their users’ psy-
chological development and worldview (Sjöberg, 2015).
Both traditional media and the digital social media networks/platforms (collectively: “(so-
cial) media”) are crucial channels of societal information. In the context of intergroup relations,
people rely on mediated communication to know more about outgroups and base their atti-
tudes towards them, particularly when opportunities for direct interaction are scarce. Social
media are both a source of information and representation and a tool for participating in the
public sphere. With social media the distinction between representation and participation
becomes blurred.
In this chapter we first look at media representations and media usage of Muslim youth, and
then go on to focus on Muslim refugees. Even though about 40 per cent of refugees worldwide
(and a majority in Europe) come from predominantly Muslim societies, few studies of young
people’s media usage account for these two factors.

Muslim Youth and Social Media

Media and the technologies they are based on shape personal and national identities by de-
termining how reality, value systems, and social denominators are perceived and therefore
structured (Gribiea, Kabh, & Abu-Saad, 2017). Social media provide Muslim youth with an
arguably neutral means of communication that lets them have an online presence, follow the
news, keep up with their religious heroes, and participate in online social behaviours. And yet
they are portrayed on social media in a mostly negative light – as dangerous, potentially criminal
individuals.
A 2015 study by Wok and Misman concluded that almost all Malaysian Muslim youth and
professionally active adults (aged 17 to 40) are social media users. This is not surprising for

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-47 371

 Ans De Nolf et al.

adolescents, as they go through a time of active identity negotiation, a time when one longs for
more autonomy and the power to “be oneself ” – while caring deeply about the opinions and
behaviours of one’s peers (McGarry, 2015; Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986). The types of social
media platforms used by Muslim youth differ according to the demographic characteristics of
the other users as well as each platform’s specific features: one-on-one/group communication,
participation in online social behaviours (sharing experiences, gossip, likes and dislikes, etc.),
entertainment opportunities, or ways to educate oneself in a particular skill or field (Wok &
Misman, 2015).
Among such social behaviours are the “fan cultures” born at the crossroads of social media
and pop culture. Such fan cultures can centre around regular Muslim celebrities, or a given
subculture which is believed to run counter to most Islamic values – for instance K-Pop (Koo,
2020). Adamu (2017) showed that fandoms can help overcome cultural, spatial, and religious
differences, uniting transnational fans into one single, like-minded community, such as Koreans
in Iran, and providing them with social support and potentially jobs within its network (Koo,
2020). This fan culture is not the only factor influencing the interactions of Muslim youth on
social media. Together with the chat features of social media, the very high portability and
connectivity of mobile devices help expand the areas of self-determination of Muslim girls,
letting them know their future spouse better, improve their position within a patriarchal family
hierarchy, has been studied in Uzbekistan (Kikuta, 2019) – or discover unsuspected opportu-
nities outside familiar cultural boundaries.
Of course, social media attract more than just youth in the Muslim world. Ab Kadir, Sahari
Ashaari, and Salim (2017) found that Islamic scholars make extensive use of social media in a
successful bid to connect with the young: they gather immense numbers of Muslim followers’
intent on discussing topics such as the Quran,1 the Sunnah,2 or various fatwas.3 According to
Hidayatullah and Hamzah (2017) there is a correlation between the popularity of an online
preacher and the number of messages he or she posts. Ab Kadir et al. addressed the issue of the
(unintended) spreading of misinformation online, stating that misguided posts from Islamic
scholars may negatively impact young Muslims in search of Islamic knowledge. For instance,
Aripin et al. (2016) warn about so-called “Ustaz YouTube” – YouTube content that delivers
religious information that cannot be verified. Luckily, many Islamic scholars of repute actively
disseminate correct Islamic information to their large number of online followers (Ab Kadir
et al., 2017; Aripin et al., 2016).
When Muslim youth use words with Arabic roots on social media they (un)consciously
reveal their religious, gendered, or cultural identities (Qurait Alenezi et al., 2018). Additionally,
Rambaree and Knez (2017) found that gender and ethnicity have a significant impact on the
activity of young Mauritian Facebook users (aged 14 to 25 years old). Moreover, Muslims were
among the groups with the strongest Facebook identities, followed by participants with mixed
ethnicities.
For young Muslims social media provide a gateway to information, religious inspiration,
support, entertainment, and opportunities to actively take control of their narrative (Ab Kadir
et al., 2017). For example, young Muslims can use social media to (re)negotiate Islamic beliefs
and values by joining like-minded online communities (Bessadok, 2019). Furthermore, they
can create their own online content through online activism (Beta, 2019) or by sharing or
creating memes to express their views or perspectives (Kesvani, 2019). In addition to (re)
negotiating Islamic beliefs and values they can attempt to change perceptions of Muslims by
engaging with people who have questions or reservations about Islam. By connecting with
these people, they help offset the negative views many people still have against Muslim
minorities (Sheikh, 2020).

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However, online communities do not only offer opportunities for connecting and em-
powering users: they can also reinforce abuse and hatred (Barlow & Awan, 2016). Muslims are
among the most likely groups to be on the receiving end of online abuse and hate such as
cyberbullying. In other words, young Muslims are at high risk of abuse on any virtual platform,
including social media (Awan, 2014). Finally, for any teenager social media usage comes with
another risk: social media addiction, which detracts from studies and social interactions and may
lead to sleep deprivation (Abdullah & Chan, 2016).

Muslim Refugee Youth and Social Media

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) defines a refugee as “any
person forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence.” Out of the
top five countries of origin, three countries are predominantly Muslim, with over 10 million
estimated Muslim refugees, of which two out of five are minors (d’Haenens, Joris &
Heinderyckx, 2019; UNHCR, 2018). These minors face multiple challenges such as main-
taining their mental health, as they have faced severe distresses and traumatic experiences –
which they are forced to deal with in unfamiliar territory (Anderson, 2020).
Up to 86 percent of Syrian refugee youth (aged 15 to 45, with an average age of 23) own a
mobile phone, the par excellence technology which they use on a daily basis to access the
internet, communicate with others (e.g., through WhatsApp), and gather information using
Google, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia or Skype (Maitland & Xu, 2015). This can be
especially helpful for unaccompanied refugee minors, given that migration is an emotionally
complex process which requires support in the face of social marginality (Neag & Supa, 2020;
Perocco, 2018). With the help of the internet and social media these youngsters go through
“multifaceted yet interconnected emotional practices” that help them negotiate emotional
losses (Brouwer, 2004; Neag & Supa, 2020).
Social media can help refugees keep in touch with the cultural and social realities of their
country of birth (Wilding, 2006 or with their distant peers and family members. That is, as put
by Marlowe (2019, p. 1): “maintain significant and ongoing relationships with transnational
networks.” Mansour (2018) indicated that both first- and second-generation Syrian and
Palestinian refugee youths can and do use their mobile devices and satellite television to keep up
to date with news and entertainment from their homeland. Moreover, these devices are crucial
tools to learn and practise the language of their country of birth.
Furthermore, social media may help Syrian refugees settle in the host country: they can al-
leviate social isolation, provide access to information in their native language, and make it possible
for them to learn both their rights and responsibilities – how to become a full-fledged citizen in
their new country (Imani Giglou et al., 2021). In other words, social media can help overcome
language barriers and provide refugees with a sense of being supported (Kneer et al., 2019).
Using social media and creative, smartphone-based technologies, refugees in the Netherlands
may find companionship, organizational benefits, a sense of security, and a place for preserving
memories of important experiences (Alencar et al., 2018). Pottie et al. (2020) concluded that
young refugees (under the age of 25) use social media to positively enhance interactions with
newly arrived refugees. Udwan, Leurs, and Alencar (2020) mention in their Dutch study that
social media favour resilience through social support, digital health promotion, and the man-
agement of digital identities. As social and online media are relatively cheap and easily accessible,
they are useful for refugees before and during the journey, as well as after settlement in the host
country (Dekker et al., 2018).

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Additionally, young refugees can create their own content on social networking sites such as
Facebook and Twitter. These platforms let them actively create, produce, and disseminate their
opinions and creations, influencing policies and politicians, joining in with online activists and
taking matters into their own hands by advocating for their rights and the rights of others
(Diker, 2016; Godin & Doná, 2016). As such, social media may provide young Muslim re-
fugees with various mental health benefits such a stronger self-esteem and sense of belonging
(Pottie et al., 2020).

Representations of Muslim Youth

While young Muslims create and engage with media content, such content is often about them.
The way both traditional and social media portray Muslim youth in a minority position is
mostly negative, associating them with religious radicalization, terrorism, and a perceived
“otherness” (Matindoost, 2015). Being portrayed as a major threat they become increasingly
marginalized from both civic and political life, which results in harmful legislation (Matindoost,
2015). Less common but worth mentioning is the representation of the Muslim minority as a
homogenous group in children’s books, which “can contain elements contributing to the
‘othering’ and misinterpretation of Muslims” (Torres, 2016, p. 205).
Europe has produced few films centring around young Muslims or with young Muslims as
main characters. Those that do, mostly focus on radicalization and the notion of “home-grown”
terrorists (Letort & Bourenane, 2020). Hollywood productions portray them as heartless religious
fanatics (Shaheen, 2003). Additionally, in Hollywood films, Arabs and Muslims are often por-
trayed interchangeably. They are represented as alien, which precludes empathy (Letort &
Bourenane, 2020). Even films such as Ms. Marvel and their seemingly positive representations of
young, active, and strong female Muslim characters (such as Kamala Khan) may infer that “most”
Muslims are backwards, violent, and emotionally volatile (Khoja-Moolji & Niccolini, 2015). The
silver lining, as indicated by Rohimi in 2017, is the fact that new online streaming services make it
less difficult to find films based on positive Muslim stories, in a variety of cultural settings and
genres. This can mitigate the mostly negative portraying of Muslim youth.
When Muslims in general or Muslim youth in particular are portrayed in news media or in
(fake) news stories on social media, the same issues resurface. Boer and Tubergen concluded in
2019 that young Dutch nationals had developed negative attitudes towards Muslims owing to an
increase of rather negative news coverage. This comes as no surprise: traditional Western media
often portray Muslims as a homogenous group – fundamentalists, oppressors of women, and
potential terrorists – while on social media ethno-nationalist propaganda demonizes the Muslim
minority (Ivarsson, 2018; Romylos, 2016). According to Patil and McLaren (2019) the Australian
news media frame Muslim refugees as “pawns” eager to “take advantage of the system” and
displace “authentic Australian” children. This compassionless portrayal frames children in need as
“the others” and shifts public attention away from them via “manipulative silences” (McLaren &
Patil, 2016). Thus demonized as alien threats or future home-grown terrorists, young Muslims
cannot enjoy a serene interaction with their non-Muslim peers and teachers (Bi, 2020).
Social media – and alternative (online) radio and television channels – can provide Western
Muslims with opportunities to challenge such overwhelmingly negative portrayal and develop
their own personal, diversified pattern of media consumption. Gribiea et al. (2017) further
linked these media consumption patterns with the national and civic identities of each young
Muslim, pointing out that “being Muslim” is but one of many identities that shape different
media usage patterns alongside social norms, attitudes towards different technologies, socio-
political climate, and geographical location.

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Representations of Muslim Refugee Youth

When young refugees are being depicted in social or news media, those representations are
mostly negative, painting a picture of “‘Enemies at the gate’ who are attempting to invade
Western nations” – of people who are a threat to members of the host society (Esses et al., 2013,
p. 1). On the one hand, young refugees are spoken of in highly emotional terms, as people in
distress – hapless and helpless people. On the other hand, they are portrayed as multitudinous –
an “endless stream” of refugees (Sou, 2017). As a result, they are viewed as one homogenous
mass, robbed of any individual feature, experience, and voice (Sou, 2017). And the media rarely
give a voice to refugees. When they do, the refugees they cite or paraphrase are predominantly
male adults (De Cock et al., 2019). This leaves young refugees with few opportunities to
express themselves through such media.
This lack of voice is harmful as media have a significant influence on the depiction of a
specific event or group of people such as refugee youth. Such depictions shape the many
people’s worldviews and determine whether and how they will help refugees (Mattelart &
d’Haenens, 2011; Mistiaen, 2019; Nerghes & Lee, 2019). Specifically, unaccompanied
minors are portrayed in a “criminalising, moralistic, welfare-dependent discourse that is
articulated from an adult-centric, nationalist perspective” (Gómez-Quintero et al., 2021,
p. 95). To make matters worse, if such refugees are believed to originate from Muslim
countries, then they are additionally tarred with the “potential terrorist” and “dangerous”
brushes (Rettberg & Gajjala, 2015). Young refugees are both directly and indirectly im-
pacted by such negative representations, which impact the way people think about them,
but also the way they think about themselves. Voices of Young Refugees in Europe (2012)
stated that young refugees feel that their image on the media does not match reality –
that they are being represented as future job stealers, criminals, and a threat to existing
social systems. Guidry et al. (2018) found that on Pinterest and Instagram young refugees
were linked with security concerns, mostly framed thematically – in contrast with huma-
nitarian remarks, which were mostly framed episodically. Worse, social media can be used
to gather and mobilize “concerned citizens” to oppose refugees and even incite violence
(Ekman, 2018).

Conclusion
Traditional and social media may make it possible for Muslims, including Muslim refugee
youth, to find their place more effectively in the host society, possibly through the use of an
online identity. They also can help them keep in touch with peers and family members,
regardless of distance and cultural boundaries/national borders. However, the usefulness of
digital and social media comes at a price: fake news, cyberbullying, and negative re-
presentations of ‘the other’ – be it Muslims, refugees, etc. Overall, studies suggest that both
blatant and subtle anti-Muslim and anti-refugee discourses may cause real-life harm. Thus,
for future research, we recommend research examining online and offline resources (human
and material) among Muslim and refugee youth that contribute to their digital literacy and
well-being in a media-saturated world in order to support them. Additionally, resources and
tools should be provided to media and policy makers to guide them in creating inclusive
media content.

SEE ALSO Chapter 40 by Leon-Boys, Rivera, and Valdivia and Chapter 41 by Elias and
Abdulaev in this volume.

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Notes
1 The Quran, the sacred text of Islam, is believed to be the word of God as revealed to the Prophet.
2 Sunnah is the body of traditional social and legal custom and practice of the Islamic community.
3 A Fatwa is a formal ruling or interpretation on a point of Islamic law by a qualified legal scholar.

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CHILDREN, MEDIA, AND
DIGITAL INEQUALITY
Vikki S. Katz

Digital inequality refers to having no or limited access to the internet and to digital devices that
connect to the internet. While digital inequality may not be an issue that immediately comes to
mind when thinking of children and media, it is becoming an increasingly important part of
understanding differences between young people’s social trajectories.
The first reason why digital inequality is an important consideration for anyone interested in
children, adolescents, and media is probably the most obvious: Digital technologies are be-
coming more integral to daily life for young people around the world. Tablets, computers, and
the internet are often part of the school day; mobile devices are embedded in their interactions
with peers and family; and digital devices and online content of all kinds are key entertainment
sources. Understanding variations in children’s and adolescent’s media activities requires paying
attention to what they can access – and, to what they cannot. There are many parts of the world
where children still have no access to the internet or digital devices. This is the case in many
remote and rural areas, particularly in the Global South. Digital inequality in other regions is
relative rather than absolute (Helsper, 2017), meaning that there are important differences
between children in those countries who can rely on having high-speed internet and a func-
tioning device whenever they need it, and those whose connections are inconsistent and whose
devices do not work so well.
The second reason is that digital inequality is important for understanding what opportu-
nities young people can access, relative to what is available to their peers. For example, a
consistent, high-speed internet connection was already necessary to submit homework and
complete school projects for millions of school-aged children around the world before the
COVID-19 pandemic made internet connectivity the only way to participate in school at all in
many countries. Furthermore, even when the pandemic resolves, technology will likely con-
tinue to be more necessary for accessing educational opportunities than it was before, making
equitable access a pressing issue.
That brings us to the third reason to pay attention to the digital inequalities that children ex-
perience: because digital inequality is not randomly distributed. It is more extreme in certain regions
of the world than others. And even in countries with robust technological infrastructures, children
who experience digital inequality are more likely to be growing up in families with limited incomes
and who experience other forms of social disparity, such as attending less-resourced schools, having
less regular access to health care, and living in under-served communities (Robinson et al., 2015).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-48 379

 Vikki S. Katz

Researchers and policymakers hope that resolving digital inequality will reduce those other, more
entrenched social disparities. For example, being able to consistently access math enrichment ac-
tivities online could help reduce educational disparities among students. On the other hand, not
resolving digital inequality risks deepening the other forms of disparity that children experience,
especially as more and more resources go online.
Scholars who study digital inequality refer to the experience as three interlocked levels. First-
level digital inequality focuses on access: who does and does not have the ability to connect to
the internet or to use a digital device (usually, a computer). Second-level digital inequality is
concerned with who can develop digital skills and practices, which obviously depends on
having digital access. And finally, third-level digital inequality is concerned with actual out-
comes: that is, how access, skills, and practices combine to affect an individual’s life trajectory in
some tangible way.
This chapter covers some of the key research on these three levels of digital inequality in
relation to children and adolescents. I begin with what digital access is, how it is defined, and why
it matters how we measure it. I then examine how children develop digital skills and practices, and
how those activities are motivated by parents, siblings, peers, and teachers. The final section
examines how digital inequality affects young people’s outcomes. While third-level digital in-
equality is a recent focus for researchers, the pandemic provides a compelling, current case for
explaining how digital access, skills, and outcomes are tied together for young people.

What Does It Mean to Have Digital Access?

Since the internet came into wide use in the mid-1990s, scholars and policymakers have been
concerned about who had access to it and who did not. Some of the earliest systematic studies
of digital inequality were conducted by the federal government in the U.S. at the turn of the last
century in a series of publications titled, Falling Through the Net (Brown et al., 1995). The title
evokes a clear picture of how digital inequality was being thought about at the time: that you
were able to be “on the net” and engaged in this new environment, or you “fell through” and
had no access to the opportunities of being online at all.
That either/or framing led to the term “digital divide,” which is still widely used today to
describe digital inequality. The word “divide” creates a binary way of seeing the problem,
suggesting that people either have full digital access, or they have none. There are certainly
places in the world where young people have no access at all. For example, the United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) report that in
2020, 86% of school-aged children in high-income countries (such as those in Western Europe
and North America) had internet access at home, compared with just 6% of those in low-
income countries (such as much of sub-Saharan Africa; UNICEF & ITU, 2020). UNICEF and
ITU’s conclusion is that globally, only one in three school-aged children (ages 3 to 17) had
internet access when the COVID-19 pandemic shifted schools into remote forms of learning,
whether the remote learning was digital, via television, or paper worksheets.
Furthermore, yes/no measures of access can reveal major differences within regions and
countries. Children living in urban areas of low-resource nations are much more likely to have
internet access than those in rural areas, and wealthier families are more likely to have access
than poorer ones. For example, 90% of East Asian school-aged children whose families are in
the wealthiest quintile (top one-fifth of incomes) in their countries have internet access,
compared with just 20% in the bottom quintile. But even the wealthiest quintile of households
in Southern and Western Africa are less than half as likely to be connected as their East Asian

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counterparts; only 40% of those families have internet, and just 2% of families in the bottom
quintile do (UNICEF & ITU, 2020).
But beyond the basic distinction of access/no access lies greater complexity, particularly in
countries with widespread (but not universal) access to digital devices and broadband. While a
young person in Western Europe or North America may answer “yes” when asked if they have
broadband or a computer at home, a yes/no question cannot capture whether their con-
nectivity is consistent and sufficient to meet their needs. Internet access and devices like
computers and smartphones are expensive and are often shared among family members, rather
than belonging to individual children. When a device stops working as well as it should, lower-
income families may not have the funds to have it repaired or replaced. Likewise, there are
months when other bills need to be paid before the internet, resulting in service interruptions
that can make it hard to keep up with schoolwork and other family needs.
So, while there are places in the world where young people have absolutely no digital access,
we need better ways to differentiate what it means to have access. Some children may only have
digital access at an internet café or a local library; others may have broadband access at home at
least some of the time. It makes sense to consider digital experiences along a spectrum, instead
of an access/no access binary (Gonzales, 2016; Livingstone & Helsper, 2007). A spectrum better
reflects how residents of developed nations experience digital inequality, since a young person
whose computer just crashed will be in a different place along that spectrum today than they
were yesterday. What will matter to where they are on that spectrum tomorrow or next week,
is whether they can afford to quickly get that computer fixed.
In 2015 and 2021, my colleagues and I collected data about digital inequality in lower-
income families in the U.S. with children ages 6 to 13, which coincides with kindergarten
through eighth grade (i.e., roughly the end of primary school in other countries; Katz &
Rideout, 2021; Katz & Levine, 2015; Rideout & Katz, 2016). The findings show why it is so
important to think of access as a spectrum of experience to better understand what young
people can do with that access.
When it comes to yes/no access questions, we saw a lot of progress between 2015 and 2021:
Overall home broadband access increased 20% for lower-income families (from 64 to 84%).
Increases are even more dramatic for families with incomes below the federal poverty level (up
28%), among Black families (31%), and those headed by immigrant Hispanic parents (40%).
Similarly, home computer access was up to 91% (compared with 82% in 2015), with 20% gains
among families living below the poverty level and headed by immigrant Hispanic parents: the
families least likely to have had a home computer in 2015 (Katz & Rideout, 2021).
But we would have missed the real story if we had only asked those yes/no access questions:
A majority of lower-income families are still “under-connected,” meaning that their access is
either unreliable, insufficient for their families’ needs, or both (Katz, 2017). Among families
who have home broadband, more than half (56%) reported that their service was too slow, and
one in five (18%) have had their service cut off at least once in the past year due to an unpaid
bill. And among families with a computer at home, three in five (59%) said it did not work
properly or ran too slowly, and one in five (22%) said it was hard to get time on it because there
are too many people sharing it (Katz & Rideout, 2021). Digital access had improved en-
ormously in the past six years, but the proportion of lower-income families who were under-
connected had barely budged at all.
First-level digital inequality is first and foremost about basic access questions – do children
and adolescents have access to the internet and a computer, since smartphones are no substitute
for complex tasks, like completing a homework assignment? Those are still the key questions in
many parts of the world. But in the Global North, the distinctions that matter are more subtle:

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increases in access do not resolve the struggles of being under-connected. In places like the U.S.
or Western Europe where digital inequality is less pervasive, the risk that under-connected
young people are excluded from digital opportunities may be heightened by decision-makers
presuming that everyone has access (Helsper, 2021).

How and Why Do Young People Develop Digital Skills and Practices?
Second-level digital inequality refers to differences in children’s and adolescents’ digital skills
and practices, as well as differences in their motivations for engaging with digital technologies in
the first place. Motivation, engagement, skills, and practices are closely related and directly
influence each other. Motivation affects whether young people will make the most of whatever
digital access they have, thereby fostering the familiarity and comfort that lead to developing
skills and practices that provide deeper understanding of what these technologies can do –
which can, in turn, increase motivation and engagement.
Motivations for digital engagement are, like so many other aspects of childhood, often
directly or indirectly influenced by other people. For example, a teacher, parent, or friend may
spark a child’s interest in learning more about how clouds form, or how today’s birds are
descendants of dinosaurs. Presuming the family has an internet connection and a digital device,
online resources can be a powerful, and a largely independent way for young people to follow
their curiosity where it leads them. They can watch online videos and look up information
without relying much on others (as compared with, for example, having to beg a parent to take
them to the library or a museum).
When a child engages in interest-driven learning, they are learning because they are naturally
interested in a topic, not because a teacher or other adult has set a learning agenda (Ito et al.,
2009). These experiences are often memorable years later precisely because the learning is
child-driven and self-defined. And while interest-driven knowledge did not come into being
when the internet did, online resources bring the world to children in ways that were un-
thinkable previously. Interest-driven learning can motivate children’s digital engagement and
help them develop digital skills in pursuit of interesting content.
Digital engagement can also be motivated by desires to connect with other people. Young
people often use digital technologies to keep in touch with friends and family when they are
physically apart, which can motivate learning how to use social media and messaging platforms
(Schreurs & Vandenbosch, 2020). Online communities can be a way to find others who share a
specific interest or passion (Ito et al., 2009). And multiplayer online games can motivate young
people to play the game with peers, as well as prompt them to seek content that helps them
master new moves and skills (Dezuanni, 2020). And, of course, once new skills are mastered or
new digital content is discovered, that can increase motivation to maintain or deepen en-
gagement in these online spaces.
But motivations to develop digital skills are not always about children’s own interests: They can
also reflect a desire to help others. Children are often their parents’ technology guides; this is
particularly clear when parents are immigrants and do not speak fluent English (the primary
language of the internet). When immigrant parents and their children collaboratively engage in
“online search and brokering” activities, children contribute their relatively greater knowledge
of English and of how digital technologies work; parents contribute their adult understandings of
how things work and of what the family needs (Pina et al., 2018; Yip et al., 2018). These forms
of intergenerational technology engagement are common across families of all backgrounds; more
than half (55%) of lower-income parents in the U.S. say that they rely on their 10- to 13-year-olds’
technology guidance as much as they help their children. These even exchanges of learner and

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expert roles are opportunities for both generations to develop technology-related skills and
confidence that they can build on going forward (Katz & Rideout, 2021).
But inequalities in the environments and interactions children have can affect their moti-
vation, engagement, skills, and practices. For example, researchers have documented important
differences in how teachers in lower- and higher-income neighborhoods teach students to use
technology. Students in lower-income neighborhoods are more likely to be taught rote skills,
while students in higher-income neighborhoods are learning to create their own digital content
(Rafalow, 2020; Warschauer, 2004). Higher-income students are encouraged to “tinker” and
figure things out; lower-income students are more likely to learn that there is a right and a
wrong way to do online tasks (Rafalow, 2020). These differences can affect students’ moti-
vations to spend time online and the likelihood that they develop crucial digital skills, including
awareness of how to modify the features of technologies they use to meet their needs and how
to create, rather than only consume, digital content (Hargittai & Micheli, 2019).
Add to those school-related disparities the reality that children whose parents have less edu-
cation and/or are not fluent English speakers are less likely to be able to guide children’s digital
engagement or help them if they get stuck (Pina et al., 2018). Siblings help each other learn with
technology too. However, in homes where parents rely most heavily on children’s technology
guidance, the technology-related activities siblings do together are significantly less likely to be
what teachers recognize and value as supporting in-school learning (e.g., completing homework
or doing art and science projects together) and more likely to be activities that teachers deride as
wasting time (e.g., watching online videos together; Katz et al., 2018). So, children in less pri-
vileged families are less likely to have access to adults who can expand their digital skillsets at home
or at school than children from families with higher socioeconomic status.
Finally, there is the direct relationship between children’s digital access and the kinds of
digital activities they engage in most frequently. For example, children who access the internet
from a smartphone or tablet are significantly less likely to go online every day or to go online to
look up things they are interested in, as compared with children who have a home computer
(Rideout & Katz, 2016). Why does that matter? We have already discussed how interest-driven
learning can generate motivation and encourage digital skills development. Regular time online
is another way to develop comfort and familiarity with what technology can do. The kinds of
devices children and adolescents have readily available are directly related to the kinds of digital
skills and activities they engage in most often.

Digital Inequality and Childhood Trajectories

So far, this chapter has discussed inequalities in children’s and adolescents’ digital access (first-
level digital inequality) and digital skills and practices (second-level digital inequality). The third
level is what happens when you combine digital access, skills, and practices to affect a life
outcome. In research on adults, a measurable outcome might be whether their digital access and
capabilities resulted in securing a new job or a better housing arrangement (Helsper, 2021).
Talking about “outcomes” when it comes to children and adolescents is trickier. There are few
easily defined outcomes along early developmental pathways to point to. Young people also do
not get to make big decisions independently, as adults do. Their parents either make or heavily
influence their choices, both by social expectation and by legal mandate as their children’s
guardians. As such, there is little research on third-level digital inequality for young people.
However, the pandemic provides something of a case study. The rapid shift to remote
learning to reduce the spread of COVID-19 upended educational routines around the globe.
For children in places with little to no internet access, learning did not go online. Remote

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learning in many parts of the world meant relying on paper workbooks or crowding around a
radio (UNICEF & ITU, 2020); in places like Ecuador, it meant reviving public television to
deliver educational content to remote regions (Granados et al., 2021). And for millions of
children worldwide, the pandemic meant the end of their schooling and their early entrance
into the workforce (Gettleman & Raj, 2020).
In the Global North, however, remote learning meant pivoting to learning online. A high-
speed broadband connection and a computer became the only way to remain engaged in
school. The hasty reformulation of education was hard on all children, but hardest on those
who had limited digital access, had to learn in homes with less private space, and whose families
were disproportionately affected the economic and health consequences of the pandemic.
For millions of children, challenges due to first-level digital inequality translated into
second-level digital inequality because their limited digital access disrupted their educational
activities. In the U.S., one-third (34%) of lower-income children were unable to participate in
remote learning for some period of time because they did not have internet; one-third (32%)
had to participate via cell phone; and one-fifth (21%) could not participate because they could
not access a computer (Katz & Rideout, 2021). But it was not only children with no access who
had problems: The under-connected faced significant challenges too. One-third of children
with a broadband connection had their remote learning interrupted by insufficient internet
connectivity. And one-fifth of families with a home computer reported learning interruptions
because it wasn’t working well or children were having to share devices to complete school-
work (Katz & Rideout, 2021).
The challenges of remote learning hit the lowest-income families and families of color
hardest, reflecting how digital inequality compounds other social inequalities. Two-thirds
(65%) of children with incomes below the federal poverty level had interruptions due to being
under-connected, and majorities of families headed by immigrant Hispanic parents (75%), U.S.-
born Hispanic parents (66%) and Black (56%) parents reported these interruptions (compared
with 42% of White parents; Katz & Rideout, 2021). These findings are consistent with studies
in other parts of the world: The children who had the hardest time remaining engaged in
remote learning were those who were otherwise disadvantaged or marginalized (UNICEF &
ITU, 2020; Vibert, 2020).
The question is what will come next. Children who had digital access challenges during the
pandemic year of 2020–2021 are less likely to have developed the skills their teachers were
endeavoring to teach them remotely. What will those first- and second-level inequalities mean
for these children’s outcomes: their high school graduation rates, or likelihood of college
completion? In the shorter term, what will it mean for their progress toward established aca-
demic standards, such as being proficient, independent readers by the end of third grade? Much
will depend on the effectiveness of local and national initiatives intended to support students
and families who were most impacted by the challenges of remote learning. We have never had
a global event that placed digital inequality at the center of children’s developmental trajectories
like the pandemic has, and only time will reveal how this unintended educational experiment
will affect children’s outcomes.

Where to From Here?

Looking into the future to consider how young people’s outcomes are affected by their digital
access, skills, and practices is also a way to think about technology’s relationship to childhood
more broadly. At the start of this chapter, I offered three reasons why digital inequality should
be important to anyone interested in children, adolescents, and media, anywhere in the world:

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These technologies are integral to young people’s daily lives; affect what opportunities they can
access in absolute terms and relative to their peers; and afflict those who are already challenged
by other social inequalities. As we look forward, it is reasonable to expect that digital tech-
nologies will become even more embedded in children’s and adolescents’ social lives and ex-
periences, although what that looks like will vary greatly in different regions and communities
around the globe. We can also expect that the continued migration of resources online will
shape opportunity landscapes even more than is the case today. But, whether those two trends
deepen disparities between young people depends on whether we can resolve digital inequality,
to ensure that the opportunities these technologies foster can create opportunities for all.

SEE ALSO Chapter 44 by Borzekowski and Afterword by Lemish and Jordan in this volume.

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 44
MEDIA CONTENT FOR AND
RESEARCH ON CHILDREN
IN LOW- AND MIDDLE-
INCOME COUNTRIES
Dina L.G. Borzekowski

The existing literature on children and media, which draws mainly from research done in higher-
income countries (HICs), mostly focuses on the ill-effects of exposure. A recent review of the
media literature describes the risks and harms of media use among youth from the Global North
(Lupton, 2021; Twenge & Campbell, 2018). Children and adolescents struggle to navigate the
vast reams of information. Youth binge-watch entertainment videos and overuse social media,
displacing traditional interactions with physical text and in-person peers. They accept violent and
sexualized norms depicted through graphic video games. As well, heavy users of digital media
become overly obsessed with their bodies’ shape and size when using social media.
In contrast, when discussing children and adolescents’ use of media and new technology in
low- and middle-income countries (LMICs),1 many present a positive relation and a critical ac-
tivity for advancement. Broadcast television – both entertaining and educational platforms – is a
welcome influence, as it is cost-effective and can deliver content to improve academic and socio-
emotional outcomes (Watson & McIntyre, 2020). The internet society paradigm suggests that new
technology offers individuals a means to communicate in ways never possible before, advancing
interactions and providing an unprecedented medium for communication (Internet Society, 2014).
When considering children and media in LMICs, two opportunities emerge as critical – the
need for local and user-generated content and the need for research. As we have mostly overcome
the access barrier, it is time to address the paucity of content and research in LMICs. After
addressing the issue of connectivity, this chapter presents concerns regarding media imperialism
and the lack of scientific data collected on media’s impact on youth populations. Throughout the
chapter, we highlight successful interventions, where in-country producers created content for
children and adolescents, and note where researchers have done quality work.

Access and Cost Considerations

In recent decades, discussions around LMICs’ children and media interventions have started and
often finished with rallying cries around access. Coverage and usage gaps still do exist, but both
are decreasing. In 2019, 82% and 90% of those living in LMICs had 4G and 3G coverage,
respectively (GSMA, 2020). Only 7% of the world’s population lives outside of areas covered

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 Dina L.G. Borzekowski

by mobile broadband networks. Problematically, many people, around 3.4 billion of the
world’s population, fall in the usage gap, meaning that they are covered but not connected.
Discrepancies appear across geography (urban/rural), income (high/low), age (young/old), and
gender (male/female), but these divides are narrowing (ITU/UNESCO, 2019).
Cost remains a primary obstacle for media use, but many are willing to direct a large percentage
of household income towards purchases of devices and data. Media technology is becoming more
affordable, and there are opportunities for how one can enter this market, ranging from low-end
mobile phones that use internet networks to high-end smartphones (GSMA, 2020). For example,
in Bangladesh where the gross national income (GNI) is U.S. $2,010, costs range from around
U.S $32 for a 3G or 4G android Symphony E90 handheld phone to U.S. $813 for a Samsung
Galaxy S21 5G device (GSMA, 2021; World Bank, 2021b; bdprice.com, 2021). As of 2019, in
LMICs, the average cost of an entry-level, internet-enabled device (around U.S. $35.00) was
estimated to be around 34% of one’s monthly income, driven by the increased availability of
electronics throughout South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa (GSMA, 2020). Besides the tech-
nology, access to services is a challenge that needs to be overcome. Among populations in the
poorest income quintile, costs are a significantly greater proportion of one’s income. In some
countries including Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea Bissau,
Yemen, and Zimbabwe (where people live on less than U.S. $2.00 a day), people spend more
than 50% of their monthly income on data (GSMA, 2020; World Bank, 2021b). This important
issue is being recognized and the U.N. Broadband Commission has set a 2025 goal of having data
services be less than 2% of one’s monthly income (ITU/UNESCO, 2019).
Young people, who typically are early adopters of technology but often lack financial re-
sources, adopt creative strategies to overcome cost barriers. To avoid the exorbitant costs of
airtime and data, low-income users will “sip and dip” which means they will rely on the
airplane mode to prevent unwanted data charges; additionally, they will “flash and beep” to
communicate without using airtime (ITU/UNESCO, 2019; Wasserman, 2018). The younger
generation is the main user of Cambodia’s Smart corporation rates of 1 GB which goes for
$0.01 between 1 am and 5 am. MTN-Rwanda, the major telecom corporation in Rwanda,
offers students a daily bundle with eight times the data of a regular plan as well as unlimited
WhatsApp access (ITU/UNESCO, 2019). During the school shutdowns of COVID-19,
governments including countries like Bhutan, Croatia, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe tried
to facilitate free and reduced data plans so school children could access educational material
online (www.worldbank.org, 2021).

Media Content Considerations

But what types of media content do youth in LMICs access? Until recently there has been a
profound scarcity of locally produced media for children (Livingstone et al., 2017). In far-
reaches of the globe, children are familiar with syndicated series and blockbuster movies mostly
created in the U.S. A study of six-LMICs countries from around the globe with 2,422 5- and
6-year-olds found that 74.1% of the participants could name the animated slapstick duo of Tom
and Jerry and 65.6% of Disney’s Mickey Mouse (Borzekowski & Pires, 2018). The most viewed
movie (not the highest-grossing film, which is the 2009 James Cameron film Avatar) is the 1997
film Jesus, which the Campus Crusade for Christ translated into 1,899 languages and distributed
via VHS to billions of people ( jesusfilm.org, 2021).
The global reach of Western TV shows and films influences people, shaping social
identities, community culture, and the ways they understand and behave (Mirrlees, 2013).
Screen representations present lifestyles to identify with and “ways of life” to emulate. While

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we may both celebrate and denigrate global entertainment media, it is critical to recognize its
political, economic, societal, and cultural impact especially on those living in LMICs. Even
when there is a distinct and rich story-telling style, in-country producers perceive that to be
successful they may need to adopt Western approaches. Malaysian researchers observed this
transition from Ethnocentrism to Xenocentrism over 23 years, noting the cultural im-
perialism brought by American animation onto the Malaysian animation industry (Rafik
et al., 2020). For many societies, especially those with indigenous cultures and languages, the
scarcity of locally produced content across media platforms (print, audio, broadcast, and
digital) and the adoption of global media results in both direct and indirect cultural im-
perialism (Livingstone et al., 2017).
Nigerian researchers Oko-Epelle and Abdusalam (2020) discuss media as tools for cultural
domination. They suggest that to ensure Nigeria’s cultural heritage, there must be selective
acceptance and dissemination of local content which satisfy audience needs. After finding high
levels of influence by Hollywood films on youth’s desire for American lifestyles (including
desires for branded shirts, acceptance of alcohol consumption, adoption of cultural rituals like
baby showers and Sweet 16s), Pakistani researchers recommended that the Pakistan Electronic
Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) take serious action against movies that threaten cultural
and moral values (Naeem et al., 2020). Around the world, governments subsidize and en-
courage in-country media companies to produce, deliver, and maintain diverse and quality
content (Trappel, 2018).
Ubongo, founded in 2013 and based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, serves as a successful
example of a media production company that is representative and respectful of children’s
culture and needs. Mostly in Sub-Saharan African, Ubongo programs reach over 17 million
households through TV, radio, mobile, and digital (Ubongo.org, 2021).
To date, Ubongo delivers edutaining content through two programs Ubongo Kids and Akili
and Me. Ubongo Kids is an educational cartoon, targeting viewers between the ages of 7 to 11
years old. It follows the problem-solving adventures of five human children, guided by animal
mentors, in the musical and colorful Kokatao Village. Subjects taught include math, science,
engineering, technology, character strengths, and life skills. This show was Tanzania’s first
endemic cartoon and is now in seven languages and in 33 countries (Ubongo.org, 2021). Akili
and Me is designed for a younger audience of 3- to 6-year-olds. It features animated stories
about Akili, a preschooler living near Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro. When Akili falls asleep, she
enters Lala Land, a magical world where she and animal friends learn and play. The series targets
subjects including literacy, numeracy, socio-emotional tasks, health, and art. Akili and Me
content is now in 11 languages (Ubongo.org, 2021).
In Ubongo’s main Dar office, there is constant activity. An open-office space exposes how
more seasoned artists develop and train the next crew of animators, artists, musicians, and
writers. College-aged interns from around the world assist in any way they can. Intermingled
are neighborhood children, who serve as formative research informants. The company’s
strong commitment to create and disseminate engaging video (animation and live-action) for
children, caregivers, and educators is striking. Ubongo’s CEO Nisha Ligon described in a
recent interview the company’s core principle of creating “top-quality, kid-centered, loca-
lized, modular educational content that can be received on whatever media devices kids
already have” (Jacobs foundation, 2020). A decade ago, Ubongo delivered material mostly
through radio, TV, and SMS. In 2020, Ubongo’s social media platforms included more than
500,000 followers and their most popular YouTube channel had around 1,400,000 unique
viewers (H. Chikaha, personal communication, August 11, 2021; S. Boustred, personal
communication, August 16, 2021).

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Media Uses and Content Generated by Young People

Formal in-country production companies are one solution to reaching children in LMICs;
another approach is much more homegrown. To address the lack of local content and the
problem of media imperialism, the current mobile environment allows youth around the globe
to develop user-generated content. Young people can be the solution, as they are creative and
capable, sometimes more so than their adult contemporaries. For example, the 2019 State of
Broadband report, which considered technology in LMICs, revealed significant differences in
specific skills between a group of young people ages 15 to 24 and 25, and a group of 74-year-
olds for sending emails with attached files (84% versus 56%), using copy and paste tools (79%
versus 47%), and creating electronic presentations (62% versus 26%) (ITU/UNESCO, 2019).
Already, media-savvy youth are flipping the one-way top-down approach to media pro-
duction and distribution. Four characteristics of youth-generated media include creativity,
expressions of individual and collective experiences, energy, and stimulating action (Khalil,
2012). Reflecting and reacting to “societal structures, political struggles, cultural tensions,
economic uncertainties,” Arab youth-generated media stimulated and encouraged the Arab
Spring protests in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia (Khalil, 2012).
Most user-generated media do not attempt to overthrow governments. Rather, the primary
reason youth create and use media is to better connect with family and friends. Consider the
TikTok craze, which had over 850 million downloads and is currently available in 141 countries
and 75 languages (Geyser, 2021). TikTok, a spinoff of the 2016 Chinese application Douyin,
provides users, predominantly young people, a vehicle to create and share videos. Easier to use
than applications like Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat, TikTok offers users a straightforward
way to edit and share short videos enhanced with music, filters, and graphics. Despite or maybe
because the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information temporarily blocked the
application in 2018 proclaiming contents were immoral, blasphemous, and pornographic,
Indonesia follows just the U.S. as the country with the most monthly users (Statista, 2021).
Surveys of youth in LMICs reveal the popularity and perceived importance of social media
(typically accessed through mobile phones) in adolescents’ lives (Bukowa, 2018; Pfeiffer et al.,
2014; Wasserman, 2018). Online media provide an avenue for globalization and facilitate more
freedom of self-representation and socialization, which are critical for youth in developing
countries. African youth describe how internet use and especially social media connect users to
the modern world (Pfeiffer et al., 2014). Especially among youth, digital media affords direct
involvement in politics and social change (Wasserman, 2018). A 2014 study of Pakistani youth
found that around two-thirds (67.2%) agreed or strongly agreed that social media facilitated
global awareness; 72.3% felt social media played a key role in developing political awareness
among youth (Shabir et al., 2014). Reaching like-minded communities is also an often-
mentioned purpose of social and online media. Research conducted in Peru with youth that
self-identified as gay or transgender confirms that online social systems and networks offer an
important source of support and a safe haven for sexual minority youth to form friendships and
pathways of resilience (Suarez et al., 2020; Ybarra et al., 2015).

Quality of Research in LMICs

The contrast between children and media research conducted in HICs and LMICs is stark.
Unfortunately, most studies in LMICs highlight cross-sectional, bivariate relations. Researchers
often make considerable claims based on these basic studies. For example, one interview study
of 120 Turkish grade 3 and 4 students associated language learning with the use of smartphones

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(Yaman et al., 2015). The researchers argued that students learned more English due to greater
convenience, efficiency, and engagement with content; however, this work was based on self-
report data and follow-up with 29 study participants who agreed to be interviewed. A study
conducted in Iran found that applications such as WhatsApp and Viber offer “portable, ubi-
quitous, inexpensive, powerful and creative learning environments” (Mellati et al., 2018). A
deeper dive reveals that this work used a convenience sample of 90 young people who had
substantial experience with technology (Mellati et al., 2018). A study in four LMICs found only
a weak correlation between higher frequency of online use and lower mental health among
children from Bulgaria and Chile, and no relation among children in Ghana and the Philippines
(Kardefelt-Winther et al., 2020). While this study was more rigorous, had a large sample, and a
more structured analysis, the researchers relied on children’s self-report and categorical response
to the flawed question “how many hours do you spend on the internet on an average day
during the week and at the weekend?” To improve this work, one could use more objective
time measures children spend online as well as the content, contacts, and conduct of children’s
internet use (Livingstone & Haddon, 2012).
Based on more complex work conducted in HICs, it is common for researchers to raise
concerns about children’s overuse of media (Course-Choi & Hammond, 2021). A recent study
done using data from over 40,000 caregivers found that children who were high (vs. low) users
of media showed lower psychological well-being, including being less curious, having poorer
self-control, and receiving a diagnosis of depression and anxiety (Twenge & Campbell, 2018).
Cross-sectional, longitudinal, and empirical studies conducted with Canadian youth show that
use of smartphones and social media is associated with mental distress, self-injury, and suicidality
(Abi-Jaoude et al., 2020). Longitudinal research done with around 2,300 European adolescents
found the magnitude of internet used to be associated with poorer mental and physical health
(Hökby et al., 2016). A study with 4,191 Lithuanian schoolchildren found that problematic
social media use (PSMU) was associated with two times higher odds for poor sleep quality,
lower life satisfaction, and lower levels of physical activity (Buda, 2021).
Acknowledging that children and adolescents from LMICs are heavy and frequent media users,
it is remarkable how few research studies consider media’s impact on these youth. Practically all
the aforementioned studies are survey or correlational work, presenting only univariate and bi-
variate relations. This gives us superficial knowledge about user trends but offers little on how
media affect children’s lives and development in LMICs. This is the second point of this chapter.
Lagging behind those in wealthy countries by almost seven decades, practically no studies,
especially those done by researchers from LMICs, consider with depth this important area of
study. To date, researchers have conducted and published extremely few high-quality, large-scale
media effects studies reflecting the relation between children and media use in LMICs.
As a result, the role media play in LMICs children’s cognitive, physical, social, and emo-
tional development is unknown. While those from countries such as the U.S., U.K., Australia,
Germany, and the Netherlands, among others, typically have funding and run scientific studies
and controlled analyses, our research counterparts in South Asia, Mexico, Central, and South
America, and Sub-Saharan Africa lack the resources and opportunities to do such work.
Furthermore, grounding in theory (e.g., behavioral, communication, critical, etc.) is expected
for work done in HICs examining children and media. One unique study that we are familiar
with considers children’s COVID experiences, and in particular, media use, among Tanzanian,
Sierra Leonean, and Nigerian children; here, researchers framed the analyses using the ecolo-
gical model (Kallander et al., 2021).
The exception to the LMIC research scarcity involves evaluation studies considering the
impact of educational television on young children. There is compelling evidence that children

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benefit from exposure to educational media, with research showing gains in literacy, numeracy,
socio-emotional development, and health and hygiene (Watson & McIntyre, 2020). Several
published studies reveal that children learn from the international co-productions of Sesame
Street (Cole & Lee, 2016; Mares & Pan, 2013), including an experimental design intervention
study done in Lucknow, India with 1,340 children. This work, which was school-based and
done over six weeks, found that higher levels of children’s receptivity to Galli Sim Sim pre-
dicted significant improvements, controlling for baseline scores, in literacy, numeracy, socio-
emotional strategies, and nutritional knowledge (Borzekowski et al., 2019a). Methodical work
done in Tanzania and Rwanda also show that preschool children’s controlled exposure to
Ubongo’s Akili and Me can result in improved educational and developmental outcomes
(Borzekowski et al., 2019b; Borzekowski, 2018). A limitation of the existing studies is that
while in-country researchers assisted with developing the study designs, collecting data, and
writing papers, the principal investigator was from a high-income country.

Conclusion
Of the world’s population of children, 89.6% of those 14 years and under, live in LMICs (World
Bank, 2021a). In contrast to what has occurred in high-income countries where media diffusion
took decades, LMICs are experiencing accelerated technological changes. Two decades ago, in
most of the world, mobile phones were novel; now, there are more phones than people even in
the most populous countries. Lacking though has been and still is rich media reflecting local
content. This is slowly but certainly changing as producers and broadcasters come to realize the
value and impact of content that better reflects the regional culture, language, and interests.
What has yet to advance in LMICs is scholarly literature in children and media research. Absent
are complex, involved, theory-based studies that shed light on if and how media play a role in
children’s lives and development in these countries. We do not know if the relations we observe
in HIC are the same in LMICs. We do not have enough information to understand if children’s
use of technology in natural settings relates to children’s relationships, cognitive and socio-
emotional development, academics, professional goals, and identity (Livingstone et al., 2017).
Similar to how media producers train in-country talent to create local programs, academics
and scientists must instruct and guide in-country researchers to access funding to conduct and
disseminate findings from large-scale and meaningful research on children and media.

SEE ALSO Chapter 43 by Katz and Afterword by Lemish and Jordan in this volume.

Note
1 In this chapter, we use the terms high-income (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries
(LMICs). The World Bank collects data on gross national income (GNI) and for 2022, the World
Bank classifies high-income countries as having a GNI of US $12,696 or more. Low- and middle-
income countries (LMICs) are at a GNI of US $4,096.

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 45
MEDIA AND CHILDREN
WITH DISABILITIES
Kate Prendella and Meryl Alper

Introduction
Melissa Shang is a young Asian American woman with Charcot-Marie-Tooth, a form of muscular
dystrophy. Since 2013, she has been working to disrupt the cultural narrative that her life is “sad”
because she is disabled. Shang observed how disabled media characters frequently only exist in
stories as opportunities for non-disabled characters and audiences to display personal and moral
growth. The proliferation of these narratives inspired Shang to write a book of her own about a
girl with a disability. However, the response from publishers was that Mia Lee (the protagonist of
Shang’s book) “was just too happy” (Shang, 2019, p. 272). Unwilling to edit the book to make
Mia pitiable or miserable, Shang raised money through an online Kickstarter campaign to self-
publish Mia Lee is Wheeling Through Middle School. In an opinion piece for The New York Times,
Shang argues for the importance of disabled characters that children with disabilities can point to
and say “she’s just like me! And she’s happy, too!” (Shang, 2019, p. 273).
Disabled youth like Shang grow up in an ableist world that discriminates against people with
disabilities and denies them full representation in all aspects of society, including in the media.
This chapter focuses on disabled children as an important but overlooked media audience. As
Shang’s story illustrates, children with disabilities are rarely recognized as active readers,
viewers, and consumers of media with desires, beliefs, and aspirations of their own. We begin
by exploring who disabled children are as a population and as media users, then discuss the
current (although limited) research that exists on their experiences as mass media audiences,
concluding with directions for future research on this topic.

Defining Disabled Children

Approximately 17% of young people aged 3 to 17 in the U.S. have a developmental disability
(Zablotsky et al., 2019). Such conditions occur among all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic
groups and include ADHD, autism, cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, learning disability, and
visual and hearing impairments. Global estimates of disabled children aged 14 and under range
between 93 and 150 million, with data collection complicated by the varied nature of disability,
cultural stigma in many countries, and a lack of diagnostic infrastructure worldwide (World
Health Organization, 2011). Resource disparities have led to inequitable access to education,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-50 395

 Kate Prendella and Meryl Alper

employment, and social participation for disabled children, especially in the Global South
(though young people with disabilities may be more included in these communities due to a
culture of interdependence, in contrast with the individualism promoted within Western so-
ciety) (Shakespeare, 2012). Culturally, childhood disability is both a social construct and a
political identity. Dominant perceptions of disabled children are largely created through the lens
of the “normal child,” which figures children with disabilities as inherently less than or deficient
(Cooper, 2013; Goodley & Lawthom, 2013).
In terms of research on children and media, disabled young people are vastly under-
represented, and their unique needs not accounted for, leading to invisibility and exclusion (Alper
et al., 2016; Jordan & Prendella, 2019; Sprafkin, Gadow, & Abelman, 1992). Furthermore, in
studies of media and technology use that do involve disabled children, identifying factors beyond
age and gender are rarely reported and disabled children themselves are infrequently directly
engaged methodologically (Shane & Albert, 2008). With this acknowledgment, we now discuss
what is known about young people with disabilities as media audiences within the context of child
audience studies.

Children with Disabilities as a Media Audience

Throughout their childhoods, disabled children and adolescents, as with all young people, are
inundated with mediated images and content across a plethora of platforms (Livingstone, 2006).
Due to the pervasive nature of media in their lives, stakeholders including parents, politicians,
educators, clinicians, and academics have been invested in research examining the impact of
mass media (i.e., television, film, literature) on children (Lemish, 2015). Historically, such
research has considered kids to be in the process of becoming adults who are susceptible to
media’s messaging. This protectionist stance both denies the agency of children, who are active
consumers of media, and ignores the fact that childhood is a form of “being” not “becoming”
(Buckingham, 2000). Instead of focusing on what media do to children, work drawing on
cultural studies and feminist traditions has shifted the focus to ask what children do with media,
and the interrelation between media consumption and reception (Buckingham & Sefton-
Green, 1994; Livingstone, 2007). Such research is rooted in Stuart Hall’s (1980) foundational
work on encoding and decoding, in that while media messages are encoded with meaning by
their producers, each audience member decodes messages based on their identities and sub-
jectivities, the specific media platform, and macro, meso, and micro institutional forces (e.g.,
politics, communities) (Livingstone & Das, 2013). With respect to children with disabilities,
their reception of media content and messaging must be understood in relation to the presence,
or lack thereof, of kids who look like them in media, along with broader themes and images of
normativity and power, discussed below.

Disability in Children’s Media

While disability themes in mass media have increased over the past century, especially in the
2000s, those portrayals have not always been positive (Zhang & Haller, 2013). Within
children’s media, there is a major gap in disability representation (Golos, 2010a), and existing
depictions have historically drawn on stereotypical tropes. A 2019 report from the Geena
Davis Institute on Gender and Media found that 1–8% of leading characters in popular
children’s TV shows and movies had a disability, and that such characters were more likely
than non-disabled characters to be depicted as violent, helpless, in need of rescue, or to
ultimately die (Giaccardi et al., 2019). Both children’s media and popular culture at large

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homogenize disability; most disabled characters are White, male, and/or live with a disability
that is visually apparent (Ayala, 1999; Elman, 2010; Matthew & Clow, 2007). In live action
media, non-disabled characters are also usually cast to play disabled characters, making dis-
ability appear more like a performance than a fully formed identity (Siebers, 2008). The
resulting prevailing image of disability is sensationalized and detached from disabled chil-
dren’s everyday lives.
Reoccurring types of disabled characters portrayed in children’s media include the “su-
percrip,” “tragic,” and “evil” figures (Beckett et al., 2010; Hartnett, 2000). The “supercrip” is a
character who has triumphed over their disability in the process of accomplishing extraordinary
acts. Those characters who “overcome” their disability serve as a metaphor for the general
human struggle over adversity, but without any critical assessment of the way society treats
disabled people. The supercrip trope thus manages to highlight and erase disability at the same
time (Dunn, 2014). Characters that “overcome” enough to assimilate into non-disabled society
are positioned as protagonists worthy of inclusion; in popular children’s animated films, this
includes, for instance, Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon (DreamWorks Animation) and
Dory from Finding Dory (Pixar Animation).
The second trope is that of the “poor little soul” in need of saving through the goodwill
of others (Beckett et al., 2010). For example, in the classic tale A Christmas Carol (Disney),
Tiny Tim is “cured” of his disability when Scrooge becomes charitable and supports Tim’s
recovery. Such content perpetuates disability as a personal tragedy and fails to address so-
cioculturally, politically, and economically disabling conditions. Lastly, disability is repeatedly
represented throughout children’s media as tied to being “good” or “evil.” Within such
narratives, a character’s evil actions are linked with their disability, implying either that they
are evil because they have a disability or they are disabled because they are evil, such as
Captain Hook in Disney’s Peter Pan (Hartnett, 2000). Narratives that present an in-
dividualized notion of disability – whether as a supercrip, tragic figure, or villain – not only
erase the political identity of disability but leave child disabled audiences with few options
for identification.
The presumed audience in children’s media is by default non-disabled, including edu-
cational media that includes depictions of disability as part of a lesson (Anthony et al., 2020).
In these narratives, disabled characters are featured to teach a socio-emotional concept to the
non-disabled character and audience. Though the intention of such content may be to
promote acceptance, it often perpetuates marginalization by reducing the disabled character
to a vehicle for the non-disabled other’s moral or spiritual development (Price et al., 2016;
Rieger & McGrail, 2015). This positioning encourages sympathy more so than empathy
from the audience, which reaffirms a deficit model of disability (Beckett et al., 2010). These
lesson narratives are rarely effective due to a lack of recognition, comprehension, and en-
gagement among child audiences. Preschool and kindergarten-aged children have been
shown to have difficulty recognizing disabilities (especially those without physical markers
such as a wheelchair) and struggle to identify the moral lesson being presented on TV
(Diamond & Kensinger, 2002; Mares & Acosta, 2008). While explicitly identifying disability
and/or the intended lesson could lead to higher levels of recognition and comprehension, it
can also have unintended negative effects such as increased stigma of disabled people (Mares
& Acosta, 2008). Effectiveness is improved though when interventions utilizing media de-
pictions of disability are used in conjunction with a broader anti-discrimination curriculum
(Favazza & Phillipsen, 2000; Kallman, 2017). Children’s media has the potential to address
ableism and challenge marginalization and these studies speak to the importance of context
for such interventions to be successful.

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Disabled Children’s Media Preferences and Reception

The lack of research with disabled children as a mass media audience is ironic considering that
children with disabilities commonly report media use as one of their favorite recreational ac-
tivities (e.g., Stiller & Mößle, 2018). However, the volume of their reported screen time is
often overgeneralized and sensationalized within both academic and public discourse (Alper,
2014). Such generalizations are not only ableist, as they ignore the politicization of screens, but
they do not reflect the “nuanced ways that popular culture can be meaningful to youth,
especially young people with disabilities” (Alper, 2014, p. 25). Though television remains a
dominant platform for children globally, Martins, King, and Beights (2019) theorize that young
people with disabilities may favor TV specifically due to its relative accessibility and ease of use.
In terms of content preferences, parents report that disabled children consistently prefer ani-
mated, crime, or superhero programs (Shane & Albert, 2008; Sprafkin et al., 1992). While such
programming may not be significantly different from what non-disabled children are watching,
it might be favored by disabled kids due to standardized plots and explicit emotional expressions
that are easier to follow (Martins et al., 2019).
Researchers have also examined the unique way in which many children with disabilities are
consuming mass media. For example, Alper (2018) describes the media rituals of autistic
children in which they repeatedly re-watch parts of a film as a form of self-soothing. Very
young children similarly enjoy viewing the same TV episodes, as the repetition helps them learn
from the narrative and their familiarity with the story reduces their anxiety of the unknown
(Fisch, 2000). Disabled children may also like this sense of control but seek out additional forms
of gratification through their use (Harrison, 2019). Some young people on the autism spectrum
with sensory processing disorders and a high threshold for sensory input rewind and pause
specific moments in audio-visual media to generate pleasurable auditory and visual sensations
(Nally et al., 2000).
While children’s media content is largely created with a non-disabled audience in mind,
educators and researchers have begun to recognize the pedagogical potential of mass media for
children with disabilities (Shane & Albert, 2008). Golos and her team (2010b), for instance, used
techniques inspired by PBS KIDS programming to create a show that would be accessible for deaf
and hard-of-hearing children and found it to be effective in teaching them American Sign
Language (ASL). Anecdotal stories and small-scale studies also indicate the potential for programs
like Sesame Street (Sesame Workshop) and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood (Fred Rogers Productions)
to teach, entertain, and include disabled children (Kolucki, 1979; Dotson et al., 2017). In sum,
disabled young people can identify content that is meaningful to them and utilize it to serve their
emotional, cognitive, and sensory needs, but large-scale empirical studies on their interpretation
and understanding of media messages are significantly lacking.

Future Directions and Conclusion

Disabled children have not just been excluded from on-screen depictions; they are simulta-
neously erased as an audience in mass media research. Beyond basic inclusion, future studies
should diversify how they are being engaged as research subjects, in addition to reports pro-
vided by their parents and educators. Their media experiences may not map neatly onto the
experiences of same-age peers or adults with similar disabilities (Ellis et al., 2020). Existing
media research on children with disabilities tends to parallel findings from broader studies of
media access in which use for information purposes is prioritized, then communication, while
entertainment is viewed as a luxury and thus not necessary to investigate (Ellcessor, 2016).

398
 Media and Children with Disabilities

Studies of disabled children’s use of media as an educational and rehabilitative tool or as a

communication device are essential, but research is also needed that examines disabled
children’s engagement with entertainment media for the purposes of play and pleasure
(Goodley & Runswick-Cole, 2010). Their decoding of media messages may also be in-
timately tied to their media production and envisioning themselves as part of the story. For
example, disabled fanfiction creators, many of them adolescents, have generated material that
claims, emphasizes, and celebrates disability in Harry Potter’s fantastical narratives, even if
depictions of people with disabilities are not always made explicit in the transmedia franchise
(Black et al., 2019).
Another potential area of research on disabled children as a media audience is on the one-
sided affective relationships that children form with media personae (e.g., cartoon characters,
YouTubers), also known as parasocial relationships (Rosaen & Dibble, 2008). Child audiences
regularly imitate, emulate, and identify – sometimes wishfully – with media characters. In
parasocial relationships, children consider such figures to be like a friend or role model who can
affirm their sense of self-worth. Future studies might address the question of who disabled
children identify with on-screen and the role of media personae in their own process of self-
recognition. Media programs serve as a socializing agent for child audiences, and this could be
especially true for disabled children considering their exclusion from other forms of social and
community participation. At the same time, since disabled characters in children’s media are
largely secondary or minor players, it is worth determining what messages about disability they
are internalizing from such depictions, especially if the portrayals are ableist.
Distorted mass media representations of social minority groups, including disabled people, can
affect members’ perceived identities (Barnes, 1992). Fictional portrayals of disability have an
impact on the lives of individuals with disabilities, the way that they view themselves, and the way
that they are perceived by others in both positive and negative ways (Zhang & Haller, 2013). This
growing body of work though, by and large, has not been extended to disabled children and how
mass media impacts their self-identity development. Children who are socially marginalized
benefit when they feel seen and valued through representative media, and are negatively impacted
and devalued by stereotypical portrayals (e.g., Martins & Harrison, 2012; Rivadeneyra et al., 2007;
Ward, 2004). When they are respected in media, children are more likely to feel better about
themselves and be successful throughout their adolescence and adulthood (Kotler et al., 2016). In
close, a lack of explicitly representative media for disabled children to engage with and in which to
recognize themselves can potentially have negative consequences for their self-esteem. All too
frequently stories about disability are told to non-disabled audiences by non-disabled creators
without the inclusion of disabled individuals (Charlton, 1998; Haller, 2010). Disabled young
people like Melissa Shang have been driven to create the stories that they want to see, and
producers of children’s media ought to follow her lead.

SEE ALSO Afterword by Lemish and Jordan in this volume.

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 46
YOUTH AND PARTICIPATORY
POLITICS
Enhancing Digital Engagement through
Media Literacy Education
Tao Papaioannou

Digital media have the potential to strengthen young people’s participation in civic activities as
they provide access to more information, capability to reach out to others, and support for a
greater level of direct and personal involvement. In order for youth to better utilize digital
opportunities, many have argued that media literacy efforts are needed within a perspective that
acknowledges the ways in which young people incorporating civic activities and media content
into their lives (Ito et al., 2019). This view recognizes the importance of participatory politics –
youth using discursive practices in online networks to exert influence on social and political
issues, such as supporting a boycott (Kahne & Bowyer, 2019). Facilitated by digital media,
youth engaged in participatory politics create and circulate content while collaborating with
others who share their interests and opinions. These practices support consumption, produc-
tion, and distribution of information as well as attainment of public recognition.
While empirical evidence has supported this notion of digital engagement, some questions
still need further attention. First, considerable research data indicates that youth participation in
civic and political life is relatively low and that most youth seldom create or circulate civic
content (Gustafson et al., 2019). There is a need to prepare all youth to better leverage the
potential power of digital engagement. Also, it is important to recognize the multiple ways that
the new media ecology enables participation and activities which indicate participatory politics
can be problematic. For example, those engaged in participatory politics are still likely to en-
counter and, potentially, contribute to the spread of misinformation through social media
( Judge, 2019). An implication of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the remarkable increase in
use of digital media across youth and other populations due to social distancing and lockdown
measures. Many of the questions concerning opportunities, challenges, and risks posed by using
online media for information and deliberation are significantly brought to the forefront
(Kligler-Vilenchik & Literat. 2020). Educators are only beginning to implement interventions
for strengthening young people’s abilities to critically comprehend online information per-
taining to health and lifestyle issues. Further, content-centered educational initiatives tend to
emphasize creative expression, encouraging students to produce multimedia narratives. Media
literacy educators have been debating the degree of focus on content from popular culture
(Hobbs & Grafe, 2015), hence, the need to identify strategies for facilitating youth interest in

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-51 403

 Tao Papaioannou

sharing media content and issues of civic significance. Finally, digital engagement cannot be
abstracted from the social environment that embeds its development. Beyond affirming the role
of media technologies in youth citizenship, contextualized analysis of participatory practices and
learning is important for leveraging educational interventions.
This chapter attempts to offer some understanding on these issues. First, it reviews recent
literature on youth and participatory politics within the realm of civic learning. Next, it
examines how children and adolescents make selective use of digital technologies for civic
purposes in view of the participation opportunities and challenges that digital media offer and
media literacy interventions promoting varied civic and digital forms of media literacy. Finally,
this chapter identifies strategies to further enhance digital engagement including pedagogical
practices augmenting youth interest in lifestyle politics and information analysis in response to
the spread of misinformation. This review includes recent research that aim to provide new
insights into advocacy scholarship and practice, and these works are presented as a new starting
point for further research, validation, and debate.

Digital Media and Youth Civic Identity

The advent of digital media and their potentialities for youth civic participation have en-
couraged research on the changing nature of youth civic identity. Bennett (2012) argues
that earlier research on civic engagement has had a narrow focus on the dutiful citizen
identity, emphasizing participation in state institutions and knowledge about politics and
government. Participation behavior has largely been examined with a focus on young
people’s exposure to news media and their voting practice. Youth recognize the significance
of civic engagement but enact it in ways which are the result of shifts in social and political
identity processes, rooted in various global socio-cultural changes over the last several
decades. Increased social fragmentation and atomization have led to a change from a group-
based society to a networked society, recognizing personalized conceptions of membership
and identification.
Experiencing increased personal responsibility and choice, youth consider self-expression and
self-actualization more relevant to their individual needs than government and organize their
citizen identity around their personal lifestyles. They are drawn to participatory forms of political
acts that emphasize direct social action on lifestyle issues, and engagement with digital media has
likely augmented this transformation. This view has broadened traditional categories of
civic engagement to include – beyond direct involvement in government and national issues –
volunteer activities, local and online community engagement, youth philanthropy, social
activism, political consumerism, and lifestyle politics. Striving to bridge or even transcend the
conflicting narratives of whether youth are engaged or disengaged, this notion of civic engage-
ment seeks to capture creative developments in youth participation which comprise a wide range
of practices and civic learning styles, often in forms of shared activity online.
Also, temporary and longer-term participation in online and offline activism, particularly
among marginalized, immigrant, refugee, or war-affected youth, have been examined (Costa &
Luz, 2019; Daiute, 2021). Increasing political conflicts, geo-political processes, related dis-
placements, economic inequality, and various kinds of social injustice have impacted the re-
ferential categories of civic engagement. Equally important is the recognition of inequalities
between those for whom public life created or supported by government, state institutions, and
society is enabling and those for whom it is not. Youth civic engagement research needs to
include various notions of youth and contexts of engagement where young people find
themselves. It is worth noting and researching the nature and processes of children’s and

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adolescents’ participation in a variety of situations with consideration of the history of civic

practices among the individuals and groups.
Moreover, Jenkins and colleagues (2016) advocate a participatory culture that validates the
ways in which youth express their civic interest through digital media. This understanding en-
courages participatory politics – “interactive, peer-based acts through which individuals and
groups seek to exert both voice and influence on issues of public concern” (Kahne et al., 2016,
p. 2). Core practices of participatory politics can be placed within digital engagement literacies as
the capacities for investigation and research, dialogue with information stakeholders, production
and circulation of information, and mobilization for change. Through investigation of issues of
public interest, youth identify, analyze, and evaluate information relevant to civic and political
issues. Engagement in dialogue with their peers and community via social networking platforms
enables deliberation and understanding of divergent perspectives. Production and circulation of
content using an array of digital tools help youth articulate issues meaningful to them and shape
the broader narrative. Finally, youth may rally their networks and mobilize others for collective
action. Participatory politics empower youth to circumvent traditional gatekeepers of information
and influence and operate with greater independence in the political realm. Reflecting the
practices that are prevalent in a broader participatory culture, they often blend media and political
activity, help shift cultural and social understandings, and generate pressure for change.
Notable in the conception of participatory politics is the expansion beyond specific categories
of engagement activities to a focus on cultivating and applying media literacy competencies and
skills, such as critical thinking and content creation for civic purposes. The public voice many
young people express online through various digital activities can help forge a connection be-
tween media production and civic engagement. The strength of that connection and the extent to
which youth utilize it largely depend on their levels of digital media literacy. Media literacy
competencies, activities, and contexts associated with affecting social change have been described
as connected to civic outcomes (Marquart et al., 2020; Van Camp & Baugh, 2016). For example,
some studies have explored how school-based literacy interventions encourage urban and mar-
ginalized youth to connect their cultural interests with their digital skills and address issues of
inequality in their communities through Do-It-Yourself (DIY) activities including multimedia
composition, videos, and game-making (Denner & Martinez, 2019; Wargo & Clayton, 2019).
Some more research documented the affordances and constraints offered by high school jour-
nalism programs concerning amplifying student voice through collaborative writing, connecting
with others and issues in local neighborhoods, and enacting social bonds and networks to build
norms of reciprocity and solidarity (Dzula et al., 2020).

Youth Practices of Participatory Politics

Participatory politics highlight competencies and skills for utilizing digital media in opinion-
formation and social action which are essential to the dynamics of civic engagement. This
perspective of citizenship acknowledges children and adolescents as citizens with present rights
and responsibilities and recognizes the ways in which they engage in public life through digital
activities. Recently, the United Nations Convention on the rights of the child adopted General
Comment No. 25 concerning children’s rights in relation to the digital environment
(Livingstone, 2021). The comments seek to provide guidance on the realization of children’s
rights to be respected, protected, and fulfilled both online and offline. Critical to these re-
commendations is the child’s right to media literacy – acquiring competencies and skills to
access, analyze, evaluate, and create content and participate in society through digital media
(Livingstone et al., 2014; Trültzsch-Wijnen et al., 2017).

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Recent studies focusing on the role of digital media literacy in civic expression, particularly
among children and adolescents of up to 19 years of age, have demonstrated the sizable and
expanding presence of participatory politics both online and offline. Young people are reported
to connect their media interests to politics, express their perspective, and exert influence on
issues of public concern such as poverty, online censorship, police misconduct, and immigrants’
rights ( Jenkins et al., 2016). Such practices often take place locally, but they can also focus on
national or international issues and obtain public recognition as in the example of the
#BlackLivesMatter campaign. Beginning as a conversation on Facebook between two teen-
agers about a police-killing of an unarmed Black man in Ferguson, Missouri, the hashtag
#BlackLivesMatter became the message of a national and international movement demanding
racial justice and equality (Zaveri, 2020). Situated with a community history of social and
economic injustices in Black, Latino, and other ethnic communities in the U.S., demands for
systemic racism to be dismantled echoed globally with young people playing a major role in
organizing resistance. For example, youth activists in the U.K. used social media to propagate
resources and information for racial justice (Rim, 2020). Students appropriated digital skills
including sharing links to petitions, offering advice for safe protesting practices, creating
templates for emailing authorities, raising specific issues related to racial injustice with their
Members of Parliament, and sharing videos documenting instances of police brutality at pro-
tests. These practices help young people understand and discuss a civic issue, reflect on other’s
experience as they explore perspectives behind the news, and use digital platforms to amplify
their voice and make it heard. As Allen and Cohen (2015) have highlighted in their discussion
of contemporary social protests combining engagement online with engagement in the streets,
youth-led activism is not limited to a particular ideological outlook, and it helps “democratize
the conversation” while also influencing political decision-making.
The attraction of participatory politics may also stem from its alignment with broader cultural
forms of engagement that appeal to youth. Networks and groups with common interests tied to
hobbies, sports, entertainment, or religious and cultural identities often cultivate participatory
settings. These contexts help create a potential digital social capital that supports connected civics
in which groups of youth who share interests become civically and politically engaged (Ito et al.,
2019). Mihailidis (2018) has discussed the need for fostering civic intentionality among youth,
utilizing digital engagement interest and opportunities for the common good. Connecting digital
participation with youth interest in environmental sustainability, one of the most prominent, fast-
growing causes for youth activism, Boulianne, Lalancette, and Ilkiw (2020) investigated the use of
Twitter among adolescents in organizing school strikes for the #ClimateChange social media
movement. Tweets among the students facilitated sharing of information and interest and doc-
umenting local events from various countries, hence, connecting the protesting youth through
social media and shaping the movement as of global significance.
The role of civic discussion has also emerged in research focusing on adolescents’ engage-
ment with news of local and global events and political campaigns (Marquart et al., 2020). Civic
messaging with friends and followers in online networks promotes campaign participation. Yet
it also raises concerns about the increasing power of populist rhetoric and misinformation,
underlining the importance of exposure to divergent perspectives and critical evaluation. A
longitudinal study of high schools in three countries illustrated the influence of teacher-student,
teacher-parent, peer-peer, and participant-researcher relationships within the processes of in-
dividual adolescents becoming “ethical civic actors.” Analyzing these varied interactions that
occurred within and around a civic engagement curriculum, the authors conclude that these
relationship contexts within civic education contribute to understanding and enactment among
students of an ethical civic actor as a competent and responsible citizen (Freedman et al., 2016).

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Finally, practices of participatory politics may enhance participation in traditional political

activities and knowledge about politics and government. Online engagement among Pakistani
youth such as posting pictures of news events encourages users to express their opinions and get
involved in political activities; connections and close friends on Facebook may further increase
participation (Masiha et al., 2018). Another research (Abdu et al., 2020) also finds evidence that
political use of Facebook among students in Malaysia is an important and positive predictor for
online/offline political participation and civic engagement. Online social capital leads to po-
litical use of Facebook, and online and offline political participation and civic engagement are
closely related.

Further Enhancing Participatory Practices through Media Literacy Education

Media educators have been encouraged to provide learning opportunities through which youth
acquire digital literacy skills for participatory practices and manage (emerging) challenges and
risks (Hobbs & Grafe, 2015; Livingstone et al., 2012; Papaioannou & Themistokleous, 2018).
In focusing attention on promoting youth engagement with participatory politics, this view
does not imply that these practices are inherent affirmations for democratic action without
pedagogical guidance and social and institutional support (Papaioannou, 2015). Analysis of two
large surveys (Kahne & Bowyer, 2019) suggests that classroom-based digital engagement
learning opportunities increase student engagement in participatory politics. However, the
results also indicate the pressing need to support media literacy in areas of critical thinking and
skills to collaboratively investigate and address public issues. Further, in seeking predictors of
why some teenagers do not visit civic websites or create civic or political content, low levels of
online participation are attributed to a lack of interest. Those youth who have already devel-
oped civic interests are likely to use digital media as a useful resource for pursuing these in-
terests, and their interaction with these online sources increases with age and online expertise.
These results are consistent with those of an earlier survey of public high school students in
Cyprus which also reveals a gap between communication and response (Papaioannou, 2011).
While many students, 70 percent, read and forward information about the civic groups they are
members of, only a minority engages in efforts to campaign for these causes. McGrew and
colleagues (2017) argue that purposeful education is needed to cultivate civic reasoning among
youth in a social media environment. Youth are increasingly learning about social issues
through social media. It is critical to support them in developing skills for analyzing digital
content, reaching warranted conclusions, and helping educate others about these issues. The
degree to which such practices are distributed also requires careful attention as it both challenges
and confirms commonly held beliefs about the digital divide. Among youth, engagement
with participatory politics seems relatively equal across ethnic and racial groups; however,
equitable educational support and preparation are not assured (Windmueller, 2018). As digital
communication does not straightforwardly translate into civic engagement online or offline, it is
then crucial to identify and promote effective pedagogical practices that address attendant
challenges.
Instead of treating youth as a homogeneous group, it is useful to appropriately direct
educational strategies to their varied interests. An appeal to young people’s own agendas and
expressions may help narrow the gap between opportunities and response. Participatory
learning in which students discover and express their political agenda through engagement in
information analysis and production may address the challenges of stimulating and sustaining
participation. An issue perhaps more critical than helping young people find their voice is
providing them with feedback and support. Schools and local communities, interest and peer

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 Tao Papaioannou

groups, and online networks are all part of the opportunity structures that facilitate and shape
young people’s participation and their potential public influence. Educational initiatives need to
strategically incorporate them in efforts amplifying youth voice and having it heard.
Opportunities to participate are otherwise reduced, not only for those who are on the wrong
side of the digital or participation divide but also for those who are not heard.
Educational priorities linked to participatory politics require a context facilitating articulation
of issues that matter to youth. Within the wider social, technical environment, a range of
contexts may motivate engagement including youth interests in cultural and social events,
environmental and health issues, and community justice (Kligler-Vilenchik & Literat, 2020).
Media educators need to maintain a research focus on potential, changing contexts for youth
civic engagement, thereby adapting tailored approaches to foster participation. Further, inter-
actions in formal educational settings need to be combined with adolescents’ interactions in
social media for traditional and digital engagement and mobilizing their networks for political
efficacy. However, social media users are also likely to echo their own opinions or populist
rhetoric rather than engaging in critical comprehension and dialogue, hence, the need to
augment skills in information analysis. Practices designed to facilitate civic reasoning and de-
velopment and application of associated media competencies in contexts appealing to youth
afford participatory politics. This entails systematic applications of research knowledge about
how youth access information, make sense of their environments, form their perspective, and
contribute to the change they would like to make. Taking into consideration of beliefs or
populations that are mis- or under-represented in society in times of infodemic (i.e., a rapid and
far-reaching spread of both accurate and inaccurate information about, for example, a disease or
social issue), this process encourages youth to speak for themselves for a variety of civic purposes
and enact solutions they deem useful. Such participatory learning enables youth to take part in
creating goals and products through reflective and collaborative activities and co-develop un-
derstandings and practices of youth civic engagement that continuously evolves.
Below is an example of a media literacy intervention attempting to implement these strategies.
Funded by the European Commission Directorate-General for Communications Networks,
Content and Technology as part of the Pilot Project Media Literacy for All, Media Literacy for
Living Together (MILT) aimed to enable high school and university students to become agents of
social change through digital media and broader social engagement, incorporating inclusion of
marginalized, immigrant youth and online interest communities (MILT, 2021). A multi-case
media literacy intervention, guided by civic purposes and contextualized for each audience, was
conducted in Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. In Cyprus, 29 undergraduate
students took part in a media literacy course intended to engage them in participatory practices of
analyzing information framing through collaboration with peers, jointly creating and distributing
civic content (Papaioannou, 2021). Using news and social media representations of bodies and
health as a learning context, the moderator shared and debated with the students research ad-
dressing the relationship between body weight and media, including dominant framings of obesity
in news media, fat activists using social media to challenge weight-centric discourse, and literature
critiquing media interventions of obesity. Second, the moderator discussed the theoretical con-
ception of framing and illustrated how to identify frames embedded in texts. Students were asked
to work in groups/pairs and share online content on bodies and health, illustrative of their analysis
of media framings of bodies. Upon student selection of topic and collection of data, they identified
frames of obesity in plus-size model Tess Holliday’s Instagram posts surrounding her controversial
Cosmopolitan cover in 2018. Analysis of these frames – self-validation, injustice of fat-shaming and
stigmatization, influences of Instagram celebrities on fat embodiment, and health stereotypes of
obese people – enabled the students to critique activist responses to accepted body norms and

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moral values facilitating weight bias. In efforts to reframe obesity within their social media
communities, the students leveraged their production skills and shared Instagram posts; Facebook
stories; information links; blogs; photographs; videos; and radio-content in collaboration with
peers and specialists in their local community, prioritizing societal influences in body re-
presentation. These contents reflected their opinions, focusing community attention on effects of
body-shaming and stigmatization, diversity in body image, multifactorial basis of weight man-
agement, and influences of food politics. Such practices augmented digital literacies for utilizing
social media in opinion-formation through which students not only engaged with processes of
collaboration, critique, and expression but established a sense of civic agency.
This discussion of participatory politics and the role of media literacy education in pro-
moting civic practice, redefining notion of civic engagement and continuously researching
which youth are involved in what context and how they choose to engage in different ways via
different online mechanisms, will enable a deeper understanding of youth civic participation.
Future work may focus on developing criteria and methods for evaluating participatory prac-
tices and effective pedagogical strategies within promotion of participatory politics and media
literacy education relevant to civic expression. It is perhaps most important to ask what we can
learn about digital engagement that might help society encourage, enrich, and expand the
democratic experiences of youth. Discussing these issues directly with young people will help
cultivate knowledge in a way that values and fosters youth participation.

SEE ALSO Chapter 33 by Weintraub Austin and Shawn and Chapter 47 by Stuart and Mitchell
in this volume.

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 47
MEDIA, PARTICIPATION,
AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Working within a “Youth as Knowledge
Producers” Framework
Jean Stuart and Claudia Mitchell

Introduction
This chapter is located within the growing body of work in child and youth studies which
points to the significance of the participation of children and young people, at least in principle,
to contributing to the official dialogue around issues of concern to their everyday lives. Indeed,
there is a growing consensus amongst those involved in social programming that unless young
people are given a more significant voice in participating in policy dialogue about their own
wellbeing, the programs themselves are doomed to failure (Ford et al., 2003). While there are
many different approaches to addressing the critical issue of the participation of children and
young people, one area that has received considerable attention over the last decade or more is
in the area of participatory and community-based research (particularly in the context of de-
velopment studies), and the use of visual and other arts-based methodologies such as photo-
voice, participatory video, and cellphilming (cellphone + video), drawing and map-making,
and digital storytelling, as tools and methods of both research and engagement (see Clacherty,
2005; Malone, 2008; Moletsane et al., 2008). These participatory visual approaches go beyond
simply being interventions, in that they typically yield vast collections of visual data in the form
of photos, videos, and digital stories which researchers can use to document and study various
social issues, and which can also engage young people themselves in making sense of their
productions though participatory data analysis (see Liebenberg et al., 2020). Ultimately com-
munities themselves might use the productions in various ways.
A criticism of this work, particularly in relation to children and young people’s participation
is that too often it is “adult-led, adult-designed and conceived from an adult perspective”
(Kellett et al., 2004, p. 329), and that it often misses the mark in relation to what young people
are actually doing on their own (as part of a DIY, do-it-yourself culture), or what they could be
doing in a participatory research context that is more youth-centered and youth-led. Another
criticism is that beyond the initial generation of the visual images, young people are often not
involved in actually working with the data other than in relation to creating captions, for
example, for the images. At the same time, in the extensive body of work on youth and digital
media (see for example Bloustien, 2003; Carrington and Robinson, 2009; De Castell and

412 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-52

 Media, Participation, and Social Change

Jenson, 2003; Jenkins et al., 2016; Mazzarella, 2010), it is clear that participation itself is a critical
feature of what Henry Jenkins terms a “participatory cultures” landscape in referring to DIY
media use and other youth-led online practices (Jenkins, 2006). In this context young people, as
Carrington and Robinson (2009) point out, typically engage in the “remix” and “replay” of
visual and other digital artifacts through You Tube and various social networking sites. We
even think of this landscape as a global “social archive.” In engaging in these practices young
people often engage further in their own cultural productions.
While there is a great deal of convergence between these two broad areas of study, (1)
participatory visual studies with youth and (2) youth-focused digital media studies, what is
perhaps most “hopeful” is that both have a great deal to contribute to deepening an under-
standing of the links between digital media and the idea of “youth as knowledge producers,” a
term first used by Lankshear and Knobel (2003) to refer to the ways in which young people can
simultaneously be resources for each other and play a key role as protagonists in the production
of knowledge about their everyday lives. The aim of this chapter is to describe some of the ways
in which young people are using media within a social change context through the production
of media and media messages, and to consider what difference such approaches make. The
chapter prioritizes qualitative and interpretivist methods of media usage and discusses media
forums/tools such as photovoice, digital storytelling, participatory video/cellphilming, blog-
ging, and children’s radio.

How Are Young People Producing and Using Media Within

a Social Change Context?
Much of the work that we describe in this chapter is located within community-based research
that addresses the critical issues determined by the youth participants themselves (e.g., poverty,
gender-based violence, and HIV and AIDS). Most of our own work addresses these issues in a
sub-Saharan African context, working through the Centre for Visual Methodologies for Social
Change (CVMSC) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the Participatory Cultures Lab
(PCL) at McGill University where we have been testing out participatory approaches and
media as tools for addressing social change through a number of projects with children and
young people.

Photovoice
Photovoice (Wang, 1999) involves giving participants cameras to document issues in their
everyday lives. Young people can promote change by using their own photographs to frame,
select, and share their perspective on issues affecting them. Mitchell et al. (2006) describe a
photovoice project with a policy-making component of the Friday Absenteeism Project, which
took place in a rural KwaZulu-Natal school in South Africa. Although the school principal and
teachers understood why so many 11–12-year-old students were consistently missing from
school on Fridays as it was market day in the local community, they needed to better un-
derstand the underlying causes in order to find appropriate and relevant solutions to keep the
students in school. The students documented what it was like to live in an informal settlement.
Their photographs highlighted the poverty afflicting their families. Working for extra income at
the market on a Friday ensured that they would have food for the weekend. One of the positive
outcomes of the project was that stakeholders extended the school feeding scheme to weekends.
Another photovoice study linked to CVMSC and the PCL but taking place in rural Ethiopia
was the Wake up and Smell the Coffee project (Mitchell, 2012). Children aged 13 and 14 from

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 Jean Stuart and Claudia Mitchell

two schools in and around Jimma town, the birth place of coffee, used photovoice to study the
impact of climate change and other environmental issues on coffee growing. For them the
critical concern was sustainability and the fact that as young people they needed to be able to
take action to address such issues as deforestation. An important component of this project was
the process whereby the participants not only took the photos but also did their own parti-
cipatory data analysis in which they categorized their images according to their relevance to
addressing environmental issues. They organized and curated a school-based exhibition “Our
precious planet” to which their parents and members of the community were invited, and in so
doing helped to raise awareness about the issue of deforestation.

Participatory Video/Cellphilming and Digital Storytelling

Narrative is one the oldest and most elemental conduits for conveying meaning, and media
work offers many opportunities for the energetic and fresh usage of storytelling to explore or
reflect on aspects of identity or to envisage routes to social change. In the Youth as Knowledge
Producers project at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in which pre-service teachers explore
ways in which arts-based approaches can be used to address education in the era of HIV and
AIDS, storytelling has involved a variety of media. For example, responses to a scenario of
sexual negotiation constructing two characters as trapped by social patterning were initially
framed by using a variety of general magazines for collages to suggest how a young couple could
respond differently to sexual advances. In later considerations of how to conduct healthy re-
lationships between boys and girls, stories were considered with the help of image and forum
theatre where the audience is encouraged to participate and change the actions of characters.
Storyboard planning that followed led to the production of short unedited videos either
highlighting crisis points and attitudes in relationships or envisaging solutions (Stuart, 2010).
The sometimes shocking power of video production to voice everyday problems and
propose solutions to them was tellingly evident in another South African based project where
groups of school children between 14 and 18 years of age were engaged in a participatory video
activity. They brainstormed issues they wanted to bring forward, planned a narrative through
storyboarding to convey the issue and then created an unedited video through the No-Editing
Required (NER) approach (see Mitchell, 2011; Mitchell & De Lange, 2019). At the end of that
memorable day, five out of the six groups created videos on gender violence. Their work called
attention to the prevalence and urgency of attending to this disrespect of children’s rights, and
also to the need to take these films back to the community for discussion on how to address this
problem.
An adaptation of participatory video and one that addresses access through cellphones as a
community-based media platform is cellphilming, a term coined by Jonathan Dockney and
Keyan Tomaselli (2010) and highlighted in What’s a Cellphilm? (MacEntee et al., 2016).
Cellphilming as a participatory method has been at the center of a transnational study Networks
for Change and Well-being: Girl-led “From the Ground-up” Policy-making to Address Gender-based
Violence in Canada and South Africa (see Mitchell & Moletsane, 2018; DeLange, et al., 2015). In
one of the girl-group sites in South Africa, adolescent girls produced cellphilms that highlighted
the issue of forced and early marriage. Their efforts to produce a cellphilm and related media
forms led to a community march (Moletsane, 2018) and a community-based policy forum on
forced and early marriage, and ultimately the passing of the Loskop Protocol on Forced and
Early Marriage (Haffejee et al., 2020). In the same project Indigenous girls from Treaty 6,
Saskatoon in Canada produced a cellphilm Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia that mapped out
critical issues of harassment experienced by the girls. The screening of the cellphilm at

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numerous conferences and other public events provided a platform for the girls to get the word
out, and at the same time the cellphilm has served as a “signature” for their activism in ad-
dressing colonial violence.
Another way to unfold narratives for social change is through digital storytelling. Any still
images whether drawn or found and any video clips can be combined with a narrative voice or
writing and/or music to convey a message. Following planning with a storyboard these elements
are brought together through a program such as Windows Movie Maker. The medium offers
scope for much variety and creativity as MacEntee (2016) describes in her work with young
people in rural KwaZulu-Natal in relation to sexuality education. Following Gubrium and
Difulvio (2011) in their extensive work with Latina adolescent girls in the U.S., MacEntee (2016)
considers how young people frame what they need in relation to sexuality education, but also the
challenges they experience. Flicker et al. (2019) in their work with Indigenous youth in a
Canadian context explore the effectiveness of “movie nights” where youth screen their digital
stories in the community. As Gubrium and Difulvio (2011) conclude in their work with digital
stories, “public health research has the potential to be transformative … Employing emergent
methodologies such as digital storytelling can stimulate new forms of engagement” (p. 46).
Digital storytelling has in some cases been conceptualized as participants telling their story
through different media forms over time thus providing insight into complex processes not
easily presented in a digital story composed in one media form at a specific time. For example,
over a seven-year period the Playing for Life project in Australia, the U.K., the U.S., and Europe
aimed to provide understanding of why and how popular music engagement is important to
many psychologically or materially marginalized youth and school dropouts and what is needed
to ensure their music activities serve as a pathway to broader social inclusion, including perhaps
future employment (Bloustien & Peters, 2011). Digital storytelling about the complex processes
young people engage with in relation to music-making emerged when, as co-researchers of
their own processes, individuals told their story of music engagement over time through their
own participatory video making (or auto-video-ethnography) filmed in private and public
spaces, through personal uploads and input on the project and on social network websites and
through blogging. These young peoples’ individual, complex digital stories formed part of the
evidence needed to persuade funders and government policy-makers to support engagement
with popular music such as hip hop by showing how music is “serious play” which connects
children with the community, promotes collaboration, and fosters skills for sharing knowledge
and information on social media networking sites.

Blogging and Web 2.0

Further emphasis of the value of new media for social change emerged in a project organized
around blogging in relation to addressing challenges in the era of HIV and AIDS in South
Africa. As described by Mitchell et al. (2010), school children from a rural KwaZulu-Natal
school with limited internet access at their school attended weekend workshops at a university
where they were able to set up their own blog sites with technical support, and were able to
participate in a novel form of photovoice. Each was able to select a photograph from a col-
lection taken on HIV and AIDS issues by peers in an earlier school photovoice session and, in a
second layer of making meaning of the pictures, give an individual opinion on how the
challenge represented in the photograph could be addressed in the community in the interest of
bringing about social change. In follow-up interviews, the participants commented on how the
diary blog can provide a space for individuals to frame and voice their ideas without fear of
criticism or ridicule and that in dealing with highly stigmatized diseases such as HIV this is very

415
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important. While most did not follow up on the blogging after the workshop because of
difficulties with gaining access to the internet in their local environment, they remained hopeful
though that they would attain such access. One of the boys in the group commented that he
saw the blog as providing him with a space to say what he really thought about male/female
relationships without obliging him to act tough in front of his peers in order to maintain what
he felt was the cultural norm for boys. The blogging example above highlights the significance
of the internet as an emerging feature of work with participatory visual methodologies. While
local exhibitions of photographs produced by young people have proven to be very effective in
reaching community members, the internet is of course able to reach a more widespread and
diverse audience including policy-makers. They can also reach other young people who are also
invited to upload their own messages about healthy living or positive change.

Children’s Radio
In rural areas of many developing countries gaining access to new media is difficult but even
children as young as nine in these areas have demonstrated that, when participating in media
production and given the opportunity and space to explore and share their perspectives on the
world around them, they can contribute to social change. In a remote, deeply rural under-
resourced area of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, 9–17-year-old-children, as part of the
Abaqophi BakwaZisize Abakhanyayo project, learned through children’s radio production to
document their lives, experiences, and interests (Meintjes, 2009). Growing up in a context of
extensive poverty in a district at the epicenter of the HIV and AIDS epidemic, children are
frequently confronted with death, many are orphaned, and there is high unemployment with
attendant problems such as alcoholism in the community. Through participatory processes the
children gain skills with resources such as tape recorders to use radio to tell their own stories, ask
questions they would like answered, and share their views and concerns. This enabled the
participants to gain confidence, knowledge, and skills, including critical thinking, and the
opportunity to express their opinions. By facilitating broadcast and other use of the children’s
programs, the project is also able to improve public awareness of issues facing South Africa’s
children growing up in a context of poverty and the AIDS epidemic, and to challenge adults to
consider and address children’s needs and experiences appropriately.

What Difference Does This Media Work Make?

As we have highlighted above, this work is clearly part of an emerging body of child-focused
research, but it is also an area that various international NGOs such as UNICEF and Save the
Children see as critical, and even national governments such as Australia are seeing this as
important through its Australian Youth Strategy (Australian Government, 2010). At the same
time there are a number of challenges, most notably that of showing results or providing
evidence that this work is not simply tokenistic. How can young people’s productions inform
policy? As is noted by Gautam and Oswald (2008), Thompson (2009), and Mitchell (2011),
exhibitions and other public displays often have the power to engage audiences in ways that
other modes do not. A single image of an unsafe toilet, for example, taken by a group of girls in
a primary school in Swaziland in response to an open-ended prompt “feeling safe and not so
safe” helped to influence a group of policy-makers working in the area of water, sanitation, and
child protection at the UN to include categories related to safety and security in their “healthy
school” analysis (Mitchell, 2009). Thus the participation of youth first to engage in analysis, and
then second to engage in planning and setting up traveling exhibitions linked to policy

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discussions at community level and beyond can be a key component of testing out the sig-
nificance of media in relation to social change.
However there are other challenges and concerns in relation to future work. Clearly access is
an issue, particularly since so much of this work is located in “digital divide” communities
where there may be limited access to different media forms, equipment, and online access.
Sustainability is also an issue. In some of the projects in which we have been involved, work in
a particular community has taken place over six or seven years. In other projects, the activity has
been one that is more of a “one-off” intervention. And while the results may have been
fascinating, there may be little long term impact. Another key issue relates to outlets and au-
diences. It is critical that the photos, videos, and other productions be viewed by other
community members and especially decision-makers. However there may be no obvious outlet
for, and very little ownership by, the children and young people themselves. As well, adult
audiences in local communities are not always receptive to what young people have to say
through their images (see Mitchell et al., 2017). Finally, as highlighted in the various chapters in
Moletsane et al. (2021), there may be many ethical issues related to young people exhibiting
their productions and who decides what gets shown and where.
One promising area for further research is the interplay of different methods and tools such
as a photovoice project leading to the development of youth-led policy briefs (DeLange et al,
2015) or girlfestos or girl-led manifestos (Gonick et al., 2020). Another promising area for
further development is in the use of digital archiving, as part of what might be described as a
“digital humanities” movement. Increasingly researchers are using digital technology to develop
archives for managing large collections of visual data and for using digital archives to study social
issues longitudinally (Mitchell, 2011; Park et al., 2007). Typically, community members are not
involved in either creating/designing these archives or working with the visual data in the
archive. This is a key area for future work with children and young people. Indeed, perhaps the
greatest challenge is in relation to actually capturing and learning from the knowledge that is
being produced through this kind of work. This work may be framed as “youth as knowledge
producers,” but questions remain such as what knowledge, whose knowledge and who can use
this knowledge?

SEE ALSO Chapter 33 by Weintraub and Domgaard and Chapter 46 by Papaioannou in this
volume.

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 PART V

Collaborations and Companions

Editor’s Introduction

The last section of the handbook focuses on various additional stakeholders who have had an
interest in relationships between children and media, and who have intervened in ways they
perceive to be beneficial to young people and society at large. This includes policymakers,
educators, the children’s media industry, and medical institutions.
Norma Pecora reviews the history of media policy in the U.S. given the discourse on
children and their media that has been dominated by an assumption of media effects: in-
appropriate content influencing the behavior of a vulnerable audience. She argues that three
historical factors inform this discourse. The first, coming from social reformers in the early 20th
century, is that children need protection. The second is the First Amendment guarantee of
freedom of speech for the press. The third is the fact that the U.S. media industries are based on
a for-profit, commercial system. By understanding how these forces come together readers can
step back and begin to understand the tensions between those who see children as needing
protection, the demand by industry for profits, and regulatory systems that work to please both
and never please either.
Katalin Lustyik asks if there is still a need for home-grown audiovisual content that roots
children and young people in their unique culture or tradition, told from their own perspective,
and connected to their daily lives? Her chapter aims to examine various types of government
initiatives and legally binding international agreements that were implemented in various parts
of the world at the turn of the 21st century to support and regulate home-grown children’s
television content. Concrete examples were selected from Australia, Canada, China, the
European Union, and the Middle East. The chapter also provides a brief overview of some of
the legally binding regional and international initiatives implemented to support cultural di-
versity in the global television program flow at the turn of the century. The concluding section
outlines some of the new challenges and responses propelled by the unfolding digital dis-
tribution revolution and growing popularity of video-sharing platforms such as Netflix that
have dramatically reshaped our global media landscape by 2020.
Amy B. Jordan and Alyvia H. Walters examine the public discourse and persistent
controversies surrounding advertising directed to children and adolescents. Their chapter ex-
amines governmental efforts to limit the targeting of young people and curtail the detrimental
effects of incidental exposure to marketing messages, particularly to those which promote
harmful products such as alcohol and electronic cigarettes. Non-public policy options,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-53
 Introduction to Part V

including industry self-regulatory activities and media literacy education programs, are also
discussed. Throughout the chapter, the challenges of limiting children’s exposure to marketing
and advertising in ever-evolving digital spaces such as YouTube and keeping track of novel
persuasion techniques such as the use of “kidfluencers” are discussed.
Brian O’Neill argues that stepping up children’s online safety and wellbeing in digital
environments is a focus for policymakers in many parts of the world. This chapter reviews the
main outlines of the policy development mix concerning the need to balance the opportunities
and benefits of the digital world for children with the attendant risks or potential harm for their
welfare. Selected examples of international legal standards, regulatory measures, and policy
guidance are chosen against a backdrop of wider debates on internet governance, online reg-
ulation, and control, privacy and data protection, transparency, and accountability. Emergent
policy positions on how best to achieve a balance of digital risks and opportunities are noted in
what is a rapidly evolving policy debate.
Shalom M. Fisch claims that decades of research demonstrate that both preschool and
school-age children learn from well-produced educational television series. His chapter reviews
research on children’s learning from educational television, including both immediate impact
on knowledge and skills, and long-term effects extending up to ten years. Next, the review
turns to theoretical constructs that explore cognitive processing at work in comprehension and
transfer of educational content on television, long-term impact, and the unique nature of
learning from engagement with related content across multiple media platforms.
Becky Herr Stephenson discusses new media as technologies, contexts, and practices
relevant to learning among children and adolescents. The chapter begins by presenting statistics
about youths’ use of new media in the U.S., U.K., and China. With a focus on informal (out of
school) learning, the chapter then presents three frameworks for understanding how youth learn
with and through new media – New Media Literacies (Jenkins et al., 2006), Genres of
Participation (Ito et al., 2019), and Connected Learning (Ito et al., 2020). Finally, the chapter
explores two frequent sites for informal learning: gaming and social media, identifying the
strengths and challenges of these practices. Taken together, the contents of this chapter argue
for new media as productive sites for informal learning and point to the need to address in-
equities in youths’ access to new media.
Renee Hobbs states that media literacy has grown dramatically around the world over the
past ten years, and the rise of so-called “fake news” has increased public demand for educational
interventions in many countries around the world. Today, stakeholders may emphasize the
need to identify quality journalism, understand how influencers influence, resist clickbait,
discern false information and hoaxes, and cope with propaganda, disinformation, and conspiracy
theories. Beginning in preschool, educational programs develop skills in comprehending and
interpreting; older children can recognize how expressive symbols activate emotion and shape
perceptions of reality. Research that assesses media literacy competencies of adolescents and
young adults has proliferated in recent years. Survey research now reveals that media literacy is
entering the curriculum in some countries. Researchers have studied how media literacy
education affects consumer culture, substance abuse, and nutrition, among other topics. With a
strong focus on empowerment, some media literacy educators and scholars celebrate creative
and expressive practices where media production activities help children and young people to
advance confidence, agency, and self-efficacy.
Michael Rich argues that the medical community in the U.S., led by pediatricians and
psychiatrists, hoped screen media could improve health literacy, but have worried for decades
that it does more harm than good. Embracing the danger paradigm when television was the
only screen, efforts to control unhealthy media content were repeatedly stymied by limited
 Introduction to Part V

research and First Amendment concerns. Physicians have urged balanced research on the effects
of the media youth use and how they use them, advocated for more child-friendly content and
user experiences, and have developed clinical and parenting policies related to media use. Since
mobile interactive media transformed lifestyles, rigorous research into the positive and negative
effects of media use has become more widespread, accessible to consumers, and acceptable to
technology and entertainment producers. The author suggests that recent efforts by the medical
community to work with tech and entertainment to focus on individual and societal wellness as
a “second bottom line” appear promising for the future of the digital environment.
Linda Simensky claims that historically, the children’s media industry and academic experts
have had a relatively ambivalent relationship. One area where experts and producers have
worked comfortably together is public broadcasting. However, there still have been challenges,
particularly in terms of the added time, it takes to produce a series that is reviewed by experts.
Experts have not been involved as much in commercial media, where producers do not always
find them crucial to the production process. According to the author, public media has found
that the benefits outweigh the challenges, as experts can bring a great deal of knowledge about
the series curricula and about children and learning to the series. Many grants and foundations
require experts to be involved. The relationship between the industry and experts could benefit
overall from shared goals and better communication.
Alexis R. Lauricella, Morgan Russo, Michael B. Robb, and Ellen Wartella assert that
there has always been an interest in evaluating and labeling children’s media content to
communicate its quality and appropriateness for children, however, with the recent deluge of
content and platforms available, our ability to determine quality media for young children has
become increasingly challenging. This chapter discusses the historical context of evaluating
media and argues for the importance of considering multiple factors – including the child,
content, context, and security and privacy – when evaluating quality in an increasingly diverse
children’s media environment. The authors conclude by highlighting two approaches that take
into account these varied factors in their evaluation of quality children’s media.
Maya Götz and Kirsten Schneid conclude this section in their review of the PRIX
JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL which is the oldest and most international festival for chil-
dren’s television worldwide. For more than 50 years, more than 500 children’s media experts
from around the globe have come together in Munich to watch, discuss, and judge the most
outstanding and innovative programs from around the world. The authors argue that excellence
in children’s television needs a consistent audience orientation, highlighting individual chal-
lenges that children face while taking into account the diversity of the real world the children
are living in. Excellence means stories with depth, sometimes intellectually challenging for
children to foster their openness towards the richness and diversity of the world. High-quality
children’s TV does not shy away from difficult topics and taboos. Each PRIX JEUNESSE
INTERNATIONAL has a general festival theme like resilience, emotions, or COVID-19. For
each theme, international studies are carried out to offer TV executives more knowledge and to
promote sensitivity to their target audience.
The book concludes with Dafna Lemish and Amy Jordan, in our afterword on the
invisible children in media research. We demonstrate that much of our scholarship is still fo-
cused on children from WEIRD societies (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich,
Democratic). In a recent study we conducted on journal publications in our field, we found
that 90% of the first authors were from North American and European universities and 78% of
the child samples were from “WEIRD” countries. We discuss the special efforts made in
editing this handbook to be more inclusive and diverse. With an eye for this handbook to be
paving a path for the future of research in our field, and not only highlighting the tremendous
 Introduction to Part V

accomplishments gained so far, but we are also calling for deliberate action steps. Ultimately, it
is incumbent on us to make a much more authentic effort to elevate the voices of non-WEIRD
participants and other marginalized and invisible children and adolescents, to understand
their own experiences, motivations, aspirations as grounded in their unique cultures and
circumstances.
 48
MEDIA POLICIES FOR CHILDREN
Issues and Histories in the U.S.

Norma Pecora

In the U.S., the discourse on children and media has been grounded in the assumption of
inappropriate media content influencing the behavior of a vulnerable audience. It is argued
here that this assumption has its roots in the early twentieth century reformist tradition,
beginning with the introduction of motion pictures in the early 1990s. Over the decades,
this discourse has played out in debates on issues such as inappropriate content that gives rise
to criminality and violence and advertising and commercialism. Takanishi (1978), speaking
of the emergence of “childhood” as a social concern, offered up a number of examples
demonstrating that the “past does influence the present” but warned the reader that “teasing
out the variables in this relationship is a highly tortuous and complex task” (p. 10). The
reader is also forewarned that the story presented here is an unfinished history of the way
citizens’ groups,1 media industries, and policy makers have debated the issues on children
and their media in the U.S.2
There are three factors that come together to inform the discourse on children and their
media in the U.S., which resonate even today in discussions of digital media. The first is
U.S. long history of the perception that children need protection, an idea that was first
introduced in the late eighteenth century with the Progressives and the child saving
movement best represented by Jane Addams and the work of the women at the Hull House
in Chicago. The second is the even longer history of freedom of speech that is fixed in the
First Amendment to the Constitution that states: “Congress shall make no law … abridging
the freedom of speech or of the press.” And the third is the fact that the U.S. media
industries are based on a for-profit, commercial system. The tensions between social re-
formers, media industries, and policy makers and regulators are grounded in these funda-
mental precepts. By understanding this, we can step back and come to understand the
tensions between those who see children as needing protection, a demand by media in-
dustries for profitability through audience, and a regulatory system that works to please both
and never pleases either.
This history begins with the first mass medium available to youth that became a part of our
culture in the early 1900s. The era of motion pictures is reported to have begun with a showing
at the 1893 Columbian Exposition held in Chicago; movie theaters, as we know them, were
well-established by 1910.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-54 425

 Norma Pecora

The Era of Moving Pictures and the Progressive Reformers

Many changes occurred in the U.S. during the beginning of the twentieth century including
the introduction of a new political and social movement identified as the Progressives. Men and
women who had as their agenda

the amelioration of poverty, and the purification of politics to embrace the trans-
formation of gender relations, the regeneration of the home, the disciplining of leisure
and pleasure … Progressives wanted not only to use the state to regulate the economy;
strikingly, they intended nothing less than to transform other Americans, to remake
the nation’s feuding, polyglot population in their own middle-class image.
(McGerr, 2003, p. xiv)

It was, according to McGerr, “rooted in the day-to-day lives of middle-class men and women
in the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century” (2003, p. xiv). This chapter begins with the
convergence of the women of the child-saving and settlement movement in Chicago who were
identified with the Progressive movement and their attempts to use the political system to
“discipline” the new leisure adopted by youth – motion pictures. Movies were the first mass
entertainment form that was available and affordable to all. According to Fischer (1994) the
“modernization of leisure” beginning in the late 1890s brought organized pastimes, commercial
entertainment, and private diversions all replacing what had been informal, collective leisure.
While this convergence of circumstances was not unique to Chicago, the city offers an in-
teresting starting point. Chicago was one of the largest movie markets at the time and the city had
a large Progressive community committed to social reform. Among those most active in this
community were a new group of women educated as social workers at the University of Chicago
and part of the growing philanthropic middle-class described by McGerr (2003). Women like Jane
Addams, co-founder of one of the first settlement houses in the U.S.; Sophonisba Breckinridge
and Edith Abbott, who reformed juvenile courts and education; and Louise de Koven Bowen, a
leader in the child saver movement. Each of these women, and others in Chicago, was committed
to “the redemptive powers of reform” (Pearson, 2011, p. 4) and the value of state and federal
regulatory authority (Sealander & Sorensen, p. 8).3 Perhaps the most significant writing on movies
of the time came from Jane Addams’ The spirit of youth and the city streets (Addams, 1909/1972),
whose concern was for the working class and immigrant youth. In this book she spoke of the
“dream palaces” where she feared that the stories of the movie heroes would “become the model
for reality” (p. 80) and the motion pictures would serve as “a place where people [primarily youth]
learn how to think, act, and feel” (p. 93). The stories she recounted were tales of violence and
escape, brutality, and loss of innocence. While she celebrated the “spirit of youth,” Addams called
for “protective legislation” (p. 149) and a “code of beneficent legislation” (p. 150).
It was this climate of reform and call for protective legislation that was the hallmark of the
Progressive movement and it came to define the discourse on children’s media as one of
protection for a vulnerable audience from inappropriate content. As a consequence of the work
of these women, one of the earliest censorship boards was established in Chicago. This gave
police the power to issue permits to movie theaters that did not show movies determined to be
“immoral, obscene or indecent” (Grieveson & Kramer, 2004, p. 135); a shift from previous
controls based on licensing. Licensing determined who could show movies; permits were an
attempt to control the content being shown (Grieveson & Kramer, 2004). These early re-
formists left us a legacy of youth as vulnerable and easily converted to a life of crime by the
motion pictures, and policy and regulations based on attempts to control content.

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 Issues and Histories in the U.S.

Chicago’s censorship regulation put in place in 1907 represents early attempts to set policy for the
motion pictures at the local level (Haberski, 2005). Early research conducted by a group of social
scientists, many from the University of Chicago, funded by a private organization examined motion
picture content on the behavior of children and adolescents (Jowett et al., 1996). Known as the Payne
Fund Studies, published in 1933, these led to the movie industry establishing the Motion Picture
Production Code to regulate the content of motion pictures. While the Code did not specifically
address children or youth, the proponents for the code argued that children were a vulnerable
audience and therefore more susceptible to the stories of the motion pictures. W.W. Charters, in a
popularized version of the findings from the Payne Fund Studies, claimed that “because children
were not conscious of the image as representation, they were more likely to accept the scenes
presented to them as real” (Jacobs, 1990, p. 33). This clearly echoes Addams’s “model of reality.”

The Era of Radio and Advocacy Groups

When nationally distributed commercial radio broadcasting came into the home in the U.S.
during the 1930s, this discourse on protectionism and reform had been well-established.
Building on the model established by the motion picture industry, the public discourse on
children and radio centered on its consequences claiming, among other concerns, that the radio
dramas caused nightmares. However, while the early reformists were concerned about the
motion pictures’ corruption of youth, the concern with radio turned toward younger children.
As a home entertainment, radio was far more readily accessible.
By the 1930s the Progressive movement and its social reform agenda was being replaced by
advocacy organizations that relied heavily on public pressure to bring about change.4 In place of
the social reformists, represented by Jane Addams, the debate on protectionism fell to groups such
as the Women’s National Radio Committee, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, The
American Legion Auxiliary, and parent/teacher organizations. These women “opposed programs
they believed frightened or ‘over-stimulated’ children” (Butsch, 2000, p. 232). In addition, while
early concerns addressed children of the working class and immigrants, the polyglot population,
these middle-class women turned their attention to their own children (Cravens, 1993, p. 5). One
particularly vocal, and successful group was a citizens’ group in Scarsdale, New York who, in
1933, rated the violent content of children’s radio programs and found almost all were considered
as unacceptable (Cooper, 1996, p. 22). Because of radio’s reliance on advertising, concern also
turned to advertising products directed toward the child audience (Bruce, 2008).

The Move to Public Pressure

With the technology of radio, came a new mechanism for regulation. The Federal
Communication Commission (FCC) determined that a license to use the public air waves was to
be granted to those stations that served the “public interest.” However, challenges to a license
could be brought against a station only by those with a financial interest in the industry. This left
out those with a social concern and consequently, the only recourse for citizen groups with a
grievance was public pressure (New York Times, 1933). And indeed, several national radio
networks did respond to public pressure when, in 1935, the networks put in place standards for
children’s programming. As with the motion picture code, these self-regulatory policies were an
attempt to thwart government intervention. In addition to limiting advertisements, the standards
prohibited program content that demonstrated a disrespect for authority; rewarded cruelty, greed,
or selfishness; exploited others; and encouraged dishonesty or deceit (New York Times, 1935a).
These restrictions were remarkably similar to guidelines proposed by the Women’s National

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 Norma Pecora

Radio Committee in 1933 (New York Times, 1935b). In 1939, the FCC released a memor-
andum warning radio stations that they needed to observe their public interest obligations and
shortly thereafter the National Association of Broadcasters announced the adoption of a code, not
unlike the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), that offered guidelines on com-
mercial content and program length advertising as well as some program content (New York
Times, 1939). As with the MPAA Code, radio regulation was industry driven.
During the 1940s the FCC, citizens’ groups, and the world turned their attention to World
War II.

The Era of Television and Federal Policy

In the early 1950s, after World War II, television replaced radio in the home and the regulatory
climate changed. A court ruling in the 1960s found for the United Church of Christ, regarding the
renewal of a Mississippi radio license, opened the way for public citizens to petition the FCC
(Shapiro, 2006). Advocacy groups could now seek regulatory remedies for children’s broad-
casting. This is not to say that children had been ignored. Beginning in 1952, Congress held
several hearings and inquiries on television and violence. These hearings brought together policy
makers, citizens’ groups, and industry representatives to examine the effect of television pro-
gramming, its influence on society, and potential recourse – but there would be no regulation.
According to Cooper (1996), Congressional Hearings served several functions including
acting “as a forum for citizen groups attempting to bring attention to their cause and influence
changes in policy, and for industry officials lobbying for or against regulatory change” (p. 11).
However, the industry steadily resisted any form of government regulation or policy leaving
oversight yet again to citizens’ groups and advocacy organizations. In 1969 Action for
Children’s Television (ACT) was formed as an advocacy group formed specifically to improve
the quality of children’s television programming. The group quickly gained national attention
in 1970, using the new tool that was the result of the United Church of Christ ruling. They
submitted a petition to the FCC asking for content regulation in the form of more diverse
programming and age-specific programs. From 1970 until the passage of the Children’s
Television Act of 1990 (CTA), ACT was the leading advocacy organization for children and
television. With the passage of CTA, ACT closed and was replaced by other organizations
including the Center for Digital Democracy (established 2001), the Parents Television Council
(established 1995), and the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (established 2000).

The Government Intervenes … At Last

The Children’s Television Act required the FCC to regulate children’s television using criteria
similar to those outlined in the 1970 petition from Action for Children’s Television (ACT).
During the 20 years of FCC hearings on Docket 19142, opened by the initial ACT petition,
some regulations had been put in place including no-host selling and advertising time-limits,
but little other policy came from the FCC or Congress until the CTA (see Kunkel & Roberts,
1991; Kunkel & Watkins, 1987). With the ACT, and its subsequent refinements, a policy on
children and media was finally in place. Regulation required that when a station’s license was to
be renewed the station must demonstrate that it provided a minimum of three hours of edu-
cational programming per week, identified with the symbol E/I, and listed in advance. The
station must also limit the amount of commercial time and for programming to children of 12
and under; commercials were to be separated from the program by non-commercial or program
material (bumpers). These regulations spoke to quality programming and advertising limits but

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 Issues and Histories in the U.S.

did not directly address the inappropriate content of earlier debates.5 However, with the rewrite
of the Telecommunications Act in 1996, the FCC was given oversight to establish a standard
for blocking technology. This technology, the V-chip (V for Violence), allowed parents to
set controls on their television to limit inappropriate content from coming into the home.
The National Association of Broadcasters, the National Cable Television Association, and the
MPAA also established a voluntary ratings system based on objectionable and inappropriate
material, the TV Parental Guidelines, to be used with the V-chip. In 2007, Congress passed
the Child Safe Viewing Act that required the FCC to investigate blocking technology that
would work on other forms of distribution platforms including wireless and the internet.

The Era of Digital Technology and Federal Policy/Regulation

Beginning with the introduction of video games and computer technology children now have
access to information and entertainment through a variety of sources. In addition to tablet and
desktop computers, televisions of the 2000s can in fact be small computers as can smartphones. In a
2020 Pew Research Center study of children’s use of technology it was found that 88 percent of
children from 0 to 11 in the U.S. have access to a television and almost 70 percent have access to a
computer tablet; over 60 percent of children 3 to 11 have access to a smartphone as 49 percent of
children 0 to 3 (Auxier et al., 2020 July 28). The complexities of life with these technologies are
discussed throughout this book as well as many others (see for example, Gennaro & Miller, 2021).
Building on the success of the Children’s Television Act of 1990 that finally allowed the
U.S. government to establish policy and regulations for children’s media, Congress turned their
attention to these new sources of information and entertainment. However, in addition to
concerns about earlier media – violence, sexuality, consumerism, and education – social media
brought a new problem, digital-mining and related privacy concerns. Access to personal in-
formation was easily gained through these new technologies. Children and young people were
often required to register or acquire membership giving companies access to private in-
formation including demographics, consumer habits, and geographic location. Data could also
be collected without the user’s knowledge, particularly among unsuspecting young children
and teens. Certainly, violence and sexuality on apps such as TikTok, Snapchat, and Facebook
remain a concern but now the technology that entertains and informs has the ability to know
our very identity. In 2014 we wrote that these technologies “create new opportunities for
collecting personal information … Both the software and technology make it easy to hand over
personal information without a second thought” (Brown & Pecora, 2014). In April 2000
Congress passed the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) allowing the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC) to impose fines on those companies that collect personal data. Over
the years fines have been collected from a number of companies that did collect such in-
formation and the FTC revised the regulations several times since COPPA was passed. In 2019
the Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Act
(PROTECT) was introduced to amend COPPA. The changes included:

• Increasing the age protected from 13 to 16

• Adding coverage of mobile technology
• Including geolocation and biometric information (Saunders & Martinez, 2020).

It cannot be ignored that technology brought advantages to our children including the ability to
continue their education during the shutdown of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although these are not directly related to entertainment media discussed here, because education

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has become increasingly driven by technology it is important to note Congress’ work to

strengthen children’s protection. In 2000 Congress passed the Children’s Internet Protection Act
(CIPA) that was designed to protect children from obscene or harmful information. Because such
legislation would be affected by the First Amendment, instead of impacting content the Act was
designed to control funding to libraries, both public and educational. In addition, libraries were to
implement internet safety policies that protected children from inappropriate content online.
These were reinforced during the early days of COVID-19 when children were dependent on
computers. Because the viewing time of children and young people increased during the pan-
demic, Senator Markey (D-Mass) and others introduced Kids Internet Design and Safety ACT
(KIDS) that, among other issues, addresses websites’ manipulative marketing strategies such as host
selling. According to Markey’s senate website, this proposal “includes important advertising rules
and protects children’s interests as the ways they consume media and entertainment themselves
evolves” (Markey, 2020). In 2021 Congress passed a Coronavirus relief bill that included more
than $7 billion to help students and teachers get online particularly for students in low-income
areas who had difficulty accessing the internet (Zakrzewski, 2021).

Concluding Note
Since the introduction of motion pictures in the United States 100 years ago, the concern of
parents and civic organizations has been the effect of each new medium on the lives of our
children and young people. The work of the early Progressive movement focused on what they
perceived to be the violent and sexual content of the new, and very popular, movies to a
particular population – generally young and disadvantaged. These themes continued to dom-
inate the discourse throughout the introduction of first radio and then television. Although
these are still the dominant themes of critics, as digital technology changes the landscape of
media, we confront new issues that arise around privacy and data-mining. But still the original
question of the Progressive remains – what are the effects on our children and teens when
exposed to images of violent and sexual behavior and how can policy protect them?

SEE ALSO Chapter 49 by Lustyik, Chapter 50 by Jordan and Walters, and Chapter 51 by
O’Neill in this volume.

Notes
1 My apologies to all the groups who have worked diligently to bring quality to children’s programming;
this chapter focuses on only a very few of the many organizations that have taken part in this debate.
2 The distinction here is between policy and regulation and is based on the work of Brown (2010) – state
policies are the goals one hopes to achieve, and regulations are the tools used to achieve those goals.
3 This is unfortunately a very simplistic discussion of what was a very complex time that is well-
documented in other sources. There was also an element of social class to the debate as the elite and
middle-class reformers were, some would argue, “trying to exercise social control over the working
class” (Pearson, 2011, p. 5; see also McGerr, 2003).
4 The distinction between reform and advocacy is perhaps somewhat subtle but important. The reform
movement as discussed here (1900–1920s) tended to be composed of professional women and phi-
lanthropists who saw their role as protecting the civil liberties of those less fortunate and maintaining a
social order; the advocacy groups (1930s to today) that followed were often citizens’ groups with little
power but public attention. Unfortunately, they are often of short-term duration.
5 Peg Charren, long-time director of Action for Children’s Television, recognized the problems of
debating media content and claimed that it was better to argue for more programming than to impose
standards on content. Consequently, the organization avoided the “inappropriate content” debate.

430
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 49
THE INTRICATE PLAY OF
PROTECTING AND PROMOTING
HOME-GROWN CHILDREN’S
SCREEN CONTENT
Katalin Lustyik

Introduction
As has been established, children have been consuming a “steadily swelling flow” of media
content in many parts of the world (Carlsson, 2006, p. 9), predominantly originating in the
U.S., Canada, and the U.K. and a handful of other countries with a strong investment in
children’s media for decades (Götz & Lemish, 2012). Domestically produced children’s pro-
grams in most of the rest of the world, if they exist at all, have been often marginalized.
Mediated content children interact with on a daily basis has a considerable impact on their
cultural, social, and educational development, which might be especially true of domestic
programs that specifically aim to relate to their own world, identities, concerns, and futures.
In many countries, where resources and expertise limit domestic audiovisual productions,
the general concern is that a great deal of imported media contains characters and messages that
are “conceived and produced without their particular interest in mind.” Seldom reflecting their
“immediate cultural contexts” and being less relevant to local cultures, children could become
“victims of second-hand consumption” who “must attune their palates to the diktats of un-
domesticated foreign media dishes” (Nyamnjoh, 2002, p. 43).
When people think of television content regulation and children, what immediately comes
to mind is media violence, pornography, the television rating systems, and a ban on the ad-
vertising of cigarettes, alcohol, or “junk food,” food with high sugar, fat, or salt content. While
other chapters of this handbook examine those areas specifically, this chapter focuses on the
regulation of domestic or home-grown children’s television content in an international context.
Such terms as “home-grown,” “domestic,” or “locally” produced programs are highly am-
biguous and the exact definitions vary worldwide, especially given the complexity of financing,
co-production, and post-production, which are often tied to several nations. Generally,
however, these terms refer to a program produced within a specific nation – or nations in case
of co-production – or a specific region and perceived as “an invaluable vehicle for conveying
societal history, lore, and values” that “affirms the right to control over the portrayal of one’s
own history, cultures and stories” (Kleeman, 2008).

432 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-55

 Home-grown Children’s Screen Content

While this chapter aims to examine various types of government initiatives and legally
binding international agreements that have been implemented in different parts of the world to
regulate and promote home-grown children’s television content, it does not pretend to draw
any general conclusions valid for the world’s some 200 countries. The first section of the
chapter provides a brief overview of children’s television content regulation, and the second
section describes some of the key types of government provision for the protection, promotion,
and distribution of home-grown children’s television content that were in place at the be-
ginning the 21st century. Concrete examples are selected from Australia, Canada, the European
Union member states, China, the Middle East, and Qatar. The third section provides a brief
overview of some of the legally binding regional and international initiatives implemented to
support more cultural diversity in the global television program flow at the turn of the century.
The fourth section and the conclusion outline some of the new challenges and responses
propelled by the unfolding digital distribution revolution and the growing popularity of video-
sharing platforms such as Netflix and Disney+ that have dramatically reshaped our global media
landscape.

The Intricate Interplay of Children’s Television Regulation

Among the media content offered on an increasing variety of platforms, television remained the
most important mass medium for children worldwide up until the end of the first decade of the
21st century. While transnational media companies targeting children started to offer multi-
platform services, they still considered television as the driving force behind their key brands.
The globally popular SpongeBob SquarePants, for instance, started out as a television series on the
U.S.-based Nickelodeon children’s channel, soon followed by dedicated websites, video games,
theatrical films, and a plethora of merchandising (Hendershot, 2004). Television, especially
broadcasts targeting young people, also remained the most important and heavily regulated
form of media in most countries, although new legislative frameworks started to aim to cover all
audiovisual media services regardless of the delivery platform (ACMA, 2011). With cable and
satellite pay-television channels often beamed in from all over the world, most governments
struggled to adopt frameworks operable in the dynamically expanding and intertwined global
media landscape in the beginning of the 21st century (ACMA, 2011).
The term “media regulation” narrowly refers to “legally binding government rules by which
media organizations must operate” and more broadly to “any influences over media operations
and media content” (McKenzie, 2005, p. 2). This chapter aims to emphasize how television and
more broadly audiovisual content regulation is a result of an intricate interplay between more
and less visible entities or stakeholders that operate beyond the borders of nation-states. The
regulatory frameworks in which media organizations operate and the types of provisions de-
signed specifically with children in mind, who constitute the most protected audience group
vary greatly worldwide.
Typical stakeholders involved in children’s content regulation include government-related
agencies such as the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) in China;
international and regional political institutions such as the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), or the European Union (EU); professional
and industry associations such as the European Broadcasting Union (EBU); civic/non-profit
activist groups such as Save Kids’ TV in the U.K.; religious, medical, and educational orga-
nizations such as the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development
(QF); advertisers, parents and, of course, the media organizations themselves that operated on a
national, regional, or global level.

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Media organizations engage in continuous negotiation with other stakeholders in order to

avoid extensive government involvement in their operations and services both domestically and
internationally. As a result of technological changes, the growth of delivery platforms, and the
rise of powerful global media conglomerations, governments increasingly had less control over,
and in the political and economic climate often less inclination and support for, the direct
regulation of children’s media available within their jurisdictions. In many countries, self-and
co-regulation became favored, especially in the case of new media but increasingly so in tra-
ditionally heavily regulated areas like children’s television (Steemers, 2010).
As dedicated children’s television channels had skyrocketed by the turn of the century in
many media markets (e.g., Chalaby, 2006), young viewers had access to a wider variety of
content: Polish cable or satellite subscription households offered up to 38 children’s channels
including Cartoon Network Poland, Disney Channel Polska, Cbeebies Poland, Boomerang,
Al Jazeera Children’s Channel, Baby TV by the end of 2010 (MAVISE, 2011). The ques-
tion, whether in such saturated markets there was still a need for “content that roots young
people in a unique culture or tradition” (Kleeman, 2008) emerged more and more fre-
quently. The U.K.-based Save Kids’ TV strongly supported home-grown content produc-
tion, finding it “alarming” that first-run locally produced programs constitute less than 1% of
children’s television hours in the U.K., with the rest filled with repeats and imports
(Blumenau, 2011, p. 2).
The globally circulated “repeats” and “imports” of U.S. media giants had rather negative
connotations in opposition to home-grown content perceived to be developed with the in-
terests and perspectives of local children in mind with the goal to provide a sense of identity and
one’s own place in an increasingly complex world (D’Arma & Steemers, 2008; Lustyik, 2010;
Pecora & Lustyik, 2011). The argument put forward by a former managing director of the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation was rather typical: “I’m not suggesting the influence [of
imported U.S. shows] being detrimental, but it’s not a national Australian influence and it’s not
conceived or developed with a view to telling our stories” (Shier, 2001, para 3). “What might
be particularly valuable about indigenous [home-grown] programming and make them better
than imports” remained an under-researched area (D’Arma & Steemers, 2011, p. 14).
While protecting and promoting home-grown children’s content was about preserving and
controlling part of the audiovisual territory from “foreign invaders” for future citizens, in
economic terms, commercial children’s television with transnational reach became a valuable
part of many major media production industries besides the U.S. including the U.K., Japan,
Australia, Canada, and China, that needed to be protected and supported.

National Approaches to Protect and Promote Home-grown Content

By the turn of the 21st century, many countries had regulatory frameworks with specific
provisions for the transmission of media aimed at children that are either designed to limit
potentially harmful audiovisual content such as sexually explicit shows or to promote specific
types of content such as educational programs. The various mechanisms implemented to
promote the production and circulation of home-grown content ranged widely. Four key
approaches or mechanisms to highlight are:

1 Applying programming quotas to curb imports;

2 Supporting home-grown production;
3 Setting up government-funded local or regional children’s media services;
4 Banning imported programs.

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Countries with programming or transmission quotas of nationally or regionally produced

content took a number of factors into consideration for determining the actual percentage of
quota. Public service broadcasters with the most substantial commitments to serve the public
tended to have higher quotas: Canadian public broadcasters had to air at least 60% of domestic
content daily while commercial broadcasters only had to transmit at least 50% in the beginning
of the 21st century. Quotas could also be determined by the age of the target audience:
Australian broadcasters had to schedule Australian-produced programs for preschoolers. Many
broadcasters tried to circumnavigate the transmission quotas by endlessly repeating the same
domestic shows, thus in some countries provisions started to specify the percentage of first-run
local content: 25 hours of the annually required 390 hours of children’s programs had to be
“first-run” Australian productions (Blumenau, 2011). In Australia, however, the content quotas
were completely suspended during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to assist com-
mercial broadcasters. In fall 2021, the Australian federal government reinstated a 55% quota but
removed specific allocations for children’s content (as well as for documentaries and dramas)
with the explanation that the changes helped “rebalance” the regulations and “remove un-
sustainable obligations” (Clarke, 2020). The removal of quota for Australian-made children’s
content “hit hard” the 30 local production companies and thousands of local jobs (writers,
artists, animators, composers, IT people) and created a “cultural shock” for children “who
won’t see Australian stories on screen” (Rollins & Murray, 2021). As Tasmania voice actor put
it: “Not having Australian-made content means that parts of our culture, parts of our stories,
they’re not being told, they’re not being passed on” (Rollins & Murray, 2021).
Besides transmission quotas and limitation of repeats, some regulatory frameworks provided
broad obligations for broadcasters to invest a specific percentage of their annual profit in the
production and acquisition of locally or regionally produced children’s content. For instance,
Italian broadcasters had to reserve 10% of their annual profit for the acquisition of films and TV
programs made for children by European producers (Blumenau, 2011).
Incentives created for broadcasters for the prioritization of home-grown children’s television
program production meant that government legislation could stipulate that a certain percentage
of government funding for local television and film production must be allocated to children
and young people’s programs. The Children and Youth Unit of the Danish Film Institute
(DFI), for example, received 25% of the annual government film subsidies to produce and
broadcast stories from Danish children’s perspectives (Danish Film Institute, n.d). In some cases,
government agencies in partnership with cable/satellite distributors and private media operators
provided regular funding such as the Shaw Rocket Fund, set up by Canada’s largest tele-
communications company, which supported the production of high-quality and creative
Canadian children’s television content (Shaw Rocket Fund, 2011).
Also in Canada, however, the licensing policy introduced by the Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission in 2010 gave greater flexibilities to broadcasters “to spread
Canadian content spending across the networks they own” and to be “more effectively in drawing
audiences and revenue.” When in 2016, the content quota from 50% was reduced to 35%, and
stricter regulations for advertising to children were introduced, Canadian children TV production
companies perceived it as “the kiss of death.” Between the spring of 2016 and 2017, the Canadian
Media Producers Association (CMPA) observed an “alarming decline” in Canadian children’s and
youth production that fell by about 17% (Krashinsky Robertson, 2018).
In the Middle East, the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community
Development (QF), in partnership with the Al Jazeera Network launched pan-Arabic children’s
television channels in the mid-2000s with the mission of promoting local and regional content,
since the majority of programming offered across the Arab world consisted of foreign imports.

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In 2010, regional content reached 80%, with some in-house non-fictional programs featuring
real children in real-life situations with regional relevance ( JCC, personal communication
2010), embracing the mission of the QF: to make a difference in the lives of Arab youth by
promoting “self-esteem, understanding and freedom of thought” (Al Jazeera Children’s
Channel, 2011). As Sakr and Steemers stressed (2019), Jeem TV (previously Al Jazeera
Children’s Channel) and its offspring, Baraem, targeting preschoolers were “projecting a pan-
Arab identity that reflected Qatar’s wider political ambitions government-funded” (Steemers,
2016, p. 128); and at their peak reached all 22 Arab countries as free satellite channels were
available in many European and Muslim Asian countries’ cable and satellite subscription
packages (CIA, 2010; Lustyik & Zanker, 2013).
Banning foreign imports was perhaps the most radical regulatory decision for the protection of
home-grown children’s television. In the world’s biggest media market with more than 1.3 billion
people at the time, the Chinese government still largely owned and closely monitored the media
and often treated foreign media corporations and programming as “corrupting agents of im-
perialism” (Ma, 2000, p. 22) at the turn of the 21st century. After the adaptation of the Open
Policy in the early 1980s that allowed imported programs for up to 30% of transmission time,
government officials became concerned about the growing popularity of cartoons from Japan,
South Korea, and the U.S. (Zhuang, 2008). The Chinese regulatory agency, the SARFT, em-
ployed a “mixture of restrictive measures”: such as “legal limitation, policy directives, adminis-
trative rules, mini- campaigns and normative guidelines” (Chen & Chan, 1998, p. 656) and post-
censorship mechanisms to control and “deflect” transnational media flows (Ma, 2000, p. 28).
With the launch of China Central TV’s Channel 14 (CCTV 14) dedicated to children in late
2003, the Disney and Nickelodeon programming blocks became immediate top-rating perfor-
mers. To curb the overwhelming appeal of SpongeBob SquarePants and other imported popular
shows SARFT imposed a ban on foreign cartoons during prime time (from 5 to 9 pm) in 2006.
The main motivation seemed economic (and political) rather than simply ideological: to support
and protect the domestic animation industry rather than to censor foreign media content adored
by Chinese children and even young adults (Zhuang, 2008). Chinese officials came to consider the
animation industry not only as a significant “growth industry” but also as a “means of extending
China’s soft power internationally” (Coonan, 2012). The U.S. and other foreign media com-
panies catering to Chinese children also needed to “negotiate every nuance of programming”
with their parents who could be “even more restrictive than the government, viewing American-
style television as too unruly” (Barboza, 2005).
With the growing importance of digital platforms that can easily circumnavigate national
regulatory systems in Asia, the Walt Disney Company, one of the global U.S.-based media
giants, decided to close 18 television channels – including children’s channels – in Southeast
Asia and Hong Kong in 2021 to “shift focus” to Disney+, direct-to-consumer streaming service
launched in the U.S. in 2019. According to Disney’s Asia-Pacific president, Disney+ is plan-
ning to team up with Japanese and Korean production companies to offer a “lot of local and
regional content across multiple markets, to make our service better, more exciting, more
localized” (Frater, 2021).

International Initiatives to Support Cultural Diversity

While U.S. and Japanese cartoons were sometimes perceived as defiant or violent abroad, a
more general concern was their ubiquity. While the abundance of children’s television channels
had the potential to promote cultural diversity and offer “multidimensional flows of media
imagery” by the turn of the 21st century (Curtin, 2004, p. 272), this promise has not been

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fulfilled. As D’Arma and Steemers pointed out, “the economics of a multichannel television
system dominated by commercially oriented US players [was] hardly conducive to what might
be thought of as desirable outcomes such as range and diversity of content that reflects children’s
own communities and environment” (2011, p. 14).
While many countries had simply no resources, obligations, or incentives in place for the
production of home-grown children’s content, even highly regulated regions such as the EU
struggled to succeed in the new century. The EU’s Audio-visual Media Services Directive
required all television channels – irrespective of the type of channel or the type of transmission
mode – to devote a majority (at least 50%) of transmission time to European works with
additional content requirements placed on broadcasters to reflect linguistic or cultural specifi-
cities in each member state. Many thematic children’s channels, especially those that belong to
non-EU countries (e.g., Disney Channel España, Cartoon Network Germany, Nickelodeon
France) failed to fulfill their transmission quota obligations. They asked for an exemption,
arguing that when targeting such a niche audience their media libraries consisted of mainly
non-European productions (European Commission, 2010). Even Nickelodeon with its
“multiculturalism and diversity on an international scale” slogan provided 75% of U.S. origi-
nating content on its international channels at the turn of the new century (Sandler, 2004,
p. 65). The live-action series, Spyders (2020–) is a rare recent example of co-production be-
tween Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) and Israeli Nutz Productions distributed
to Nickelodeon’s international audiences (Spyders, 2020).
The monitoring of programming offered on thousands of television channels within the 27
EU countries became an enormous bureaucratic task with the member states expected to
enforce measures against non-compliant television channels within their jurisdictions. It was no
surprise that they struggled to put “stricter enforcement” in place “to ensure effective im-
plementation” of the Directive (European Commission, 2010, Sect. 1.3).
On a broader international level, UNESCO’s Convention on the Protection and
Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (UNESCO, 2005) reaffirmed the so-
vereign right of nations to adopt policies that protect their cultural industries and promote
the diversity of cultural expressions within their jurisdictions. It became a legally binding
agreement in 2007 with overwhelming international support, described as a “buffer against
US cultural domination” (Agence France Press, 2005) and a critique of neo-liberal media
economy. Seen as a “barrier” aimed to shield healthy “competition from cultural imports”
(Will, 2005, p. A17), the U.S. rejection of the Convention was not surprising given the
country’s position as the global media content supplier with a nearly impenetrable domestic
media market.

Latest Challenge: How to Regulate Netflix and Disney+

While there is still international support today for a balance between the protection of home-
grown production and the cross-border flow of audiovisual content, there has been little con-
sensus on how it could be promoted, achieved, and enforced. While nations, depending on their
wealth, size, location, and economic and political clout, have some control through direct and
indirect means to regulate the flow of children’s screen content living within their jurisdictions, it
has become an increasingly challenging task. “[T]he rapid expansion of broadband-fueled en-
tertainment,” argued a Canadian report, “rendered the regulatory framework established to
protect and foster Canadian content obsolete” (Sturgeon, 2010, p. 1) more than a decade before
the global availability of U.S.-owned media streaming video-on-demand services (SVoD) such as
Netflix and Disney+. The “dramatic” and “disruptive” nature of the unfolding digital distribution

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revolution and of the SvoDs has not only changed young people’s viewing behavior but altered
industry norms for program funding and distribution further challenging national and regional
policy regimes, and the concept of children’s television (Lobato, 2019; D’Arma, Raats, &
Steemers, 2021).
Compared to global video-sharing platforms (e.g., YouTube) and transactional services (e.g.,
Apply iTunes), Netflix, Disney+, and other SvoDs are particularly important in the children’s
television ecology since they have become the most popular form of watching “TV-like”
content online among young people (Begum & Moyser, 2018). Globally expanding SvoDs
such as Netflix and increasingly Disney+ as well, have been investing heavily in “original”
content in their key territories which brings up a new set of questions and challenges about the
future of local children’s screen content around the world.
The case of Canada, a nation with exceptionally strong local children’s content production
and global distribution, highlights some of the perceived challenges. As the viewing habits of
children and youth shifted and competition from Netflix and other streaming services increased,
Canadian television broadcasters that had traditionally funded Canadian content production
started to spend less on funding kids’ shows given the more relaxed legislation introduced in
2016 (discussed above). In this unfolding new Canadian market kids’ production companies are
forced to assess how they invest in and create content, where they seek funding from. When
Netflix, for example, rather than a Canadian broadcaster is the main financing partner, there are
lots of concerns among producers losing “the ability to tell Canadian stories to Canadian kids”:
that range from having “less pressure to keep the show Canadian”; a production partner
choosing a writer or director they’ve worked with before, the “whittl[ing] away at Canadian
elements in the story,” more “Canadian stories owned by foreign buyers instead of Canadian
producers,” to quickly becoming “just a service arm for the U.S.” and “talent drain”
(Krashinsky Robertson, 2018).

Conclusion
The Canada Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and regulatory bodies
around the world seem eager and pressured to introduce regulatory reform and find ways to
require digital players including streaming services, wireless companies, and internet service
providers to contribute to funding for local content. In Australia, the federal government is
“consulting on a proposal to require the largest streaming platforms to invest in Australian
content” (Rollins & Murray, 2021).
The EU, for example, revised its Audio-visual Media Services Directive in 2021 that
mandates that on-demand service providers such as Netflix offer at least a 30% share of
European content in their catalogue and also ensures their prominence. How such legislation
can be monitored and enforced and how it will impact children’s local screen content pro-
duction and consumption among the EU member states is to be seen.
Nations, organizations, international bodies, and other stakeholders involved in children
screen content regulation that still regard the provision of home-grown audiovisual content for
children as a worthy policy goal need to vigilantly survey, revise, adapt, and expand their
policies and initiatives in very creative ways in today’s global media ecology fast-transformed by
a handful of powerful media giants. What Netflix and Disney+ seem to offer for young cus-
tomers at most is personalized rather than localized content from their global libraries that is
meant to satisfy the diverse tastes of its global audience.

SEE ALSO Chapter 7 by McMillan and Chapter 58 by Götz and Schneid in this volume.

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 50
CHILDREN AND ADVERTISING
POLICIES IN THE U.S.
AND BEYOND
Amy B. Jordan and Alyvia H. Walters

Background
Children’s heavy exposure to advertising messages has led to concern about their effects and has
prompted advocates and academics to consider what can be done to reduce exposure or in-
oculate children to their negative effects (Schor, 2004; De Veirman et al., 2019). In this chapter,
we provide a brief overview of policy related to advertising to children, including discourse
about the fairness of marketing to children, types of advertisements that elicit the most concern,
and efforts to mitigate the potential harms of child-directed advertising through media literacy,
self-regulation, and public policy.
Public discourse about advertising aimed at children is often dominated by opposing views.
Advocacy groups and policymakers argue that children are innocent, vulnerable, and in need of
protection from marketing (Linn & Novosat, 2008; Radesky et al., 2020; Schor, 2004).
Researchers have found that children under 8 years old do not effectively comprehend persuasive
marketing messages and that most children under 4 years old do not easily or consistently dis-
criminate between television advertisements and programming (Institute of Medicine, 2006).
These findings have been used to justify limits on advertising to younger children in many
countries (Caraher, Landon, Delmaney, 2006). However, Rozendaal et al. (2009) found that
Dutch children between the ages of 8 and 12 still lack adult levels of advertisement compre-
hension. Moreover, as Campbell (2016) argues, simply understanding persuasive intent may not
reduce advertising’s effects, particularly if children do not understand the concept of “source bias”:
that is, that ads tend to exaggerate. This understanding does not typically happen until age 12.
Media and advertising executives argue that children are sophisticated and savvy consumers
who deserve the right to engage in the market (Snyder, 2011), and there is some research to
support this position (Buckingham, 2009). Furthermore, industry executives argue that re-
strictions on advertising to children deny companies their right to inform children about their
products. In the U.S. (and in many other countries) commercial speech is protected speech (see
Graff, 2008). Nonetheless, countries around the world offer a diversity of advertising policies.
Canada, for example, has an Ad Standards Children’s Clearance Committee, which reviews and
approves children’s broadcast advertising messages (Ad Standards, 2020). The U.S. Federal
Communication Commission limits commercial time on children’s television shows, and both
the U.K. and Chile restrict “junk food” marketing to children (Taillie et al., 2019).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-56 441

 Amy B. Jordan and Alyvia H. Walters

The Economic Structure of Children’s Media

The production and distribution of children’s media are expensive. In many countries, including
the U.S., the production of children’s television programming is largely dependent on funding
from advertisers (Shah, 2010). Similarly, “advergames” (i.e., advertising messages featuring trade
characters and logos in game format) and advertisements on the internet frequently fund the
creation and sustainability of children’s websites (Kunkel & Castonguay, 2012).
During television’s nascent phase in the U.S., children’s media producers struggled to secure
funding from advertisers because children were not viewed as valued consumers (Kline, 1993).
However, over the decades, children have come to be recognized for the influence they have
over household purchases and the significant dollars they themselves spend (Henry &
Borzekowski, 2011). This purchasing power and influence have led companies to spend over
$3.2 billion on non-digital and $900 million on digital advertising aimed at children per year
(Radesky et al., 2020). In addition to providing vehicles for advertisements, many children’s
media providers derive profits from licensing and merchandising the characters from children’s
programs (Schor, 2004). As children’s media are highly dependent on funding from advertisers
who see children as an important market (Shah, 2010), some worry that the current economic
structure of children’s media, including child-focused YouTube content, would likely collapse
if all advertising to children was banned and if alternative funding structures were not put into
place (De Veirman, Hudders, & Nelson, 2019; Shah, 2010; Schor, 2004).

Product Concerns
Advocates and researchers have raised specific concerns over advertisements for unhealthy and/
or potentially dangerous products that are aimed at children. Amid growing concerns about
childhood obesity and the associated health risks, several countries are considering or have
implemented bans on unhealthy food and beverage advertising targeting children. The U.K.
implemented a ban on advertising high fat, salty, and sugary products on television programs
that have a large youth audience (Dhar & Baylis, 2011). In Quebec, fast food advertising has
been banned in all media targeted to children (Quebec Consumer Protection Act, 1980).
There are also concerns over exposure to marketing for products that are illegal for children
and adolescents to consume. Numerous studies have suggested that exposure to tobacco and
alcohol advertising increases the likelihood that youth will initiate smoking and drinking (e.g.,
Biener & Siegel, 2000; Mosher, 2012). The associated health risks have led policymakers to ban
tobacco and alcohol advertising aimed at children in most countries (World Health
Organization, 2003). However, children are still exposed even if they are not the main target.
For example, a 2020 study published by researchers in the U.K. examined the prevalence of
alcohol advertising in Formula 1 race car broadcasts. They estimate that the 21 races they
content analyzed delivered 3.9 billion alcohol impressions to the U.K. population, “including
154 million to children aged under 16 years” (Barker, et al., 2020, p. 4). In the U.S., alcohol
advertising is also prevalent in public transportation venues that are often used by children and
adolescents as a means to get to school (Gentry et al., 2011).
Most recently, electronic cigarettes (e-cigs) have raised new alarms. Marketed as a “healthy”
alternative to tobacco, adolescents who are exposed to such advertising mistakenly believe that
e-cigs are not harmful, and this belief carries over to combustible cigarettes (Kim et al., 2019).
As digital media present children with new sorts of content on unregulated platforms (e.g.,
YouTube, Apps), advertising has become ever more creative and children ever more targeted.
In 2019, the popular YouTube channel “Ryan ToysReview,” featuring a child unboxing toys,

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was accused in a complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission of tricking pre-schoolers
into watching ads. The videos, the complaint lodges, “[weave] in sponsored content seamlessly
with the rest of his antics … And for preschoolers, it is impossible to discern the difference”
(McNeal, 2019). So-called “kidfluencers,” or children with large social media followings, are
now an integral part of social media advertising expenditures. The most successful kidfluencers
make up to $26 million in a year by posting sponsored content (usually without disclosure) and
selling ad space on their sites (Masterson, 2021).
A similar concern can be seen in the ways in which digital marketers use “spokescharacters”
in sites directed to children. As Bucy, Kim, & Park (2011) point out, the use of popular
characters to promote products is hardly a new tactic; however, at least in television, it is heavily
regulated by the Federal Communication Commission. Their content analysis of popular
children’s websites found that three-quarters of popular children’s websites used spokes-
characters within their sites, though the authors note that over the time period they studied
(2003 to 2009) the industry’s practices of identifying spokescharacter advertising improved after
the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) “discouraged the blurring of advertising and
program content on websites geared toward children” (2011, p. 1258).

National Policy and Advertising to Children

In the U.S., much of the philosophical tension regarding how much say the government should
have about media content stems from the Constitution’s First Amendment protection against
government interference in free speech, including commercial speech. Courts have repeatedly
had to weigh the rights of commercial entities against the need to protect vulnerable citizens,
including children. This balancing act is complicated even further because many government
regulations apply only to broadcast television and not to non-broadcast media such as the
internet or cable television. The need to protect both the free speech rights of advertisers and
the special vulnerabilities of children has given rise to a fluid media policy mix of federal
mandates and industry self-regulation in many countries. In the section that follows, we ex-
amine advertising policy in the U.S., and the ways in which government regulation and in-
dustry self-regulation interact.

Federal Trade Commission

In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is mandated to protect children from unfair and
deceptive marketing practices. The FTC’s enforcement activities targeting advertising to children
have typically focused on how products are advertised, rather than whether they are advertised. For
example, the FTC has brought cases challenging nutritional claims for foods that are likely to be
appealing to children. In one classic case, it challenged a television ad for the Klondike Lite Ice
Cream Bar for saying that it was 93 percent fat-free (Beales, 2004). The FTC alleged that the claim
was false because the entire bar, including the chocolate coating, actually contained 14 percent fat
per serving. They argued that the ad was misleading since a reasonable consumer – especially a
child consumer – is not going to eat the bar without its chocolate coating.
The FTC has also been active in ensuring that children do not disclose private information
unknowingly. In 1999, pursuant to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, the FTC issued
its COPPA Rule governing the online collection of personal information from children under the
age of 13. The Rule requires commercial websites and online services to obtain verifiable parental
consent before collecting personal information. For this reason, social networking sites such as
Facebook do not allow children under 13 to register as users, though as danah Boyd et al. (2011)

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point out, this is easily circumvented. Xanga, a social networking site that was judged to
“knowingly” collect information from children, was fined $1 million for violating COPPA
(Jordan, 2008). And though YouTube has a YouTube Kids app, which curates content appro-
priate for children and provides options for parental controls, a 2017 survey by Common Sense
Media found that more children watch YouTube on the main platform than on the kids’ app.
Thus, YouTube also has been the target of FTC inquiry (Schwartz, 2018).

Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also has a role in regulating advertising to
children over broadcast and cable media. The Children’s Television Act (CTA) of 1990 limits the
amount of advertising during children’s programming to 10.5 minutes per hour on weekends and
12 minutes on weekdays (Children’s Television Act, 1990). In addition, it requires commercial
content to be separated from program content through what has come to be known as “bumpers”
(in which there is a visual and/or auditory break), although the efficacy of these program se-
parators is in dispute (An & Stern, 2011). The CTA also prohibits stations from including TV
advertisements during the program or in spots adjacent to the beginning and end of the program in
which the character appears (deemed “host selling”). The FCC does not allow website addresses
to be displayed during or adjacent to a children’s program if products are sold featuring a character
in the program, or a program character is used to sell products (FCC, 2021).
Recently, the FCC and the FTC have begun discussing the regulation of embedded adver-
tising in both digital and non-digital contexts, a practice often referred to as “product placement.”
Though this advertising strategy is banned in the U.K., it is widespread in adult programming in
the U.S. (for example, judges during the television program American Idol are virtually always seen
with Coca-Cola products). However, product placement is typically not used in children’s
programs due to concern that the shows would be fined for host selling. Though the FCC has not
enforced hard rules on this issue, the FTC has provided guidelines (Federal Trade Commission,
2017) for endorsements, many of which are of particular importance for online influencers. This
regulation requires influencers to disclose paid product placement,

because…consumers are less likely to be able to differentiate between organic content

where an influencer simply happened to have a particular product with them in a
photo and branded content where the influencer included a specific product in a
photo because they were paid to do so.
(Pfieffer Law, 2019)

Beyond Policy
Advocacy groups, scholars, and politicians have spent decades working to decrease children’s
exposure to advertising, especially for harmful products. As advertising is the main funding
source of much of children’s media content, it is unlikely to go away anytime soon. Thus,
alternative approaches to protecting children from the detrimental effects of advertising may
be warranted.

Industry Self-Regulation
Self-regulatory practices are common in an industry that is wary of government intervention.
Signs of potential governmental regulatory activity often stir the advertising industry to

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pre-emptive self-censorship measures, a dynamic which some scholars refer to as “regulation by

raised eyebrow” (Kunkel, 1988; Starr, 2004).
The social media company Facebook, for example, has opted to avoid the issue of adver-
tising altogether by making its planned kids’ Instagram app ad-free (Kaye, 2021). YouTube Kids
will no longer use personal data to provide personalized (or interest-based) advertising to its
users. With such self-regulatory trends happening on social media platforms, at least one ob-
server wonders whether the change “could encourage budget shifts that see more dollars being
allocated to influencer marketing” but also notes that “Of course, the concerns that forced
YouTube to change its policies vis-à-vis ads on children’s videos may apply to influencer
marketing” (Robles, 2020).
In the U.S., the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better
Business Bureaus is the industry’s self-monitoring group (Snyder, 2011). It seeks voluntary
compliance from marketers by recommending a code of ethical practices to its members. In
addition, CARU receives and acts upon complaints of deceptive or misleading advertising on a
case-by-case basis. For example, in June 2011 CARU recommended that Reebok discontinue
claims made in print advertising that suggested its Zigtech sneakers help children perform better
in sports. Reebok responded by saying that it disagreed, but that the company supports
“CARU’s efforts to promote self-regulation” (CARU News, 2011).
Steps toward self-regulation have also been made in food marketing. Alarmed by a sharp rise
in childhood obesity, policymakers, the public, and health professionals have challenged food
industry marketing practices (Sharma et al., 2010). In response, the major food industry players
promised to change, and, since 2006, have issued a series of highly publicized pledges through
CARU including making significant shifts in what kinds of foods are promoted in children’s
television programming. At least two systematic content analyses found that the landscape of
food marketing has remained virtually unchanged, however, after these pledges (Kunkel et al.,
2009; Harris et al., 2011). Other countries, such as Thailand, have developed their own self-
regulation initiatives (Thailand Children’s Food and Beverage Initiative, 2008), though the
impact of these initiatives has not been assessed.
Additionally, the above mentioned e-cigarette company JUUL announced that it would
shut down its social media accounts and stop selling the flavored pods most popular with young
vapers in an effort to avoid government-imposed regulation (Roose, 2019). It also settled with
the state of North Carolina for $40 million (while continuing to deny liability or wrongdoing)
and settlement funds will go toward preventative educational programming and addiction
support for young people who are already using e-cigarettes (McGinley, 2021).
While “regulation by raised eyebrow” has led to many industry self-regulatory policies, there is
evidence that suggested “best practices” are not always followed by advertisers. In Australia, where
a “co-regulatory” system is in place to limit children’s exposure to unhealthy food advertising, an
analysis showed over the course of two months 332 instances of breaches of the country’s vo-
luntary regulations (Roberts et al., 2012). The authors write “Self-regulation of food advertising
by the food industry is falling short of its potential due to coverage of the voluntary codes being
limited to signatory companies and inadequate compliance and reporting levels” (p. 6).
A potential solution to the problem of self-regulation has been proposed by Reeve and
Magnusson (2018). Their “accountability model” (p. 26) argues the following: (1) the content
of the regulation should contain clear objectives that can be assessed, and provide clear defi-
nitions for key terms; (2) the process should involve an independent body responsible for
monitoring and assessing performance, with regular review to ensure that objectives are being
met; and (3) an independent body should be authorized to offer incentives to encourage and
reward compliance.

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Media Literacy
Some have suggested that educating children about advertising’s persuasive intent may de-
crease its deleterious effects (Hobbs, 2011). This argument is manifested in the field of media
literacy, defined as “the ability to understand how mass media work, how they produce
meanings, how they are organized and how one uses them wisely” (Abdullah, 2000, p. 1).
Media literacy can teach youth how to identify advertisers’ specific techniques (e.g., appeals
to fun) as well as how to identify the target audience of an advertisement (Hobbs, 2011).
Hobbs (2011) found that media literacy education significantly impacted adolescents’ ability
to analyze an advertisement, and An and Stern (2011) concluded that media literacy edu-
cation was effective in increasing school-aged children’s ability to recognize an advergame on
the internet as having commercial purposes.
Despite the potential of media literacy to effectively educate children, a number of studies
suggest that the ability to recognize and understand the persuasive nature of advertisements does
not, in and of itself, decrease their effects on children. Livingstone and Helsper (2006) con-
ducted a meta-analysis of studies researching the impact of food and beverage advertisements on
children and similarly concluded that older children were often more affected than younger
children by the advertisements despite being able to identify them and understand their pur-
pose. De Veirman et al.’s (2019) review of research on influencer marketing practices, found
that while visual discloser helps children understand that influencers are being paid to promote
products, they do not necessarily negatively impact their effectiveness.
An alternative strategy in media literacy efforts may be to target parents. Horgan (2012)
argues that families have unique values, interests, and needs and that parents can convey their
belief systems through media, including mediated advertisements, in ways that are consistent
with the family’s priorities. Beyond acting as role models, parents can encourage media edu-
cation in everyday settings if given the proper knowledge base, motivations, and skill set to do
so (Horgan, 2012).
Media literacy – whether conveyed by parents or schools – can be an appealing alternative or
complement to media policy. It does not offend the free speech sensibilities that many cultures
highly value, and it does not hold media makers strictly accountable for the effects of media
content on children. At the same time, it is seen as an opportunity to develop critical thinking
skills in young people, and empower not only the young audiences but also the teachers and
parents who are concerned about their well-being.

Conclusion
As children’s exposure grows, concerns arise over their vulnerability to marketing messages,
particularly for dangerous products, and over their inability to truly discern advertising’s per-
suasive intent, particularly as new forms of persuasion have developed. These concerns have led
advocates and researchers to call for greater industry restraint and government intervention, as
well as the development of alternative funding sources for children’s media. As media land-
scapes become ever more immersive, reimagining funding and regulation of child-centered
advertising are necessary for building safer and healthier sites of entertainment, development,
and socialization for children.

SEE ALSO Chapter 29 by Calvert and Bond, Chapter 48 by Pecora, Chapter 49 by Lustyik,
and Chapter 51 by O’Neill in this volume.

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 51
POLICIES FOR THE DIGITAL
ENVIRONMENT
Online Safety and Empowerment in
a Global Context
Brian O’Neill

Introduction
Children’s online safety and well-being has over the course of the twenty-first century become
a topic of significant interest for policy makers around the world. Given that children already
make up a significant proportion of all internet users and increasing numbers of younger
children participate actively in the digital environment, governments, industry stakeholders and
civil society organisations have stepped up the attention given to children’s online safety and
related consequences for their education, health, and well-being. Policies for the digital en-
vironment have evolved in line with technological developments and the ever more complex
digital ecology. Most often framed in terms of the need to balance the opportunities and
benefits of the digital world for children with the attendant risks or potential harm for their
welfare, policies relating to children’s digital participation now encompass a broad swathe of
international legal standards, regulatory measures, and policy guidance. This in turn forms part
of wider debates on internet governance, online regulation and control, privacy and data
protection, transparency and accountability of digital service providers, and the role of the State
in protecting and promoting rights in the digital environment.
The aim of this chapter is to review the principal contours of this policy mix and to highlight
the emergent policy positions on how best to achieve a balance of digital risks and opportu-
nities. Given the broad range of possible topics, the scope is limited to policies directly dealing
with children, defined as anyone under the age of 18, and their safety and well-being while
using digital connected devices to go online.

Phases of Policy Development

Child online safety may be said to refer to policy interventions that support children’s safety and
well-being online encompassing inter alia awareness raising about the risks aimed at both
children and parents; education and digital literacy skills to help children protect themselves;
tools and technology solutions aimed at creating a safer online environment; regulatory mea-
sures to enhance stakeholder co-operation; and actions to tackle illegal content online (O’Neill

450 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-57

 Policies for the Digital Environment

et al., 2013; Staksrud, 2013). How society responds to the challenges posed by the digital
environment to children’s safety and well-being has evolved differently in various parts of the
world, leading to contrasting approaches towards definition of the problem, and varying
priorities and different solutions proposed (Savirimuthu, 2012). Broadly, the framing of child
online safety may be said to follow the contours of internet policy more generally, falling into
the following three distinct phases:

i A first phase where children’s online safety centres primarily on protecting the child from
online risks conceived as an extension to threats in the physical world, requiring gov-
ernance measures based on restriction of access and mitigation of risk, as evidenced by
restrictive or protectionist approaches;
ii A second phase where a balance is sought between children’s rights to protection from
harm on the one hand, and the provision of appropriate supports, content, and oppor-
tunities suited to their age on the other, as evidenced in the shift in policy focus from a
safer to a better internet;
iii A third, more emergent phase, where children’s online safety is viewed as a matter of
children’s rights as a pre-condition for their full and active participation in the digital
environment.

The first phase of policy development, stretching from the mid-1990s to approximately 2010,
includes a range of regional, national, and international policy initiatives that focus on com-
bating the most serious threats and sources of harms affecting children, developing principles of
child online protection, and advancing a range of governmental and inter-governmental
measures to balance the otherwise largely unregulated development of the internet and digital
services.
In this first phase, the principal trend was in fact that the internet should not be regulated at
all and that, as a nascent medium, technological innovation would be best served by as little
interference as possible. In contrast to a broadcast medium such as television where its impact
on children was always a matter of public concern (Gunter & McAleer, 1997), the main policy
priority in the early years of the internet was to promote greater access, harnessing educational
opportunities and competitive economic advantage. However, as Lessig notes, it did not take
long for policymakers to become concerned about the rapid proliferation of pornography and
other forms of offensive content regarded as harmful for children (Lessig, 2006).
Early efforts to introduce internet-specific legislation included the ill-fated Communications
Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) in the U.S., intended to restrict access by minors to online
pornography or other explicit content and to regulate indecency and obscenity on the internet
according to “community standards.” While some of its major provisions were successfully
challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court (Reno v. ACLU) in 1997, an amended CDA without
indecency provisions passed into U.S. law in 2003. A further effort to restrict access by minors
to pornography or any material that might be harmful to them was proposed in 1998 with the
Child Online Protection Act (COPA) though it also was the subject of an injunction and never
took effect. The final and ultimately successful measure, the Children’s Internet Protection Act
(CIPA), was signed into law in 2000 and required U.S. schools and libraries as a condition of
federal funding to use internet filters to restrict access by children to harmful online content.
In the European Union, the introduction of the Safer Internet Action Plan (European
Commission, 1999) provided the principal platform for online safety policies, with a preference
for co-operation between government, industry, and civil society stakeholders, rather than
direct legislative intervention. Accordingly, in parallel with the rapid expansion of the internet

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in the years following 2000, a wide-ranging programme of measures to protect children online
evolved through a variety of self-regulatory and co-regulatory industry schemes for filtering and
content labelling, awareness-raising strategies, and education about internet safety, all supported
by a network of hotlines and helplines. Thus, it was recognised that there was no single solution
to the challenges raised by widening access and online participation as well as the fact that, more
and more, children and their families would be required to assume greater levels of responsi-
bility for their own safety online.
An emerging consensus on matters that affect children may therefore be observed in the first
15 years or so of internet policy and regulation, frequently expressed in a classification of the
“3Cs” of online risk – content, contact, and conduct (Staksrud & Livingstone, 2009). There
was, for instance, a common identification by governments and regulators around the world
that children require protection from content that may be harmful to their development, and
this is the area that has attracted the most attention. Similarly, contact risks arising from online
communication services originally designed for adults are also agreed to be risky. Additionally,
children’s own actions may give rise to conduct risks whereby young people themselves can be
perpetrators of harmful behaviour. Such a classification of risks has been widely adopted in the
policy world, as for example in policy frameworks developed by UNICEF, the European
Commission, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and
the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), expressed in variety of strategies to reg-
ulate content and behaviour, while recognising that multiple actors share the responsibility for
providing appropriate protective measures. Notably, the classification has been recently updated
to include a fourth “C” of contract risks (Livingstone & Stoilova, 2021). The policy response to
each is summarised briefly below.

Regulating Content
Protecting children from unsuitable content that may be harmful for their development has
been a cornerstone of policy regarding children and the digital environment. Determining
which content is unsuitable for children, how access to it may be restricted and for which age
groups, remains contested, however. Early formulations distinguished between content that is
illegal, e.g., child sexual abuse imagery, extreme xenophobic material, etc., which is always
restricted, and content that may be deemed potentially harmful, but not illegal (European
Commission, 1996), the restriction of which varies considerably. Such content risks may in-
clude violent or gory online content as well in video games, “adult” and other pornographic
content, racist content or forms of hate speech, and forms of commercial content that may
target children in ways for which they are not prepared (Smahel et al., 2014).
Regulation of age-inappropriate content features prominently in the national audio-visual
and media policy schemes of many countries and increasingly within international policy fra-
meworks (OECD, 2021; Council of Europe, 2018; European Commission, 2016b). A general
ban on illegal content, offline and online, for instance, is provided for on a near-universal basis.
In the U.S. and Canada, there is a tendency not to have internet-specific legislation governing
content while others including Japan, Turkey, and Korea have passed dedicated laws governing
online content. Between these extremes, many European countries, and Australia and New
Zealand, rely to a large extent on the application of existing laws augmented by “soft” legis-
lation in the form of self- and co-regulatory schemes to enforce age restrictions on content.
A significant change included in the revision to the European Union’s Audio-visual Media
Services Directive (AVMSD) (European Commission, 2016b) is its inclusion of regulation of
video-sharing-platforms (VSPs) for the purposes of protecting minors. While this concerns

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audio-visual content only and does not include all social media content, for instance, it is
significant in introducing a new systemic approach to content regulation that, if successful,
could be extended to other areas (Kuklis, 2020). This approach is mirrored also in other do-
mains that similarly seek to extend the scope of content regulation, namely, the European
Union’s code of conduct on hate speech (European Commission, 2016a), Germany’s Network
Enforcement Act (also known as the NetzDG law) (German Law Archive, 2017) and Australia’s
Online Safety Act which establishes an online content scheme for the removal of certain
harmful material (Parliament of Australia, 2021).
A further area of policy interest has been the need for more robust age verification tech-
nologies to enable digital service providers to enforce age restrictions more effectively on
services that are not designed for children or that may pose risks to them. Against a background
of reported ineffectiveness of existing approaches (Pasquale et al., 2020), policy makers have
stepped up approaches to support more robust frameworks of accreditation, certification, and
interoperability of age assurance technologies (UNICEF, 2021).

Contact Risks
Contact risks in the context of children meeting others via the internet and as a result being
exposed to potential harm is another area with which policy has been particularly concerned. In
the EU Kids Online classification, contact risks arise where a child participates in risky com-
munication, such as with an adult seeking inappropriate contact or soliciting a child for sexual
purposes, or with individuals attempting to radicalize a child or persuade him or her to take part
in unhealthy or dangerous behaviours (Livingstone & Stoilova, 2021). Policymakers have fo-
cused in particular on addressing potential risks involving children coming into contact with
adults, as an extension of those risks to children from exposure to content that is not age
appropriate. While contact with strangers and risks of exploitation or abuse of children by adults
they may encounter online may be rare, such risks have given rise to significant public anxiety
and have featured prominently in policy debates concerning child online safety. Legislative
responses have focused on the most extreme forms of risk such as grooming and child sexual
abuse facilitated via online communication. Concerns regarding the impact of sexting, cy-
berbullying, sextortion, and of harmful online content has prompted some countries to change
legislation and put pressure on platforms and social media sites to do more to protect children
from online abuse arising from harmful, adult-initiated contact (OECD, 2020).

Conduct Risks: Children as Actors and Perpetrators

The digital environment is one that is highly interactive and may give rise to risky content or
contact as a result of children’s own behaviour. As active participants and creators of content
across the myriad of digital platforms available to them, children may create harmful or nasty
materials about other children, incite racism or post or distribute sexual images, including
material they have produced themselves. As such, online safety policies increasingly address risks
which children participate in, or may be victims of, potentially harmful conduct such as bul-
lying, hateful peer activity, trolling, sexual messages, pressures or harassment, or exposure to
potentially harmful content. Typically, conduct risks arise from interactions among peers, al-
though not necessarily of equal status (Livingstone & Stoilova, 2021).
Cyber harassment and cyberbullying, arising often out of contact between peers, has at-
tracted substantial attention as a persistent and at times intractable aspect of young people’s
online behaviour (Samara et al., 2017). Cyberbullying among children has been primarily

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addressed in policy through education and awareness-raising strategies, focusing on the of-
fending and hurtful behaviour of perpetrators, coping strategies for victims and educational
policies for target populations (Richardson et al., 2017). However, the increased risks deriving
from the digital environment – the huge size of its potential audience; continuous access; the
permanency of online content; the ease of copying and distributing material; and a lack of
oversight of online behaviour – have prompted some countries to update traditional harassment
laws to address cyberbullying offences (OECD, 2020). Self-generated sexual content, or the
phenomenon of “sexting,” i.e., the sending and/or receiving if sexual messages via electronic
communication, whether wanted or unwanted, is another area of conduct risk that has received
research and policy attention (Naezer & Ringrose, 2019). It has received a more varied re-
sponse, ranging from criminal prosecutions based on laws pertaining to possession of child
pornography (Villacampa, 2017) to education efforts focused on safer practices (Setty, 2021).
Children may also be exposed to – or even contribute to – potentially offensive and harmful
content in user communities that promote phenomena such as self-harm, drug-taking, or eating
disorders. While most such content is prohibited under the terms of service adopted by major
platforms, calls for greater vigilance by hosting companies alongside increased involvement of
the State in content regulation are evident (Flew & Gillett, 2020).

Contract and Consumer Risks

Digital technologies have evolved to the extent that children’s exposure to commercial com-
munication and content that classifications of risk now refer to a fourth category of contract or
consumer risks (OECD, 2021). The development of a typology of 4 ‘Cs’ recognises that
children’s digital experiences are subject to many of the same aspects of commercialisation and
datafication that feature across the digital environment. Contract risks, as included within the
EU Kids Online classification (Livingstone & Stoilova, 2021), may arise when children, un-
intenionally or otherwise, sign up to the terms of service of commercial providers of digital
services in ways that may be unfair or exploitative. Children’s data may be processed in ways
that are opaque or unfair and may expose them to age-inappropriate marketing. Algorthmic or
automated processing of children’s personal data indeed may arise in any context where chil-
dren access or use digital services and without specific protections may have adverse con-
sequences for their development or well-being. Commercial risks arise more directly in
contexts where children may be targeted for purposes of online gambling, commercial ex-
ploitation or financial inducements. Where in traditional media, restrictions on commercial
content aimed at children are well-established, this is an aspect of the online world that is much
less developed. Online gambling, however, in most countries cannot be offered to children.
More generally, commercial communication to children has been the subject of self-regulation
and only in the Scandinavian countries is advertising to children banned. The potential risks of
exploitation arising from automated algorithmic processing of children’s data, however, con-
stitutes a new area of policy concern, prompting some jurisdictions to strengthen restrictions
against profiling and automated decision-making regarding children’s personal data (Data
Protection Commission, 2020; ICO, 2019).

Policy Shifts in Regulating for Online Safety

Policies that promote children’s online safety, as the foregoing has highlighted, through suc-
cessive phases of legislative measures to protect children from harmful exposure, combined with
a host of alternative regulatory approaches to address what are complex public challenges

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(Lievens, 2018). Given the open and dynamic nature of the internet, and the wide cultural
variation in standards relating to children’s exposure to online content, much policy emphasis
has been placed on the importance of parents deciding what is best for their children. An early
initiative in this regard was the promotion of technical solutions or software-based parental
controls to restrict children’s web surfing. Despite concerns over their effectiveness as well as
their suitability for older children and teenagers (Ali et al., 2021), parental controls have been a
core feature of internet policy in many countries since the late 1990s and continue to feature as
an important ingredient in the overall mix of digital safety (O’Neill et al., 2020).
Industry supported self- and co-regulatory agreements have been the most important non-
legislative initiatives designed to promote children’s online safety. In the European context,
safer use of mobile communications, safer social networking, and codes of practice regarding
hate speech online as well as disinformation have been key areas in which digital service
providers have collaborated to bring about better safety standards and safer online practices.
Against intense criticism of perceived abuses of power and dominance by major digital pro-
viders and social media platforms, industry has faced ongoing calls for greater transparency,
accountability, and demands for greater regulation (Vermeulen, 2019). Self-regulation, for long
a foundation of digital safety policy, is thereby coming under increasing scrutiny due to per-
ceived shortcomings in meeting public interest needs as well as difficulties associated with
monitoring effectiveness and implementation (Flew et al., 2019).
A continuing focus of the non-regulatory approach to online safety remains the emphasis on
awareness raising and education. The education of children in safe, ethical, and responsible
digital use is recognised as essential to empowering users and encouraging more responsible
online behaviour. Awareness-raising campaigns, with both public and private sector input, have
been widely used to draw attention to issues of privacy, security, and safety, while promoting
specific safety messages regarding online use (Walsh et al., 2020). Educational reinforcement in
partnership with national education systems is seen as vital to improving levels of digital literacy
and encouraging self-governing behaviour on the part of children and young people (Walsh &
Wallace, 2021). Concepts such as digital citizenship are intended to reflect the importance of
the rights and responsibilities of children as social actors in the online world (Frau-Meigs et al.,
2017) as well as recognising that the most effective approach to children’s online safety may be
empowerment through skills for the digital world (Cortesi et al., 2020).
However, there has also been an evident shift in the policy discourse away from protection
and online safety as the sole focus of policy on children’s digital engagement to one that is
balanced by considerations of positive opportunities, online well-being, and importantly a
recognition that fundamental rights and freedoms that apply offline also have an equivalent
application online. This has been articulated most recently by the UNCRC’s general comment
on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment (Committee on the Rights of the
Child, 2021) which identifies the digital environment as an important dimension in which
children’s rights should be promoted and realised. It requires State parties to ensure that national
policies relating to children’s rights specifically address the digital environment, noting that “the
use of digital technologies can help to realize children’s participation at the local, national and
international levels” (p. 3). The Council of Europe has likewise called attention to how social
and digital media can support participation in democratic culture and a respect for human rights
(Council of Europe, 2018) with the UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression also
lending weight to harnessing digital opportunities as a means of enabling children’s involvement
in decision-making and as an important vehicle for children to exercise their right to full
participation in social, cultural and political life (UN Special Rapporteur, 2014).

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Conclusion
With the topic of children’s online safety firmly on the policy agenda, and the strong
consensus among international agencies in combating abuses online (WeProtect Global
Alliance, 2021), the global policy landscape has taken some important steps forward with
respect to children’s participation with the digital environment. The legislative response to
addressing risks in the online environment has been seen to be wide-ranging, at least within
OECD countries (OECD, 2020), and there is increased evidence of regional and interna-
tional co-operation in addressing the inherently global dimension of children’s online pro-
tection. The increased recognition that children’s rights apply in the digital environment
(Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2021; Council of Europe, 2018) represents an
important shift in the policy discourse, placing new responsibilities on governments to im-
plement policies that afford children a balance of opportunities and positive digital experi-
ences with the necessary protections from online harms. However, ensuring that children’s
digital safety and well-being remain at the centre of wider policy debates on internet gov-
ernance and regulation remains a challenge. Despite important initiatives taken at the in-
ternational level, there remains something of a gap in policy support between the most high
resource countries and the Global South. The digital environment continues to evolve at a
rapid pace, creating enhanced opportunities but also increased risks. While children avail of
increased digital opportunities and benefits, they are also likely to face increased privacy risks
as well as exposure to hateful, offensive or harmful content online. Promoting better digital
opportunities for all with the appropriate levels of protection for all citizens, as well as those
representing the best interests of the child, is therefore likely to require dedicated policy
attention to sustain the progress made to date.

SEE ALSO Chapter 48 by Pecora and Chapter 50 by Jordan and Walters in this volume.

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 52
LEARNING FROM
EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION
AMONG PRESCHOOL AND
SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN
Shalom M. Fisch

Research in numerous countries has shown that children spend tremendous amounts of time
using screen media – often more than in any activity other than sleeping. Despite the meteoric
rise of digital media, U.S. survey data indicate that children and teenagers continue to spend far
more time watching TV programs and videos than in any other media-based activity, although
their preferred device may vary – young children watching on television sets, and teens in-
creasingly migrating to watching on devices such as smartphones (Rideout, 2015, 2017; Singer,
2020). From the standpoint of harmful effects of media, such as televised violence (see Scharrer,
this volume), these statistics may appear daunting. However, for educational television, they
represent a vast opportunity. Just as negative media content can produce negative effects,
positive media content can – and does – produce significant positive effects.
This chapter examines educational television as a tool for informal education (i.e., sub-
stantive educational content delivered primarily outside the classroom) for preschool and
school-age children. (For information on learning among infants and toddlers, see Nichols, this
volume.) It reviews empirical research on the impact of such media, theoretical approaches to
explain children’s comprehension and learning, and the added benefits that can arise from from
combined use of multiple educational media platforms.

What Do Children Learn From Educational Television?

Decades of research have demonstrated clearly that both preschool and school-age children
learn from well-produced educational television series. A sizable research literature has docu-
mented effects on knowledge, skills, and attitudes in various academic subject areas, such as
literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, and others. Programs designed to contribute to
children’s socioemotional development also have been found to promote prosocial behavior
among young viewers, but that research is beyond the scope of this chapter (For a review of
prosocial effects of television, see Mares & Woodard, 2001.)
Perhaps the most prominent – and certainly the most extensively researched – example of
an educationally effective television series is Sesame Street. The earliest indications of Sesame
Street’s educative power emerged in a pair of experimental/control, pretest/posttest studies

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-58 459

 Shalom M. Fisch

conducted by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) after its first two seasons of production
(Ball & Bogatz, 1970; Bogatz & Ball, 1971). Each study found that, among 3- to 5-year-olds,
heavier viewers of Sesame Street showed significantly greater pretest-posttest gains on an
assortment of academic skills related to the alphabet, numbers, body parts, shapes, relational
terms, and sorting and classification. The areas that showed the greatest effects were the ones
that had been emphasized the most in Sesame Street (e.g., letters). These effects held across
age, sex, geographic location, socioeconomic status (SES) (with low-SES children showing
greater gains than middle-SES children), native language (English or Spanish), and whether
the children watched at home or in school. Indeed, even when Cook and his colleagues
(1975) conducted a re-analysis of these data that controlled for other, potentially contributing
factors such as mothers’ discussing Sesame Street with their child, the effects were reduced but
many remained statistically significant.
Sesame Street was found to hold long-term benefits for viewers as well. One component of
the Bogatz and Ball (1971) study was a follow-up on a subset of the children who had parti-
cipated in their earlier study. Teachers rated their students on several dimensions of school
readiness (e.g., verbal readiness, quantitative readiness, attitude toward school, relationship with
peers) without knowing their prior viewership of Sesame Street. Results indicated that those
children who had been frequent Sesame Street viewers were rated as better prepared for school
than their non- or low-viewing classmates.
More than 25 years later, the immediate and long-term effects of Sesame Street were con-
firmed by other data. A three-year longitudinal study of low-SES preschoolers (Wright,
Huston, Scantlin, & Kotler, 2001) found that after controlling statistically for background
variables such as parents’ level of education, native language, and preschool attendance, pre-
school viewing of educational programs – and Sesame Street in particular – predicted time spent
in reading and educational activities, letter-word knowledge, math skills, vocabulary size, and
school readiness on age-appropriate standardized achievement tests. Also, as in the earlier
Bogatz and Ball (1971) study, teachers more often rated Sesame Street viewers as well-adjusted to
school. A second study was a correlational analysis of data representing approximately 10,000
children from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Household Education Survey.
Although the data were correlational (and, thus, can suggest but not prove causality), results
indicated that preschool Sesame Street viewers were more likely to be able to recognize letters of
the alphabet and tell connected stories when pretending to read; these effects were strongest
among children from low-income families, and held true even after the effects of other con-
tributing factors (e.g., parental reading, preschool attendance, parental education) were re-
moved statistically. In addition, first and second graders who had viewed Sesame Street as
preschoolers were more likely to be reading storybooks on their own and less likely to require
remedial reading instruction (Zill, 2001).
Finally, the longest-term impact of Sesame Street was found in a “recontact” study that
examined high school students who either had or had not watched educational television as
preschoolers; the bulk of this viewing had consisted of Sesame Street. Results showed that high
school students who had watched more educational television – and Sesame Street in particular –
as preschoolers had significantly higher grades in English, mathematics, and science. They also
used books more often, showed higher academic self-esteem, and placed a higher value on
academic performance. These differences held true even after the students’ early language skills
and family background variables were factored out (Anderson et al., 2001; Huston et al., 2001).
Because few (if any) educational series enjoy the significance, innovation, and 50-year
longevity of Sesame Street (or its long history of collaboration with educators and researchers),
other series have not been researched as extensively or over as long a period of time.

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Nevertheless, numerous studies show that Sesame Street is not alone in helping children learn.
Research on educational series for both preschool and school-age children has shown that
educational television can enhance children’s knowledge, skills, and attitudes in a wide variety
of subject areas. These include effects of U.S. series such as Dora the Explorer and The Electric
Company on children’s language and literacy skills; Cyberchase and Peg + Cat on children’s use of
mathematics and problem-solving; The Magic School Bus and The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot
About That on understanding of science and technology; children’s news programs on
knowledge of current events; and preschool series such as Blue’s Clues and Barney & Friends on
more general school readiness (For reviews of the literature, see, e.g., Anderson, Lavigne, &
Hanson, 2013; Fisch, 2004.) Together, this body of research stands as compelling evidence for
television’s power to educate preschool and school-age children.

How Does Learning Compare Across Countries and Cultures?

Research has shown that the impact of educational television is not limited to children in the
U.S. Significant learning from educational television can be seen, for example, in effects of Akili
and Me on children’s early learning of literacy and mathematics in Rwanda (Borzekowski,
Lando, Olsen, & Giffen, 2019) or Ubongo Kids on mathematics in Tanzania (Watson, Hennessy,
& Vignoles, 2020). Many other examples exist as well.
The presence of such effects in a variety of countries raises the question of how children’s
learning from television compares across countries and cultures. A partial answer can be found
in research on international co-productions of Sesame Street. Under the co-production model, a
local production team in a given country collaborates with the staff of Sesame Workshop
(producers of the U.S. Sesame Street) to craft an educational curriculum that responds to the
needs of children in that country, and create a version of Sesame Street that is both true to the
spirit of Sesame Street and culturally appropriate for local audiences. Although each production’s
curriculum may contain unique topics due to local needs (e.g., aesthetics in China, mutual
respect and understanding in a joint Israeli-Palestinian co-production), they also typically share
common areas, such as literacy and mathematics. Comparable effects in these areas have been
found among viewers of co-productions such as Plaza Sésamo in Mexico (Díaz-Guerreo &
Holtzman, 1974; UNICEF, 1996), Ulitsa Sezam in Russia (Ulitsa Sezam Department of
Research and Content, 1998), and Sisimpur in Bangladesh (RCS, 2006) (For reviews, see Cole,
2016; Cole, Richman, & Brown, 2001). Indeed, drawing on data from 24 of these studies in 15
countries, a meta-analysis by Mares and Pan (2013) found that international co-productions of
Sesame Street produced educational impact that was on par with the effects of in-school in-
terventions for preschoolers outside the U.S.
Still, although these studies examined learning in comparable subject areas, they do not
provide a direct comparison of learning across countries because different televised segments
were shown in each country. A more direct comparison was conducted in a multinational study
of children’s learning from Panwapa, a set of videos, online games, and hands-on activities
(translated into several languages) that was designed to introduce 4- to 7-year-old-children to
aspects of global citizenship. Research assessed learning from Panwapa in China, Egypt, Mexico,
and the U.S. Comparisons across countries revealed many striking similarities in what children
learned from Panwapa – and in how they learned, as well. Similar types of comments and
behavior were observed among children in different countries as they used Panwapa materials,
and significant learning was found in all four countries. At the same time, however, culture and
prior knowledge also played a role. Children often connected most immediately to material
with which they felt a personal connection (e.g., reacting most to on-screen children and places

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that were familiar in some way). Conversely, learning effects were often stronger in areas in
which children had less prior knowledge and, thus, more room to grow. For example, sig-
nificant effects on understanding of economic disparity appeared in the U.S., perhaps because,
on average, the U.S. has a higher economic standard of living. Yet, effects regarding knowledge
about foreign languages were stronger in Egypt, Mexico, and China, perhaps because more of
the U.S. children already used foreign languages with their families at home. Finally, because
parents and teachers served as gatekeepers for children’s experience with Panwapa, adult atti-
tudes had the potential either to facilitate Panwapa’s effects (e.g., when adults shared the value
Panwapa placed on diversity) or to mitigate them (e.g., in cultures where technology is not
considered an age-appropriate educational tool for preschoolers, or when parental prejudice
conflicted with Panwapa’s messages about diversity). Thus, it appears that the benefits of
educational media can indeed reach across countries and cultures. However, to best understand
learning from television, these effects must be considered within the context of all of the other
influences present in a child’s world (Fisch et al., 2010).

Theoretical Approaches
In contrast to the extensive empirical research literature, there have been far fewer attempts to
construct theoretical models of the cognitive processing responsible for such effects. Fisch’s
(2000, 2004) capacity model has its roots in information processing theory and cognitive
psychology. From this perspective, television programs are seen as complex audiovisual stimuli
that require viewers to integrate a range of visual and auditory information in real time as they
watch. Educational television programs pose even greater processing demands, because these
programs typically present narrative (i.e., story) content and educational content simulta-
neously, so the two must compete for the limited resources available in working memory.
Thus, the model predicts that comprehension of educational content will be stronger, not only
when the resource demands for processing the educational content are low, but when the
resource demands for processing the narrative content are low as well.
In addition, the model argues that comprehension is affected by distance, the degree to
which the educational content is tangential to the narrative (in which case the two compete for
working memory resources) or integral to it (in which case the two complement each other, so
competition is reduced). Thus, comprehension of educational content typically would be
stronger when the educational content is integral to the narrative than when it is tangential to it.
Several research studies have provided empirical support for the model and its predctions (e.g.,
Aladé & Nathanson, 2016; Piotrowski, 2014).
Beyond comprehension, the capacity model has been applied to help explain transfer of
learning from educational television (i.e., applying concepts or skills learned from a television
program to a new problem or situation). Outside the context of television, Bransford, Brown,
and Cocking (1999) have argued that successful transfer requires several key elements, in-
cluding: a rich understanding of the subject matter that has been presented, a representation of
the knowledge that is abstracted beyond its original context, and a match between the re-
presentation of the knowledge and the new situation in which it might be applied. Yet, ap-
plying these principles to educational television would almost seem to produce a contradiction
under the capacity model: According to the capacity model, one of the chief ways to enrich
comprehension (as is required for transfer) is to maintain a small distance between narrative and
educational content. However, content that is overly tied to a narrative context may not be
represented abstractly enough to transfer to new problems in different contexts (e.g., Cognition
and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1997).

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A solution may lie in maintaining a small distance between narrative and educational
content, but also presenting the same educational content several times in several different
narrative contexts (a principle known as varied practice in the education literature; e.g., Gick &
Holyoak, 1983). Consider, for example, an episode of Sesame Street in which several different
segments present the letter B in the context of several different words, such as ball, box, and
boy. Multiple treatments of the same underlying content can contribute toward a more abstract
representation of the concepts involved, and also may encourage a sense of these concepts as
applicable in a broader variety of situations, thus encouraging transfer (Fisch, 2004).
The above models shed light on immediate cognitive processing and subsequent educational
outcomes. By themselves, however, they are not sufficient to explain longer-term effects,
particularly if the eventual outcomes bear little resemblance to the educational content that was
presented on television (as in, e.g., effects of preschool viewing of Sesame Street on high school
performance). Huston et al.’s (2001) early learning model explains the long-term effects of
educational media, and how such media might interact with all of the other influences in
children’s lives. Under this model, three facets of early development are proposed as pathways
by which long-term effects can result: (a) learning preacademic skills, particularly those related
to language and literacy, (b) developing motivation and interest, and (c) acquiring behavioral
patterns of attentiveness, concentration, nonaggressiveness, and absence of restlessness or dis-
tractibility. These factors contribute to early success in school, which then plays a significant
role in determining children’s long-term academic trajectories (e.g., placement in higher ability
groups, more attention from teachers, greater motivation to do well). In addition, these early
successes may also affect the types of activities in which children choose to engage; for example,
good readers may choose to read more on their own. Each of these outcomes can then result in
further success over time. In this way, the model posits a cascading effect in which early ex-
posure to educational television leads to early academic success, which in turn contributes to a
long-term trajectory of success.

Cross-Platform Learning
As the above research demonstrates, children learn from educational television (and digital
media; see Stephenson, this volume). Today, however, it is increasingly common for projects to
span more than one media platform; for example, an educational television series might be
accompanied by a related website, hands-on outreach materials, or even a museum exhibit or
live show. This raises questions as to how learning from combined use of multiple, related
media platforms (i.e., cross-platform learning) compares to learning from a single medium.
Numerous studies of the educational effectiveness of projects that span media platforms, such
as the PBS series Peg + Cat or Molly of Denali, have employed treatments that include exposure
to multiple media – for example, television and digital games (e.g., Kennedy et al., 2021;
Moorthy, Hupert, Llorente, & Pasnik, 2014). Such studies have demonstrated these projects’
impact in areas such as early mathematics learning or understanding of informational text.
However, because the treatment conditions did not present children with different combina-
tions of media components (i.e., all of the participating children used all of the media), these
studies do not contrast learning from one medium vs. multiple media.
By contrast, a few studies have varied the combinations of media components across
treatment groups, allowing for contrasts between learning from individual media and groups of
related media (e.g., television, digital games, hands-on outreach materials). All of these studies
found that using multiple media platforms produced greater effects than using a single medium,
indicating an incremental benefit of cross-platform learning. However, none of the studies

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found that the strongest learning effects always emerged in the group that used the greatest
number of media components; for example, a group that used two components may have
demonstrated stronger effects than a group that used three, suggesting that the enhanced effects
were not simply attributable to more time spent in instruction. Rather, the added value of
cross-platform learning appears to stem from several factors: (1) The use of several media
platforms provides multiple entry points for users with different learning styles. (2) While
creating educational media, multiple media platforms allow producers to match each aspect of
the educational content to the platform that is the best match to that content. (3) Exposing
children to similar educational content in multiple contexts not only reinforces learning, but
also helps children recognize that the content can be applied in a wide variety of situations. (4)
Perhaps most key to cross-platform learning, exposing children to related educational content
across media platforms provides a basis for transfer of learning aross these media. That is,
children who use multiple media can use transfer of learning to apply the content learned from
one medium to help them while they are in the process of learning from the other (e.g.,
applying mathematical content learned from a television series to aid in playing an online
mathematical game), resulting in richer, more sophisticated engagement with the latter
medium. Indeed, it is quite possible that cross-platform learning may not only permit but
facilitate transfer. For example, encountering familiar characters in a digital game might lead
children to think of other times when they saw the same characters (e.g., on television), thus
facilitating transfer of learning from one medium to another (Fisch, 2013).
As multi-platform projects developed for the U.S. Department of Education’s Ready to
Learn program have demonstrated, several approaches to design can be employed when ap-
plying these principles to the creation of media for cross-platform learning. One such approach
is to create new content with the same characters and related educational content across several
disparate media platforms (e.g., a broadcast television program, digital games on a website or in
an app, and/or hands-on classroom materials). A second, related apporach (often used when less
time or resources are available for production) is to leverage legacy content – that is, to re-
package existing pieces of standalone media (e.g., individual videos or games) by bundling
together pre-existing media that carry related educational content. A third approach is to create
a single, unified experience that combines different media, such as a video with embedded
interactive games or activities; the interactive games enable the user to apply and practice the
skills or content modeled in the video. Whichever approach is employed, educationally ef-
fective instances typically draw upon the principles discussed above to build upon the unique
strengths and affordances of each medium and create an experience that is truly complementary
across media (Fisch, Damashek, & Aladé, 2016). Considering that cross-platform learning is still
a relatively new field, it is likely that other effective approaches will also be developed in years
to come, particularly as media platforms themselves continue to evolve.

Conclusion
Despite critics who claim (often without evidence) that television destroys children’s attention
spans or turns them into “zombie viewers,” research has shown that television is neither in-
herently good nor bad for children. Rather, the effects of a program depend (among other
things) on its content. As the late researcher John Wright was fond of saying, “Marshall
McLuhan appears to have been wrong. The medium is not the message. The message is the
message!” (Anderson et al. 2001, p. 134).
Research on the impact of educational media holds implications beyond the academic re-
search community. On one level, data on the impact of a particular media product are of great

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interest to its production team, to gauge the degree to which their efforts have been successful.
At the same time, evidence of children’s learning from educational media has also been critical
for funding agencies interested in accountability and in the evolution of public policy regarding
children’s media.
Yet, perhaps the most important impact of such research lies in its ability to inform the creation
of new programming. By identifying what “works” – approaches and production techniques that
contribute to the effectiveness of existing programming – research can help producers incorporate
the most effective techniques as they create new material. Notwithstanding today’s constantly-
changing media landscape and the proliferation of mobile technology, television and video
continue to play a major role in children’s lives, and provide a window through which children
can be reached with substantive, engaging educational content. The design features that have been
found to be effective in maximizing the appeal and educational impact of educational television
programs are likely to continue to be equally applicable to future video production, regardless of
whether those videos are viewed through television sets, tablets, smartphones, or other platforms
yet to be invented.
When used well, research brings the voice of children into the production process, so that
material can be tailored directly to the needs, interests, and abilities of the target audience. In
this way, research can help ensure that future educational series will continue to be as appealing,
age-appropriate, and educationally powerful as possible.

SEE ALSO Chapter 53 by Herr Stephenson in this volume.

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 53
NEW MEDIA AND
INFORMAL LEARNING
Rebecca Herr Stephenson

“New media” have been defined broadly as mass communication delivered using digital
technologies (Rohlinger, 2019). These information and communication technologies and the
practices and contexts associated with their use have been a focus of learning researchers for
more than two decades (e.g., Buckingham, 2008; Ito et al., 2009; Lievrouw & Livingstone,
2006). New media take diverse forms, for example, podcasts, video streamed on the internet
and/or shared through social media, digital images, and interactive games accessed through
mobile devices. In the U.S., youth tend to rank among the heaviest users of certain new media,
prompting questions about the relationship of new media to learning. For example, the 2019
Common Sense Census, an online survey conducted with a nationally representative sample of
more than 1,600 participants ages 8 to 18, found that young people in between the ages of 8 and
12 in the U.S. spend an average of almost five hours each day using media, while teens aged 13
through 18 use more than seven hours each day. These numbers do not include screen-time
used for schoolwork; the data indicate that most of this time is spent watching videos online
(Rideout & Robb, 2019). A Pew Research Center study (Anderson & Jiang, 2018) demon-
strated that U.S. teens have high levels of access to new media, with 95% of teens reporting
access to a smartphone and 97% of 13 to 17-year-olds using social media.
Outside of the U.S., trends in youth new media consumption are similar. A 2016 study on
media use in the U.K. demonstrated that children aged 3–15 were spending up to 15 hours per
day online; time spent online eclipsed time spent watching television for the first time. By ages
12–15, 72% of youth had a social media profile. And, while youth reported using media literacy
strategies to assess the quality of information and protect their information online, differ-
entiating advertising from other content remained a challenge (Ofcom, 2016). Examining
youth new media use in China, Liao (2020) cited statistics from a China Internet Network
Information Center report placing Chinese children’s access to the Internet at 93.1%, most
often via mobile devices for social networking or to access learning apps.
In this new-media saturated environment, the relationship between new media and learning is
more important to understand than ever before. For younger children, there is some evidence that
new media, particularly educational apps designed to teach literacy and numeracy, have extended
the work of children’s educational television (Berdik, 2020) by providing opportunities for early
literacy, even before entering formal schooling. Vaala et al. (2015) noted the dominance of apps
designed for preschool-aged children as well as significant availability of apps focused on language

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-59 467

 Rebecca Herr Stephenson

and literacy development. For older children and teens, curriculum-driven “edutainment” is less
common in both old and new media, though media such as documentary films, informational
websites, and skills training applications certainly provide educational experiences. Important to
this conversation, however, is evidence that informal engagement with new media – even when
that media is not designed with explicit educational goals in mind – can lead to substantial and
valuable learning (Ito et al., 2019). Research into informal learning began early in the 21st
century, as questions about how to harness the power of these new media arose, and have
continued as new forms of media emerge. In the next section of this chapter, I present brief
descriptions of three frameworks for new media and learning: New Media Literacies ( Jenkins,
2006), Genres of Participation (Ito et al., 2019), and Connected Learning (Ito et al., 2020).

Frameworks for New Media and Learning

Frameworks emerged early on to explain youths’ new media use and its relationships to
learning. Three of these frameworks, New Media Literacies, Genres of Participation, and
Connected Learning, will be discussed in this section. These three frameworks are closely
linked, with each building from one to the next to add detail and nuance to understandings of
how learning with new media happens for diverse youth. These frameworks have informed
numerous studies and continue to influence research in diverse disciplines. While each fra-
mework has its own nuances, they all leverage the language of skills and literacies to identify
technical proficiencies and social practices conducive to successful learning with and through
new media. Further, these frameworks value situated learning, a theory of learning that em-
phasizes the value of activities that are meaningful and engaging within the learner’s specific
context and experience, as well as activities that encourage learners to develop expert identities
through practice.
Each of the frameworks take as a starting point the assumption that young people are active
and engaged participants in communities and organizations that support learning, socialization,
and creation. Jenkins (2006) defined these participatory cultures as:

… a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement,
strong support for creating and sharing creations, and some type of informal men-
torship whereby experienced participants pass along knowledge to novices. In a
participatory culture, members also believe their contributions matter and feel some
degree of social connection with one another (at the least, members care about others’
opinions of what they have created).
(p. xi)

Ito et al. (2020), built upon this notion of participatory cultures in their conception of con-
nected learning by focusing on the roles of organizations and specific relationships in youth’s
learning opportunities. As they described, connected learning emphasizes “the collective
contexts, shared culture, relationships, and expansive networks that support young people’s
learning, development and success” and acknowledges that a diverse group of organizations and
structures “sponsor and legitimize” youths’ interests and participation (p. 5), noting that
“learning is most enduring and meaningful when supported by peers and mentors, rooted in the
interests and culture of the learner, and connected across settings” (p. 6).
Participatory cultures and the landscapes in which connected learning takes place highlight
the forms of formal and informal affiliations in online communities, including social network
sites and games, as well as spaces for producing and sharing media or information and for

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receiving mentorship on such production from peers. As Jenkins and colleagues note, oppor-
tunities to be a part of participatory cultures are important, forming a kind of “hidden curri-
culum” (2006, p. xii) that may influence youth’s future success in school and adult life.

New Media Literacies

The social and technical skills necessary for access to participatory cultures have been identified
by Project New Media Literacies (NML) researchers as the new media literacies, and include
play, performance, simulation, appropriation, multitasking, distributed cognition, collective
intelligence, judgment, transmedia navigation, networking, and negotiation. These literacies are
broader than just technical skills; all involve social practices and critical approaches to under-
standing media in addition to technical proficiencies.
Taking a situated learning approach, the learning that takes place with new media in par-
ticipatory cultures is the participation itself. Children and youth who participate in online spaces
such as fan communities or multiplayer online games learn things such as how to communicate
with others through the specific channels and accepted norms of the community, how to share
resources and knowledge using online tools and how to create, circulate, and critique media
(among numerous other things). These kinds of participation – again, called literacies because of
their combination of technical skills and social/cultural competencies – have not always been
recognized as valuable within traditional educational institutions; however, organizations and
advocates looking ahead to children’s future professional and civic participation have eagerly
adopted new media literacies, considering them essential to future success.

Genres of Participation
Building upon the frameworks for participatory cultures and the new media literacies put forth by
Project NML, the Digital Youth Project (Ito et al., 2009), a collaborative ethnographic study
documented young people’s uses of new media in order to better understand the informal op-
portunities for learning presented by different types of new media use. Through analysis of 23
unique case studies researchers identified several “genres of participation” to describe different
purposes for using new media as well as different modes of engagement and social connection.
Genres of participation emphasize the multiple ways a person may participate in different spaces – or
within the same space – as well as the likely possibility that one’s participation may change over time.
A key distinction is between genres that are friendship-driven and genres that are interest-
driven. Friendship-driven genres of participation tend to center around relationships with
friends from school, neighborhood, church, or other activities and institutions. When young
people move online to spaces in which they participate in friendship-driven ways, their online
activities very closely resemble the activities in which they are involved offline. In interest-
driven participation, existing friendships do not determine participation. Activities that allow
young people to practice or demonstrate a particular skill or to dig into a particular interest –
belonging to a sports team, theater troupe, band, or choir, among others – are offline examples
of interest-driven participation. Just as happens offline, young people who engage in interest-
driven participation online often make friends through these sites. Interest-driven and
friendship-driven genres of participation are dynamic and are not mutually exclusive.
In addition to the main distinctions between interest-driven and friendship-driven partici-
pation, researchers identified three sub-genres to further describe ways of approaching media
and technology. These three sub-genres, hanging out, messing around, and geeking out, each carry
with them characteristics relating to the type and intensity of engagement with new media and,

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 Rebecca Herr Stephenson

in many cases, represent particular types of learning trajectories associated with the development
of technological and social skills. For example, hanging out emphasizes social connection
among friends. By hanging out online on social network sites, for example, youth learn – and
challenge – norms and expectations around sociability and communication with others.
Messing around represents a mode of participation that privileges investigation and trial-and-
error problem solving over communication or social connection. Messing around can be un-
derstood as a transitional genre between the primarily social hanging out and the primarily
interest-driven geeking out. “Geeking out” is used to describe intensive, focused participation
within a particular online community or practice (such as gaming or media production). Like
messing around, geeking out involves a level of social connection, often in the form of mentor
relationships, but privileges interest-driven participation and learning above social connection.

Connected Learning
Connected learning is a more recent framework for understanding learning with new media. This
research grew out of previous work, including the New Media Literacies and Digital Youth
Projects, and links the school/academics, personal interest-driven learning, and social connections
with peers as key contexts for learning. Connected learning connects “personal interests, sup-
portive relationships, and academic, civic, and career opportunity” (Ito et al., 2020, p. 4).
Connected learning can take place outside of the realm of new media, however, with access to
new media, youth may also experience increased access to opportunities for connected learning;
this is particularly important for youth from diverse backgrounds. As Ito et al. (2020) noted, “New
digital tools support new forms of literacy and self-expression, and online affinity networks enable
young people to connect to a wider range of specialized communities of interest” (p. 4).
Whereas new media literacies and genres of participation focused on youths’ individual’
social networks and participation structures, connected learning theorizes the role of organi-
zations in brokering access and experiences. Organizations leverage “presence of adults and
adult institutions” to “confer legitimacy and resources” to youths’ practices (p. 32). Whereas
research has demonstrated the role of parents in brokering access and lending legitimacy to
youths’ activities, this involvement is unequal, divided between groups of differing socio-
economic status and race. Connected learning uplifts the roles of youth development organi-
zations, afterschool programs, mentorship organizations in teaching the participation skills
youth need to navigate an unequal and unsteady economic landscape, including vastly unequal
educational access and an economic system built to perpetuate inequality.

New Media and Learning: Examples

The frameworks above provide a basis from which to understand much of the research and
academic discourse around new media and learning, particularly from a sociocultural per-
spective. With these frameworks in mind, the next sections discuss two areas of interest in the
area of new media and learning: gaming and social media. Both of these represent huge areas of
growth within new media industries, foci of research across disciplines, as well as areas of
ongoing concern and activism among parents, educators, and youth themselves.

Gaming
Games are a frequent entry point to new media for children and youth, as they are often
introduced to kids’ media ecologies before other new media such as online sites or media

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production tools (Ito et al., 2009; Salen, 2008). In the U.S., recent data indicate that 90% of
teens – 83% of girls and 97% of boys – play videogames, including console, computer, or
mobile games (Anderson & Jiang, 2018). Research from the U.K. reported that 7 in 10 chil-
dren/teens (aged 5–15) played video games, with a similar difference in rates between boys
(78%) and girls (64%) (Ofcom, 2021). While teens have made videogames a regular part of their
daily interactions, parents seem to have concerns about the time they spend playing games.
According to a national poll of U.S. parents conducted by the University of Michigan C.S.
Mott Children’s Hospital, 86% of parents agreed teens spent too much time playing video
games. The majority of parents in the study also tried to limit the amount of time spent gaming
and 44% tried to restrict the types of games their teens play (C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital,
2020). With games representing such a frequent type of media engagement and taking up so
much of children’s and teens’ time, it is important to consider what they might be learning
through their use of games.
Video game design that aligns learning practices including goal directed behavior, active
engagement, decision making, extended commitment, repeated practice, and opportunities to
fail and try again, can make video games fertile ground for learning and metacognition. James
Paul Gee hailed video games as new media that “externalize the way in which the human mind
works and thinks in a better fashion than any other technology we have” (Gee, 2008, p. 200).
Research shows that games provide opportunities for literacy development for youth of all ages.
For example, Schmitt et al. (2018) found that literacy-themed web-based games effectively
promoted early literacy, particularly in the areas of alliteration and phonics. For older children,
teens, and adults, gaming can promote more advanced literacy development aligned with
principles of New Media Literacies ( Jenkins, 2006). For example, in a comprehensive review of
research on Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPGs) and 21st Century
Skills, Sourmelis et al. (2017) found communication, collaboration, and technological literacy
were common skills identified in research on MMORPG play. Peppler and Kafai (2010)
proposed the notion of “gaming fluencies.” Gaming fluencies emphasize multiple aspects of
gaming – game play, the ability to read games critically, opportunities to participate in social
networks around games, and the ability to design/produce games – as the optimal way to
approach learning through and about games.
Looking at gaming through the lens of Genres of Participation highlights the different uses
and orientations to gaming that exist within contemporary media ecologies. Games are op-
portunities to connect socially, to explore and experiment, develop expertise, and learn to
participate with and through media. Often times, these types of participation take place among
friend groups, however, they can involve other social groups. For example, Gee et al. (2016)
researched the role of gaming within families, identifying multiple ways families use games
together and emphasizing that gameplay within the family can support development of digital
literacies and help kids learn to use media in ways that are aligned with the family’s values and
larger social norms.
Similarly, applying the connected learning framework highlights the complexity of the
practices and the opportunities for learning that exist in various contexts. For example, in a
study focused on the online game League of Legends, Gerber et al. (2019) traced learning
through team interactions at an esports summer camp, finding that the game offered oppor-
tunities for learning communication that were structured and supported by the camp’s practices
and policies. The involvement of youth serving organizations such as camps, schools, and after
school programs can help enhance learning through games as well as challenge problematic
aspects of gaming. In a 2020 report titled “Raising Good Gamers,” Katie Salen Tekinbaş (2020)
identified “leverage points” for challenging and changing the “toxic culture” of online gaming,

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highlighting shifts in policy and practices away from protectionist and toward empowerment,
and identifying enhanced roles for families, schools, and organizations to monitor, support, and
connect with youth through games.

Social Media
A second area of interest around new media and learning is the role of social media. Social
media comprise a diverse category of new media, including online sites, mobile technologies,
and apps such as Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. In the U.S., research indicates that
a majority of teens are active on social media, though the online platforms they use vary based
on socioeconomic status and gender. According to 2018 data from a Pew Research Center
study, teens from lower-income families tended to use Facebook more often than those from
higher-income families, while girls were more likely to favor Snapchat (42%) while boys
preferred YouTube (39%) (Anderson & Jiang, 2018).
Despite widespread use of social media, its adoption by youth has been met with concern,
both from adults and from youth themselves. Some participants in Anderson and Jiang’s (2018)
study noted they felt social media brought harm to their interpersonal relationships, caused
distraction, and/or allowed for a wider dissemination of negative or problematic information.
While parents and other adults frequently raise concerns about youths’ use of social media
due to the large amount of time spent on social media replacing other activities such as face-to-
face socializing with friends, physical activity, time spent on homework, etc., some educators
have explored the uses of social media for supporting learning in both formal and informal
learning contexts. In these contexts, social media can open up opportunities for information
seeking, communication, collaboration, and media literacy among learners in different spaces
(Dennen et al., 2020).
In alignment with the New Media Literacies framework, researchers interested in adoles-
cents’ uses of social media have studied writing in informal contexts such as fanfiction com-
munities (Curwood et al., 2013; Lammers & Marsh, 2015) as well as in formal educational
settings (Galvin & Greenhow, 2019). As an interest-driven practice, writing online through
social media fosters connections with like-minded peers and provides opportunities to ex-
periment with different genres of writing (Ito et al., 2019). Some research has posited that
although the writing youth do in school and outside of school may look different, they intersect
and reinforce each other, ultimately leading to stronger writing skills and the development of
identity as a writer. Furthermore, research has suggested that there is value in incorporating out-
of-school writing practices – such as writing on social media – within the classroom in order to
increase interest and motivation and promote development of literacy across different types of
media (Black, 2009; Galvin & Greenhow, 2019; Ito et al., 2019). These and other studies of
youths’ writing practices have highlighted the value of sharing work with an audience as well as
receiving and responding to feedback. In a recent study focused on what youth learn from
giving and receiving feedback on media production projects, Friesem and Greene (2019)
highlighted collaboration, engagement, and critical thinking as outcomes. Feedback can re-
cognize and reinforces the collaborative skills that go into producing media, provide oppor-
tunities to engage with one’s audience, and challenge creators and audiences alike to critically
assess the content and form of the media they encounter.
Social media also provide opportunities for identity development, or learning about who
one is and where one fits in the world. Research on social media conducted with teens has
focused on the ways in which young people use social network sites to play with and express
aspects of their identities. For example, drawing from prior research in interpersonal

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communication and psychology, danah boyd (2014) described teens’ processes of impression
management in online social networks, wherein much of the information conveyed to others in
face-to-face communication is not available because cues from one’s body are not present. In
this context, youth need to learn to present themselves using text, images, sounds, and other
media, rather than corporeal symbols and signals. Looking at both teens and slightly older
emerging adults, Davis and Weinstein (2017) examined the ways in which youths’ use of social
media intersects with identity development, pointing to careful curation and alteration of
identity expression over time – that is, young people choose the aspects of identity to present
online and later remove, revise, or replace media that they believe no longer represents them.

Conclusion
Despite two decades of research on new media and learning, numerous questions remain,
particularly as new media themselves continue to change rapidly. In addition to considering
changes to children’s media ecologies as innovative new media enter the marketplace and
classroom, a number of pressing issues related to equity and participation with new media exist.
Finding ways to address inequalities in access to new media – including approaches to closing
the participation gap between young people with robust access to participatory cultures and
those without and methods for bridging informal and formal learning spaces – is of prime
importance, as is considering ways for new media to support youth’s development of ethical
and civic participation. In years to come, the shared interest among diverse sectors in under-
standing these and other issues related to new media and learning will surely be an asset to
improving educational outcomes and possibilities.

SEE ALSO Chapter 52 by Fisch in this volume.

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 54
MEDIA LITERACY
Renee Hobbs

Research in media literacy (ML) has been called “a veritable sprawl” that ranges so broadly and
widely across so many fields and disciplines that it is difficult to present a comprehensive picture of
it (Andersson & Danielsson, 2021, p. 15). To capture this diverse range of work, some scholars use
the term “media literacies” to acknowledge the number of different approaches that are now in
wide circulation around the world. Recently, the term critical computational literacy (Lee &
Soep, 2018) has arisen to address the intersection of coding and youth media, and public health
and communication researchers have introduced the term porn media literacy to address inter-
ventions for adolescents and young adults that explore the relationship between the use of sexually
explicit internet material (SEIM) and views of women as sex objects (Rothman et al., 2020).
Globally, there are now many scholarly and professional journals and associations where
accounts of practice and research knowledge are shared regionally and internationally. In 2019,
a record-breaking 193 countries declared an official Global Media and Information Literacy
(MIL) Week at the 40th Session of the UNESCO General Conference (2020). That same year,
the International Communication Association sponsored the publication of the two-volume
International Encyclopedia of Media Literacy (Hobbs & Mihailidis, 2019) and Google hosted a
Global Media Literacy Summit in London, where European researchers shared insights with
journalists and technology leaders (Google News Initiative, 2019). Indeed, it is nearly im-
possible to map the full scope of actions taken by policymakers, educators, and academics
around the world to advance media literacies in the many contexts where they occur.
As technologies of communication continue to dominate every aspect of children’s growth
and development, the appeal of media literacy education (MLE) is intuitive and obvious to
many. As Dezuanni (2018) puts it, “All media literacy education is a form of adult intervention
in young people’s media experiences” (p. 247). Although media literacy education increasingly
does include work with adults (American Library Association, 2020; Haines & Campbell, 2016;
Knuuti, 2020), most of the emphasis is on the needs of children, adolescents, and young adults.
As a transdisciplinary knowledge community of educators, researchers, and policymakers, there
is growing consensus that MLE aims to develop competences that are relevant for modern
democratic societies, helping to advance the values, attitudes, skills, knowledge, and under-
standing that allow citizens to use media effectively and safely (Council of Europe, 2018).
Growing up today, children and teens must learn to identify news and advertising, spot ste-
reotypes, appreciate how to use quality journalism to make informed civic decisions, understand

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-60 475

 Renee Hobbs

how influencers influence, resist clickbait, discern false information and hoaxes, and cope with
propaganda, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. In this chapter, I offer a sense of the scope of
scholarly work in media literacy by conceptualizing a bit of the diversity of approaches used by
different members of the media literacy community. In the years ahead, researchers may be well-
poised to identify a developmental trajectory of media literacy competencies that apply to different
cultural and social contexts.

Research Paradigms in Media Literacy

Efforts at deep synthesis of the multidisciplinary “family” of new literacies has emerged as media
literacy curriculum becomes more widespread in schools and communities around the world
(DQ Institute, 2019). Table 54.1 offers a sample visual representation of typical ML curriculum
outcomes, organized by developmental level, showing key themes that can be found in the
context of implementation. Organizing themes include: Creating and taking action as a digital
author and responsible media consumer; analyzing and reflecting on media using practices of
critical evaluation; and gaining knowledge about media genres, industries, and systems in so-
ciety. The outcomes shown are becoming normative practices in media literacy education
around the world (Kačinová, 2018).

Table 54.1 Media Literacy Curriculum Outcomes: Core Elements in Developmental Sequence

Developmental Use, create, and act Analyze and reflect Understand and apply
level

Early childhood Develop skills in Recognize how Identify distinctive

(ages 3–7) comprehending and expressive symbols features of media
interpreting media activate emotion and genres as part of the
messages shape perceptions of meaning-making
reality process
Middle Use digital tools to construct Compare & contrast Recognize authorial
childhood media using images, media representations intent and the
(ages 8–12) language, sound, and from multiple authors context of message
multimedia to express and points of view interpretation
ideas and information
Young teen Make strategic and Consider the Gain knowledge of the
(ages 13–15) intentional choices as a consequences of media technologies used to
communicator with messages on attitudes construct and
awareness of potential and behavior disseminate media
audience response messages
Teen Work collaboratively to Reflect on the personal Understand economic
(ages 16–18) compose media that biases of message models for mass
addresses a relevant social selection, media and digital
issue interpretation, and media creation and
meaning making dissemination
Young adult Develop an identity as a Evaluate media content Appreciate legal and
(ages 19–25) digital author, a and platforms in regulatory approaches
responsible media relation to values and used to limit risks,
consumer, and an engaged ideologies harms, and abuses of
citizen power

Adapted from Hobbs (2021).

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 Media Literacy

As ML interventions are tested in a variety of learning contexts, curricular resources are

widely varied, and many are developed by NGOs, academics, or educational media companies.
A rich practice literature also documents the design and development of media literacy cur-
riculum resources and materials (Andersson & Danielsson, 2021; Cheung & Xu, 2016; Literat
et al., 2021; Rogow, 2015; Scull et al., 2020).
Experts acknowledge there are many factors which make it difficult to reliably measure the
media literacy competencies of children and youth (Schilder et al., 2016).
Yet, measures of media literacy have been developed by researchers in Germany (Festl,
2021), Hong Kong (Lin et al., 2013), Australia (Notley & Dezuanni, 2019), England (Ofcom,
2020), and many other countries. There are now specialized measures that focus on news
literacy competencies (Maksl et al., 2015), new media literacy (Literat, 2014), social media
literacy (Festl, 2021), and other topics. Researchers have even developed instruments to
measure media literacy competencies in relation to food media literacy (Nelson, 2016) and the
ability to analyze news about violence against women (Alagözlü et al., 2019).
Survey researchers have finally begun to document the scope of implementation of media
literacy in the U.S. and around the world. For many years, researchers had little to offer when
journalists asked, “How many students are exposed to MLE?” A survey of Australian teachers
found that more than half identify teaching about news as very important, but only 20% address
it in the classroom (Nettlefold & Williams, 2021). Survey research with U.S. elementary
educators found that 20% of teachers of 5- to 8-year-olds and 39% of teachers of 9–11-year-olds
are reporting that they teach at least some news and media literacy in the context of digital
citizenship (Lauricella, et al., 2020). A nationally representative survey of K-12 teachers found
that most U.S. educators believe that media literacy education is occurring in their schools, and
40% say media literacy is integrated into existing classes, with schools serving racially-ethnically
diverse students less likely to report media literacy programs (Baker et al., 2021).

Competencies of Children
Some educators design learning experiences with the assumption that young learners are active
interpreters of the media they encounter (Olson et al., 2019). Young children may display a set
of verbal competencies in describing their engagement with media texts at home which may
function as precursors to more advanced skills of analysis and critical thinking which are evident
among adolescents (Hobbs & RobbGrieco, 2012). Studies of young children’s media literacy
competencies in the elementary grades generally focus on moving image media (Bazalgette,
2010). Only a few studies have examined the emerging media literacy competencies of pre-
schoolers. Diergarten and colleagues (2017) examined the developmental trajectory of media
literacy competencies by developing an online test using media that are commonly used by
young children. Children watched a video and used an online learning game, and they were
asked questions after each task that measured the ability to differentiate between TV realism and
fiction, to differentiate between media genres, and identify how character point of view is
portrayed visually, among other items.
With a strong focus on empowerment, some media literacy educators and scholars celebrate
creative and expressive practices where media production activities help children and young
people to advance confidence, agency, and self-efficacy (Dezuanni, 2018; Gauntlett, 2011; Hobbs,
2017). Through collaborative hands-on creative work with media, learners develop a sense of
agency, empowerment, and social responsibility. Researchers have examined how the practice of
collaboration creates opportunities for at-risk children to give and receive feedback, commu-
nicative practices that can advance self-esteem, empathy and care (Friesem & Greene, 2020).

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Competencies of Teens
Researchers have explored the extent to which MLE may inspire critical and analytical thinking
in young teens regarding media ratings practices in the U.S. To advance young teens’ critical
autonomy, it is important to ask questions about dominant media practices and representations.
After offering a lesson to middle-school students on media ratings, researchers used open-
ended, written exercises to collect data using questions that were designed to determine
whether the students engaged in skeptical reflection (Scharrer et al., 2020). Other performance-
based measures have asked children to interpret a media message or complete a task, using
screen recording technologies and think-aloud protocols to verbalize their thinking as they
interact with media content. This work can offer granular evidence with much value to
practitioners with interests in improving instructional strategies (Kohnen et al., 2020).
Research that assesses media literacy competencies of adolescents and young adults has pro-
liferated in recent years, in part due to sustained investment by the European Commission, the
U.S. State Department, digital platform companies, and other funders. In Ukraine, concerns
about Russian disinformation led to the creation of a media literacy program for teachers
(Murrock et al., 2018) which was then expanded to include high school students. In a study of
students in 50 Ukrainian high schools, researchers found that, compared to a control group,
students were better able to identify facts, opinions, and disinformation. They were twice as likely
to detect hate speech, better at identifying fake news stories, better at differentiating between facts
and opinions, and more knowledgeable about the news media industry. Similarly, research with
adolescents and young adults found that exposure to media literacy education in school was
associated with higher levels of online political participation (Kahne & Bowyer, 2019).
Perhaps the best-publicized research milestone in media literacy occurred in 2019, with a
study conducted by the Stanford History Education Group, as the media literacy competencies
of 8,000 students in the U.S. were evaluated using paper-and-pencil tasks as well as online
assessments. Children and teens were asked to evaluate screenshots of tweets, Facebook posts,
websites, and other content that students encounter online, and 90% of subjects were unable to
perform to the standard of evaluation established by professional fact checkers. Hundreds of
news stories reported how easily young people are duped. The researchers created new ter-
minology to describe the new competency: They called it online civic reasoning. It was defined
as the ability to evaluate digital content and reach warranted conclusions about social and
political issues by identifying who’s behind the information presented, evaluating the evidence
presented, and investigating what other sources say (McGrew et al., 2017). This pedagogy was
developed to align with a reading practice used by professional fact checkers, who confirm facts
and information using evidence from other web content (Wineburg & McGrew, 2019), and it
builds upon the document-based reasoning tasks used in secondary social studies education.
Critics may scoff at scoring children’s performance in relation to the practice of expert fact
checkers. However, education researchers who taught the technique to middle-school students
used evidence from participant screencast videos and class observations to demonstrate that
teacher modeling and scaffolded practice could inculcate a skeptical stance in adolescents as they
research the author or authoring organization (Walsh-Moorman et al., 2020).

Intervention Research
Media literacy education has been acknowledged as a protective factor in reducing the influ-
ence of racist or misogynistic stereotypes, media violence, and depictions of alcohol, tobacco or
substance abuse. This work generally relies on a cognitive processing model that centers on

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knowledge transmission as a means by which a reduction in media influence may occur (Potter,
2004). Research in such media literacy interventions is now a well-established body of
knowledge (Jeong et al., 2012), with many studies involving adolescents or college students and
featuring a short-term intervention as a quasi-experimental design with researchers acting as
agents who deliver content and then conduct a post-intervention evaluation.
When delivered in late childhood or early adolescence as an intervention or treatment,
media literacy education may help young people “resist pressure to consume an advertised good
and critically evaluate the message and source behind it” (Vahedi et al., 2018, p. 141). These
studies typically test the efficacy of a media literacy intervention through the use of self-report
measures of media literacy competence.
Researchers have studied how media literacy education affects consumer culture (Sekarasih
et al., 2018), substance abuse (Scull et al., 2017) and nutrition (Nelson et al., 2020), among
other topics. For example, Taiwanese children who participated in a food advertising literacy
program exhibited more knowledge about nutrition, food advertising literacy, and purchasing
behavior than those who received knowledge-based nutrition education or the control group
(Liao et al., 2016). In another study, third graders who participated in an advertising literacy
curriculum demonstrated understanding of the message’s creator, the selling intent, persuasive
strategy, and the target audience (Nelson, 2016). Recent research has found that media literacy
competencies are associated with the adoption of behaviors protective for COVID-19 (Austin
et al., 2021). In a longitudinal study, researchers have found that adolescents and young adults in
the Netherlands who discussed the impact of pornography on sexual attitudes and behaviors in
their school health classes at time 1 were less likely to use pornography at time 2, an important
finding that suggests that MLE can change media use habits and behavior (Vandenbosch &
van Oosten, 2017).

Conclusion
As social justice movements develop momentum around the world, discourses of inequality,
race, and power present become important and yet there is only a slender literature available
that directly addresses these topics in relation to media literacy education. Scharrer and
Ramasubramanian (2015) found evidence that MLE can promote an understanding of the role
of media in producing and reproducing racial and ethnic stereotypes, even for very young
children. Morrell (2021) calls for activities that use analysis and creative media production to
interrogate how mainstream media configure social values. When creative media production is
tied with social activism in classrooms, researchers have documented how students’ stances offer
critiques of racial stereotypes (McArthur, 2019).
As political polarization grew more intense along with increased distrust of mainstream news
media, boyd (2017) wondered if media literacy education was sufficient to shift the cultural
norms as reliance on lived experience and trusted influencers seems to be replacing traditional
sources of authority. Research in Europe has shown that classroom teachers may lack basic
levels of familiarity with media literacy analysis activities, preventing them from developing a
satisfactory level of media literacy competencies themselves (Ranieri et al., 2019). For these
reasons, Mihailidis and Viotty (2017) have called for media literacy educators to respond di-
rectly to the growing lack of trust in gatekeepers, which has contributed to polarization, dis-
trust, and self-segregation.
With many different contexts, target audiences and outcomes, educators and researchers
make important decisions about how to implement MLE programs and measure media literacy
competencies. Research that depicts children or young people as lacking in media literacy

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competencies may serve to advance particular policy goals (Cappello, 2017). In Flanders,
Belgium, different political parties rallied around media literacy as a common denominator for
the challenges posed by the changing digital media environment. In particular, the empow-
erment view on media literacy charmed the left, middle, and right of the political spectrum
(Van Audenhove et al., 2018). As researchers produce useful knowledge in the years to come, it
should be informed by a deep awareness of how media literacy education initiatives and the
research that supports it can function to challenge or maintain the social status quo.

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 55
MEDIA INFLUENCES AND THE
MEDICAL COMMUNITY
IN THE U.S.
Michael Rich

The medical community has long had a conflicted relationship with screen media (Rich, 2007).
With the rapid proliferation and integration of television into families’ lives during the 1950s,
some physicians recognized its potential to engage, educate, and empower the public to im-
prove health (American Medical Association, 2000); others were concerned that indiscriminate
use of television might contribute to unhealthy outcomes (Smith, 1952). These polarized
perspectives arose from and have been perpetuated by the medical community’s incomplete
understanding of how media work and influence users, and how using media in focused,
mindful ways could be part of a developmentally optimal, healthy lifestyle.
From the 1946 American Medical Association (AMA)-sponsored “Cavalcade of Medicine”
or today’s medical dramas, entertainment television has sporadically attempted to increase
health literacy in the general population. However, with notable exceptions, such as the work
of Neal Baer, MD, a television writer-producer who trained as a pediatrician and understood
how television can inform and empower audiences, popular medical television dramas tend to
prioritize engaging narrative over medical accuracy.

The Danger Paradigm

Although intrigued by opportunities for improving health literacy, the medical community has
been more concerned about negative influences of screen media use on physical and mental
health. This danger paradigm originated in the 1930s and 1940s when academics worried about
the influences of motion pictures, radio, and comic books on youth. The rapid penetration of
television into homes amplified the issue, triggering congressional hearings on whether radio
and television influenced children by glamorizing immorality, crime, and violence (United
States Congress House Committee on Interstate Foreign Commerce, 1952). The conclusion –
there was too much violence on television.
Industry executives insisted that violence would be limited by the Television Code, but a
Gallup poll two years later indicated that 70 percent of Americans believed television con-
tributed to adolescent problems (Gallup, 1954). New hearings consulted psychologists, psy-
chiatrists, and public health leaders on whether television viewing contributed to juvenile
delinquency. Clinical observations supported by scant scientific evidence were countered by
network representatives who portrayed such concerns as values-based moral panic unsupported

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-61 483

 Michael Rich

by scientific evidence, arguing that constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of expression

should prevail. These arguments polarized debate and stalemated serious discourse on the health
effects of screen media use for decades.

Medical Involvement Begins

Continued clinical concerns were first addressed formally in 1972 by a committee of psy-
chologists and television executives convened by the U.S. Surgeon General which concluded
that some children who viewed violent media were at risk for increases in aggressive behavior
(Murray et al., 1972). Although legislative action was again stalemated by First Amendment
arguments, the report reinforced the danger paradigm for the medical community, which fo-
cused on preventing harmful effects of media use, rather than making informed re-
commendations based on a balanced assessment of scientific evidence.
Following the 1972 Surgeon General’s report, “America’s Pediatrician” T. Berry Brazelton
(1974) observed that “a child comes away from a television set believing that physical violence
is a perfectly acceptable form of self-expression.” Maintaining his trademark optimism, how-
ever, he suggested that “active participation on the part of the parent, as well as the child, may
begin to make television the valuable experience it should be” (Brazelton, 1974, pp. 10–11).
Building on the premise that screen media use could harm child health, the American Academy
of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended that pediatricians assess it in medical histories and include it
in the anticipatory guidance provided in children’s annual health maintenance visits.
Peer-reviewed research on media effects first reached the medical literature in a review of 146
peer-reviewed behavioral science papers on media violence (Rothenberg, 1975). Fifty studies
involving 10,000 children and adolescents, “all showed that violence viewing produces increased
aggressive behavior in the young” (Rothenberg, 1975, p. 1043). Children who viewed more
violence showed “decreased emotional sensitivity to media violence” and learned “novel, ag-
gressive behavior sequences” (Rothenberg, 1975, p. 1044). Because children’s programs por-
trayed violence six times as frequently as adult television, and because that violence was often
sanitized and presented as justified or heroic, the author concluded that “immediate remedial
action in terms of television programming is warranted” (Rothenberg, 1975, p. 1045).
The AMA used these findings to energize the medical community around the issue of
television violence. It adopted resolutions stating its concerns, encouraged networks to replace
violence with positive programming, and urged the National Institute of Mental Health to fund
research on television violence and its effects on children. Testifying to a congressional sub-
committee, an AMA psychiatrist challenged broadcasters’ claims that they do not influence
behavior, saying that motivating the sale of products was a primary goal of television. The AAP
urged pediatricians to “actively oppose television programs emphasizing high degrees of vio-
lence and antisocial behavior which detrimentally affect the attitudes and social behavior of
children” (American Academy of Pediatrics, 1977, p. 1). Concluding that advertising to chil-
dren, who do not yet understand persuasive intent, represented “commercial exploitation of
children for profit,” the AAP demanded a “ban on all television advertisements during pro-
grams in which a majority of the audience is composed of children under twelve years of age”
(American Academy of Pediatrics, 1978, Appendix 9).

Public Debates and Shaping Policy

To educate parents about television viewing and its effects on children’s knowledge, attitudes,
and behavior, the AAP created the Task Force on Children and Television in 1983. Addressing

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concerns about how television could influence nutrition, sleep, school performance, substance
use, sexuality, stereotypes, and worldview, the Task Force also focused on media’s unrealized
potential for beneficial learning. Energized by the 1982 National Institute of Mental Health’s
ten-year follow-up to the Surgeon General’s report on television and behavior, which found
media violence to be “as strongly correlated with aggressive behavior as any other behavioral
variable that has been measured” (Pearl, United States Surgeon General’s Scientific Advisory
Committee on Television and Social Behavior, & National Institute of Mental Health, 1982,
p. 6), the AAP began issuing policy statements in the mid-1980s (American Academy of
Pediatrics, 1984). These moved beyond the issue of violence and asserted the medical com-
munity’s responsibility to assess media-related health risks, to educate patients, and to advocate
for health-supportive programming. Acknowledging the dearth of medical research on media
effects, the AAP called on health researchers to pursue and publish scientific inquiry on how
media use influences children’s physical, mental, and social health.
Growing from no research reports on media effects during the 1950s and 1960s, and only 12
in the 1970s, there were 34 studies published in health journals during the 1980s, 117 in the
1990s, and 450 in the 2000s (Rich, 2007). This increase motivated parallel increases in public
education and policy statements by major health organizations (Schmidt et al., 2008).
The emergence of mobile and media in the 2010s led to continued increases in media research
published in top medical journals and in emerging specialty journals focused solely on the health
effects of media use. Pediatricians produced 35 policy statements regarding media effects on health
between 1984 and 2021 (some of which have since been retired due to the evolution in digital
media). They addressed clinical concerns from different perspectives, focusing on specific media
(television, popular music, digital advertising), health outcomes (violence, substance use, sexual
risk behaviors), and developmental issues (attention, imagination, creativity). Other health or-
ganizations, from the American Medical Association to the American Academy of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry, followed suit, intermittently issuing policy statements, fact sheets, and
strategies for integrating media considerations into clinical practice.
The 1999 AAP policy discouraging television viewing by children under two had ignited a
controversy between child advocates and the entertainment industry, which argued there was
little science supporting this recommendation. A 2003 survey revealed that only 6% of U.S.
parents were even aware of AAP recommendations for toddlers’ screen time, let alone ob-
serving them (Rideout et al., 2003). With the explosion of the internet in the first decade of the
21st century, proliferation of mobile devices, and penetration into families’ lives at a rate ex-
ponential to that of television a half century before, screen time limits originated in the tele-
vision era became functionally obsolete, serving only to increase parents’ worries and guilt.
With the dramatic shift from receptive screen media, television, watched in the home to
interactive screen media, used anywhere on mobile devices, there were resulting spikes in
durations of children’s screen media use in the first two decades of the 21st century. Because the
media environment was evolving so rapidly, effects on child health and development observed in
the era of television were changing. Arguably the most noticeable change in AAP media policies
was the “relaxation” of the 1999 recommendation to discourage screen use under the age of 2
years. Developmentally positive affordances of interactive, touchscreen media, particularly video
chatting with relatives and friends, made it advisable to lower the recommended age of starting
screen use to 18 months in 2016 (Council and Communications and Media, 2016).
Lost in the polarized debate between advocates for children and advocates for screens was
the reality of the pediatrician’s role – to provide guidance for children and their parents based
on clinical observation and the best available scientific evidence. That’s true whether advising
on seatbelt use, nutrition, vaccination, or media use. As late as 2000, when a consensus

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statement on media violence was issued by the AAP and other national health organizations at a
bipartisan congressional briefing, it was dismissed by entertainment industry lobbyists as un-
supported, values-based opinion because of the limited scientific evidence available (American
Academy of Pediatrics et al., 2000).

The Need for Research that Can Be Applied to Health Care and Prevention
The inaccessibility of scientific evidence regarding media effects on health arose from several
historical realities. First, media effects research has been conducted by at least 18 disciplines:
anthropology, biology, business, communication, computer science, criminal justice, critical
studies, economics, education, gender studies, languages, law, medicine, psychology, public
health, social work, sociology, and theology. Because media are integrated into so many aspects of
contemporary human existence, any discipline that studies human behavior offers a perspective on
how we create and consume media. This diversity of perspectives presents a challenge to estab-
lishing a comprehensive evidence base that can be compared across disciplines and employed to
offer clear recommendations to improve health and human development (Borzekowski & Rich,
2012). Because few academics are able to stay current with the constantly growing scholarship
even within their own field, each body of research remains largely within the confines of its
discipline. Differences in language and methodology and a competitive academic culture dis-
courage effective interaction, communication, and collaboration. As a result, research had been
pursued in parallel, with similar, even duplicative studies conducted in isolation.
Recognizing the need to reframe the stalemated, values-based discourse as an issue of public
health that could be best elucidated with interdisciplinary science, the Center on Media and
Child Health (CMCH) was established at Boston Children’s Hospital in 2002 as a resource to
all stakeholders seeking to understand and respond to the positive and negative effects of media
on children’s health. CMCH recognized that media: were increasingly ubiquitous and in-
tegrated in work, education, communication and daily life; would not be effectively controlled
by legislation; and were unlikely to change due to the concerns of special interest groups,
regardless of how well-intentioned. Its goal was to raise scholarship to the next level by making
extant research accessible to all stakeholders and defining what we know and what we still
needed to discover. To build common ground for the study of media and child health, CMCH
created a comprehensive library of the “state of the knowledge” on these issues (Rich & King,
2008). This internationally accessible, constantly updated database of research, now updated and
titled Media Health Effects (MHE) is available at https://mediahealtheffects.org/ for use by re-
searchers, clinicians, educators, parents, policymakers, and anyone interested in media and
health. With a uniform nomenclature and format, the constantly updated MHE standardizes
citations across disciplines to facilitate comparison.
The interdisciplinary Journal of Children and Media devoted its February 2012 special issue
(6[1]) to the topic of media and child health, bringing together research from diverse disciplines
to enrich the discourse with complementary perspectives and reinforcing rigor. Recognizing
that policy statements lagged behind digital innovation, the AAP convened a 2015 symposium
of researchers, clinicians, technology companies, and entertainment producers to define chal-
lenges and opportunities presented by the Digital Revolution.

Reframing Media as a Public Health Issue

With the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 and iPad in 2010, screen use increased in the
second decade of the 21st century. In the U.S., infants under the age of 2 were regularly using

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media for almost 1 hour per day, toddlers 2.5 hours per day (Rideout et al., 2020). Children
ages 5–8 spent just over 3 hours/day, pre-adolescents 4.75 hours/day, and adolescents nearly
7.5 hours of active use per day (Rideout et al., 2019). Given children’s ever-growing en-
gagement with and immersion in media, research into specific effects of specific device use
grew rapidly in the second decade of the 21st century. “Big data” studies looked at the parallel
increases in smartphone use and adolescent depression and anxiety (Twenge et al., 2017).
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the existing body of research found associations be-
tween increased screen time and poorer sleep outcomes (Belmon et al., 2019; Janssen et al.,
2020) and increased risk for overweight/obesity (Fang et al., 2019). Screen time was found to
be associated with unfavorable mental health, cognitive and academic outcomes as compared to
“green time” in contact with nature, which was linked with favorable outcomes (Oswald et al.,
2020). Often as a correlate of screen time, sedentary behavior was examined as a predictor of
depression (Wang et al., 2019), anxiety (Zink et al., 2020), and bullying victimization (García-
Hermoso et al., 2020). Tech-based “exergames” (Valeriani et al., 2021) and behavioral inter-
ventions (Nguyen et al., 2020) have been evaluated to reduce sedentary behavior and the
American Heart Association published a scientific statement on reducing screen time and se-
dentary behavior to combat childhood obesity (Barnett et al., 2018).
Given the ubiquity of screens in most environments, in pockets and on wrists, “screen time”
became increasingly difficult to measure and less meaningful as a contributing factor to health
outcomes. Several research groups emerged to join CMCH in examining screen media as a
health influence. Jenny Radesky, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at the University of
Michigan, developed a robust body of research on media use in early childhood, including
effects of child and parent screen use on learning and child mental health, relational “tech-
noference” from parent’s screen use, and persuasive design of advertising and apps targeted on
children (McDaniel & Radesky, 2018a, 2018b; Meyer et al., 2019; Meyer et al., 2021). Megan
Moreno, an adolescent medicine specialist, founded the Social Media and Adolescent Health
Research Team (SMAHRT), developing and validating the first adolescent screening tool for
problematic use of interactive media (Jelenchick et al., 2014; Jelenchick et al., 2015; Midamba
& Moreno, 2016).
Problematic use of interactive media was first described as “Internet Addiction Disorder” in
a parody of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM) (Wallis, 1997). Seeing the powerful response from clinicians who recognized
the syndrome in themselves, psychologist Kimberly Young began investigating cases of in-
teractive media users who lost control, impairing their physical, mental, and social health
(Young, 1998). In the 2000s, China and South Korea recognized this increasingly prevalent
condition as a diagnosis and developed a dedicated clinical infrastructure of clinics, “detox”
centers and inpatient hospitals. Interactive gaming, online or offline, was the initial manifes-
tation that drew the attention of U.S. clinicians and the fifth edition of the once-parodied DSM
(American Psychiatric Association, 2013), included Internet Gaming Disorder as a condition
requiring further study to be included as a mental health diagnosis. Recognizing that not all
interactive gaming was online, the World Health Organization designated Gaming Disorder as
a diagnosis in 2018 (World Health Organization, 2018).
Faced with growing prevalence of Problematic Interactive Media Use, Boston Children’s
Hospital opened the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders (CIMAID) in 2017
(Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders, 2017). As the first clinic at an academic
medical center to address this disorder of the Digital Age, CIMAID committed to under-
standing and characterizing Problematic Interactive Media Use, recognizing co-morbidities,
and identifying risk factors that can be incorporated into medical histories at pediatric check-

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ups. At a teaching hospital, CIMAID seeks to establish accurate measures and clinical
nomenclature for a condition that researchers have given more than 80 labels, standardize
diagnostic and treatment strategies, and train physicians, psychologists, social workers, and other
clinicians to recognize and respond to Problematic Interactive Media Use.
After nearly 20 years of research on media effects on child health, CMCH realized that: (1)
the development and integration of digital media technologies into our lives were neither
stopped nor slowed by scientific findings of negative outcomes; (2) research and innovation had
revealed positive affordances of digital technologies that had not been fully realized; (3) media
were so ubiquitous, from big screens to wearables, that they were better characterized as the
environment in which we live than as vectors of risk or opportunity; and (4) tech and en-
tertainment companies were aware that the polarized “us versus them” advocacy dynamic
threatened to portray them as solely profit-driven and uncaring. Leveraging its robust evidence
base to reach out to stakeholders in tech, entertainment, and health insurance, CMCH brought
together this “team of rivals” to evolve into the Digital Wellness Lab in 2021 (Digital Wellness
Lab, 2021). Loosely modelled on the MIT Media Lab, these key stakeholders transparently
invest in, respond to, and implement the Digital Wellness Lab’s media effects research in their
product development, building and constantly improving the digital environment in which we
all live. To support children, families, and industry stakeholders, the Digital Wellness Lab is
focused on individual and societal wellness, independent of commercial interests, and agnostic
to positive or negative research findings.
With rigorous data on how media affect users, responsible producers can create successful
devices and content that do no harm and may improve the wellness of users. Parents, tea-
chers, and pediatricians can use reliable, valid information to assess how media might be
affecting children for whom they care. Just as science has guided parenting decisions about
nutrition and injury prevention, science can guide the production and consumption of media
that support and enhance children’s physical, mental, and social health. The digital en-
vironment presents both opportunity and risk for children’s health and development. If the
medical community, and society at large, can move beyond the danger paradigm and make
informed choices based on evidence, we can move forward to live, parent, and use media in
ways that promote wellness.

SEE ALSO Chapter 20 by Dedkova, Machackova, and Smahel, Chapter 28 by Harrison and
Kemp, Chapter 29 by Calvert and Bond, Chapter 30 by Bleakley and Ellithorpe, and Chapter
37 by Meehus and Eggermont in this volume.

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 56
BRIDGING SCHOLARSHIP AND
THE MEDIA INDUSTRY
How Public Broadcasting Works with Academia

Linda Simensky

Personal Introduction
I have worked on the industry side of children’s media, and from 2003 until 2021, I oversaw
children’s programming for The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), working out of the PBS
headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. In the course of my career, I have been in charge of de-
velopment, mostly of animated series, at both Nickelodeon at the start of Nicktoons and Cartoon
Network in its early days. I have been known to dabble in academia, having written chapters for
five academic books in addition to having taught and lectured at colleges in the course of my
career. I have had a unique vantage point for watching the relationship (and often the non-
relationship) between the kids’ media industry and the research community over the years.
Although I worked with researchers at both Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and
oversaw more than 100 focus groups, I had not worked closely with what we think of as
“experts,” people with advanced degrees either working at research companies or in academia
who are knowledgeable on topics ranging from child development to how children learn
particular topics. While at Nickelodeon, we invited a few advisors to weigh in on what a child
might get out of watching some of our shows. At Cartoon Network, as the channel was
considering making preschool shows, we asked an educational expert from a research company
about what challenges we could expect to encounter and what kids could gain from watching a
cartoon. The information we received in both cases was considered incidental to our decision-
making. Rather than thinking much about child development, we mostly focused on funnier
jokes, the acquisition of a larger audience, and higher ratings as we produced our series.

The Role of Academia in Commercial Versus Public Broadcasting

In 2003, I moved from commercial media over to PBS, the public broadcasting service in the
U.S., to head up PBS KIDS Programming, the department at PBS that oversees the devel-
opment and production of the television series for children aged 2 to 8 (see Simensky, 2007).
PBS KIDS is a popular and trusted educational media brand for kids. Through television, digital
media, and community-based programs, PBS KIDS encourages children to see themselves
uniquely reflected and celebrated in fun, diverse characters who serve as positive role models,
and to explore their feelings and discover new adventures along the way. Families can watch

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-62 491

 Linda Simensky

PBS KIDS anytime on the free PBS KIDS 24/7 channel and the PBS KIDS Video app,
available on mobile and connected-TV devices, no subscription required. PBS KIDS’ large
collection of mobile apps and the PBS KIDS website provide accessible content, including
digital games and streaming video to spark kids’ curiosity. PBS KIDS and local stations across
the country support the entire ecosystem in which children learn and grow – including their
teachers, parents, and community – providing resources to support children’s learning, anytime
and anywhere.
PBS worked closely with advisors of all sorts, particularly on children’s programming. Since
all children’s programming on PBS is educational, advisors developed and reviewed curricula,
gave feedback on pitches and series, and worked on both the formative and summative research
for series. PBS executives and producers are accountable to the American public and understand
that it is imperative to get the curriculum right. In my new position, I found myself colla-
borating with university professors, curriculum writers, child development experts, and re-
searchers who were adept at working with television and web producers to maximize the
amount that a viewer could learn from a series or a website.
I realized that where we ignored these advisors in commercial media, they were providing
crucial information to the producers of educational media. By reviewing the educational approach
to a particular subject and assessing it for age appropriateness, educational advisors could improve
the efficacy of educational media, particularly preschool programming, without detracting
from the entertainment value of the episode. This collaboration is necessary when you consider
that these forms of educational media could have significant impact on viewers’ lives if done
correctly. If one of the goals of educational media is to educate its viewers, then parents and
teachers are counting on the producers to do the research to confirm that the series are using
effective teaching techniques as well as accurate and age-appropriate information. Producers in
turn depend on the advisors for feedback and testing to make sure their series are effective.
In an article in the Journal of Children and Media (Simensky, 2008), I had the chance to look at
the relationship between academia and the industry, particularly with regards to research being
done independently. In this piece, I considered if academia was answering the questions that the
industry needed answered, or if it was simply going after hot button topics that could get news
coverage. I also wondered if it was possible for an independent research study to have results
that would be useful to the industry, as opposed to results that would be ignored or denied. I
noted that, in my opinion, academia could be judgmental and critical when it should be
analytical and focused. I also felt the industry could in turn be dismissive and defensive.
Ultimately, I concluded that working together could be accomplished through researching
topics of mutual interest and presenting results in language the industry could easily understand.
While the educational side of children’s media instinctively understands the importance of
sharing information and creating a dialogue, this relationship is rare in commercial media be-
yond preschool programming, particularly where there exists a more adversarial relationship
between academia and the media. Nevertheless, there are areas where advisors can contribute to
the understanding of kids and media across the entire industry, particularly with regards to what
is age appropriate or even what is funny. And yet there is limited collaboration of this sort
beyond educational media, public broadcasting, and preschool programming.
As noted earlier, commercial non-educational series produced for viewers aged 6–11 or
9–14 rarely work with child development experts or curriculum advisors at any point during
the development or production process. It is hard in some cases to see what advisors would
bring to the process of commercial production. The added time needed for experts to weigh in
or make adjustments and the extra expenses are seen as obstructions to making the series in a

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timely manner. The end result is that it takes less time to produce a non-educational series,
although the animation process is still extremely time-consuming regardless of the content.
In addition, many commercial television producers feel that advisors are not successful at
collaboration – that advisors tend to be literal and usually don’t bring much insight to a hu-
morous cartoon or an action series. Their feedback is not always easily understandable by non-
academicians. The two groups don’t always share the same goals.
While it’s not crucial for commercial producers to work with experts, there certainly are
times when everyone involved would benefit from a better understanding of age appro-
priateness or what a viewer might get out of watching a show. Even the opportunity to read
relevant studies would be beneficial for the industry.

Obstacles to Collaborations
There are certainly logical reasons why advisors are not involved with certain types of pro-
gramming. While they have a very specific role to play with educational programming, par-
ticularly preschool programming, it is not clear to everyone in the media industry what these
advisors can bring to other types of series.
It is important to consider that the inclusion of advisors adds to the cost of the series and the
length of time it takes to produce the material. Working with advisors can add up to two years
to the development process as well as extra time to the production process. While every tel-
evision series is different and requires a unique set up, production on a series, particularly an
animated series, takes a significant amount of time. Animation, regardless of whether it’s 2D or
3D, whether it is done by hand or using a computer program, requires painstaking frame-by-
frame work that cannot be done any more quickly than studios currently do it. In addition,
when producing an educational series, the research and testing that go into the formative period
of an educational production add at least a year or more to the process. For an educational
preschool or early elementary school-age children’s series, if everything moves as quickly as
possible, it takes approximately two and a half to three years from the generation of a series idea
to the point where a series is ready to premiere. For a commercial, non-educational children’s
series, if everything moves as quickly as possible, it takes approximately two years from the
generation of a series idea to the point where a series is ready to premiere. A commercial series
can take a full year less than an educational series to produce.
The curriculum specialists and advisors for a series usually include experts on all facets of the
particular topic for the series (i.e., areas of science, math or reading). While still in the formative
stages of development, producers try to have a variety of advisors with different areas of ex-
pertise on a particular topic work on their show. Generally, these teams of advisors also include
at least one child development expert, one school or preschool teacher who teaches the series
curriculum to children in the target age, and one or two college professors who are experts on
the topic. At times, finding the right experts for a project can take up to two months.
Sometimes an advisory board is assembled; this can involve additional experts. In the formative
stages of some shows, as many as 10 to 15 advisors may weigh in with feedback.
Finding the right advisors can be a complicated process. According to producer Carol
Greenwald (who produces the series Arthur, about an animated Aardvark and his family and
friends, Curious George, which is based on the books by Margret and H.A. Rey, and Martha
Speaks, an animated series about a talking dog, focused on teaching vocabulary, for PBS) of
GBH, the PBS station in Boston, it is important to find the advisors who have the best feel for
the material and have a range of experience. Most importantly, she notes that advisors must also
like the show idea and believe that children can be taught through media (Greenwald, 2012).

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The Contributions of Advisors

The advisors weigh in at various points in the production process, starting at the very beginning,
since the idea of the series and the curriculum need to be integrated early on. The advisors review
the curriculum, which is written by a curriculum writer, and then review the series proposal, the
document that explains the basic idea for a series. This document features an overall explanation of
what the series is about, character descriptions and designs, background and setting designs, story
ideas, an example of a script, the curriculum document, and an explanation of the interactive plan
for the series (including a digital plan that includes a website and games, as well as ideas for apps
and other extensions of the series). At this point, the many advisors on the team sometimes need to
resolve their own differences of opinion. Greenwald noted that when the series Martha Speaks was
being developed, one advisor, a noted vocabulary expert, felt that the series curriculum needed to
feature as many vocabulary words as possible in each episode. Conversely, another advisor on the
team believed the series needed to focus on a limited number of words used repeatedly
throughout the story. The producers had to make an executive decision based on what they felt
the stories could best accommodate (Greenwald, 2012).
The advisors also make sure the educational age skew of the curriculum used in the overall
idea and in the story ideas matches the age skew of the intended viewers. Many educational
series will do the formative testing at this phase and then make adjustments as needed.
Following this, frequently, the network commissions an 11-minute or 22-minute pilot. The
pilot is then tested in focus groups or through other market research techniques for appeal and
efficacy of the teaching of the subject matter. If the pilots test well and the network is generally
happy with the overall direction and test results, these pilots then have the possibility to move
forward into series, with or without adjustments. When a production is at the piloting stage, the
advisors remain involved and continue to give feedback.
Depending on the project, sometimes during the formative testing period, the advisors and
producers also will need to consider the socioeconomic status of potential viewers and may
need to analyze the difference between middle-class viewers and low-income viewers in terms
of their ability to understand, relate to, or absorb the curriculum of a series.
Advisors continue to weigh in once a series is in production. For certain kinds of
curriculum-based series such as science-based series, a curriculum specialist and/or expert will
be assigned a list of topics and will research the topics and the age-appropriate curriculum for
each topic. This process takes anywhere from three weeks to three months, is incorporated into
the writing schedule, and must be done for each episode. An example of the three-month
research process would be the PBS series Dinosaur Train, an animated series for preschoolers that
focuses on paleontology, life science and natural history. Episodes frequently involve the in-
troduction of a new dinosaur species to viewers; two experts who work on the series generate a
new curriculum document for each episode.
At times, producers of a series will need to assess the effectiveness of their series in teaching its
curriculum. At that point, the producers will commission summative research to determine how
effective a series is. As a note of interest, in addition to adding time to the production process,
adding research and/or the curriculum review of scripts adds $5,000 to $10,000 per episode.

The Case of PBS

Besides the advisors who work on specific educational series, PBS uses a variety of experts and
advisors both on series and as general advisors. PBS, along with its partner, the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting, receives a five-year Ready To Learn grant from the U.S. Department of

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Education that funds a comprehensive multi-media learning and engagement initiative, which
includes content designed to meet the needs of American children.
The children’s programming department includes a Director of Content and Curriculum for
the Ready To Learn grant, who is in charge of overseeing content development and curriculum
integration across multiple media platforms. In the past, there has also been a PBS Kids Next
Generation Media Advisory Board that has provided PBS Kids management with strategic
counsel regarding research, content and distribution, business development, and educational
and community impact for children’s media. This group existed for ten years, and the board
members worked with PBS Kids to examine how rapidly evolving technology was changing
the media and educational landscape, and considered the implications for PBS Kids viewers.
These advisors met with the PBS Kids staff annually for a two-day conference at PBS head-
quarters. In addition, PBS called on individual board members as needed throughout the year to
provide project-based advice relevant to their unique area of expertise.
Every children’s series on PBS also creates and maintains a series website on pbskids.org as well
as additional digital experiences such as e-books and apps for such devices as mobile phones and
tablets. These sites and apps are considered an integral part of the series experience for viewers and
require attention from advisors as well. Advisors also weigh in on outreach materials to assess that
the materials are enhancing the learning from the series and digital applications.
Unlike commercial media, PBS series receive funding from independent federal agencies
such as the National Science Foundation. PBS also receives funding from various foundations,
such as the Kern Family Foundation.
These grants frequently require the participation of additional educational experts from
academia who have experience and advanced knowledge germane to the subject matter of a
particular grant. The people who receive these grants are accountable and must prove that they
move the needle, their work is impactful, and they are worthy of receiving the funds. The
shows, websites, and apps they work on must be testable, and must show that they can posi-
tively impact the viewers who watch or use them.
In addition to the advisors who work on the content side of the grants, the government
agencies also use advisors and experts to help choose the projects to receive funding. These
government agencies also use independent experts to assess the efficacy of the media or the
overall success of the grant. For example, Brian Lekander, the U.S. Department of Education’s
Program Manager of the Ready To Learn Television grant, is tasked with finding these advisors
and experts for both grant application panel reviews as well as quality reviews such as the
Government Performance Results Act (GPRA) accountability review and various research
reviews. To find qualified experts who have significant practical experience or research
backgrounds, the Department of Education has open calls that are widely distributed to the
public through Federal Register notices. They also bring in successful reviewers from similar or
relevant programs, get recommendations from grantees or via professional networks, and are
implementing a new centralized reviewer database, which houses a pool of individuals any
program can rely upon. These advisors participate through leadership events such as conferences
and symposia, and occasionally in publications (Lekander, 2012).
Lekander noted two major challenges in finding the right advisors. It is critical to find
advisors in the community who do not have a conflict of interest or could stand to benefit if a
particular production entity is chosen. He has also found that it can be difficult to find advisors
who have the right backgrounds and knowledge to review specific topics. For example, he
completed a search for reviewers to look at a variety of educational media. In a search for
advisors with expertise in early learning and mathematics, he found that the media people did
not know math, the math people did not know media, and the technology specialists were not

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up to speed on either math or media. Most of the early education mathematics experts referred
were already connected to one of the grantees being evaluated, leading to conflict of interest
concerns. His compromise was to use combinations of people for this particular review. He
found ultimately that educators were the most successful reviewers since they were the best at
gauging efficacy (Lekander, 2012).

Access to Experts Moving Forward

In recent years, there has been a greater need for feedback and insight from experts with a range of
knowledge and experience in various fields. As the study of brain science improves, there is
increased access to information about how children attend to and understand video content and
play games. As technologies become more advanced and more pervasive, additional knowledge is
needed to understand how their use can impact children. And with current events and the urgent
crises that face humans today (i.e., environmental disasters, climate change, the COVID-19
pandemic, social and racial injustice, trauma and mental health challenges, etc.), input from
advisors is critical for knowing how children are impacted by and what they need to cope, adjust,
and respond to these stressors and challenges.
In the summer of 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, PBS KIDS produced
content to take on many of these topics, including programming to guide parents through
discussions of race and racism with their children, and in 2021, materials were designed to help
ease the transition back to school after a year during which many children were engaged in
virtual learning from home. This work required working closely with educators, child de-
velopment and curriculum experts, and practitioners – many who are university professors – for
guidance in all these areas.
Executives on the PBS KIDS team continually realize needs for additional advisors, parti-
cularly for newer areas of research. And grants frequently offer PBS KIDS new opportunities to
do research, test technologies, or study new topics, and apply principles such as Universal
Design for Learning, with the goal of creating content and improving the user experience to
reach the widest range of learners. A focus on Universal Design for Learning, also known as
inclusive design principles, led PBS KIDS to work with several advisors. Taking inclusive
design into account, a game on the PBS KIDS site could feature adjustable captions or fonts and
support for deaf and/or blind audiences, Spanish speakers, or players with disabilities.
In 2021, PBS KIDS added an advisory team with members who bring diverse perspectives
and experience in a wide range of areas including gender, racial, cultural, and ethnic identity,
bi- and multilingual learners, disabilities, mental health, low-income families and communities,
and more to guide diversity, equity, inclusion, and access initiatives.
Over the last few years, advisors have shared guidance on series such as Xavier Riddle and the
Secret Museum, which includes characters based on actual people from many different back-
grounds, advice on editorial guidelines, and thoughts on content that includes characters dis-
cussing issues related to race.
Cooperative efforts with academic researchers are also an important area of focus that can
benefit both the researcher and the content developer. PBS KIDS is interested in strengthening
the academic-industry relationship and has considered various ways to do that including sharing
data with researchers, encouraging graduate students to share their research findings on PBS
KIDS shows and games with PBS executives, and reaching out to universities with children’s
media research programs to develop mutually beneficial relationships. This has resulted in the
sharing of information and data, as well as opportunities for literature reviews, internships, and
access to content and processes for research purposes. For example, a team at Rutgers

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University undertook a review to help PBS KIDS discover and collect all the academic research
that featured any PBS KIDS content, and also took part in seminars for both the PBS team and
the Rutgers students and faculty. A team at Michigan State University was able to analyze data
using a PBS KIDS product, the Playtime Pad, a simple interactive pad that featured PBS KIDS
programming content and games. The team was able to assess learning gains and the impact of
this content in kindergarten classes. And PBS KIDS has added a call for research fellows to give
graduate students a chance to learn about how PBS KIDS operates and to work with PBS KIDS
data to model learning.

Necessary Improvements
Overall, the process of bridging scholarship with the media industry could benefit from a few
improvements that could make the experience better and easier for both sides. First, it is crucial
for both sides to speak the same language. Frequently, academic material is viewed as im-
penetrable by the rest of the media industry. It is important to write clearly and directly with the
idea in mind that if readers can follow the material, they will be more likely to implement the
recommendations.
Also, it is important for both sides to have knowledge about the other’s work. The academic
experts need to make an effort to understand the production process, for example, or the
importance of ratings to the network and why the show must work creatively and aesthetically.
Some advisors have expressed that writers are not able to put enough academic content in their
stories and then the advisors ask to write the stories themselves without understanding what
makes a story work creatively.
It helps when both sides understand the goals of a project and can work together. Advisors
should feel that the production and creative teams understand them and can implement their
suggestions. The members of the creative team in turn need to feel that they are getting helpful
and useful advice from the advisors, as opposed to direction they disagree with and negative
feedback. And it is important for advisors to have an appreciation of television, websites and
apps, and the belief that these platforms can be used to effectively impart knowledge.
Finally, it is necessary for academic experts to have a forum to share their findings with the
industry and to have opportunities to hear from experts through conferences, dialogues in
forums, and even conversations in casual settings.

SEE ALSO Chapter 52 by Fisch and Chapter 58 by Götz and Schneid in this volume.

References
Greenwald, C. (2012, 29 May). Telephone interview with author.
Lekander, B. (2012, 8 June). Telephone interview with author.
Simensky, L. (2007). Programming children’s television: The PBS model. In J.A. Bryant (Ed.), The
children’s television community (pp. 131–146). Lawrence Erlbaum.
Simensky, L. (2008). Peering out from the trenches: Reflections on the industry–academic relationship.
Journal of Children and Media, 2(2), 180–183.

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 57
DETERMINING QUALITY IN
CHILDREN’S MEDIA
Alexis R. Lauricella, Morgan Russo, Michael B. Robb,
and Ellen Wartella

There are several challenges to determining what is meant by quality in children’s media today,
rendering a single definition of “quality” extremely difficult. First, children consume large
quantities of media content on a variety of platforms and have been doing so since they were
very young (Rideout & Robb, 2019, 2020), such that each individual child’s experience with
media is unique. Second, digital media content is now presented across multiple platforms and is
developed for both entertainment and educational purposes (Rideout & Robb, 2020; Gutnick
et al., 2011). Third, due to the increasingly mobile nature of technology, the contexts in which
children are using media are constantly changing and thus influencing the quality of the ex-
perience. Fourth, with login information and data collection occurring on almost all web-based
games and apps, as well as the opportunity for children to create, publish, and share their own
content, there is a new need to examine the safety and privacy settings of each media ex-
perience that young children are using as part of the evaluation of its quality. In this chapter we
will discuss the ways in which media have been evaluated for their quality both historically and
now as well as highlight the critical importance of considering factors beyond just the content of
the media when determining what is a quality media experience for children today.

Historical Ratings and Classification Systems for Quality

Historically, the quality of children’s media was determined almost exclusively based on the
content, either by examining the prevalence of positive content, an absence of negative content,
or some combination of both. Many rating systems in the U.S., like those for movies (MPAA),
television (FCC), and video games (ESRB), were developed to warn parents about potential harm
by indicating age restrictions and content descriptions for potentially concerning content (Gentile,
2008). Age-based rating systems (e.g., PG13, TVY, E), specifically, evaluate media based on the
assumption that there is an agreed upon understanding of what content is appropriate for children
based on their age rather than other child characteristics. Often, these simplistic age-based rating
systems fail to align with parental preferences and values for their children (Cantor, 1998; Gentile
et al., 2011). As a result, the usefulness of these types of rating systems diminishes when there aren’t
agreed upon standards and the ratings fail to assess what parents’ value (Gentile, 2011).
Importantly, these rating systems vary in who is responsible for evaluating the content. While
movies and video games have independent raters, children’s television programs and apps have

498 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-63

 Determining Quality in Children’s Media

relied on producers and developers to classify their content as educational, for example. Historically,
policies have been enacted to support the development and airing of educational content. In the
United States, Congress passed the Children’s Television Act (CTA, 1990), which required
commercial broadcasters to provide programming specifically for children that has “education as a
significant purpose” and “be labeled as ‘E/I’ to identify the program to the public as educational/
informational for children” (Glaubke et al., 2008), but the legislation allowed the producers to self-
label their show as “E/I” content. Similarly, app developers are free to self-select the “educational”
category without meeting any regulated or rigorous requirements for learning outcomes or de-
velopmental appropriateness (Shuler et al., 2012). When popular educational preschool apps were
analyzed based on their learning techniques and developmental appropriateness, the majority failed
to employ techniques that support development and learning, like adaptive challenges, modeling,
feedback, and leveling (Callaghan & Reich, 2018), suggesting that these self-evaluation rating scales
may not accurately determine the quality of children’s media content.

Determining Quality Children’s Media Today

Defining quality media has never been a simple task (Lemish, 2010; Mikos, 2009) and new media
technologies make the task even harder. As described above, there is not one set criterion to rate
or classify children’s media and no existing formula to determine what constitutes quality chil-
dren’s media for different age groups and platforms. Rather, it may be more appropriate to ex-
amine separate but related factors that influence the quality of any media experience. Lisa
Guernsey (2007) highlighted the importance of examining the child, the content, and the context
to determine the quality of the media experience. Given the increase in self-created content and
data collected on children using web and app-based platforms, we add that it is critical to include
child privacy and safety into any evaluation of quality children’s media experiences.

Individual Child
First, the developmental abilities and age of the child are important for determining the quality
of media. Programs like Sesame Street, Blues Clues, and Super Why, are educational for
preschool-aged children and viewing is associated with a range of positive academic outcomes
(Anderson & Kirkorian, 2015; Linebarger, 2015). However, children younger than two may
not learn as easily from the same programs in the same way (see Anderson & Pempek, 2005 for
review). Younger children may need programming that is slower paced, more familiar char-
acters, increased social interactivity, or repetition of the content in order to learn from screen
presentations (Barr et al., 2007; Lauricella, 2011; Roseberry, 2009).
Research on apps have yielded similar results. In one study in the U.S., preschoolers showed
significant gains in vocabulary after playing a developmentally appropriate educational app,
suggesting that digital games can support learning (Dore et al., 2019). Ensuring the app is
developmentally appropriate though, can be a difficult task. Research on the app market in the
U.S. found that 40% of children’s language- and literacy-focused app descriptions gave little or no
indication of the specific age or developmental stage the app is designed for (Vaala et al., 2015). If
age and developmental ability are critical for determining the quality of the media experience, then
age descriptions and/or grade levels need to be readily available, transparent, and accurate.
Successful physical manipulation of interactive technologies is necessary for a child to have a
high-quality experience. As touchscreen technology increases in sophistication, younger chil-
dren are able to successfully manipulate and engage with interactive technologies. Choi and
Kirkorian (2016) found that while certain types of interactivity may give toddlers essential cues

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to guide focus, older children may be disrupted by it. The type of interactivity a child engages
in may support or hinder learning depending on their age and the task (Choi & Kirkorian,
2016; Aladé et al., 2016), therefore quality cannot be assessed without careful attention to the
target age-range and desired learning outcomes.
We also know that not all children are affected by media in the same manner (Piotrowski &
Valkenburg, 2015). While some children are more vulnerable and susceptible to negative effects
of media, others are relatively unaffected (Piotrowski & Valkenburg, 2015). A violent video
game or character may have adverse effects for one child while being seemingly innocuous for
another. We would be remiss to not factor the differential susceptibility of individual children
into an understanding of quality, depending on a host of additional variables such as personality,
gender, health, and disabilities.

Media Content
A second major consideration to assess quality of media is to examine the content itself.
Educational content that is developmentally appropriate has been associated with positive out-
comes including better academic achievement (Fisch, 2004), improved problem-solving skills
(Kirkorian & Anderson, 2009), and learning of prosocial lessons (Mares, et al., 2009). Programs
like Dora the Explorer simulate interaction, encouraging children to respond and directly interact
with the television content, improving engagement and learning (Calvert et al., 2007). In addi-
tion, when young children watch or interact with a known and trusted character, it has been
shown to boost learning outcomes (Calvert & Richards, 2014; Howard Gola et al., 2013).
Children’s television research has made clear that content features like meaningful characters,
repetition, and quasi-social interaction can produce a higher-quality program (Piotrowski, 2014).
In contrast, scary or violent content has been shown to be associated with children’s sleep
problems (Garrison et al., 2011) and anxieties (Cantor et al., 2010). Playing violent video games
also has been associated with aggressive thoughts and cortisol levels suggesting activation of a
flight or fight response (Gentile et al., 2017). Television content that is not developed for child
audiences, but that children may see on the screen in the background (e.g., news or game
shows) also has been shown to negatively influence children’s play and interaction with parents
(Pempek et al., 2014; Schmidt et al., 2008). In sum, inappropriate and scary content can be
problematic, and what is scary or inappropriate for each individual child or family may differ,
making it hard to determine universals in quality content.
Another important content factor is the diversity and representation of the characters and
narratives. Access to diverse representations is related to increased self-regard and positive
identity development. Recent data indicate that the majority of human characters on children’s
TV in the U.S. and Canada were white (Lemish & Johnson, 2019). Further, just 1% in the U.S.
and 0% in Canada had a sign of disability and only 2% of characters were portrayed as lower
economic class (Lemish & Johnson, 2019). Media creators must make improvements to create
quality content that represents and is inclusive of all children.

Context
Finally, it is important to examine the context of media use to fully understand the quality of
the experience, including the goals of the parent or user and the social or interactive nature of
the engagement. For example, researchers have documented that joint media engagement is a
desirable quality (Chiong, 2009; Lemish & Rice, 1986; Takeuchi & Stevens, 2011). Interactions
between adult caregivers and young children while using media can help children process

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information that they might not otherwise understand (Strouse et al., 2013; Berke et al., 2016).
Caregivers also may scaffold children’s learning by engaging in language-rich interactions
around media experiences, and by extending and elaborating on information embedded in the
media (Wood et al., 2016). Alternatively, joint play around certain media experiences with
siblings or children of similar abilities may provide opportunities for children to practice self-
regulation skills like turn-taking, tolerating frustration, impulse inhibiting, etc. (Zap & Code,
2009). Playing video games that do not offer traditional educational content or lessons may help
to provide other benefits (Powers et al., 2013; Ritterfeld & Weber, 2009) like improved in-
formation processing, problem-solving skills, or opportunities to practice and develop social
emotional or executive function skills like sharing, empathy, and inhibiting behavior.
In contrast, there are times when joint media engagement is not the goal of the media ex-
perience; parents may seek opportunities for their child to engage and be entertained while they do
other tasks. Research suggests that parents will search for media to fulfill specific needs; while one
app may fit a certain context, such as occupying a child while a parent cooks, giving siblings
something to do together, or complementing a school activity, it may not fit another (Broekman
et al., 2018). Therefore, determining quality based on the intended use of the media is critical.
Another measure of quality is whether the format and associated features of a platform or
technology are the appropriate choice for the given content. Touchscreen technology is much
easier for young children to control (Buckleitner, 2011) than more traditional computers that rely
on mouse or keyboard. If a toddler does not have the motor control to operate a computer mouse
efficiently, it is difficult to make computer content that is of high-quality for the child (Lauricella
et al., 2009). However, the same content may be considered very high-quality for elementary
school-aged children who have mastered their mouse control skills (Donker & Reitsma, 2007). The
interactivity of touchscreen technology provides a multitude of benefits for children who were once
limited by their fine motor skills, but studies have shown that depending on the task, interactivity
could also be a barrier to comprehension due to the cognitive effort required to process the content
and manipulate on-screen features (Aladé et al., 2016; Kirkorian et al., 2016).

Privacy and Security

Another layer of complexity to determining children’s quality media relates to children’s
privacy and protection from sharing personal information online. Many apps and platforms
collect huge volumes of information about children, tracking children’s activities and selling
their data, often without users’ knowledge. High-quality digital media should ensure that
children are protected and safe in their use. In 2013, the United States’ Children’s Online
Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was updated to address the changes in the way children under
13 were using and accessing digital media (Federal Trade Commission, 2013). But when re-
searchers analyzed close to 6,000 child-directed apps in 2018, they found that a staggering 57%
were potentially violating COPPA (Reyes et al., 2018), highlighting the importance of eval-
uating privacy and safety when determining quality media experiences for children. When
evaluating quality of children’s media, not only do we need to think about the child, content,
and context, but also the level of privacy and security, especially as an increasing number of apps
are focused on creating and sharing personal content.

Two Approaches to Determining Quality

Two approaches typify current efforts to understand what is meant by “quality” in children’s
media by examining media on multiple facets. In the U.S., expert review sites like the advocacy

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organization Common Sense Media in the U.S. (Common Sense website, n.d.) have become a
trusted resource for parents and educators looking for media recommendations. Common Sense
Media (CSM) has taken one approach: Create a universal rating system for children’s movies,
games, apps, websites, television shows, and books with multiple assessment points. CSM rates
media based on the child using a 5-point age appropriateness rating scale and an assessment of
whether the reviewers consider a piece of media content to be age-appropriate (for all media)
and easy to use (for interactive media). CSM also rates media with respect to several content
categories including scales of educational value, violence, sex, language, consumerism, and risky
behaviors. Importantly, CSM also rates each piece of media on privacy and safety. The CSM
reviews the privacy policies and terms of use for many media products and rates the products as
“pass,” “warning,” or “fail” based on their requirements for privacy and security. CSM has a
goal of rating media products to ensure families and educators have information to help them
make informed decisions.
An alternative approach to rating and examining every possible media experience is to
establish principles or definitions that help adults better differentiate and choose media based
on its quality. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop created a family guide to
using apps filled with resources including a checklist for finding and managing apps, activities
to foster joint media engagement, and recommended resources (The Joan Ganz Cooney
Center, 2014). Similarly, the Fred Rogers Center, focused on early learning and children’s
media, created a “Framework for Quality” for children’s media. Based on roundtable dis-
cussions with children’s media researchers, creators, and early childhood educators, they
proposed three guiding principles of quality in digital media for children birth through eight,
as well as five action areas for promoting the quality principles. These principles were focused
on quality media promoting well-being and healthy development while taking into account
the child, content, and context of use (Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s
Media, 2011).
As more digital media and new technologies make their way into children’s hands, orga-
nizations are balancing the need to codify an approach to evaluation while remaining flexible
for this innovative and rapidly developing field.

Conclusion
Understanding children’s quality media is a complex but important task. Ratings, awards, and
research can provide parents with resources to help inform their decisions about their children’s
media content, but often these systems fail to examine other factors that likely influence the full
quality of the media experience. Considering the children and the context of use as well as the
privacy and security of the child should be included in any new evaluations of the quality of the
media experience and is factored into evaluation by sites like Common Sense Media. However,
given the deluge of content that is put up daily on sites like for children to watch and engage
with, relying on systems to evaluate each piece of media will remain impossible. Therefore,
educating and supporting parents and teachers to evaluate content for quality through guides
and education may also be necessary, though this approach requires substantial individual effort.
A one-size-fits-all definition for children’s media quality will inevitably fall short of en-
capsulating the breadth of content available for children, and so multiple approaches may be
advantageous for different audiences with different needs.

SEE ALSO Chapter 58 by Götz and Schneid in this volume.

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 58
PROMOTING EXCELLENCE
IN CHILDREN’S TV
The Case of the Prix Jeunesse

Maya Götz and Kirsten Schneid

Introduction
A television program introduces a moderator who asks boys what they would do if a general
comes to them and says: “Go to the village, get the people together and shoot them. Should
you obey him or shouldn’t you?” A documentary introduces 11-year-old Guido who has
decided to become Nina. Six naked adults stand in front of a group of adolescents who can ask
questions about the adults’ bodies.
These descriptions are three examples of what children’s television can offer its young
viewers. They are examples that test the boundaries of adults, but they always have the aim of
offering children and pre-teens programmes that challenge them intellectually, in which they
can see their own questions and dreams reflected, and that focus not on upholding commercial
interests but on enriching children and adolescents’ lives. These are examples of programmes
that were screened, discussed, and awarded prizes at PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL
(www.prixjeunesse.de).
PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL is the oldest, biggest, and most renowned festival
for children’s television worldwide. For more than 50 years, children’s media experts from
around the globe have gathered at PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL to screen pro-
grammes and discuss them, to share insights and evaluate how well we enrich, entertain, and
engage young audiences. The aim of the PRIX JEUNESSE Foundation is to improve tele-
vision for young viewers around the world, deepen understanding, promote communication
between nations, and increase the international exchange of programmes. This chapter sum-
marises in detail how that occurs and how this close cooperation between production and
academics has developed over the years.

What Is The PRIX JEUNESSE?

The PRIX JEUNESSE Foundation was founded in 1963 by the Bavarian Broadcasting
Foundation, the Free State of Bavaria, and the City of Munich. Additional supporters are Zweites
Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) and the Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien (BLM).
The Foundation’s core activity is PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL, a bi-annual
festival in Munich. Further activities include the PRIX JEUNESSE Suitcase, training, and

506 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-64

 Promoting Excellence in Children’s TV

global networking. All these activities make PRIX JEUNESSE a world-embracing lobby or-
ganisation for quality children’s media. A Governing Board as well as an International Advisory
Board support all PRIX JEUNESSE activities.
More than 500 producers, executives, and researchers from more than 70 countries who
attend the PRIX JEUNESSE festival week consider it to be one of children’s television’s most
engaging and rewarding professional trainingexperiences. At the PRIX JEUNESSE INTER-
NATIONAL the prizes are not awarded by a small, select jury. Instead, all participants can help
select the winners.
Besides the main prizes there are special prizes by UNICEF and UNESCO and a “Theme
Prize” connected to the specific festival theme. Additionally, a “Gender Equity Prize” is
awarded by a jury of ten international scholars who are deeply engaged in gender studies,
selecting the programme with the most innovative way of representing gender. It is not only
adults but also the target group itself that judges the programmes. A German children’s jury of
more than 300 children awards two prizes in the categories of age 7–10 fiction and non-fiction,
and an international youth jury made up of youth from six countries awards two prizes in the
categories of age 11–15 fiction and non-fiction.

History of the PRIX JEUNESSE – “How It All Started”

In the early 1960s, inventive media reformers at the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation (BR)
were determined to breathe new life into Germany’s post-war public broadcasting service.
Their vision was to create an international television award. One of their objectives in those
days was to create more thoughtful and true-to-life offerings for a young audience, and to raise
more respect for those creating children’s and youth programmes, which they aimed to do by
arguing for better time slots and higher budgets.
The festival has grown impressively over the years: starting with around 80 entries from 40
organisations in the first years, now over 400 programmes from around 250 organisations
compete for the awards. The true heart of the PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL is
watching, discussing, and judging programmes together. The aim is: to continually question
one’s own work and look beyond our own horizons to offer the best programme possible for
children and adolescents.

What Shapes Excellence In Children’s TV?

The discussion about which qualities are key for children’s television is complex, and the
responses depend on who you ask and what aims the person has in answering the question. At
the PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL, prizes are not awarded in individual categories
such as script, camera, etc., like at other competitions. Instead, the audience is the focus. The
categories are therefore oriented on the viewers’ age: “Fiction” and “Non-Fiction” for the age
groups “up to 6,” “7–10,” and “11 to 15.” Each programme is thereby evaluated using four
dimensions that then result in a final mark. The categories evaluated are:

1 Is the programme appropriate, attractive, culturally relevant for the children or adolescents
in the country from which is comes, and does it respect children, take them seriously and
empower them? (Target audience)
2 Is it interesting, original, fresh, and does it have a new approach? Does it motivate the
viewers to think, and does it achieve its purpose? (Idea)

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3 Is the programme well-structured and balanced, the subject well-researched and devel-
oped, the dialogue of high quality, and all characters well-developed and motivated in their
actions? (Script)
4 Is the idea well-adapted in its visual style, camerawork, editing, music performance, etc.,
does it have a good pace and rhythm and is television the best medium for this idea?
(Realisation)

For each dimension, a score is given between one and ten. This form of evaluation forces
participants to move away from a simple “I like it” or “I don’t like it” assessment and consider
the programme in more detail. In the internationally moderated discussions, the respective
qualities of the individual programmes are then considered. This opens up perspectives and
viewpoints that allow media producers to look beyond their own professional horizons. Besides
technical quality, it also always considers whether children’s realities are depicted accurately and
can be expanded to promote children’s well-being. In the following sections, a few outstanding
examples of award-winning programmes will be used as examples for what television producers
consider as representing excellence in children’s TV. Because the competition has now been
going on for over 50 years, this also offers a glance into the history of quality television for
children and young adolescents around the world.

Individual Situations of Children’s Lives Are Conveyed in Documentaries

At the time of the first PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL in 1964, in many countries
television was finding its feet, and the programmes designed specifically for children and ado-
lescents were often limited in number. It was not unusual for the programmes to be characterised
with strong pedagogical morals and “friendly television aunts” who read to children or did
handcrafts or sang with them. During this period, awards were given to high-quality programmes
that showed individual lifestyles as empowerment. In 1964, for example, a programme from
Japan, Girl of Ainu (NTN, Japan), won the adolescent category. The 26-minute documentary told
the story of an Ainu (a Japanese natio-ethno-cultural-minority) girl who violated her people’s
traditions by learning a trade. She is fascinated by horses and instead of earning a living by har-
vesting seaweed, performing traditional dances, and taking part in bear training for tourists like
everyone else in her village, she becomes a groom. The targeted choice of her own path becomes
the symbolic material for adolescents to think about their own futures.
Throughout the years, awards have been given to other memorable documentaries that show
adolescents dealing with serious problems such as stuttering (Strong! Kevin – Hear me Out, ZDF,
Germany, 2006), the death of a sister (Moritz – It’d be Cool if She Became an Angel, ZDF, Germany,
2010), daily life with autism (A Newsround Special – My Autism and Me, CCBC, U.K., 2012), or a
brother with a disability (2Brothers, KRO, Netherlands, 2012).
The topic of children’s own gender identity as a transgender child was taken up for the first
time in 2002 and presented with a PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL award. The Day I
Decided to be Nina (NOS/VPRO, Netherlands) tells the story about 11-year-old Guido, who
has always known that she is actually a girl. The positive discussion and great success of this
documentary encouraged television producers to deal with the topic of transsexuality. Since
then, there has been a programme on the topic at almost every PRIX JEUNESSE INTER-
NATIONAL. Usually these have been true stories (How Ky Turned into Niels, IKONdocs,
Netherlands, 2016), but a fictional short film First Day (Epic Films, Australia) was awarded the
Gender Equity Prize in 2018. The programme sensitively tells the story of Hannah who
changes schools and can then go to school in a girl’s uniform for the first time (Kalceff, 2018).

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Stories with Depth

What continues to characterise excellence in children’s television are interesting stories that
enrich adolescents in many ways with their depth. For example, in 1975 the programme Fire in
the Wings (State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting, USSR), produced in the
USSR, won an award. It told the story of two boys who found an eagle on their way to school
and returned it to its owner, a young girl. This took up so much time that they were late for
school. They figured out all kind of excuses and finally escaped from the punishment and hid
themselves under a bench, missing the reward when the director and the little girl came to their
class. This is an excellent live-action short film produced in black-and-white typical of the time
that places the focus on children, shows typical behavioural patterns and conveys a moral with a
clever smile – here the moral is: Stand by the truth; you acted according to your conscience.
Films from the series The Magic Tree (Televizia Polska, Poland) won three main prizes and
two prizes from the children’s jury in 2004, 2006, and 2008. They all have the basic idea that
the wood of a tree that was struck by lightning has magical properties. Whether it is a sledge
with a mind of its own (2004), a wooden sceptre with the power to make others do what you
want (2006), or a magical kitchen cupboard that transforms knowledge from books into cream
cakes to make the content edible (2008). This is a fantastical story for children with young
protagonists who play a powerful role and are then confronted with a moral decision they then
overcome. This was designated as the best children’s series not only by media professionals but
also by the children’s jury.
A surprising animated series received the Gender Equity Prize in 2014: Burka Avenger (Black
Unikorn, Pakistan). The story is told with action-packed elements and a heroine in a burka-
type garment who fights for the right for girls to go to school (Haron, 2015).
The empowering effects high-end animation can have for children was demonstrated by the
BBC, which produced programmes for the Christmas holidays. The Gruffalo (BBC, U. K.,
2010) tells the story of a cheeky mouse who can prevent itself from being eaten by talking about
the giant monster, the Gruffalo, that it is on its way to meet. Other outstanding examples that
took first or second place include Revolving Rhymes (BBC, U.K., 2018) and The Snail and the
Whale (BBC, U.K., 2020).
Throughout the years, the Australian Children’s TV Foundation has also contributed many
excellent stories with depth that are told from children’s perspectives with live action (real
children). For example, in 2016 the Australian series Little Lunch (ACT, Austrailia) showed how
self-reflection and thinking about everyday school life can be viewed with a great deal of
humour, or in 2020 Hardball (ACT, Australia), in which group dynamics on the schoolyard are
intelligently linked with the topic of diversity. Both series were awarded the PRIX JEUNESSE
INTERNATIONAL as well as the prize from the children’s jury.

Critical Topics Prepared for Children

The high quality of children’s programmes can also be seen in their handling of critical topics
such as death of friends and relatives, suicide, extreme poverty, and neglect or the parents’
divorces. These topics are emotionally challenging on their own for children, but unfortunately
they are also part of their daily lives. It is therefore important for quality media to deal with
these topics in an appropriately sensitive way. Besides well-founded research, aesthetic ways
must be found to allow the affected child to speak from their perspective while not being
able to be identified personally with their visual image. The original interview excerpts or
interview excerpts narrated by children are visualised with animated sequences. Award-winning

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prototypes include, e.g., When Life Departs (TV2, Denmark, 2000), in which a child talks about
the death of a younger sibling and his ideas about life after death.
The interviews with children who discuss neglect and extreme poverty (The Wrong Trainers,
CBBC, U.K., 2008) also leave a lasting impression.
The Little Boy and the Beast (ZDF, Germany, 2010) is an animated programme that won
many awards for its telling of what life is like from a child’s perspective after the parents divorce.
“When your mother is a beast, a lot of things are different” is how the child begins his tale, and
viewers can see a boy who is leading a large, somewhat depressed monster by the hand. He does
the shopping, saves her from small accidents and endures it when she embarrassingly screams at
the supermarket cashier. In six minutes, we see how the mother is first hardly capable of doing
anything, and then gradually changes back into a typical mother through many good experi-
ences, although this is “also not always easy” because then he isn’t allowed to buy as many
sweets anymore. The high degree of creativity and loving animation give children who have
experienced divorce a reflection of some of their own experiences as well as hope, and offer
children who have not experienced divorce a way to think about their own experiences with
parents who do not fulfil their role well (Holler, 2012).
The live-action series Zombie Lars (NRK, Norway), which received the PRIX JEUNESSE
INTERNATIONAL in 2018 as well as the prize from the international adolescent jury, shows
an innovative way of helping children understand racism. Lars is the son of a human and a
zombie, a “half living-unliving one.” The series humorously shows the “othering” that is done
by teachers and fellow pupils.
Another way of dealing with racism was shown by Children of Courage (SWR, Germany),
which received an award in 2020 and uses diary entries to talk about World War II and the
Holocaust/Shoah from the perspective of children. The reception studies that accompanied this
programme show how children can take up different positions in Holocaust education and
consciously stand up against racism and particularly anti-Semitism (Götz & Holler, 2019).

Openly Talking About Taboo Topics

High-quality television is also characterised by being able to talk about all topics that interest
children and adolescents – even if adults feel uncomfortable with it. In the spirit of the protests
of 1968, the programme The War Games (NOP, Netherlands) that won the festival prize in
1972, asks how much obedience is appropriate for soldiers to show their officers. The report
documents an activity with children who first play war in the forest and then answer a
moderator’s questions: “There is a general who says: ‘You are in the army and you must do
everything I tell you: Go to the village, get the people together and shoot them.’ Should you
obey him or shouldn’t you? What do you think?” and one boy answers: “I wouldn’t do it” and
the reasons for that are discussed. It is a moment in children’s television that leaves an im-
pression, as existential questions and political positions are discussed with children.
In many countries, the topic of bodily processes during puberty, which is extremely im-
portant especially for pre-teens, is considered taboo on children’s television. A prototypical
approach for an artistically successful animation can be seen in the Cuban series Puberty, and the
episode Puberty – Daniel’s Dream (Cuban Institute of Art and Cinematography, Cuba 2010) was
discussed at the PJI. In 2012, the programme You are not a Werewolf (WDR, Germany) de-
scribed how to best clean penises. Puberty. Vagina and Menstruation (NRK Super, Norway,
2016) discusses such facts as that around six spoonfuls of blood flow during menstruation and
that the colour of the blood changes during the course of menstruation. So far, the culmination
of openly dealing with one’s own body was shown in the Danish production Ultra Strips Down

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(DR Ultra, Denmark, 2020). In the programme, adults stand naked in front of an audience of
pre-teens and answer their questions about their bodies, e.g., how they felt when they were
adolescents. One of the most frequent arguments that was brought up about these shows was
that they are exactly what children and adolescents desperately need, but in most countries they
could never be aired.

New Ways of Learning

Another condition for high quality is that children learn something from the programme. Even
if PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL is explicitly not a festival of school television
programmes, throughout the years innovative programmes in which the young viewers could
learn something were consistently among the programmes that received the best evaluations.
The worldwide success of Sesame Street (National Educational Television, U.S.) began at the
PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL 1970. It inspired many discussions and was the winner
of the category “Up-to-7 children’s programmes”. The almost 60-minute episode showed brief,
very colourful animated pictures – underscored by loud music – in which there was a countdown
with the numbers from ten to one. In another segment, Kermit the Frog explained which words
can be made with the letter W: “You need the letter W to make words as wash, um… women and
weeping willow.” Then he hesitated because Cookie Monster unfortunately turned the W into an
N. The innovative idea at the time was to take up the aesthetics of the advertising that was very
popular with children in the U.S. and to combine it with attractive short stories with educational
content. The enthusiasm with which Sesame Street was discussed internationally and then sub-
sequent purchase requests was one of the reasons the Sesame Street team positioned it as an in-
ternational brand.
The winning programme in 2010, Horrible Histories (CBBC, U.K.), showed how history can
be made very humorous for 7- to 11-year-olds. The sketch show combines brilliantly written
comedy with genuine factual information from the Stone Age to World War II.
Japan’s public broadcasting station, NHK, continually surprises and delights viewers with
innovative educational formats. In Discover Science: Let’s See the Speed of Sound (NHK, Japan,
2010), the spread of the sound wave was visualised using long queues of people who held up a
flag when they heard something.
Another very interesting approach was taken in 2020 by What would you do? (cnTV, Chile),
in which children are told a challenging story. In this case that the father forbids his son from
playing with another boy because that boy has two fathers. Children are asked what they would
do and come up with many different approaches.
All in all, there is a large spectrum of factors that make up excellence in children’s television.
Besides the four evaluation dimensions of the PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL, the
excellence of an offer can be seen in its fit for a certain age group, the degree of innovation,
how successful its script is, and the good implementation of the children’s programme.

Suitcases
So that the programmes are not only accessible to the festival participants, but are available in
the longer term for television producers, scholars, and work on international understanding
among children, the PRIX JEUNESSE Suitcase was developed. It brings the festival’s chal-
lenging and inspiring atmosphere to children’s media professionals and scholars around the
globe. A PRIX JEUNESSE Suitcase contains a selection of outstanding children’s TV pro-
grammes from the PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL festival. This selection is presented

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 Maya Götz and Kirsten Schneid

in workshops for both media professionals and children’s audiences around the world. The
project was launched in the mid-1990s and since then has travelled worldwide.
The PRIX JEUNESSE Suitcase is produced in cooperation with the Goethe Institute. In
many cases, local offices of the Goethe Institute organise and host screenings with the PRIX
JEUNESSE Suitcase. Interested media professionals and scholars can contact the Goethe
Institute offices in their countries in order to initiate a Suitcase event in their region.
Not only media professionals are in the focus of the activities of the PRIX JEUNESSE
Foundation. Screenings with programmes from the PRIX JEUNESSE Suitcase also take place
for children and youth audiences. These screenings are embedded in accompanying activities
that promote media literacy skills and intercultural learning, as the films in the Suitcase come
from many different countries and introduce children to realities in a wide variety of cultures.

Cooperation Between Production and Research

Since 2006 each PRIX JEUNESSE festival has had a theme, and through the close cooperation
with the International Central Institute for Youth and Educational TV (IZI) at the Bavarian
Broadcast Corporation (BR), international studies are presented in entertaining information
units. A theme prize is awarded to a programme connected to the festival theme. Each theme is
published as an issue of the TelevIZIon in English, and for selected articles in Spanish (www.IZI.
de). The themes of the PRIX JEUNESSE have been for example 2014 “Feelings in Focus –
Emotions in Children’s TV” with studies in 25 countries; 2018 “Strong Stories for Strong
Children – Resilience and Storytelling” with studies in 50 countries, or 2020 “Separated by
Crisis, Together in Commitment to Children” with studies in 53 countries. Most of the themes
later formed the content of academic books and articles (for example, Götz, Lemish, & Holler,
2019; Götz, 2018; Götz & Lemish, 2022) but for the presentation at the the festival itself, there
were no academic lectures as would be typical at similar events. All previous attempts to in-
tegrate brief presentations did not achieve the desired goal of offering concrete support for
media professionals in their work. We therefore stopped using this approach. From 2012
onwards the theme of each PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL is presented in a one-and-
a-half hour session in a format similar to “The Info Night”. The presentation has several in-
teractive features in which the approximately 300 media professionals have to make guesses,
draw, or discuss. There are also concise and visual presentations by experts and entertaining
informational segments, in which for example in 2014 two scholars (Professor Dafna Lemish
and Professor Lothar Mikos) argued in a boxing ring, each getting one minute at a time, as to
whether and how television can make children and adolescents more prone to use violence or
not. The importance childhood and adolescence can have on further identity building was
explained in 2016 by a specialist psychatrist for identity disorders using a long “lifeline” that was
stretched across the stage, and in 2018 a giant tumbler toy was the object used to visualise what
makes people resilient.
The “Guessing Games” are another addition to the international studies on the respective
theme. For each PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL, children all over the world are
filmed while watching the same segments and each child is analysed with regard to their re-
action. The tendencies are summarised in short edited films (so-called “Guessing Games”) with
questions for media professionals. Each day before lunch and the end of the day, professionals
first see a short segment and are then asked to guess the children’s reaction to the segment and
consider differences in terms of age, gender, nation/world region. After that the results are
presented as videos capturing the reactions of children all over the world. This has proven to be
a fun and enlightening, educational way to get ideas about the reactions of the target audience.

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 Promoting Excellence in Children’s TV

How the interaction of research, workshops for TV producers, enriching activities with
children, and excellence in children’s television can go together was shown in the project
“Strong Stories for Strong Children – Resilience and Storytelling”. The starting point was a
continuing workshop for TV professionals who dealt with the topic of resilience in their own
lives and developed a story from it. Over 1,000 TV experts in 70 countries have taken part in
the workshop. At the same time, a project for children and adolescents was developed: the so-
called “Storytelling Clubs” (www.storytellingclub.org), a tool to promote resilience and self-
confidence of children in difficult life situations. In weekly storytelling clubs, children learn to
write, tell, and draw their own impactful stories and create a book together, where they give
other children hints to overcome critical situations. The storytelling club is based on research
and practice of fostering resilience (Fröhlich-Gildhoff & Rönnau-Böse, 2018) and the parti-
cipants experience their own resilience, recognising the challenges they already have.
Storytelling clubs have now taken root in many countries around the globe.
Some of the stories told in a storytelling club are turned into short, five-minute dramas, a co-
production with 17 broadcasters worldwide. The first two seasons of The Day I Became Strong
consisted of 24 episodes. The third season focused on typical experiences in the pandemic with
the title: The Day I Became Strong in the Pandemic. Of course the whole project is evaluated and
approved by researchers.

Conclusion
Children and adolescents need high-quality media. One place where media professionals from
more than 70 countries meet up every other year is PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL in
Munich. Here they engage in screening the most innovative and challenging programmes
together, discussing them in international groups and hearing about practical research that is
presented in an entertaining and comprehensive way. Excellence of children’s TV is evident not
only in outstanding production technology, but also in a courage to trust young audiences to
show interest in in-depth stories that tackle difficult issues as well as taboo topics. It also offers
young users the best and diverse symbolic material for their identity work.
Looking beyond our own horizons and having the courage to be open to entirely opposing
realities and viewpoints is an incredibly enriching experience – not only for media professionals.
Thus research that is open to the perspectives and needs of television producers has a great deal
to contribute to the development of excellence in children’s television.

References
Fröhlich-Gildhoff, K., & Rönnau-Böse, M. (2018). What is resilience and how can it be promoted?
TelevIZIon, 32(E), 10–14.
Götz, M. (Ed.). (2018). The Day I Became Strong. Strong stories for strong children from around the world.
International Central Institute for Youth and Educational Television.
Götz, M., & Holler, A. (2019). How children understand the programme Kids of Courage. TelevIZIon,
32(E), 36–40.
Götz, M., & Lemish, D. (2022). Children and media worldwide in a time of a pandemic. Peter Lang. Manuscript
in progress.
Götz, M., Lemish, D., & Holler, A. (2019). Fear in front of the screen. children’s fears, nightmares, and thrills
from TV. Rowman & Littlefield.
Haron, A. (2015). Burka Avenger. An innovative superheroine. TelevIZIon, 28(E), 40–41.
Holler, A. (2012). When adults have other things on their minds. TelevIZIon, 26(E), 12–16.
Kalceff, J. (2018). Telling a transgender story. TelevIZIon, 31(E), 40–41.

513
 AFTERWORD
The Invisible Children, Adolescents, and
Media and the Future of our Research
Dafna Lemish and Amy B. Jordan

Scanning the hundreds of pages of excellent integrative summaries of research in the field of
children, adolescents, and media in this handbook, one is struck at how much of it is still
focused on children from WEIRD societies (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich,
Democratic) (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). Most of what we know today about the
role of media in children and adolescents’ lives originates from middle-class white children in
the Western and industrialized world. While our research seems to lack generalizability to broad
swaths of the globe, there is often, nevertheless, an assumption of universality. Our calls to
diversify and expand our research populations (see for example Jordan, 2016; Jordan &
Prendella, 2019; Lemish, 2019) receive additional urgency when reviewing the breadth and
depth of the research presented in this edited collection. Who are the invisible children of
children, adolescents, and media research? How can we bring their experiences to life, their
voices into our consciousness, their circumstances into our theorizing?
The focus on WEIRD children is of course not unique to our domain (Arnett, 2008), but
central to all the sciences throughout history, and continues to carry significant benefits to
certain societies at the expense of others. Studies have shown that the samples included in our
research reflect unique psychological traits that are not inherently biological but rather a
consequence of an interaction of cultures and institutions which reflect and shape beliefs and
values that we take for granted as typical for young people universally (Henrich, 2020). In our
everyday lived experiences as scholars embedded in our own institutions and societies, we are
well aware of constraints and obstacles: we study the familiar; we have access to people who are
similar to us, and we read and publish research in English-language publications to improve our
chances to be cited, valued, and rewarded. We also recognize that what is meant by diversity
differs from one society to the other; for example, the idea of capturing “race” as a key de-
mographic variable in the U.S. is considered inappropriate in the German academic context,
according to exchanges with colleagues. The limitations of our research samples mean we are
less aware of the deeper and more complicated layers of the lived experience of WEIRD
children. It also means that we do not know what we do not know, and we are unfamiliar even
with the ways our implicit biases shape the questions we ask about the role of media in chil-
dren’s lives.
In order to be able to base our claims on the need for a more universal representation of
evidence (Scharrer & Ramasubramanian, 2021), we conducted a systematic content analysis of

514 DOI: 10.4324/9781003118824-65

 Afterword

empirical studies which included samples of children and adolescents and examined some as-
pects of their media use. We identified 122 studies published in 23 journals ten years apart.
Forty-three articles were published in 2008 and 79 were published in 2018. Though it was
heartening to see more research devoted to young people and media in communication and
psychology journals, it was frustrating, though not surprising, to see that the vast majority were
“WEIRD” samples: Across the two years, 90% of the first authors were from North American
and European universities and 78% of the child samples were from “WEIRD” countries.
But beyond the remarkable biases of the countries from which child samples come, is the
fact that even within a sample, there is often little heterogeneity in demographics, and when
there is, authors, do little to account for differences in their method, their discussion, their
conclusions, or their limitations. For example, though child age and gender were frequently
reported in sample descriptions, nearly two-thirds of the studies did not report whether children
lived in urban, rural, or suburban communities (and when they did, they were typically re-
ported as predominantly urban). And while in U.S. samples race and ethnicity were reported as
key demographic variables, they were more often used to suggest a “diverse” sample rather than
studied as important factors in analyses. Finally, whole populations of children were invisible
from media studies published in mainstream communication and psychology journals. For
example, only one study included refugee children, and no studies focused on or included
children with disabilities (indeed, disability was an exclusion criterion in many studies) (for a
more comprehensive analysis see Jordan & Lemish, in progress).
In an effort to move the needle towards more inclusion, all the authors in this handbook
were asked by Dafna Lemish, the editor, to make a very conscious effort to include as much
research from non-WEIRD populations as possible. In collaboration with the many authors,
Lemish devoted specific chapters to marginalized populations, including racial/ethnic mino-
rities, immigrants, and disabled children, and discussed digital inequalities and other disparities,
as well. In editing the collection, special care was paid to using inclusive language and not
defaulting to assumptions of Western, and particularly U.S. neutrality and universalism (Lemish,
2021). For each of the topics discussed – whether language development, gender identity,
immigration circumstances, or digital activism – we want to learn which aspects are unique,
particular, and contextually grounded, and which seem to be universal, representative of
children from around the globe, independent of their ecology of individual differences, their
microsystem (interpersonal interactions such as with family, teachers, and friends), their me-
sosystem (neighborhood, school, and community groups), and their exosystem (economics,
cultural, politics, structures) (see the ecological systems theory of Bronfenbrenner, 1999). Yet,
despite our collective efforts, we couldn’t escape the dominance of research on WEIRD
children, which still persists in our field. Indeed, even when research from other countries is
included, we often fail to fully comprehend their unique cultural grounding given that

we generally see and understand the world through our own cultural models and local
institutions. When policymakers, politicians, and military strategists infer how people
in other societies will understand their actions, judge their behavior, and respond, they
tend to assume perceptions, motivations, and judgments similar to their own.
(Henrich, 2020, p. 488)

We can add media researchers, our well-intended selves included, to the list.
With an eye for this handbook to be paving a path for the future of research in our field, and
not only highlighting the tremendous accomplishments gained so far, we are also calling for
deliberate action steps. These include an active role of journal editors and editorial boards in

515
 Dafna Lemish and Amy B. Jordan

mentoring colleagues from less-resourced academic institutions and marginalized societies, in

pro-actively reaching out and searching for non-English language researchers. It requires us to
consider the possibility that the Western formula we are so used to following in the presentation
of our research (i.e., literature review, method, findings, discussion, conclusion, limitations)
may be restrictive and that there are alternate ways to structure and present new knowledge that
is being kept outside our rigid walls. Ultimately, it is incumbent on us to make a much more
authentic effort to elevate the voices of non-WEIRD participants and other marginalized and
invisible children and adolescents, to understand their own experiences, motivations, aspirations
as grounded in their unique cultures and circumstances.

References
Arnett, J.J. (2008). The neglected 95%: Why American psychology needs to be less American. American
Psychologist, 63(7), 602–614. 10.1037/0003-066X.63.7.602
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1999). Environments in developmental perspective: Theoretical and operational
models. In S.L. Friedman & T.D. Wachs (Eds.), Measuring environment across the life span (pp. 3–28).
American Psychological Association.
Henrich, J. (2020). The WEIRDest people in the world: How the west became psychologically peculiar and par-
ticularly prosperous. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Henrich, J., Heine, S.J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain
Sciences, 33(2–3), 61–83. 10.1017/S0140525X0999152X
Jordan, A.B. (2016). Presidential address: Digital media use and the experiences(s) of childhood. Journal of
Communication, 66(6), 879–887. 10.1111/jcom.12265
Jordan, A.B., & Lemish, D. (in progress). #CAMsoWEIRD: The invisible children of media research.
Jordan, A., & Prendella, K. (2019). The invisible children of media research. Journal of Children and Media,
13(2), 235–240. 10.1080/17482798.2019.1591662
Lemish, D. (2019). “A room of our own”: Farewell comments on editing the Journal of Children and Media.
Journal of Children and Media, 13(1), 116–126. 10.1080/17482798.2019.1557813
Lemish, D. (2021). Feminist editing of a mainstream journal: Reckoning with process and content related
challenges. In S. Eckert & I. Bachmann (Eds.), Reflections on feminist communication and media scholarship:
Theory, method, impact (pp. 16–29). Routledge.
Scharrer, E., & Ramasubramanian, S. (2021). Quantitative research methods in communication: The power of
numbers for social justice. Routledge.

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 TOPIC INDEX

AAP Council 341 affordances 6, 113–15, 136, 163, 180, 215, 220,
abstract modelling 280 349–50, 405, 464, 485, 488
access 1, 3, 20, 28, 45, 54, 58, 68, 94, 103, 107, Africa 12, 89, 115, 236, 295, 337, 314, 349, 356,
110, 122, 127, 129–31, 171, 219, 232, 264, 278, 363, 380, 388–89, 391, 413–16; see also Africans,
285, 287, 291, 295–96, 306, 319, 322–27, 336, Sub-Saharan Africa
339, 341, 348, 349, 357–59, 364–65, 373, African Americans 26, 122, 323, 357; see also Black
379–385, 387–88, 398, 403, 405, 414–17, 422, Africans 26, 45, 349, 390–91, 413–16;
429–30, 434, 451–52, 467, 470, 473, 492; see also Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa
digital 28, 45, 58, 68, 94, 103, 107, 110, Agence France Press 437
114–15, 127, 129–31, 171, 219, 232, 264, 278, aggression 227; depictions of 180, 214, 235–36,
295, 319, 322, 336, 339, 341, 357–59, 365, 373, 239–40, 312–13, 315; as media effect 123, 181,
379–85, 387–88, 398, 403, 417, 429–30, 451, 203, 212, 236–40, 280, 341, 484–85, 500
467, 501 alcohol 181, 268–70, 421, 442, 478
active mediation 238, 271, 335, 340 algorithms 20, 49, 103, 140, 163, 255, 295, 454
actor network theory 14 alternative storytelling 28, 281, 337, 414–15
Ad Standards 441 Amazon Prime Video 65, 67, 101, 103
adolescents 34–35, 43, 60, 88, 129–31, 138, 147, American Academy of Child and Adolescent
157, 173–74, 181–83, 187–90, 204–06, 219, Psychiatry 311, 485
228, 230–31, 235–36, 237, 239, 243–47, American Academy of Pediatrics 259, 264, 484–86
250–54, 262–63, 271–72, 280, 288, 295–97, American Library Association 87, 475
311, 316, 319–24, 327, 330, 341, 343–44, 349, American Medical Association 483, 485
364–66, 368, 372, 391, 399, 406, 408, 414–15, American Psychiatric Association 202–03, 250,
442, 446, 472, 475, 477–79, 483, 487; 252, 487
see also teenagers American Society of Plastic Surgeons 175
advertising 4, 7, 17–18, 20, 35–36, 49–50, 54, 59, Animal Crossing 350
75, 104, 106, 108, 140, 145–46, 181–82, animation 28, 96, 101–02, 105–06, 197, 223, 389,
259–65, 268–70, 298, 302–08, 330, 421–22, 398, 436, 493, 509
427–28, 430, 432, 435, 441–46, 454, 484–85, anorexia 69, 250, 335, 351
487; disclosure 182, 302, 307–08, 443, 444, 446; anxiety 4, 8, 19, 27, 30, 54, 110, 136, 185, 187–89,
see also marketing 229, 236–38, 272, 290, 322, 328, 330, 343, 391,
advisors 491–97 398, 453, 487, 500
advocacy groups 350, 427–28, 441, 444, 488, 502 AppleInsider Staff 166
affect 19, 157, 164, 232, 237, 246, 280, 302–03, apps 128–31, 140, 172, 429, 442, 472, 487,
306, 399; see also emotion 492, 494, 498, 501–02; educational 467,
affective disposition theory 280 498–99
affinity spaces 119–20 ASA 264

517
 Topic Index

Asia 45, 260, 356, 388, 436; see also Asians, China, 392, 416, 423, 427–29, 433–35, 437–38, 443,
Japan, Korea 499–502, 507
Asian Americans 359 BTS 66–67, 69, 351
Asians 67, 280, 359, 363, 365, 380, 436; bulimia 253
see also Asia, China, Japan, Korea bullying 82, 114, 131, 174–75, 324, 351, 487;
attention 157, 172, 197–98, 231, 303, 305–07, see also cyberbullying, cyberhate
341–43, 350, 464, 485 Burka Avenger 509
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
172, 179–80, 202–08, 236, 238, 350 Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood
attention problems 6, 101, 198, 202–08, 342 50, 428
audience reception 337 Canada 90, 103, 236, 271, 313, 337, 356, 365, 414,
audience research 68–70, 77–78, 289–90, 335, 337, 435, 438, 441, 452, 500
395–96, 398–99, 512 Canadian Cancer Society 272
audiences 2, 5, 41, 49, 57, 59, 62, 74, 77, 81–82, capacity model 462
87, 94–96, 98, 101–02, 106–07, 113–14, Cartoon Network 65, 102–03, 106, 314, 434,
135–40, 146, 198, 272, 285, 288–90, 324, 356, 437, 491
359, 389, 397, 399, 414, 416–17, 423, 427, 433, cartoons 42, 106, 145, 147, 197, 212, 235, 280,
437, 496, 507 312, 314, 348, 356, 389, 436, 491
audiovisual media services directive 437 Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU)
augmented reality 147, 162, 164, 348 443, 445
Australia 26–27, 68, 89, 123, 136, 235–37, 253, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
260, 271, 297, 315, 339, 348, 358, 374, 415–16, (CDC) 250, 270
421, 434–35, 438, 445, 452, 453, 477 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 436
Australian Children’s Television Foundation characters 86, 89, 93, 95, 111, 121–22, 145, 148,
97, 509 196–97, 212–13, 230–32, 235, 244, 251, 260,
Australian Communications and Media 279–81, 312–16, 356, 363, 367, 374, 396–99,
Authority 433 432, 442–43, 464, 491, 500, 508
Australian Government 416 child development 2, 6, 8, 14, 33–37, 52–53, 60,
authorship 68, 85 68, 74, 76, 98, 106, 121, 144, 179, 194–98, 227,
autism 157, 350, 395, 398 230, 243, 255, 270, 277–78, 286, 305, 328–29,
342, 392, 459, 463, 485, 493
background television 179, 198, 342–43, 500 child journalist 289, 405
behavioral science 77, 484 childhood studies 15, 73–79, 91, 119
behaviors 2, 6, 34, 44, 52, 58, 60, 69, 74–75, 138, Children of Courage 510
146, 157, 172, 181, 203, 212–13, 227, 235–38, children’s agency 15, 28, 51–52, 62, 67–70, 74,
244–46, 250, 252–53, 261–64, 268–72, 279–80, 76–79, 82, 91, 101, 112, 115–16, 174, 213, 239,
295, 306, 341, 343, 364, 372, 427, 452–53, 455, 282, 396, 422, 477; civic 409
463, 479, 484–85, 487, 501 Children’s Media Foundation 103, 106
big data 145, 487; see also data privacy, data security children’s play 86, 91, 114, 119–24, 137–39,
Black 19, 26, 75, 89, 139–40, 237, 253–54, 270, 145–46, 153–54, 162–64, 167, 198, 204,
281, 355–56, 358, 381, 384, 406; see also African 212–14, 222, 231, 263, 329, 341, 342–44, 382,
Americans 399, 415, 469, 471, 500–01
Black Lives Matter 291, 350, 406 children’s channels 4, 28, 50, 60, 102–03, 105–07,
Black masculinity 19, 281 198, 313, 433–37
Bloomberg News 149 children’s literature 4, 18, 22, 26, 42–43, 45, 81,
bodies and health 173, 259, 261, 268–69, 408, 422, 85–91, 120, 124, 196–97, 213, 348, 374, 460
442, 453, 483, 510 children’s news 285–91, 461
body image 174–75, 181, 250–55, 280, 312, 330, children’s programming 27, 37, 43, 106–07, 305,
387, 408–09 427, 432, 459–61, 462, 484, 492, 495, 509,
books 4, 18, 22, 26, 42–43, 45, 81, 85–91, 120, 506–513
124, 196–97, 213, 348, 374, 460 children’s rights 2, 9–10, 10, 49, 76, 82, 112,
boys 4, 42, 44, 58–60, 62, 88, 114, 121–22, 146, 115–16, 167, 287, 291, 405, 451, 455–56
157, 173–74, 187, 204–06, 236–37, 243, Children’s Television Act 428–29, 444, 499
245–46, 250–54, 281, 313–16, 340, 349, child-robot interaction (CRI) 154, 156–58
471–72 ChildWise 110
broadcast 65, 103–06, 212, 288, 336, 367, 387, China 68, 87, 97, 101, 147–49, 236, 244, 366,

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 Topic Index

421–22, 433, 434, 436, 461–62, 467, 487; Covid-19 1, 6, 37–38, 59, 65, 67, 69, 104, 107,
see also Asia, Asians 129–31, 172, 222, 279, 290, 295, 328–29, 331,
cigarettes 215, 268, 270, 421, 432, 442, 445 357, 366, 368, 379–80, 383, 388, 391, 403,
cinema 22, 43, 74, 93; see also film, motion pictures 429–30, 435, 479, 496
citizenship 281, 285–91, 296, 404–06, 461; digital creativity 54, 97, 115, 130, 139, 180, 211–12,
455, 477; and immigration 373 219–25, 390, 415, 485
civic: discussion 406; education 291, 295, 297, 406; critical media effects 282
engagement 182, 281, 286, 290, 296–98, cross-media 14, 19, 21, 41, 46, 50, 88, 95, 279
404–08, 468; learning 337, 404; reasoning cultivation theory 246, 279, 311
407–08, 478 cultural diversity 27, 356, 421, 433, 436–37
class 13, 19–20, 22, 27–29, 51, 54, 61–62, 68, 82, cultural studies 14, 51, 54, 76–78, 112, 396
90, 95, 122, 135, 138, 144, 278–79, 287, 313, culture 5, 8, 28, 62, 89, 98, 112, 295, 311, 356,
316, 335, 357, 426–27, 430n3, 494, 500, 514; 363–68, 514, 516; children’s 81, 110, 115,
see also socioeconomic status 119–20, 140, 389; consumer 4–5, 14, 49–55,
climate change activism 291, 350, 406, 414 75, 83, 115, 144–49, 422, 479; peer 113, 123,
Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet 144, 335, 347–52; popular 8, 77, 146, 350, 356,
Disorders 487 396–98, 403; youth 2, 30, 42, 54, 129, 174,
Centre for Literacy in Primary Education 336, 363
(CLPE) 89 cyberbullying 21, 114, 131, 180, 235–38, 280,
co-use 340–43; see also co-viewing, joint media 323–24, 336, 373, 453–54
engagement cyberhate 180, 237, 356
co-viewing 179, 198–99, 270–71, 287, 341–42; cybersex 83, 244; see also sexting
see also co-use, joint media engagement
Cognition and Technology Group at danger paradigm 422, 483–84, 488
Vanderbilt 462 Danish Film Institute 435
cognitive mapping 83, 176 data privacy 83, 163, 165; see also data security
comics 21–22, 42, 46, 87–89, 281, 483 Data Protection Commission 454
commercial 4, 19–20, 49–54, 59, 98, 112, 119, data security 83, 163, 165, 167–68, 423, 455,
135–37, 145, 147, 260, 262–63, 302–07, 425, 501–02; see also data privacy
427, 428, 441, 443–44, 452, 454, 484 dataveillance 166–67; see also surveillance
commercialization 4, 47, 49–54, 113, 115–16, death 25, 29–30, 250, 416, 509
144–45, 149, 163, 291, 426, 454 demarginalization 335, 350
Committee on the Rights of the Child 291, depression 130, 187–89, 227, 250, 253, 327–30,
455–56 343, 351, 391, 487
commodification 26–27, 139, 163 desensitization 181, 203, 236–37, 239
Common Sense Media 444, 502 development: cognitive 14, 34–36, 52–53, 157,
communities of practice 119, 221 179, 181, 194–99, 227, 230, 342, 391–92, 487;
compulsive use 130 emotional 34–36, 180, 227–32, 270, 392; moral
computer-mediated communication 154, 322, 324 36; sexual 83, 181, 243–47
congressional 428–30, 483–84, 486, 499 developmental theory 33, 35–37
consumer socialization 14, 52–53 developmental psychology 33–34, 52–53, 76
consumerism 4, 50, 404, 429, 502 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
consumption 1–2, 14, 20, 27, 34, 42–45, 49–55, Disorders 203, 487
59–60, 66–68, 70, 85, 94, 102, 104, 107, 123, diaspora 358–60
130, 135, 138, 140, 144, 146–47, 162, 216, 219, digital: addiction 21, 130, 341, 373, 487; divide 62,
261, 263, 288, 303–04, 335, 347, 359, 371, 374, 122, 314, 357–58, 380, 407, 417; engagement
395–96, 403, 429, 441–42, 444, 454, 467, 337, 382, 403–08; environment 10, 21, 31, 52,
476, 488 82, 111, 115–16, 295, 405, 450–56, 488;
contemporaneity 68–69 inequality 336, 379–85; media 1, 28, 67, 75,
content analysis 165, 235, 311, 443, 514 140, 145, 174, 187, 243, 291, 295, 314, 364–67,
Convention on the Protection and Promotion of 403–04, 413, 455, 476, 488, 501; natives 67,
the Diversity of Cultural Expressions 437 279; rights 9, 291; skills 114, 380, 382–83,
convergence 3, 41, 81, 145, 174, 278, 348, 405–06; social capital 406–07; technologies 28,
352, 358 58–59, 67, 123, 140, 171, 281, 314, 359, 382,
coordination 21, 128–29 417, 429, 454, 488
Council of Europe 452, 455–56, 475 Digital Wellness Lab 488
counter-stereotypes 280–81 direct-to-fan 15, 65–66

519
 Topic Index

disability 337, 395–99, 496, 500, 515 empowerment 4, 9, 19, 34, 49–51, 62–63, 146,
disclaimers 252 173, 214, 239, 285, 287, 297, 322, 351, 364,
Discover Science 511 405, 446, 450, 455, 472, 477, 483, 507
disinformation 6, 113, 118, 294–97, 422, 455, 478; entertainment 4, 8, 46, 59, 94–96, 104–05, 153,
see also fake news 172, 187, 203, 228, 229, 236, 239, 260–62, 291,
Disney 27–28, 42, 65, 93–94, 102, 103, 106, 303, 307, 373, 387, 398–99, 426–29, 483, 486,
135–37, 148–49, 229, 253, 313, 388, 436–37; 488, 501, 506
see also Disney+ Entertainment Software Review Board
Disney+ 67, 101, 103, 105, 356, 433, 438 (ESRB) 498
displacement 212, 320, 324, 358; of locally- environment 10, 20–22, 27, 31, 37–38, 44, 46, 49,
produced content 112 52, 58, 70, 107, 110–113, 116, 145, 163, 171,
displacement hypothesis 189, 212, 261, 320, 324, 174, 195, 222–24, 259, 279, 286, 295–96,
329, 358 303–06, 327–28, 405, 450–51, 455–56, 488
distribution 5, 67, 102–04, 140, 390, 429, 433, equity 62, 314, 351, 406, 473, 496, 507
438, 442 erasures 75, 279, 356
diversity 7, 27–28, 89, 122, 314, 356–57, 436–37, ethnicity 5, 19, 22, 121–22, 146, 253–54, 323,
496, 500, 514 355–58, 364, 366, 372, 515; see also race
divorce 509–10 European 8–9, 26, 29–30, 45, 65, 74, 78, 85, 91,
DIY 222–24, 405, 412–13 102–07, 121, 128, 131, 135, 138, 163, 165, 204,
documentary 468, 508 229, 235, 250, 253, 260, 264, 295, 307, 339,
double address 98 348, 355–57, 374, 380–82, 391, 415, 433,
DQ Institute 476 435–38, 451–53, 455, 479, 515
drawings 42, 145, 147, 166, 205, 214–15, 412, 513 European Commission 260, 307, 408, 437,
dreams 46, 506; day- 212, 214 451–53, 478
drive for muscularity 175, 253–54 European Union 264, 433, 451
drive for thinness 250–55, 312–14 evaluation 5, 76, 167, 185, 211, 221, 252, 271,
drugs 91, 268–71, 454 296, 303, 307, 330, 340, 391, 409, 476, 478–79,
498–99, 501, 508
East Los High 281 everyday life 1, 41, 45, 52–54, 60–68, 73, 77–79,
eating disorders 250–55, 351, 454 115, 123, 127, 147, 153, 171, 196, 215, 223–24,
e-cigarettes 268, 270, 445 279, 320, 397, 413–14
Edelman 294, 299 exergames 263–64, 487
education 264, 288, 291, 295–97, 357, 379, 384, expert 106, 221, 296, 491–97, 501; children as 70,
388, 395, 403, 406–09, 414–15, 429, 446, 452, 76, 139
455, 468 expressive communication 139, 476
educational: media 279, 341, 343–44, 380, 397, expressive use 128–29, 477
451, 463–64, 467; television 357, 364, 384, 387,
389, 392, 422, 428, 434, 459–63 Facebook 20, 140, 174, 187–88, 219, 228, 252–53,
effects 3, 6, 21, 34, 38, 49–50, 52, 73–78, 129, 136, 322–23, 365, 372, 406–07, 409, 429, 443, 445,
138, 157, 173, 179–82, 185–91, 197–98, 472, 478
202–08, 219, 227, 229–30, 236–40, 244–47, fairy tale 20, 42–43, 86–87, 96, 148
250, 252–55, 260–61, 268–71, 279–82, 286–87, fake news 285–86, 374–75, 478;
297, 303–05, 307, 311, 320–21, 324, 328–29, see also disinformation, misinformation
341, 343, 366, 387, 391, 397, 428, 441, 446, family 18–19, 25, 53, 59, 101, 144, 146, 502;
459–64, 484–88, 500 communication 138, 219, 278–79, 286–87,
efficacy: of advertising policy 444; of educational 297–98, 341, 365–66, 373, 382, 390;
media 492, 494–96; of media literacy programs communication patterns model 297; context 2,
264, 479; political 297, 408 10, 37, 76, 91, 114, 186, 188, 230, 252, 264–65,
elections 295 288, 297, 323, 328–29, 339–44, 357, 379–81,
emancipation 63, 127, 129–30 383–84, 460, 472; dynamics 26–27, 363, 446;
emotion 21, 22, 25–27, 30, 46, 53, 60, 62, 90, 107, interaction 37–38, 47, 328–29, 343–44, 367,
131, 138, 147, 156, 158, 164, 172, 175, 180, 471; programming 21, 101, 136, 357
186, 197, 213–14, 221, 227–32, 238, 243, 246, fandom 136, 140, 351, 372
252, 262, 272, 281, 287, 289–90, 295–96, fantasy 19, 86, 94, 97–98, 101, 174, 205, 211–16,
303–07, 336, 340, 342, 349, 364–65, 373, 375, 230, 278, 315
387, 392, 397–98, 459, 476, 484, 501, 509; fear 19, 27, 30, 34, 69, 130, 173, 188, 228–30,
see also affect, emotional development 236–38, 272, 287, 290, 328

520
 Topic Index

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) The Gruffalo 509

103–04, 427, 441, 443–444 guessing games 512
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) 104, 307, 429,
443–44, 501 hacking 165, 167
femininity 139, 174–75 Hardball 509
feminist 10, 19, 57–63, 139, 252, 312, 396 Harry Potter 88–89, 90–91, 94–95, 224, 239, 399
festival 506–07, 512 Harvard Kennedy School 294
fiction 20, 86–87, 95, 123, 138–39, 277–79, 313, Holocaust 230, 510
399, 472, 477, 507 home-grown content 104, 390, 421, 432–38;
film 9, 18, 22, 27–28, 43, 74, 93–99, 102, 146, see also localization, local programming
148–49, 229–30, 235–36, 268–69, 280, 388, Horrible Histories 511
396–97, 427, 435, 502, 509, 512; children’s 9, human-machine communication 154–58
28, 43, 93–99, 146, 148–49, 229–30, 235–36, human-robot interaction (HRI) 154, 156
268–69, 280, 388, 396–97, 427, 435, 502, 509, hybrid culture 5, 8, 66, 356, 359–60, 364, 366
512; film 18, 27, 94, 96, 98, 102; see also cinema, hybrid media 88, 162, 196
motion pictures hyperactivity 180, 202–07, 236, 343
film culture 93–99
First Amendment 264, 421, 425, 430, 443, 484 information and communication technology (ICT)
first-order effects 279 175, 179, 185–92, 322–23; see also mobile
folk music 136 communication, mobile phone, social media, tablets
folklore 86 Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) 454
framing analysis 251, 408 idealized content 183, 327, 330–31
identification 46, 93, 135, 146, 213, 238, 246, 351,
games 21, 44–45, 49, 58, 88, 103–04, 114, 119–24, 356, 397
138–39, 145, 147, 162, 174, 180–82, 189–90, identity 5–7, 31, 46, 98, 114, 130, 138, 174,
204–06, 212, 222–23, 229, 232, 235, 237–38, 182–83, 213, 224, 243, 254, 278, 295–96, 315,
244–45, 260, 262–64, 269, 279, 296, 303, 315, 327, 330, 331, 348, 350, 359, 362–64, 371–74,
329, 343–44, 348, 350, 357, 382, 405, 429, 442, 388, 396–97, 399, 406, 434, 436, 472, 500;
452, 461, 463–64, 469, 470–72, 487, 492, 496, collective 230, 295, 308, 348–49, 351–52, 390;
498–501 consumers 51–52, 60, 147; gender 57, 61, 138,
gamification 297 174, 243, 311, 315, 508; hybrid 5, 8, 66, 356,
gaming 44, 58–59, 82, 119–24, 183, 187, 190, 204, 359–60, 364, 366; youth civic 285–86, 374,
222, 237, 244, 253, 260, 263, 315, 343, 422, 404–07; politics 137; work 3, 172, 174, 212,
470–71, 487; culture 59, 82, 119–24, 315 214, 315–16, 319, 372, 472–73, 513
Gen-Z 281 imagination 20, 31, 146, 148, 157, 164,
gender 4, 14, 19, 57–63, 88, 114, 121, 139, 146, 211–16, 485
174, 183, 186–87, 207, 235, 246, 250, 253–54, immigrant 365–68, 38–82, 384; youth 69, 89, 336,
311–12, 315, 323, 351, 355, 357, 372, 414, 507; 355, 363–68, 404, 426
binary 57, 311, 315; portrayals 148, 243–46, impression management 145, 316, 350, 352, 473
279, 311–15; roles 59, 289, 312, 349; stereotype impulsivity 180, 202–07, 236
50, 146, 165, 243–46, 281, 313–14 inattention 203–04, 342
gendered child images 312–14 inclusion 26, 67, 89–91, 280, 291, 350, 357,
genre hierarchies 20 397–99, 423, 496, 515
girls 19, 29, 42, 44, 58–60, 88, 114, 121, 131, India 68, 88, 97, 103, 313–14, 356, 364;
138–40, 146, 157, 165, 173–74, 187, 205–06, see also Indians
236, 243, 245–46, 250–54, 289, 313–16, 329, Indians 28, 204, 364, 392; see also India
340, 348–49, 358–59, 372, 414–15, 417, Indigenous 27, 62, 97, 280, 337, 355, 389,
471–72 414–15
globalization 5, 47, 65–70, 101–02, 106–07, 113, individual differences 52, 180, 207, 515
146, 390 infant 18, 60, 106, 127, 137, 167, 179, 194–98,
Global Kids Online 45, 114 341–43, 486
Goethe Institute 512 influencer 49–51, 101, 107, 130, 145, 182, 261,
Google News Initiative 475 270, 302, 330, 444–46, 479
governance 23, 75, 163, 422, 450–51 information analysis 337, 404, 407–08
graphic novels 88 Instagram 69, 219, 227–28, 245, 252–53, 351, 375,
green time 487 409, 445, 472

521
 Topic Index

Institute of Medicine 259–60, 264, 441 magazines 18, 20, 29, 42, 85, 87, 105, 144, 174,
Interbrand 148 251, 253–54, 281, 305; see also periodicals
intercultural learning 512 The Magic Tree 509
International Central Institute for Youth and marginalized: groups 63, 297, 397, 515–16; youth
Educational TV 512 231, 280–82, 335, 350–51, 373–74, 384, 399,
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) 264 404–05, 515–16
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) marijuana 181, 268–69
45, 295, 380, 452 market segmentation 83, 146–47
Internet Addiction Disorder 487 marketing 4, 14, 49–50, 51–52, 66, 87, 138,
Internet Society 387 145–47, 164, 167, 181–82, 261–64, 269–71,
intersectionality 61, 122, 183, 277, 282, 313, 316, 303, 307, 421–22, 430, 441–46, 454;
357–58 see also advertising
marketization 54; of childhood 49–55, 66–68,
Jane Addams 425–27 144–47
Japan 5, 42, 44, 66, 68, 89, 128, 130, 157, 206, masculinity 9, 58–59, 122, 148, 174–75, 281, 313,
236–37, 281, 315, 349, 356, 358, 434, 436, 452, 315–16
511; see also Asia, Asians mass media 13, 17–18, 34, 77, 114, 181, 243, 271,
Jesus Film Project 388 337, 364, 367, 396, 398–99, 425, 433
Jewish 323 material: culture 54, 79, 85, 112, 146–47;
Joan Ganz Cooney Center, The 502 possessions 83, 146–47
joint media engagement 198, 500–02; see also co- materiality 120, 172, 174, 316
use, co-viewing mathematics 165–66, 380, 389, 459–61, 463–64
media and body image 174–75, 181, 250–55, 280,
312, 330, 387, 408–09
K-Pop 15, 65–67, 335, 372 media and generation 58, 93–94, 97, 113, 224,
kidfluencer 422, 443 281, 366–67, 382–83
kindie music 136 media and health 173, 259–261, 265, 268–69, 408,
Korea 103, 130, 214, 251, 343, 349, 351, 359, 422, 442, 453, 483, 510; see also exergames
364–66, 372, 436, 452, 487; see also Asia, Asians media: appropriation 93, 113, 213–15, 469; culture 2,
6, 11, 15, 65, 81–83, 110, 116, 213; education
ladder of participation 114 113, 239, 282, 446; see also literacy; histories 29,
language 290, 336, 363, 373; learning 5, 148, 157, 41–45, 81–83, 85, 95, 106–07, 135–36, 421–23,
194–98, 343, 363–67, 373, 390, 398, 461–63, 425–30, 460, 498–99, 507–08; industry 140,
467, 499; services 115 421–23, 425, 491–97; multitasking 181, 246, 279,
Latin America 355–56, 365 357–58, 469; panic 13, 17, 20–22; see also moral
Latinx 122, 254, 280–81, 355, 357, 363–64, panic; policy 2, 10, 264, 269–70, 421–22,
366–67, 415 425–30,433–36, 441–46, 450–56, 465; studies 2,
LGBTQ 57, 91, 173–74, 231, 278, 313–14, 390, 10, 68, 113, 316, 328, 515; traces 214–15
508; see also sexual orientation mediatization 23, 45–46, 115
lifestyle politics 404 Medierådet 121
listening 42–43, 58, 61, 113, 115, 138–40, 165, Medietilsynet 121
168, 182, 243–45, 269, 290, 297, 357 mental health 7, 49, 73, 139, 183, 187, 219,
literacy: advertising 183, 302–08, 446, 467, 479; 327–31, 374, 391, 483–85, 487
digital 113, 279, 296–97, 366, 407, 450, 455; metagame activities 82, 124
health 264, 422, 483; media 2, 5, 10, 77, 113, methodology 7–9, 14, 53, 61–62, 67, 69, 76–77,
181–82, 238–40, 264, 271, 281–82, 291, 116, 158, 179, 180, 191, 214–15, 239, 244, 246,
296–98, 306, 337, 403–04, 405–09, 422, 446, 253, 311–12, 337, 359, 396, 412–17
467, 475–80; see also media education; news 286, Middle Eastern 12, 235, 288–90, 313–14, 321, 323,
288, 477 343, 349, 358–59, 364–65, 389–90, 407, 437,
Little Lunch 509 214–15, 229–30, 238, 363, 367, 421, 433, 435
live action 97, 509–10 millennial 281
local programming 67, 356, 388–89, 432, 434–35, Media Literacy for Living Together (MILT) 408
461; see also home-grown content, localization Minecraft 120–21, 123, 222, 315, 348, 350
localization 5, 68–69, 389, 436, 438; see also home- minorities 89, 97, 138, 247, 259, 265, 279, 323,
grown content, local programming 335–36, 341, 355–59; see also immigrant, immigrant
loneliness 130, 188–89, 231, 322, 328–29, 359 youth, marginalized groups, marginalized youth

522
 Topic Index

minoritization 336, 355, 359 online: activism 114, 291, 350–51, 356, 372, 374,
misinformation 5, 182, 290, 294–96, 337, 372, 404, 406, 408, 415, 479; news 76, 291, 364
403, 406; see also fake news online validation 329, 350–51
mixed reality 83, 171–76, 320 Organization for Economic Cooperation and
mobile: communication 127–32, 455; phone 1, 3, Development (OECD) 88, 452–54, 456
58–59, 82, 127–32, 172, 328, 335, 343–44,
348–49, 358, 365, 373, 388, 390; paintings 18
see also smartphone parasocial relationship 197, 230–32, 246, 281, 399
moral panic 15, 21–22, 30, 68, 73–76, 83, 110, parent-child: communication 189, 198, 297, 328;
483; see also media panic connectivity 324, 328–29; interactions 198, 228,
motion pictures 425–26, 427, 430, 483; 341; relationships 144, 343, 366
see also cinema, film parental mediation 37, 47, 115, 228, 238, 240,
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) 270–71, 278, 281, 287–88, 335, 340–41
229, 270, 428–29, 498 parenting 54, 63, 68, 205, 287, 298, 341, 343
MP3 43, 137 participation 54, 82, 112, 119–24, 182, 196,
multimodality 87, 337 219–20, 281, 285–86, 294, 297–98, 320, 337,
multiple media use 279, 422, 463–64 371, 396, 399, 403–09, 412–17, 450–52,
multiplicity 82, 119–20, 122 455–56, 468–473, 478
Museum of Failure 163 participatory culture 123, 220, 405, 413, 468–69,
music 19, 26, 58, 66, 57, 82, 135–40, 197, 243–46, 473; see also prosumer
251, 262, 268–69, 351, 358, 415, 485, 508; participatory politics 337, 403–09
culture 135–40; videos 19, 66, 174, 181, PBS 103, 106, 148, 198, 398, 463, 491–97
243–44, 246, 254, 268, 270, 351 pediatrician 422, 484–85, 487–88
musical theatre 136–37 peer relations 78, 82, 135, 137–38, 144, 331
Muslim(s) 149, 336, 371–76 peer sociability 123, 319–325; see also peer culture,
peer relations
narrative integration 305 periodicals 18, 85–87; see also magazines
National Campaign to Prevent Teen persuasion processing 302–03, 305–06
Pregnancy 173 persuasive design 487
National Institute of Mental Health 484–85 Pfeiffer Law 390
National Research Council 194 phubbing 82, 130, 343
Netflix 65, 67, 101–04, 107, 356, 437–38 platform affordances 220–25, 350
network(s) 23, 66, 70, 106, 120, 124, 427, 435–37, playgrounds 18, 138–39, 144, 343
452, 483–84; effect 320; social 43, 115, 120, Pokémon 44, 213, 304–05, 348
129–30, 322–23, 328, 348, 390, 405–06, 408, Pokémon Go 348
470; transnational 373; see also social media networks political economy 8, 66–68, 70, 112, 115–16
networked society 20, 23, 66, 114, 225, 404 political socialization 182, 286–87, 289, 294–98
neurodiverse children 350; see also ADHD, autism, pornography 96, 131, 173–75, 181, 243–47, 432,
disability 451–52, 454, 475, 479
New York Times 427–28 postcolonial approach 67, 69
news 13, 17, 19, 20, 29–30, 42, 76, 78, 129, 182, preadolescents 60, 138, 250, 327, 487
229–30, 238, 277, 279, 285–91, 295–97, 313, preschool media
336, 364, 367, 371, 374–75, 406–08, 422, 461, preschoolers 106, 204, 212–13, 215, 228, 230, 260,
477–79, 500 281, 392, 397, 443, 459–65, 477, 499; media
Nickelodeon 27, 50, 65, 102–03, 106, 136, 433, targeted to 104–06, 280, 312, 336, 422, 435–36,
436–37, 491 459–65, 467, 491–93, 499
nightmares 236, 238, 427 print culture 81, 85–91
non-fiction 281, 436, 507 private sphere 10, 62, 291
novelty effect 157 PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL 423,
NPD Group 145 506–513
nutrition 189, 259–60, 264, 392, 422, 443, 479 pro-ana 69, 351
Problematic Interactive Media Use 487–88
obesity 75, 181, 250, 254, 259–65, 408–09, 442, producers 4, 20, 27, 95, 101, 103–04, 106–08, 136,
445, 487 183, 289, 312, 314, 389, 392, 423, 438, 442,
Organization for Economic Cooperation and 461, 464–65, 488, 492–94, 499, 507–08, 513;
Development (OECD) 88, 452–454, 456 children as 28, 62, 65–66, 68, 70, 119, 123, 140,

523
 Topic Index

219, 225; knowledge 337, 412–17; remote learning 380, 383–84

see also prosumer, participatory culture repetition
production 22, 26–28, 60, 62–63, 67, 94–95, 98, representation: childhood 7, 13, 18–20, 25–31, 68,
102, 104–07, 123–24, 137, 144, 175, 288–89, 74, 97, 121, 139, 282, 286–88, 336–37, 356,
356, 389, 438, 442, 461, 465, 488, 491–97, 506, 374–75, 396; media 7, 13, 18–20, 25–31, 68,
512–13; child-produced content 70, 107, 359, 74, 97, 121–22, 139, 148–49, 175, 253–54,
390, 399, 403, 405, 407, 409, 412–14, 416–17, 280–82, 286–88, 336–37, 366, 356–57, 374–75,
432, 434, 438–39, 469, 477; creative 180, 396; over- 356
219–25; techniques 179, 197, 264, 464–65 resilience 198, 288, 398, 499–500
progressive movement 425–30 restrictive mediation 115, 238, 270, 340, 436, 451
propaganda 97, 296, 374, 476 “rich get richer" hypothesis 189, 322
prosumer 358–59; see also participatory culture risk 15, 26, 41, 63, 67, 69–70, 73, 78, 82, 110,
psychiatrist 22, 422, 484–85 114–16, 163–65, 167, 172–73, 175, 181–82,
puberty 34, 250, 510 227, 235, 245, 250, 254, 260, 268–69, 271, 319,
public service broadcasting 47, 103, 105–08, 328, 329, 335, 339–43, 350, 355–56, 373, 380,
288, 435 382, 387, 403, 407, 422, 442, 450–56, 476–77,
publishing 148–49, 164, 81, 86–90 484–85, 487, 488–89, 502
Roblox 101, 121, 220, 222–23
Qatar 433, 435–36
quality 21–23, 97, 103, 107, 158, 189, 198, 314, safety 9, 37, 69, 75, 82, 113, 128, 167, 245, 340,
320–22, 328, 339, 341–42, 344, 389–91, 423, 416, 422, 430, 450–56, 498–99, 501–02
428, 435, 467, 475, 498–502, 507–13 schemas 269, 277–78, 280; see also scripts
Question Bridge 281 school performance 341, 460, 463, 485
school-age children 87, 204, 206, 228, 238–39,
race 3, 7, 26, 29, 61–63, 82, 135–36, 146, 148, 264, 379–80, 384, 390, 422, 446, 459, 460–61,
181, 253–54, 265, 279, 313, 316, 323, 355, 467, 477, 479, 493, 501
357–58, 470, 479, 496, 514–15; see also ethnicity Scratch 220–23
racial 12, 59, 138, 140, 254, 279, 291, 351, 355, screen media 36, 179, 183, 194–99, 251, 371, 422,
356–60, 395, 406, 407, 477, 479, 496, 515 459, 483–85, 487
racialization 19, 26–27 screen time 1, 10, 21–22, 36, 38, 190, 204, 264,
racism 67, 91, 281, 351, 355–56, 406, 453, 279, 295, 311, 314, 340, 398, 467, 485, 487
496, 510 screenings 414–15, 512–13
radio 42–43, 47, 137, 171, 182, 211, 215, 270–71, screens as babysitter 38, 335
285, 337, 371, 374, 384, 389, 509, 413, 427–28, scripts 138, 203, 214, 269, 277–78; see also schemas
430, 483; children’s 416, 427 second order effects 279
Radio Disney 137 sedentary 73, 259, 261, 264, 487
ratings 96, 203, 206, 221, 229, 270, 429, 432, 478, self-esteem 185, 187, 280, 321, 327, 330–31, 374,
491, 498–99, 502, 507–08 399, 436, 460, 477
Ravelry 220–24 self-objectification 245, 252, 254
reading 5, 14, 18, 21–22, 26, 42, 44, 85, 88, 89–91, selfies 28, 61, 183, 252–53, 316
98, 196, 203, 253–54, 281, 342, 344, 460, Sesame Street 27, 37, 106, 136, 205, 213, 228, 263,
478, 493 392, 398, 459–61, 463, 499, 511
Ready To Learn 464, 494–95 Sesame Workshop 398, 461, 502
realistic depictions 179, 197, 198, 205, 236, sexting 3, 9, 22, 61, 82–83, 131, 172–75, 181,
239, 269 243–45, 453–54; see also cybersex
refugees 28–30, 138, 288, 336, 365, 367, 373–75, sexual orientation 62, 174, 243; see also LGBTQ
404, 515 sexuality 62, 75, 82–83, 135, 148, 173–75, 243,
regulations 113, 131, 270; social 20, 23, 78, 270; 246, 280, 356, 366, 415, 429, 485, 508
State, policy, and industry 102, 106, 163, sexualization 30, 121, 123, 140, 175, 244–45, 254,
264–66, 270, 307, 422, 426–29, 430n2, 432–35, 313–16, 387
439, 441, 443–46, 450, 452–56; self- 36, 228, Shoah 510
231–32, 305–07 sleep 131, 166, 189–90, 236, 238, 259, 261, 341,
relationship formation 155–56, 158, 183, 322 343, 373, 391, 485, 487, 500
religion 21, 25, 27, 60–62, 86, 115, 122, 279, 336, smartphones 20, 42–45, 127–131, 147, 171, 219, 296,
351, 355–60, 364, 366, 371–72, 374, 406, 433 319, 335–36, 339, 348–49, 352, 358, 366, 373,
remixing 113, 221, 223, 413 381, 383, 388, 390–91, 429, 459, 465, 467, 487

524
 Topic Index

smoking 268–70, 272, 442 tablets 14, 28, 83, 123, 165, 278, 296, 329, 348,
Snapchat 219, 228, 390, 429, 472 357–58, 379, 383, 429, 465, 495
social: activism 404, 479; change 14, 57, 59, 63, target audience 34, 46, 49–50, 52, 57, 60, 86–87,
113, 115, 281, 337, 390, 405, 408, 412–17; 95, 104, 106–07, 110, 139, 144–45, 147–49,
cohesion 129; comparison 188, 252–53, 330; 164, 166, 179, 202, 235, 237, 259–61, 270–71,
compensation 188, 322; connectedness 139, 280, 298, 303, 313–14, 330, 389, 433, 435–37,
212, 279, 296, 322, 328, 331, 468–70; 442–43, 446, 454, 465, 479, 487, 500, 507
construction 11, 14, 34, 57, 60–62, 73–75, 78, Task Force on Children and Television 484
149, 286, 335, 396; contingency 179, 197–98; technoference 487
diversification 322–24; gaming 222; inequality technologized bodies 83, 171–76
62, 336, 384–85; justice 58, 63, 295–96, 479; teenagers 38, 43, 46, 67, 69, 82–83, 88, 95, 106,
learning theory 52, 157, 280–81, 303, 311; 113–14, 127–32, 137–40, 144, 172–75, 182–83,
media 13, 19–20, 28–29, 36, 45, 61, 67–69, 78, 219–20, 222, 224, 228–29, 235–36, 238, 251,
88–89, 101, 103, 113, 144, 154, 172, 174, 259, 265, 270, 278, 281, 288–90, 311, 313–16,
180–82, 187–90, 204–06, 215, 219–25, 228, 319–24, 348–51, 357–59, 373, 406–07, 429–30,
244–45, 251–55, 260–61, 268–70, 272, 281, 455, 459, 467–68, 471–73, 475–76, 478;
285, 288, 290, 295–97, 302, 319, 327, 330–31, see also adolescents
336, 366, 371–75, 387, 389–91, 403, 406–09, television: children’s 101–08, 145, 428–29, 444,
422, 429, 443, 445, 453, 455, 467, 470, 472–3, 459–465, 495, 506–513; commercial 18, 103–04,
477; media networks 44, 101, 136, 140, 180, 105–07, 197, 289, 357, 423, 428, 434–35, 437,
220–22, 224–25, 281, 296, 327–29, 336, 341, 491–93, 499; teen 313–14; tween 313–14
344, 347, 351, 365–66, 371–75, 382, 390, 406, television code 483
415, 472; protest 390, 406; robots 83, television culture 81, 101–08
153–58, 164 Thailand Children’s Food and Beverage
socialization 14, 46, 52–53, 62, 68, 96–98, 111, Initiative 445
174, 181–82, 268, 277–78, 286–87, 289, The Day I Became Strong 513
294–98, 321, 328, 348, 390, 446, 468 The Little Boy and the Beast 510
socio-materiality 120 Themed Entertainment Association 148
sociocultural influences 250–51, 280–81 thinspiration 251, 351
sociology 7, 21, 53–54, 60, 74, 111 TikTok 53, 61–62, 65, 68–69, 101, 103, 139–40,
socioeconomic status (SES) 28, 171, 175, 340, 357, 219, 225, 295, 350, 371, 390, 429, 472
383, 395, 460, 470, 472, 494; see also class tobacco 181, 268–70, 272, 442, 478
solitary media use 341, 343 toddlers 4, 8, 29, 35, 46, 60, 76, 87, 127, 145,
Statista 38, 390 197–98, 231, 277, 342, 459, 485, 487, 499, 501
stereotypes 19–20, 26–27, 50, 89, 121–22, 146, toys 4, 18, 52, 57, 59–60, 63, 82–83, 86–87,
149, 165, 175, 181, 243–46, 269, 278, 280–81, 103–04, 106, 135, 137, 139, 144–49, 154, 174,
313–14, 341, 355, 366, 396, 399, 408, 475, 195, 229, 231, 305, 342, 344, 442; Internet of
478–79, 485 (IoToys) 83, 153, 162–67
Stern TV 168 Toys “R” Us 145–46
stigma 51, 140, 175, 395, 397, 408, 409, 415 traditional media 26, 140, 145, 224, 336, 371, 454
Storytellingclub.org 513 transgender 57, 91, 314, 390, 508
streaming 43, 58, 65, 67–68, 81, 101, 102–05, 136, transmedia storytelling 281
281, 356, 358, 374, 436–38, 492 tweens 4, 82, 46, 50, 60, 88, 106, 135, 137–39,
Strong Stories for Strong Children 512–13 183, 270, 313–16
Sub-Saharan Africa 380, 388–89, 391, 413; Twitch 123
see also Africa, Africans Twitter 66, 69, 220–21, 228, 251, 374, 406, 472
subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) 67,
101–04, 106–08, 437–38 U.K. Office of Communications (Ofcom)
substance abuse 62, 422, 478–79 103–107, 121, 285–86, 290, 296, 339, 467,
substance use 181, 190, 231, 268–72, 485 471, 477
supervision 145, 335, 340–41 U.S. Census Bureau 357
Surgeon General 269, 484–85 U.S. Department of Health and Human
surveillance 111, 129, 166–67, 253; Services 269
see also dataveillance Ubongo 389, 461
symbolic annihilation 279, 356 Ulitsa Sezam Department of Research and
synchronicity 68–69, 113–14 Content 461

525
 Topic Index

Ultra Strips Down 510 341, 343, 355, 373–75, 387, 396, 413–15,
Umbrella Revolution 350 425–30, 432, 436, 452, 459, 477–78, 483–86,
UN Special Rapporteur 455 500, 502, 512
under-connected 381 viral marketing 261
UNESCO 388, 390, 433, 437, 475, 507 visualization hypothesis
UNHCR 373 voice 212
UNICEF 66, 227, 296, 351, 380–81, 384, 416, voting 294, 298, 404
452–53, 461, 507
United Nations Children’s Fund UK 380 Walt Disney Company, The 20, 28, 148, 436
United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Web 2.0 220, 415
Child 10, 291, 455–56 well-being 61, 75, 112, 166, 290, 331, 365;
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the physical 179, 185, 186, 189–90; psychological
Child 10, 405 185–88, 391; social 183, 185, 186, 188, 327–28
United States Congress House Committee on WeProtect Global Alliance 456
Interstate Foreign Commerce 483 Western modernity 13, 17, 22
U.S 8, 26, 42–44, 46, 60, 66, 68–69, 81, 83, 85–91, WhatsApp 128–29, 373, 388, 391
94, 102–07, 121–22, 128, 135–38, 144–47, 165, White 26–30, 51, 75, 89, 121–22, 136, 138–39,
183, 190, 198, 204–06, 212–15, 219, 222, 254, 265, 280–81, 287, 323, 355–59, 384, 397,
228–29, 231, 235–39, 243–47, 250–53, 259–60, 500, 509, 514
264, 269–70, 281, 288–89, 296–97, 311–15, World Bank 388, 392, 392n1
319–20, 320, 323–24, 339–40, 342–44, 350–51, World Health Organization 144–45, 185, 268,
355–60, 363–67, 380–82, 388, 390, 395, 421, 271, 395, 442, 487
425–30, 434, 436–37, 441–46, 45152, 45962, World War II 91, 97, 215, 428, 510–11
464, 464, 471, 477–78, 483–88, 494–95,
499–500, 502, 511, 514, 515 young adult literature 90
user-generated media (UGM) 15, 65, 69–70, young adults 174, 236, 322, 327, 366, 436, 475–76,
243–44, 390 478–79
youth activism 350, 406
video games 44, 73, 77, 88, 104, 162, 174–75, YouTube 28, 44, 51, 53, 62, 66, 81, 101–06, 108,
180–82, 190, 204–06, 212, 223, 229, 231, 114, 120, 123, 136, 138–40, 219–21, 224, 252,
235–37, 243–45, 269, 279, 281, 287, 302, 315, 260–61, 268, 307, 315, 348, 350, 358, 366, 368,
343–44, 348, 357, 387, 429, 433, 452, 471, 498, 371–73, 389–90, 399, 422, 438, 442,
500–01 444–45, 472
violence 9–10, 29, 50, 62, 66–67, 73–75, 90,
94–97, 106, 114–15, 138, 149, 180–81, 202–04, Zombie Lars 510
206–08, 212, 235–240, 281, 286–87, 289, 337,

526
 AUTHOR INDEX

Aarsand, P. xv, 82, 119, 123–25 Agrawal, S.P. 97, 99

Ab Kadir, K. 372, 376 Aguiar, N. 266
Abad-Vivero, E.N. 274 Aguerri, J.C. 325
Abbas, Z. 410 Ahmed, R. 378
Abdu, S.D. 407, 409 Ahn, J.-H. 67, 70
Abdul Rahman, M.N. 376 Ahn, S. 256
Abdul Rahman, N.A. 376 Ahorlu, C. 394
Abdullah, A.D.A. 373, 376 Ahuja, S. 212, 217
Abdullah, M.H. 446–47 Aidman, A. 214, 217
Abdulqadir, K. 370 Ajzen, I. 269, 272–73
Abdusalam, D. 389, 394 Akhtar, N. 200
Abel, R. 167–68 Akinbami, L.J. 202, 208
Abela, J.R. 334 Akram, H.R. 133
Abelman, R. 396, 401 Akré, C. 248
Abendschön, S. 293 Aktar, S. 299
Abera, M. 275 Al-Shehab, A.J. 312–13, 316
Abi-Jaoude, E. 391–92 Aladé, F. 312, 316, 356, 360, 462, 464–66,
Abidin, C. 130, 132 500–01, 503
Abidin, R.R. 203, 208 Alagözlü, N. 477, 480
Abolhassani, M. 394 Alas, Y. 132
Abrams, S.S. 120, 122, 124 Albert, P.D. 396, 398, 401
Abu-Saad, I. 371, 377 AlBuhairan, F. 269, 272
Acock, A.C. 242 Alder, J. 482
Acosta, E.E. 397, 401 Aldrich, N.J. 504
Adamu, A.U. 372, 376 Alencar, A. 373, 376, 378
Addams, J. 425–27, 431 Alexander, J. 400
Adhikari, R. 163, 165, 168 Alfano, M. 299
Adkins, V. 489 Alfieri, L. 504
Adler-Nissen, R. 29–31 Alghazali, I. 378
Adolph, K.E. 199 Ali, S. 455–56
Adorno, T. 51, 56 Alimom, N. 394
Adrian, A. 139, 141–42 Aljunied, S.M. 159
Afful, J. 266 Allaman, E. 129, 132
Aggarwal, J.C. 97, 99 Allan, S. 292
Aghtaie, N. 178 Allana, S. 164, 168
Agliata, D. 253, 255 Allara, E. 271–72
Agras, W.S. 257 Allen, D. 406, 409

527
 Author Index

Allen, N.B. 333 Aral, S. 301

Allen, R. Aran, S. 239–40
Allers, R. 94, 99 Arcelus, J. 250, 255
Alon-Tirosh, M. 229, 233, 238, 240, 282, 286, Arceneaux, N. 171, 176
289, 290–92 Archer, A.H. 201
Alonzo, M.C. 400 Ariadi, S. 410
Alper, M. xv, 337, 360, 395–96, 398–99 Ariès, P. 18, 23, 25, 31, 286, 291
Alpöge, G. 89, 92 Arif, A. 300
AlSayyari, A. 269, 272 Arillo-Santillán, E. 272, 275
Alvaro, E.M. 274 Aripin, N. 372, 376
Alvir, J. 200 Arnett, J.J. 347, 352, 514, 516
Alvy, L.M. 260, 265 Arnold, M. 126
Ameenuddin, N. 275, 448 Arocha, J.F. 394
Ameer, F. 273 Aronsson, K. 123–24
Amichai-Hamburger, Y. 192 Arum, R. 117, 474
Amram, O. 480 Ashley, S. 481
Amulya, J. 481 Ashurst, E. 159
Amzaleg, M. 365, 368 Asino, T.I. 124
An, S. 444, 446–47 Asonova, E. 90, 92
Andersen, K. 31 Asthana, S. 28, 31
Anderson, C. 114, 116, 212, 216, 248 Atayeva, R. 276
Anderson, C.A. 236–37, 240, 504 Atkinson, E. 199
Anderson, C.C. 204, 206, 208 Aubrey, J.S. 252, 255, 257, 280, 282, 312, 317
Anderson, C.N. 247 Auerswald, C. 248
Anderson, D. 345–46 Aufderheide, P. 296, 298
Anderson, D.R. 195, 199, 200–01, 204–06, 208, Ausperk, M. 482
460–61, 464–66, 499–500, 503–05 Austin, B. 480
Anderson, K. 141 Austin, E.W. 294, 296, 298, 479–80
Anderson, L.L. 242 Austin, L.L. 377
Anderson, M. 68, 70, 125, 132, 219, 225, 314–15, Austin, S.B. 258
317, 373, 376, 431, 467, 471–73 Auty, S. 309
Anderson, N. 134 Auxier, B. 127, 132, 219, 225, 312, 317, 429, 431
Anderson, P. 87, 92 Avery, G. 25, 31
Andersson, E. 295, 298 Avgitidou, S. 287, 291
Andersson, L. 475, 477, 479 Awan, F. 27, 31
Andes, S. 410 Awan, I. 373, 376
Ando, S. 209 Ayala, E.C. 397, 400
Andrew, N. 241 Ayling, N. 458
Ang, C.S. 322, 325 Aylward, A. 134
Ang, I. 77, 79 Azzarito, L. 252, 255
Ang, M. 159
Angus, K. 266 Baams, L. 244, 246–47, 249
Anhorn, C. 345 Babe, R.E. 112, 116
Anker, A.E. 271–72 Babington, B. 95, 99
Anore, J.A. 150 Bachmann, I. 61, 64
Ansari, A. 204–05, 208 Backholer, K. 265
Anschütz, D. 257 Badr, L.K. 237, 242
Anshari, M. 130, 132 Baer, J. 220, 226
Antheunis, M.L. 320, 325 Bağatur, S. 480
Anthony, B.J. 397, 400 Bahtiar, M. 409
Anthony, L. G. 400 Bail, C.A. 299
Antin, J. 141 Bailey, K. 346
Appadurai, A. 66, 70, 175–76 Bains, M. 273
Appel, M. 189, 191 Baiocco, R. 192, 248
Apperley, T.H. 121, 124 Bak-Coleman, J.B. 295, 299
Appleton, H. 466 Baker-Sperry, L. 148, 150
Aquino, G. 88, 92 Baker, G. 477, 480

528
 Author Index

Baker, K. 280, 282, 312, 317 Baxter, P. 153, 159–60

Baker, S. 138, 141 Bayeck, R.Y. 122, 124
Bakker, T.P. 290–91 Baylis, K. 442, 447
Balagopalan, S. 68, 70 Bazalgette, C. 95–96, 99, 477, 480
Balazs, J. 393 Beagles-Roos, J. 211, 217
Ball, C. 122, 124 Beales, J.H. 443, 447
Ball, S. 228, 232, 460, 465 Beals, L.M. 174, 176
Ballentine, L.W. 251, 255 Beaudoin, M. 232
Banaji, S. 28, 31, 54–55, 110, 116, 291–92 Beaudoin-Ryan, L. 361, 503
Banda, J.A. 267 Beaufort, M. 260, 265
Bandura, A. 74, 79, 157, 159, 246–47, 262, 265, Beavis, C. 123–24
269, 272, 280, 282, 295, 299, 312, 317 Becattini, A. 42, 47
Banet-Weiser, S. 19, 23, 50, 55 Beck-Gernsheim, E. 115–16
Banjo, O. 282–83 Beck, U. 115–16
Bar-Tal, D. 295, 299 Becker, A.E. 253, 255
Baraniuk, C. 166, 168 Becker, K.M. 273
Barassi, V. 49, 55 Beckett, A. 397, 400
Barber, B. 51, 55 Beentjes, H.W.J. 503
Barboza, D. 436, 439 Beentjes, J.W.J. 241, 317
Barco, A. 159–60 Bègue, L. 245, 247
Barfuss, W. 299 Begum, F. 438–39
Bargh, J. 322, 325 Behm-Morawitz, E. 122, 124, 279, 282, 360
Barker A. 442, 447 Beights, R. 398, 401
Barker, A.B. 268, 272 Belcher, B.R. 490
Barker, M. 21–23, 94, 99 Belkhyr, S. 149–50
Barlow, C. 373, 376 Bell, E. 148, 150
Barnes, C. 399–400 Bellmore, A. 192
Barnett, N.P. 274 Belmon, L.S. 487, 489
Barnett, T.A. 487, 489 Belpaeme, T. 153, 157, 159
Baron, N. 129, 132, 346 Bender, P.K. 504
Baron, N.S. 349, 352 Bennett, R. 265
Barr, D. 409 Bennett, W.L. 286, 291, 404, 409
Barr, R.E. 195–201, 199, 499, 503 Benson, M. 489
Barr, R.F. 201 Benveniste, A. 67, 70
Barra, J. 232 Berchtold, A. 248
Barram, D.J. 385 Berdik, C. 467, 473
Barrett, S. 400 Berenstein, V. 257
Barrientos-Gutierrez, I. 270, 272 Berey, B.L. 269, 272
Barrientos-Gutierrez, T. 275 Berg, C. 266
Barron, B. 364, 369 Bergamini, E. 273
Barroso, C.S. 363–64, 367–68 Bergstom, C.T. 299
Barry, C.M. 176 Berke, C.K. 501, 503
Bartel, K.A. 190–91 Berkule-Silberman, S.B. 200
Barter, C. 178 Berkule, S.B. 200
Bartholow, B.D. 268–69, 274 Bernstein, L. 37, 39
Bartneck, C. 153, 159 Bernstein, R. 75, 79
Barua, S. 299 Beron, K.J. 325
Barua, Z. 296, 299 Berriman, L. xv, 15, 23, 38, 63, 73, 80
Basilaia, G. 129, 132 Berry, H. 117
Batinic, B. 191 Berscheid, E. 156, 158–59
Battan, C. 224–25 Bertel, T.F. 129, 132
Bauducco, S. 192 Berwid, O.G. 209
Baugh, S.A. 405, 411 Beširević, Z. 409
Bauman, Z. 51, 55 Bessadok, A. 372, 376
Baumeister, R.F. 188, 192, 328, 331, 333 Best, C.T. 201
Baumer, S. 79, 125, 133, 141, 385, 474 Best, P. 187, 191
Bautista-Castano, I. 266 Beta, A.R. 372, 376

529
 Author Index

Betancourt, J. 401 Bolotta, G. 26, 27, 31

Beullens, K. 269–70, 274, 329, 331, 333 Bolter, J.D. 110, 116
Beyens, I. xvi, 179, 202, 206–08, 236, 240, 244, Bond, B.J. xvi, 181, 191, 231–32, 250, 253, 255,
247, 249, 321, 325, 329, 331, 341, 344 259, 283, 446, 488
Beyl, R.A. 266–677 Bond, E. 172, 176
Bi, S. 374, 376 Bondebjerg, I. 145–46, 150
Bianchi, D. 248 Bonner, D. 136, 141
Bickford, T. xvi, 82, 135–41 Bonner, R.L. 333
Bickham, D.S. 239, 247, 346, 490 Booth, E. 89, 92
Biddle, S.J.H. 266 Booth, M. xvi, 180, 227
Biener, L. 442, 447 Borah, P. 298
Bierut, L.J. 274 Bordo, S. 252, 255
Biggs, A. 210 Bornstein, R. F. 262, 265
Bilandzic, H. 279, 282 Borodovsky, J.T. 271, 274
Bilgrami, Z. 352 Borowski, M. 377
Billieux, J. 130, 132 Borzekowski, D.L.G. xvi, 35, 39, 70, 336, 385,
Billings, D.L. 275 387–88, 392–93, 442, 447, 461, 465, 486, 489
Birk, M.V. 125 Botzakis, S. 42, 47
Bishop, J. 125, 139, 141, 169 Boudry, E. 376
Bishop, J.C. 92 Boulianne, S. 350, 352, 406, 409
Bisson, G. 101, 108 Boush, D.M. 310
Bitsko, R.H. 402 Bovill, M. 78, 80, 277, 282
Bittanti, M. 79, 125, 133, 141, 385, 474 Bowden, H.M. 119, 124
Black, L.I. 402 Bown, A. 378
Black, R. 400 Bowyer, B. 403, 407, 410, 478, 481
Black, R.W. 473 boyd, d. 79, 113, 116, 125, 133, 141, 226, 350,
Blackburn, G. 315, 317 352, 385, 410, 443, 473–74, 479–80
Blacker, A. 219, 225 Boyd, L. 353
Blades, M. 457 Boydell, K.M. 257
Blair, B. 344 Boyland, E. 266
Blair, B.L. 172, 176, 328, 332 Boyland, E.J. 266
Blair, K. 234 Boyle, C.A. 402
Blake, J.J. 79 Boyle, E.A. 124
Blamire, R. 457 Boyle, J.M. 124
Blaya, C. 242 Brady, D. 241
Bleakley, A. xvi, 181, 191, 235–37, 240–41, 268, Brady, K. 234
272–73, 313–14, 317, 488 Bragg, S. 75, 79–80, 214, 216
Bloch, L.R. 12, 154–55, 159, 213, 217 Braimah, M. 146, 150
Bloustien, G. 412, 415, 417 Brand, S. 133
Blum-Ross, A. 20, 24, 117, 167, 169 Brann, E.T.H. 213, 216
Blumberg, S.J. 402 Branner, A. 490
Blumenau, J. 434–35, 439 Brannick, M. 255
Bo, A. 272 Bransford, J.D. 462, 465
Boase, J. 134 Brasher, C. 393
Bobkowski, P. 249 Braun, S. 275
Boden, S. 54–55 Braunack-Mayer, A.J. 265
Boehm, S. M. 481 Brawner, B.M. 275
Boer, M. 204–08, 374, 376 Brazelton, T.B. 484, 489
Boerman, S.C. 309 Breakstone, J. 410, 481
Boersma, K. 192 Breazeal, C.L. 153, 159
Boëthius, U. 21, 23 Breckenridge-Jackson, I. 400
Bogatz, G.A. 228, 232, 460, 465 Brederode-Santos, M.E. 465
Boguszewski, K. 209 Brennan, K. 226
Bohnert, M. 38 Brewer, A.T. 400
Bois-Reymond, M.D. 334 Brey, E. 199, 201
Boker, S. 257 Brink, K.A. 153, 156, 159
Bolle, C.L. 334 Brinn, M.P. 273

530
 Author Index

Brites, M.J. 286–88, 291–92 Burn, A. 92, 119, 124, 139, 141, 279, 282
Britton, J. 272–73, 447 Burnay, J. 123, 124
Brochado, S. 240, 324–26 Burnell, K. 325
Brockmeyer, C.A. 200 Burns, N.M. 195, 199
Broekman, F.L. 501, 503 Burr, R. 418
Brook, J.S. 256 Burroughs, J.E. 309
Brooks, M.E. 243, 248, 314, 318 Burt, S.A. 257
Brooks, P.J. 504 Burton, P. 117
Brougère, G. 52, 54–55 Burwell, R.A. 255
Brouwer, L. 373, 376 Busch, V. 489
Brown, A.L. 462, 465 Busching, R. 239, 241
Brown, B.B. 192, 347, 352 Busey, E. 449
Brown, C. 227, 233 Bushman, B.J. 124, 209, 237, 240
Brown, D.H. 429, 430n2, 431 Busselle, R.W. 279, 282
Brown, J.D. 245, 247–49 Butler, J. 61, 64, 311–12, 317
Brown, M.R. 18, 23 Butsch, R. 427, 431
Brown, N. xvi, 81, 93, 95, 96, 99 Butterworth, G. 34, 39
Brown, R.H. 380, 385 Byatt, A.S. 95, 99
Brown, R.L. 489 Bylsma, L.M. 192
Brownbill, A.L. 260, 265 Byrne, D.G. 329, 332
Brownell, K. 266 Byrne, J. 45, 47, 236, 241
Brownell, K.D. 266, 447, 449, 256 Byrne, R. 292
Browning, K. 300 Byrne, S. 33, 39, 232, 234, 242, 271–72, 292, 503
Bruce, A.L. 427, 431 Byrne, S.M. 258
Brunner, J.F. 203, 208
Bruno, A. 257 Cabello-Hutt, T. 393
Brunsdon, C. 77, 80 Cabello, P. 117, 393
Bry, C. 247 Cabello, T. 117
Bryant, J.A. 102, 108 Cabibihan, J.-J. 153, 157, 159
Buchanan, L. 264–65 Cacciatore, M. 377
Bucholtz, I. 364, 365, 368 Cacioppo, J.T. 192, 302, 309
Buckingham, D. xvii, 14, 34, 39, 46–47, 49–51, Cafri, G. 254–55
54–56, 68, 70, 75, 77–79, 96, 99, 101–02, 108, Cahill, S.E. 353
112, 116, 149, 213, 216, 282, 289, 291–93, 308, Calkins, S.D. 306, 308
348, 352, 356, 359–60, 396, 400, 441, 447, Callaghan, M.N. 499, 503
467, 473 Callister, M. 241
Buckleitner, W. 501, 503 Calvert, S. 200
Bucy, E.P. 443, 447 Calvert, S.L. xvii, 39, 181, 191, 197, 199–201, 217,
Buda, G. 391, 393 228, 232–33, 255, 259–67, 278, 282, 302, 308,
Budacki, J.G. 333 446, 488, 500, 503–04
Buffington, S.D. 257 Calvo-Barajas, N. 160
Buijzen, M. xvii, 55, 149, 182, 238, 240–41, 262, Cameron, L. 318
266, 302, 304–05, 308–09, 328, 334, 448 Cameron, N. 266
Buiter, A. 377 Campbell, A.J. 441, 447
Bukhina, O. 92 Campbell, C. 475, 480
Bukowa, B. 390, 393 Campbell, S. 133
Bulger, M. 117, 393, 480 Campbell, S.W. 131, 132
Bull, M. 140–41 Campbell, W.K. 387, 391, 394
Bulley, C.A. 150 Campe, S. 121, 125
Bunch, R. xvii, 82, 135–36, 141 Canning, N. 215–16
Bunz, M. 162–63, 168 Cantor, J. 33–34, 39, 144, 152, 229–30, 232–34,
Burbidge, V. 457 238, 241–42, 280, 284, 292, 346, 498, 500, 503
Burgess, M.C. 360 Cappella, J.N. 276
Burgess, M.C.R. 282 Cappello, G. 480
Burgoon, M. 274 Caraher, M. 266, 441, 447
Burkholder, C. 418 Carbaat, I. 257
Burman, E. 33, 39 Cardell, D. 126

531
 Author Index

Carey, J. 17, 23 Chapman, A. 299

Carli, V. 393 Chapman, G. 50, 55
Carlson, S.M. 305, 308 Chapman, K. 266, 448
Carlson, W. 333 Charania, S. 266
Carlsson, U. 432, 439 Charlton, J.I. 399–400
Carlyle, K.E. 377 Chassiakos, Y.L.R. 275, 448
Carnagey, N. 212, 216 Chassiakos, Y.R. 355, 360
Caroli, M. 266 Chatzidaki, A. 369
Caron, A.H. 349, 352 Chaudron, S. 46–47, 162–63, 166, 168, 345
Caronia, L. 349, 352 Chávez, V. 199, 503
Carrier, S.J. 292 Chawla, S. 164, 168
Carrington, V. 412–13, 417 Chen, H. 436, 439
Carroll, J.S. 174, 176 Chen, J. 66, 70
Carroll, M.D. 266 Chen, P.J. 297, 299
Carson‐Chahhoud, K.V. 271, 273 Chen, S. 409
Carson, C. 138, 141 Chen, V. 400
Carta, J. 201 Chen, W. 330, 332, 386
Carter, C. xvii, 182, 285, 287–92, 298 Chen, Y. 298
Carter, M. 119, 123–25, 318 Chen, Y.A. 192, 283
Cartmell, D. 93, 99 Chester, J. 147, 150
Casado, M. A. 361, 364–65, 368 Cheung, C.K. 477, 480
Casas, F. 192 Chi, I. 370
Case, K. 313, 317 Chikumba, E. 393
Cassidy, C.A. 294, 299 Child, J.T. 69–70
Castellano, G. 160 Childs, G.E. 209
Castells, M. 129, 132, 349, 352 Chinapaw, M.J.M. 489
Castillo, M.M. 385 Chiong, C. 199, 500, 503
Castonguay, J. 442, 448 Chirumbolo, A. 248
Catala, A. 125 Chisholm, L. 419
Cattelino, E. 248 Chiu, V. 274
Cauberghe, V. 308, 309, 310 Cho, H. 481
Cavazos-Rehg, P.A. 274 Cho, J. 209
Celebre, L. 257 Cho, S.-i. 272, 274
Celeste, M. 297, 299 Choi, H. 473
Centeno, M.A. 299 Choi, K. 195, 199–200, 275, 499–500, 503–04
Cernikova, M. 457 Choi, M. 228, 232
Cespedes, A.H. 466 Chorlton, R. 418
Céspedes, C. 192 Chou, H.T.G. 327, 330, 332
Chacksfield, M. 164, 168 Choukas-Bradley, S. 248, 254, 256, 325
Chae, J. 330, 332 Chowdhury W. 163, 168
Chaffee, S. 297–99 Christ, W.G. 306, 308
Chaiken, S. 257, 302, 309 Christakis, D. 360
Chakroff, J. 341, 344 Christakis, D.A. 201, 204, 210, 489, 503
Chalaby, J.K. 434, 439 Christensen, C. 466
Chaloupka, F. 267 Christensen, H.I. 160
Chan, C.M.L. 373, 376 Christenson, P.G. 142
Chan, J.M. 436, 439 Christiakis, D. 345
Chan, K. xvii, 55, 82, 144, 147, 150, 308 Christiansen, P. 266
Chan, P.A. 204–05, 208 Chu, X. 134
Chand, S. 192 Chua, T.H.H. 329–30, 332
Chang, A. 275 Chung, A. 265
Chang, A.B. 273 Chung, J.Y.C. 274
Chang, L. 329–30, 332 Chung, Y. 133
Chang, L.C. 481 Cikara, M. 299
Chang, Y.J. 489 Cingel D.P. 34, 39, 196–97, 200, 361, 364, 368
Chang, Y.K. 296, 299, 481 Cipriani, J. 166, 168
Chaplin, L.N. 147, 150 Cirell, A. 345

532
 Author Index

Cirell, A.M. 474 Coonan, C. 436, 439

Clacherty, G. 412, 417 Cooper-Jones, N. 400
Clark, C. 88, 92 Cooper, C.A. 427–28, 431
Clark, E.V. 195, 199 Cooper, H. 396, 400
Clark, K. 361 Cooper, K. 234, 247
Clark, L. S. 129–30, 132, 282, 286, 289, 291–92, Cooper, N.R. 204, 207, 208–09
350, 352–53, 360, 399 Cooper, R. 400
Clarke-Pearson, K. 333 Coplan, R.J. 192
Clarke, M. 435, 439 Corasaniti, N. 294, 299
Claro, M. 117, 393 Corner, J. 111, 116
Clayton, K. 274, 405, 411 Cornwell, T. 35, 39
Clow, S. 397, 401 Corsaro, W. 56
Coates, A. 260–61, 266 Cortesi, S.C. 455–56
Coats, K. 91–92 Coskun, K. 227, 232
Cocking, R.R. 462, 465 Coskun, M. 232
Code, J. 501, 505 Costa, C. 404, 409–10
Cody, C. 79 Cote, A.C. 175–76
Cody, R. 125, 133, 141, 385, 474 Cotten, S.R. 124
Cohen, A. 128, 132 Cottle, S. 102, 108
Cohen, A.K. 410 Cotto, C.E. 267
Cohen, C. 406, 409 Cotton, S.R. 386
Cohen, J. 213, 216, 230, 232 Cottrell, W. 99
Cohen, P. 256 Couldry, N. 279, 282, 300
Cohen, S. 21, 23 Coulter, N. 50–51, 55
Cohn, D. 172, 176 Courage, M.L. 198, 201
Colby, S.M. 274 Course-Choi, J. 391, 393
Colditz, J.B. 275 Coutinho, J. 266
Cole, C.F. 263, 266, 392–93, 461, 465 Couzin, I.D. 299
Cole, H. 92 Coveny, P. 18, 23
Collier, K. 341, 344 Cover, R. 377
Collier, K.M. 69, 216, 270–71, 273 Cowburn, G. 266
Collins, K. 163, 165, 168 Cox, M.J. 270, 273–74
Collins, M. 503 Coyne, S. 344, 346
Collins, R.L. 269, 273 Coyne, S.M. 38–39, 212, 216, 235, 241, 244, 247,
Colvin, C.M. 242 273, 328–29, 332–33
Colwell, M. 346, 400 Craft, S. 481
Colwell, M.J. 233–34 Craig, C. 248
Comstock, G. 236, 241, 489 Craig, C.M. 247
Conforti, R.J. 212, 216 Cranwell, J. 268, 272–73
Conger, E.E. 503 Cravens, H. 427, 431
Conley, D. 117, 474 Creech, S.A. 89, 92
Connell, S. 341, 344 Crescenzi, L. 126
Conner, R.F. 466 Crichter, C. 21–22, 24
Connolly, T.M. 123–24 Criss, M.M. 233
Connor, J. 274 Cristia, A. 201
Conroy, M. 400 Critcher, C. 110, 116
Consalvo, M. 122–24, 126, 284 Croghan, R. 54–55
Conway, M.M. 286, 292 Crosnoe, R. 204–05, 208
Cook, A. 117, 409 Cross, C. 360
Cook, B. 266 Cross, G. 50, 54–55
Cook, C. 326 Crowe, N. 315, 317
Cook, C.A. 312, 318 Crowley, M. 233
Cook, D.T. 50–55, 75, 79, 137, 141, 144, Crowley, R. 275
146–47, 150 Csikszentmihalyi, M. 220–21, 225
Cook, T.D. 460, 466 Cullen, A L. 353
Cooke, J.E. 134 Cullinane, C. 107–08
Cooley, J. 96, 99 Cummings, H. 346

533
 Author Index

Cunningham, H. 19, 24, 74–75, 79 de Ferrerre, E. 346

Cunningham, S. 50, 55, 101, 108 de Haan, J. 356, 360
Curley, C. 457 de Haas, M. 160
Curran, J. 67, 71 De Jacolyn, E. 365, 368
Curtin, M. 436, 439 De Jans, S. 307–08
Curtis, B.L. 269, 273 De Jong, C. 153, 156–60
Curwood, J.S. 472–73 De La Cerda, J. 209
Cycyk, L.M. 363, 365, 368 de la Ville, V.I. 52, 54–55
Czoli, C. 266 de Lange, N. 414, 417–19
de Leeuw, R. 242
D’Amico, E.J. 270, 273 de Leeuw, R.N.H. 238, 241
D’Altorio, T. 148–50 De Marez, L. 132
D’Angelo, J. 275 de Miranda, D.M. 328, 332
D’Arma, A. 434, 437–39 De Pasquale, D. 505
d’Haenens, L. xviii, 241, 282, 317, 336, 371, 373, De Pauw, P. 309
375–78 de Sena Oliveira, A.C. 332
da Silva Athanasio, B. 332 De Sousa, A. 204, 208
Daalmans, S. 257, 293 De Veirman, M. 302, 308, 442
Daciuk, J. 326 de Vreese, C. 294, 300
Dahl, R.E. 394 de Vreese, C. H. 290–91
Dahn, M. xviii, 180, 216, 219, 226, 240 de Waal, M. 24
Dailey, R.M. 231, 233 Dean, C. 26, 31
Daiute, C. 404, 409 Deane, O. 101, 108
Dajches, L. 257 DeAngelo, R.W. 87, 92
Dal Cin, S. 269, 273, 275 Deci, E.L. 328, 330, 332, 334
Dalenberg, W. 249 Dedkova, L. xviii, 48, 126, 179, 185, 192, 208,
Daley, N. 482 247, 255, 265, 272, 284, 331, 346, 362, 488
Dalmeny, K. 447 Degenhardt, L. 274
Dalton, M.A. 275 Dekker, R. 365, 368, 373, 377
Daly, A. 191 Del Pozo Cruz, B. 489
Daly, A.P. 233 Dellinger-Pate, C. 212, 216
Dalyot, S. 132 DeLoache, J.S. 195, 197–200
Damashek, S. 464, 466 Delucchi, K. 275
Danby, S. 121, 123, 125 Demers, L. 346
Danet, M. 339, 345 Demeulenaere, A. 376
Daniels, E.A. 251, 254, 256–57 Deng, F. 481
Danielson, M.L. 402 Denham, S. 234
Danielsson, M. 475, 477, 480 Denham, S.A. 227–28, 232–33
Dar, M. 394 Denissen, J. 191, 193
Darton, F.J.H. 85, 92 Dennen, V.P. 472–73
Darzabi, R. 281, 283 Denner, J. 121, 125, 405, 409
Das, P. 348, 352 Denning, M. 19, 21, 24
Das, R. 396, 401 Densley, R.L. 233–34, 346, 400, 503
Das, S. 313, 317 Dermendzhiyska, E. 294, 296, 299
Dautenhahn, K. 153, 159 Desjarlais, M. 321–22, 325
Davenport, S.C. 332 DeVeirman, M. 441, 446–47
Davidov, M. 295, 299 Devine, D. 26–27, 31
Davies, H. 105, 108 Devine, P. 187, 191
Davis, E.J. 247 Devine, P.G. 307, 310
Davis, K. 473 Devitt, K. 328, 332
Day, R.D. 332 Dewald-Kaufmann, J.F. 133
De Beauvoir, S. 60, 64 Dežan, L. 369
de Billy, N. 266 Dezuanni, M. 119, 121, 125, 222, 225, 297, 300,
de Block, L. 359–60 382, 385, 475, 477, 480, 481
de Carvalho, R. 32 Dhar, T. 442, 447
de Castell, S. 315, 317, 412, 417 Di Gioia, R. 47, 168
De Cock, R. 287, 292, 375–76 Di, Z. 236, 242

534
 Author Index

Diamond, A.H. 299 Duarte, J. 400

Diamond, K.E. 397, 400 Dubas, J. 249
Díaz-Guerrero, R. 461, 466 Dubas, J.S. 247
Dibble, J L. 399, 401 Duchaussoy, Q. 456
Dieckmann, S. 142 Duel, L.S. 474
Diener, E. 185, 191 Dugal, A. 418
Diergarten, A.K. 477, 480 Duggan, M. 125
Difulvio, G.T. 415, 418 Dumas, T.M. 332
Diker, E. 374, 377 Duncan, A.E. 250, 258
Dill-Shackleford, K.E. 277, 280, 282, 359–60 Dunham, R.L. 135, 141
Dillman Carpentier, F.R. 449 Dunn, D.W. 209
Dimatis, K. 233 Dunn, E.W. 328, 334
Dingman, S. 229, 233 Dunn, P.A. 397, 400
Dinh, T. 457 Dunne, L. 326
Dittmar, H. 252, 256 Dunstan, D.W. 489
Ditto, P.H. 299 Dupraz, L. 232
Dixon, T.L. 20, 24 Durham, M.G. xix, 83, 171, 247, 364, 368
Dockney, J. 414, 417 Dworkin, J. 334
Dockrell, M. 273 Dzula, M. 405, 409
Dodge, R. 185, 191, 231, 233
Dohnt, H. 253–54, 256 Eagly, A.H. 302, 309
Dolby, N. 69, 71 Earl, J. 350, 352
Domgaard, S. xviii, 182, 291, 294, 298, 417, 480 Eastin, M. 256
Domoff, S. 340, 343, 345 Eastmond, E. 226
Dompeling, E. 209 Eaton, D. 159
Doná, G. 374, 377 Eberl, U. 153, 155, 159
Donald, S.H. xviii, 81, 93, 98–99 Ebrahimji, A. 357, 360
Donker, A. 501, 503 Eckert, S. 61, 64
Donnerstein, E. 242 Eckles, K. 334
Donoso, G. 186, 192 Edge, N. 327, 330, 332
Doornwaard, S. 249 Edgerly, S. 295, 299
Doornwaard, S.M. 244, 246–47 Edwards, A.P. 161
Dore, R.A. 499, 503 Edwards, C. 161
Dorr, A. 227, 233 Edwards, M. 342, 345
Dotson, W.H. 398, 400 Edwards, N.M. 489
Doty, J. 334 Effertz, T. 266
Doubleday, C. 233 Egbunike, F.C. 349, 353
Dougher, S. 139, 141 Egelman, S. 504
Dowdeswell, T. 212, 216 Eggermont, S. xix, 183, 187, 189, 191–92, 245,
Downing, J.H.D. 356, 360 249, 269, 273, 280, 284, 327, 330, 332–33, 341,
Doyle, G. 107–08 344, 488
Doyle, J. 242 Ehrenreich, S.E. 321–22, 325
Dredge, S. 104, 108 Eickhhorn, K. 30, 31
Dreier, M. 345 Eickhoff, J. 489
Drell, M.B. 209 Eidman-Aadahl, E. 410
Dreyer, B.P. 200 Eileen, D. 165, 168
Dreyer, S. 457 Eirich, R. 345
Driesmans, K. 249 Eischeid, S. 369, 377
Driscoll, D. 275 Eisen, S. 217
Drok, N. 296, 299 Eisenberg, M. 257
Drotner, K. xviii, 13, 17, 19–21, 24, 31, 66, 71, 79, Eisend, M. 307, 309
116, 358, 360 Eisenhart, M. 129, 132
Drouin, M. 172, 176 Eisman, J. 481
Drovandi, A. 272–73 Eisman, J.I. 299
Druckman, J.N. 299 Ekman, M. 375, 377
Druckman, M. 481 Ekstrom, K. 53, 55
Druin, A. 466 Ekstrom, K.M. 147, 150

535
 Author Index

El Asam, A. 457 Faust-Christmann, C.A. 234

El Omrani, O. 296, 300 Favazza, P.C. 397, 400
Elaraby, M. 456 Favez, N. 345
Elazari, A. 504 Feeley, T.H. 272
Eldridge, M. 128, 132 Feezell, J.T. 300
Elena F.C. 134 Feinn, R.S. 273
Elias, N. xix, 2, 12, 69, 71, 130, 132–33, 172, 176, Fellows, K. 332
282, 336, 344–45, 359–61, 363–68, 375 Fender, J.G. 198–99
Elkin, F. 353 Fenech, S. 164–65, 168
Ellcessor, E. 398, 400 Fenstermacher, S. 201
Ellerbe, B. 364, 370 Fenstermacher, S.K. 196, 199
Elliott, T. 352 Ferguson, B. 194, 199
Ellis, K. 398, 400 Ferguson, C.J. 254, 256
Ellis, W.E. 328–29, 332 Ferguson, G. M. 481
Ellison, N. 400 Fernaeus, Y. 157, 159
Ellison, N.B. 327, 332 Fernandez-Ardevol, M. 132, 352
Ellithorpe, M. xix, 181, 191, 268, 313–14, Fernández-Vergara, O. 489
317, 488 Feron, F.J.M. 209
Ellithorpe, M.E. 236, 240–41, 268, 272–73 Ferri, M. 272
Ellwood-Clayton, B. 131–32 Festinger, L. 252, 256, 330, 332
Elman, J.P. 397, 400 Festl, R. 477, 480
Elmore, K.C. 269, 273 Fidler, A. 198–99
Emery, S. 276 Field, A.P. 238, 242
Emery, S.L. 274 Fields, D. 226
Enciso, P. 91–92 Fields, D.A. 52, 55
Engbersen, G. 368, 377 Fierman, A.H. 200
Engelhardt, C.R. 204–05, 209 Fiévét, A.C. 201
Engels, R.C.M.E. 193, 249 Fikkers, K.M. 238, 241–42
Engzell, P. 38–39 Fincher, D. 98–99
Enright, A. 393 Fine, M.J. 275
Epstein, E. 298 Fine, S.E. 227, 234
Epstein, R. 75, 79 Fingar, K. 238, 241
Epstein, R.J. 294, 299 Finkel, E.J. 295, 299
Ergül, H. 480 Finkenauer, C. 208
Erickson, S. 344 Finn, M. 141
Erickson, S.E. 273 Finnie, R.K. 265
Eron, L.D. 212, 217 Firdaus, N. 394
Esparza, P. 400 Fisch, S.M. xix, 37, 39, 199, 398, 400, 422, 459,
Esses, V.M. 375, 377 461–66, 473, 497, 500, 503
Essig, L.W. 216, 247 Fischer, C. 426, 431
Esterman, A.J. 273 Fischer, P. 68, 273
Evaldsson, A.-C. 125 Fishbein, M. 269, 273
Evans, M.A. 505 Fisher, S. 121, 125, 312, 315, 317
Evans, R. 248 Fisherkeller, J. 214, 216–17
Eyal, K. 231, 233 Fiske, J. 51, 55, 77, 79
Eyssel, F. 159 Fitzgerald, F.S. 98, 99
Flament, M. 192
Fabbro, F. 481 Fleming-Millici, F. 267
Faber, M. 368 Fletcher, A. 344
Fabris, M.A. 209 Fletcher, A.C. 172, 176, 328, 332
Faggiano, F. 272 Flew, T. 454–55, 457
Fan, H. 490 Flewitt, R. 365, 370
Fang, K. 487, 489 Flicker, S. 415, 418
Fardouly, J. 334 Floegel, D. 132–33, 345
Farrer, D. 217 Flor, L.S. 275
Faucett, H. 253 Flores, I. 234
Faulkner, J. 25–26, 31 Fluck, A. 378

536
 Author Index

Flynn, M. 248 Gailey, J.A. 351–52

Flynn, M.A. 243, 247, 268, 273 Gajjala, R. 375, 378
Flynn, R. 263, 266 Gakidou, E. 275
Flynn, R.M. 227, 232–33, 284 Galla, B.M. 256
Flynn, V. 200, 345 Gallè, F. 490
Foehr, U.G. 48 Gallup, G. 483, 489
Foley, R.J. 294, 299 Galvin, S. 472–73
Follows, S. 43, 47 Gamber-Thompson, L. 117, 418
Foody, M. 457 Gambino, A. 155–56, 159
Forbes, L.M. 332 Gamble, H. 255
Forbes, S.G. 173, 176 Gámez-Guadix, M. 188, 192, 242
Ford, N. 412, 418 Gandhi, S. 134, 346
Formanek-Brunell, M. 144, 148, 150 Ganea, P.A. 196, 200–01
Forsman, M. 61, 64 Gao, L. 489
Forsyth, A. 266 Gao, X. 133
Foster, E. 146, 150 García-Hermoso, A. 487, 489
Fosu, I. 310 Garcia, A. 199, 503
Fox, J. 155–56, 159, 235, 241, 327, 329–30, 332 Garcia, E. 466
Fox, S. 333 Gardner, J. 299, 481
Fozdar, F. 377 Gardner, W.P. 209
Fraga, S. 240, 325 Garitaonandia, C. 353, 361, 368
Franchak, J.M. 197, 199 Garmendia, M. 355, 361
Franchina, V. 130, 132 Garnier, P. 52, 54–55
Franks, N. 104, 107–08 Garrison, M.M. 500, 503
Franzen, P.L. 192 Gartner, C. 274
Fraser, A.M. 237, 241, 332–33 Garvey, S. 351–52
Frater, P. 436, 439 Gaspard, L. 124
Frau-Meigs, D. 110, 113, 116, 455, 457 Gasparrini, A. 272
Freberg, K. 377 Gasser, U. 456
Fredrickson, B.L. 245, 247, 252, 254, 256–57 Gaunt, K.D. 139–41
Freedman, S.W. 406, 409 Gauntlett, D. 220–22, 224–25, 477, 480
Freier, N.G. 159 Gautam, D. 416, 418
Frenkel, S. 219, 226, 300 Gavin, J. 254–56
Frey, A. 39 Gebhardt, W.A. 274, 333
Frey, W.H. 299 Gee, E. 344–45, 471, 474
Friedman, B. 159 Gee, J.P. 120, 123, 125, 471, 474
Friesem, Y. 472–73, 477, 480 Geeraert, N. 370
Friestad, M. 263, 266, 305, 309, 310 Gemo, M. 47, 168
Frison, E. 187, 189, 192, 327, 330, 332 Gennaro, S. 429, 431
Fritz, N. 243, 247–48 Gentile, D. 229, 233
Fröhlich-Gildhoff, K. 513 Gentile, D. A. 39, 44, 47, 123, 125, 142, 204,
Frye, B. 164–65, 169 206–08, 240, 247, 498, 500, 503–04
Fryer, C.D. 265–66 Gentile, R. 123, 125
Fujikawa, S. 209 Gentry, E. 442, 447
Fujimoto, M. 199, 503 George, M. 340, 345
Fuller, K.H. 431 Gerard, S. 466
Fuller, P. 18, 24 Gerber, H.R. 471, 474
Fulton, J.E. 265 Gerbner, G. 246–47, 279, 283, 311, 317
Furnham, A. 52, 55 Gerding, A. 313–14, 317
Gerhardstein, P. 200–01
Gabriel, M. 97, 99 Germanavicius, A. 393
Gabrielli, J. 270, 273 Gerrard, M. 248, 273, 275
Gackenback, J. 52, 55 Gerritsen, J. 238, 241
Gadalla, T. 326 Gettleman, J. 384, 385
Gadberry, S. 206, 208 Geurts, S.M. 193
Gadow, K.D. 396, 401 Geusens, F. 269–70, 274
Gai, X. 276 Geyser, W. 390, 393

537
 Author Index

Ghaznavi, J. 251, 256 Goossens, L. 193, 326

Ghossainy, M. 278, 284 Gootman, J. 151
Giaccardi, S. 396, 400 Gordon-Hacker, A. 204, 208
Giauque, A.L. 209 Gordon, M. 401
Gibb, B.E. 334 Gordon, R. 393
Gibbons, F.X. 248, 273, 275 Gorley, T. 266
Gibbs, M. 125–26, 318 Gornik, B. 366, 369
Gibbs, S. 165, 169 Görzig, A. 48, 325
Gibson, J. 275 Gottardo, A. 505
Gick, M.L. 463, 466 Götz, M. xix, 1, 12, 38–39, 59, 62, 64, 172, 176,
Giddens, A. 66, 71, 76, 79 180, 211, 214–17, 228–30, 232–33, 237,
Giffen, L. 393, 461, 465 240–41, 251, 255–56, 279, 281, 283, 287, 290,
Gilani, S.M.F.S. 394 292, 312–13, 317, 423, 432, 438–39, 497, 502,
Giles, D.C. 231, 233 506, 510, 512–13
Giles, L.M. 275 Gozansky, Y. 283
Gill, R. 178, 284 Grabe, S. 250, 252–54, 256
Gillen, J. 138, 143 Gracia, P. 38
Gillett, R. 454, 457 Gradisar, M. 191
Gillis, J.R. 18, 24 Grafe, S. 403, 407, 410
Gilman, S.E. 255 Graff, S.K. 441, 447
Gimeno-Monterde, C. 377 Graham, E.E. 297, 299
Ging, D. 351–52 Gram, M. 146–47, 150
Giorgi, S. 275 Grammatikaki, E. 266
Giroux, H.A. 94, 96, 99 Granados, M.S. 384–85
Giuffre, L. 136, 141 Grandío, M. 410
Glantz, S.A. 275, 276 Grandpre, J.R. 274
Glanz, K. 265 Grant-Braham, B. 447
Glasberg, D.S. 295, 299 Grant, A. 117
Glass, B. 273 Gray, K.L. 121, 124
Glaubke, C.R. 499, 504 Grealish, A. 192
Glik, D. 257 Green, D.R. 298–99
Göbels, H. 42, 47 Green, E. 172, 176
Godfrey, C. 266 Green, L. xix, 83, 162–63, 168–69, 235, 241
Godin, M. 374, 377 Green, N. 127–28, 131–32, 348–49, 353
Goggin, G. 133–34, 400 Greenberg, A. 167, 169
Gola, A.A. 197, 200, 500, 504 Greenberg, B.S. 251, 256
Gola, A.A.H. 197, 200, 231, 233, 504 Greenberg, M. 233
Gola, A.H. 39 Greenberg, M.T. 227, 233
Goldberg, E. 97, 99 Greene, K. 472–73, 477, 480
Goldenberg, E. 200 Greenfield, P. 211, 217, 329, 334
Goldenson, N.I. 209 Greenhow, C. 472–73, 220, 225
Golding, P. 145–46, 150 Greenwood, C. 201
Golds, G. 265 Gregersen, A. 315, 318
Golinkoff, R.M. 489, 505 Greitemeyer, T. 273
Golos, D.B. 396, 398, 400 Grela, B. 39, 200
Goltz, N. 212, 216 Gresle-Favier, C. 173, 176
Gomez, C. 216 Gribiea, A. 371, 374, 377
Gómez-Quintero, J. 375, 377 Grieveson, L. 426, 431
Gonick, M. 417–18 Griffin, C. 55
Gonzales, A. 381, 385 Griffin, R. 294, 299
Gonzales, H. 33, 39 Grimes, S. 52, 55, 112, 117, 147, 150
González Hernández, D. 358, 361 Grimes, S.M. 212, 217
Gonzalez, C. 361, 385–86 Grimm, L. 171, 176
González, P. 125 Grimmer, T. 213, 217
González, T. 79 Grinter, R. 128, 132
Goodley, D. 396, 399–400 Grinter, R.E. 160
Goodrich, S.A. 197–98, 200 Grixti, J. 69, 71

538
 Author Index

Grob, A. 133 Halperin, J.M. 209

Gross, L. 317 Halpern-Felsher, B. 275, 448
Groves, C.L. 240 Hamburg, P. 255
Grower, P. 244, 249 Hamed, M. 466
Grube, J.W. 272 Hameed, Y.M.Y. 394
Grucza, R.A. 274 Hamel, E. 342, 346
Grusec, J.E. 295, 299 Hamilton, J.L. 190, 192
Grusin, R. 110, 116 Hamilton, L. 480
Guan, S. 190, 192 Hamilton, M. 300
Guan, W. 267 Hamlen, K.R. 279–80, 283, 317
Gubbels, J. 209 Hammond, L. 391, 393
Gubrium, A.C. 415, 418 Hamzah, A. 372, 407
Guerin, B. 139, 142 Han, T. 251, 256
Guernsey, L. 21, 24, 499, 504 Hand, D. 93, 99
Gueron-Sela, N. 204, 208 Handel, G. 347, 353
Guerraz, M. 232 Hanewinkel, R. 272
Guha, M.L. 466 Haninger, K. 235, 241–42
Guidry, J.P.D. 375, 377 Hankin, B.L. 334
Gunkel, D.J. 154, 159 Hannon, E.E. 194, 200
Gunter, B. 451, 457 Hansen, L. 31
Guo, G. 247 Hansen, M. 171, 176
Guo, J. 257 Hanson, K. 346
Gupta, A. 265 Hanson, K.G. 461, 465
Gupta, V. 275 Hao, Z. 133
Gustafson, E. 403, 410 Hardin, J. 275
Gustafson, R.L. 258 Hardman, C. 266
Gutiérrez, K. 117, 474 Harewood, S. J. 356, 361
Gutnick, A.L. 498, 504 Hargittai E. 383, 385, 447
Guzman, A.L. 154, 159 Hargreaves, D. 244, 248
Harmsen, I.A. 489
Haberski, R.J. 427, 431 Haron, A. 509, 513
Habiba, U. 410 Harper, J. 332
Hadar-Shoval, D. 286, 292 Harper, R. 349, 353
Haddon, L. 48, 127, 128, 129, 131–32, 325, 349, Harriger, J.A. 251, 258
353, 356, 361, 391, 393 Harris, J. 266
Hadlaczky, G. 393 Harris, J.L. 260, 263, 266, 445, 447
Haffejee, S. 414, 418 Harris, M. 34, 39
Haines, C. 475, 480 Harris, P. 34, 39
Haines, J. 257 Harrison, K. xx, 181, 191, 250, 252–56, 265, 280,
Hainey, T. 124 282–83, 312, 317, 345, 398–401, 488
Hains, R. 148, 150 Harrold, J.A. 266
Hains, R.C. 145–46, 150 Hart, B. 198, 200–01
Håkansson, M. 159 Hart, P.S. 271–72
Hakansson, P.-A. 217 Harter, S. 327–29, 332
Hale, L. 190, 192, 267 Hartmann, T. 235, 241
Hale, T.M. 386 Hartnett, A. 397, 401
Halford, J. 266 Hartup, W.W. 327, 329, 332
Halford, J.C.G. 266 Harvey, K. 27, 31
Halim, H. 409 Harvey, L. 178, 284
Hall Jamieson, K. 242 Hasebrink, U. xx, 14, 41, 45–48, 126, 192, 284,
Hall, S. 77, 79, 396, 400 346, 355, 361–62
Hall, W. 274 Hasinoff, A.A. 173, 176
Hall, W.D. 268, 274 Hass, L. 150
Haller, B. 396, 399, 402 Hassel, A. 456
Haller, B.A. 399, 400 Hasson, M.R. 504
Halliday, J. 173, 176 Hasson, U. 199
Halliwell, E. 256 Hastings, G. 260, 266

539
 Author Index

Hatemi, P.K. 294, 299 Higgins, L.M. 267

Hawkins, A. 344 Higgonet, A. 18, 24–25, 31
Hawkins, A.J. 273 Highfield, K. 345
Hawkins, C. 54–55 Hijazi-Omari, H. 129, 131–32, 349, 323, 325, 353,
Hawkins, R.P. 279, 283 358, 361
Hay, S.I. 275 Hill, A. 306, 308
Hayes, A.F. 270, 275 Hill, C.M. 489
Hayes, G.R. 353 Himmelweit, H. 74, 79
Hayne H. 197, 199 Hindmarsh, C.S. 271, 274
Hayward, A. 166, 169 Hinduja, S. 323, 326
He, Y. 489 Hipp, D. 196, 200
Hearne, B.G. 85, 92 Hirano, T. 159
Heater, B. 164, 169 Hirsh-Pasek, K. 489, 505
Heatherton, T. F. 275 Hjorth, L. 130, 133
Heeger, D.J. 199 Hnin, K. 273
Heeren, A. 132 Ho, S.S. 256
Heeter, C. 125 Hobbs, R. xx, 298, 403, 407, 410, 422, 446, 448,
Hefner, V. 250, 252–54, 256 475–77, 480–81
Hegner, S.M. 334 Hodgin, J. 410
Heimberg, R.G. 188, 192 Hoek, R.W. 306–07, 309
Heinderyckx, F. 373, 376 Hoffman, A. 214, 217
Heine, S.J. 361, 514, 516 Hoffman, J. 173, 177
Heirman, W. 228, 234 Hoffman, L.H. 297, 300
Heldman, C. 400 Hoffner, C. 230, 233, 236, 241
Hellstrom, M. 224–25 Hofman, A. 209
Helsper, E. 381, 385 Hofmann, O. 283
Helsper, E.J. 303, 309, 379, 382–83, 385, 446, 448 Hofschire, L. 256
Hendershot, H. 433, 439 Högberg, A. 171, 177
Hendrick, C.A. 267 Hökby, S. 391, 393
Hendrick, H. 19, 24, 74, 79 Holiday, S. 234
Hendriks, H. 268, 274, 330, 333 Holland, G. 327, 330, 333
Hendriyani, H. 235, 241, 312–13, 317 Holland, P. 19, 24
Henkemans, O.A.B. 160 Hollander, E.H. 241, 317
Hennessey, M. 240 Holler, A. 510, 512–13, 217, 233, 241, 292
Hennessy, M. 240, 272–73 Holloway, D. 153–55, 160, 162–164, 166,
Hennessy, S. 461, 466 168–69, 241
Henrich, J. 514–16 Holloway, S.L. 350, 353
Henry, H.K.M. 442, 447 Holmgren, H.G. 247
Henry, K.L. 242 Holody, K.J. 243, 247–48, 269, 275
Hentges, B. 313, 317 Holt, D.B. 145, 150
Hepburn, M.A. 294, 300 Holtz, P. 191
Hepp, A. 23–24, 154, 159, 279, 282 Holtzman, W.H. 461, 466
Herd, D. 19, 24 Holyoak, K.J. 463, 466
Herdzina, J. 481 Holz Ivory, A. 235, 241
Hermanns, J. 242 Hopkins, E. 503
Hermans, L. 299 Horgan, M.J. 446, 448
Hermansson, C. 96, 99 Horgen, K. 260, 266
Hermes, J. 291–92 Horkheimer, M. 51, 56
Herr Stephenson, R. xxvii, 79, 101, 108, 125, 133, Hormazabal-Aguayo, I. 489
141, 385, 422, 465, 467, 474 Hornik, R. 271, 274
Herring, S.C. 244–45, 248 Horowitz, J. 260, 266
Herzog, D.B. 255 Horsley, K. 216
Hesketh, K.R. 489 Horst, H. 124–25
Hiatt, B. 66–67, 71 Horst, H.A. 79, 133, 141, 385, 474
Hidayatullah, A.F. 372, 377 Horton, D. 213, 217, 230, 233
Hietajärvi, L. 193 Hosein, A. 315, 317
Higgins, E.T. 257 Hosri, H. 377

540
 Author Index

Houltberg, B.J. 233 Insulander, E. 318

Houlton, B. 401 Ioannou, A. 474
Howard Gola, A.A. 197, 200, 500, 504 Ipince, A. 117
Howard, D. 393 Irigoyen, M.M. 333
Hsia, D.S. 267 Irving, L. 385
Hsueh, Y. 466 Isaacs, A. 265
Hu, B. 192, 333 Isbouts, J.P. 277, 283
Huang, C. 188, 192 Ishak, M.S. 276
Huang, J. 133, 270, 274 Ishiguro, H. 159
Huang, K. 283 Islam, N. 199
Huang, K.-T. 124 Ismail, A. 376
Huang, Q. 250, 252–54, 256 Ito, M. 78–79, 112, 114, 117, 119, 122–23, 125,
Huang, S. 275 127–29, 133, 140–41, 219–20, 224–26, 349,
Huber, B. 339, 345 353, 382, 385, 403, 406, 410, 422, 467–72, 474
Huberman, H.S. 200 Iu Kan, S. 249
Hudders, L. 302, 307–310, 442, 447 Ivarsson, C.H. 374, 377
Hudek, N. 192 Ive, S. 256
Hudson, B. 68, 71 Ivie, E.J. 328, 333
Hudson, J.A. 277, 283 Ivory, J. 64
Huesmann, L.R. 212, 217 Ivory, J.D. 126, 284, 177
Hughes, A.R. 489 Iwabuchi, K. 67–69, 71
Hughes, J. 225 Iyengar, S. 299
Hughes, S. 364, 369
Huguet, A. 480 Jackson, C. 247
Huizinga, M. 209 Jackson, K.M. 268–69, 273–75
Hujaleh, H. 370 Jackson, W. 99
Humphries, J. 171, 177 Jacob, V. 265
Hunt, A. 20, 24 Jacobs, L. 427, 431, 503
Hunter, J. 55 Jacobsohn, L. 274
Hunter, M. 67, 69, 71 Jacobson, L. 144–45, 151
Hunter, R. 326 Jacobsson, M. 159
Huntington, E.M. 27, 32 Jaddoe, V.W.V. 209
Huon, G. 330, 333 Jaen, J. 125
Hupert, N. 463, 466 Jago, R. 345
Hurks, P. 209 Jagodić, G.K. 238, 242
Hurwitz, L.B. 474 Jamal, A. 418
Huse, O. 265 James, A. 60, 64, 74–76, 78–80, 119, 125
Hussein, M. 117, 267 Jameson, F. 176–77
Huston, A.C. 460, 463, 465 Jamieson, P. 240, 242
Hutcheon, L. 98–99 Jamieson, P.E. 19, 24, 272–73
Hutchinson, R. 122, 125 Jane, E.A. 314, 317
Huyton, J. 191, 233 Janssen, T. 273–74
Hwang, J.-e. 272, 274 Janssen, X. 487, 489
Hwang, Y. 481 Jansz, J. 341, 344, 346, 358, 361, 369, 377
Hyde, J.S. 256 Jarvey, N. 65, 71
Jarvie, I.C. 431
Ibrahim, Y. 30, 32 Javed, H. 159
Ihori, N. 240 Jeffrey, C. 69, 71
Ikeda, J. 418 Jelenchick, L.A. 487, 489
Ilkiw, D. 352, 406, 409 Jenkins, C.A. 91, 92
Imani Giglou, R. 373, 377 Jenkins, E.M. 22, 24
Imbesi, K.J. 279–80, 283 Jenkins, H. 75, 77, 79, 112, 114, 117, 122–23, 125,
Imburgia, T.M. 248 219–20, 226, 405–06, 410, 413, 418, 422,
Imm, K. 490 468–69, 471, 474
Impett, E. 248 Jenkins, P. 22, 24
Ingram, C. 142 Jenks, C. 74, 76, 78–79, 125, 286, 291n1, 292
Inhelder, B. 34, 39 Jennings, N.A. 57, 64, 145, 150

541
 Author Index

Jennings, P.A. 227, 233 Kahila, S. 120, 124, 125

Jensen, A.C. 247 Kahlenberg, S.G. 312–13, 317
Jensen, J. 20, 24 Kahn, P.H. 154, 159
Jensen, P.S. 203, 208 Kahne, J. 403, 405, 407, 410, 478, 481, 296, 300
Jenson, J. 312, 315, 317, 413, 417, 121, 125 Kahwati, L.C. 265
Jeong, S.H. 479, 481 Kaiser, S.B. 137, 141
Jernigan, D.H. 270, 274 Kalceff, J. 508, 513
Jewitt, C. 126 Kali, Y. 368
Jiang, J. 68, 70, 219, 225, 314–15, 317, 467, Kalita, B. 267
471–73 Kallander S.W. 391, 393
Jimenez, E. 318, 368 Kallitsoglou, A. 233
Jin, D.Y. 351, 353 Kallman, D. 397, 401
Jin, L. 130, 133 Kaltcheva, V.D. 151
Jin, S.A. 173, 177 Kalton, G. 274
Jin, Y. 377 Kaminska, K. 102, 108
Jiow, J.H. 38–39 Kamp, K.A. 171, 177
Jochen, P. 172, 178 Kanai, A. 19, 24
John, D.R. 147, 150 Kanata, S. 209
Johnsen, T. 128, 133 Kanchev, P. 117
Johnson, C. 103, 108 Kanda, T. 154, 157, 159
Johnson, C.R. 500, 504 Kang, Y. 68, 190, 192, 439
Johnson, D.B. 265 Kantor, E. 88, 92
Johnson, J.G. 250, 256 Kapidzic, S. 244–45, 248
Johnson, P.R. xx, 277 Kappas, A. 160
Johnson, S. 97, 99 Kardefelt-Winther, D. 241, 391, 393, 47, 117
Johnson, S.P. 194, 200 Karlsen, S. 138, 142
Johnson, T. 65, 71 Karsay, K. 245, 248, 257
Johnsson-Smaragdi, U. 217 Kasai, K. 209
Joiner, T.E. 490 Kasen, S. 256
Joinson, A.N. 52, 56 Kasesniemi, E.-L. 128, 133
Jolls, T. 239, 241 Kastenmüller, A. 273
Jones, C.M. 268, 274 Kasturi, S. 148, 151
Jones, D.E. 227, 233 Kats, K. 299
Jones, G. 213, 217 Katz, E. 113, 117, 213, 217
Jones, S.C. 147, 151, 274 Katz, V. 282, 360–61
Jonsson, L. 247 Katz, V.S. xxi, 336, 344, 357–61, 364, 367, 369,
Jonze, S. 97, 99 379, 381, 383–86, 392, 399
Jordan, A.B. xx, 40, 70, 265, 282–83, 385, 392, Katzman, D.K. 257
396, 399, 401, 421, 423, 430, 441, 444, 448, Kaufman, J. 160, 345
456, 514–16 Kaufman, J.C. 220, 226
Jorge, A. 32, 345 Kawashima-Ginsberg, K. 298, 300
Joris, W. xx, 282, 336, 371, 373, 376–77 Kaye, K. 123, 125, 445, 448
Joseph, J.J. 321, 325 Kaziaj, E. 287, 292
Jowett, G.S. 427, 431 Kazyak, E. 148, 151
Ju, H. 351, 353 Keane, M. 66, 71
Juaristi, P. 353 Kebble, P. 378
Judge, A. 403, 410 Kedzior, S.G.E. 489
Juliano, L. 400 Keefe, E.M. 482
Juul, J. 122–23, 125 Keel, P.K. 257
Keene, J.R. 503
Kabali, H.K. 329, 333 Kehily, M.J. 75, 79
Kabha, M. 377 Keijsers, L. 159, 247, 325
Kabir, N. 299 Keijsers, M. 159, 247, 325
Kačinová, V. 476, 481 Kelder, S.H. 368
Kafai, Y. 223, 226 Keles, B. 187, 192
Kafai, Y.B. 121–22, 125, 471, 474 Kelleher, K.J. 202, 209
Kahila, J. 120, 125 Keller, K. 266

542
 Author Index

Kellett, M. 412, 418 Kleeman, D.W. 432, 434, 439

Kelley, P. 108 Kleemans, M. 238, 241, 253, 257, 289, 292–93
Kelly, A.S. 489 Kligler-Vilenchik, N. 117, 350, 353, 403, 408,
Kelly, B. 260, 265–67 410, 418
Kelso, T. 313, 317 Klimstra, T.A. 193, 326
Kenneavy, K. 247–48 Kline, S. 442, 448
Kennedy, J. 159 Kloosterman, M. 249
Kennedy, J.L. 463, 466 Klump, K.L. 257
Kennedy, M. 140, 142 Klute, C. 347, 352
Kensinger, K.R. 397, 400 Knapp, P.K. 208
Kent, M. 400 Kneer, J. 365, 369, 373, 377
Kent, M. P. 265, 266 Knez, I. 372, 378
Kenway, J. 66, 71 Knobel, M. 413, 418
Kera, E.C. 209 Knobloch-Westerwick, S. 232, 233
Kerrins, L. 370 Knoll, J. 248, 330, 333
Kervin, L. 274 Knutzen, K.E. 275
Kesten, J. 345 Knuuti, K. 475, 481
Kesvani, H. 372, 377 Koban Koç, D. 480
Ketonen, V. 268, 274 Kogan, M.D. 402
Keyes, C.L.M. 185, 192 Kohlberg, L. 280, 283
Keymolen, E. 162–65, 169 Kohnen, A.M. 478, 481
Keys, J. 313, 317, 356, 361 Koikkalainen, R. 353
Khademi, M. 394 Kok, R.-M. 135, 142
Khader, Z. 466 Kollath-Cattano, C. 270, 272, 274
Khalil, J.F. 117, 390, 393 Kolucki, B. 12, 398, 401
Khaliq, F.A. 394 Kommers, P.A. 334
Khan, M.H. 394 Komulainen, S. 76, 79
Kharchenko, N. 365, 367, 369 Kondova, K. 376
Khazaal, Y. 132 Konijn, E.A. 287, 293
Khoja-Moolji, S.S. 374, 377 Koning, I. M. 193
Khoo, A. 208 Konner, M.J. 38–39
Khurana, A. 240, 272–73 Koo, G.Y. 372, 377
Kikuta, H. 372, 377 Kook, J. 466
Kim, B. 474 Koonce, J. 297, 300
Kim, D. 130, 133 Korhonen, P. 229, 233, 238, 241
Kim, H. 251, 256, 315, 317 Kornfield, R. 274
Kim, H.K. 130, 134 Kornfield, S. 281, 284
Kim, K.H. 365, 369 Kostyrka-Allchorne, K. 205, 207, 209
Kim, M. 442, 448 Koszycki, D. 192
Kim, S. 365, 369, 456 Kotler, J.A. 232, 266, 399, 401, 460, 466, 504
Kim, S.C. 443, 447 Kotronoulas, G. 489
Kincaid. J.R. 26, 32 Kovalchik, S.A. 273
Kincheloe, J. 68, 72 Kovaric, P. 233
Kinder, M. 77, 79 Kowert, R. 125
King, A. 398, 401 Kozarian, L. 320, 323, 325
King, B.E. 486, 490 Kraak, V.I. 151
Kini, S. 313, 317 Kraemer, K.L. 275
Kinsler, J.J. 251, 257 Kraftl, P. 78, 79
Kirkorian, H.L. 197–201, 342–43, 345–46, Krahé, B. 239–41
499–501, 503–05 Krahmer, E. 160
Kirshner, B. 117, 474 Kraidy, M.M. 67, 71
Kirwil, L. 241 Krakowiak, K.M. 241
Kiyono, T. 209 Kramer, P. 426, 431
Klar, S. 299 Krämer, P. 95, 99
Klass, P. 219, 226 Kraninger, K. 489
Klaver, J. 377 Kranzler, E. 273
Kleeb, M. 394 Kranzler, H.R. 275

543
 Author Index

Krashinsky Robertson, S. 435, 438–39 Latour, B. 154, 159

Krauss, M.J. 268, 274 Lauricella, A.R. xxi, 37, 39, 197, 200, 231, 233,
Krcmar, M. xxi, 14, 33–35, 39, 196–98, 200, 216, 316, 344, 358, 360–62, 368, 423, 477, 481,
252, 257, 340, 345–46 498–99, 501, 503–04
Kroff, S.L. 247, 346 Lavigne, H.J. 461, 465
Kronenberger, W.G. 204, 207, 209 Law, A. 141
Krotz, F. 45, 47 Law, J. 123, 125
Kubrin, C. 19, 24 Lawson, A.S. 377
Kuhn, A. 94, 99 Lawson, D. 291–92
Kühne, R. 153–56, 158–60 Lawthom, R. 396, 400
Kuklis, L. 453, 457 Layh, M.C. 256
Kulterer, J. 283 Layton, M. 357, 361
Kumar, P. 400 Lazarus, E. 275
Kumar, Y. 316, 360 Le, L.K. 489
Kumari, S. 212, 217 Leach, W. 144, 151
Kumpulainen, K. 393, 117 Leaper, C. 312, 318
Kunkel, D. 146, 151, 242, 428, 431, 442, 445, Leary, M.R. 328, 331
448, 504 Leaver, T. 167, 169
Kupersmidt, J.B. 473, 482 LeBourgeois, M. 266
Kuyken, W. 233 Ledingham C.M. 368
Kvavadze, D. 129, 132 Lee, C. 131, 133, 475, 481
Kwon, J. 365, 369 Lee, C.K. 481
Lee, E.W.J. 256
L’Engle, K.L. 243, 248 Lee, H. 201
Lachlan, K. 256 Lee, J. 133, 346, 364, 370
Lachmann, T. 234 Lee, J.H. 392–93
Ladouceur, C.D. 192 Lee, J.S. 375, 378
Lagae, K. 345 Lee, K.H. 329–30, 332
Laghi, F. 189 Lee, L. 148, 151, 481
Lagoe, C.A. 272 Lee, N. 53, 56, 300
Lahikainen, A.R. 229, 233, 238, 241 Lee, P.D. 190, 192
Lahmar, J. 125 Lee, S.J. 201, 333
Lai, C.-H. 128–29, 133 Lee, S.S. 209
Lai, I.J. 481 Lee, Y. 133
Laible, D. 328, 333 Leeman, R.F. 272
Lalancette, M. 352, 406, 409 Lehman, J. F. 154, 156, 159
Lam, C.P. 240 Lei, L. 134, 334
Lam, W.S.E. 265–66, 368–69 Leister, K. P. 333
Lammers, J.C. 120, 122, 124, 474–74 Leite, I. 154, 156–57, 159–60
Lampe, C. 332 Lekander, B. 495–97
Lanau, A. 178 Lemish, D. i, xxi, 1–2, 12, 14, 38–39, 46–47,
Lando, A.L. 393, 461, 465 57–59, 61–62, 64, 69–71, 79, 117, 130, 132–34,
Landon, J. 441, 447 139, 142, 154–55, 159, 172, 176, 198, 200,
Lange, P.G. 79, 125, 133, 141, 385, 474 213–15, 217, 229, 233, 238, 240–41, 251,
Langsten, R. 466 255–56, 277, 279, 282–83, 285, 289–92,
Lankshear, C. 413, 418 312–14, 316–18, 343, 345, 356, 359–61,
Lansdown, G. 117 363–69, 385, 392–93, 396, 399, 401, 423, 432,
Lanthorn, K. 481–82 439, 499, 500, 504, 512–16
Lao, G. 51, 55 Lemola, S. 131, 133
Lapierre, M. 342, 345 Lenhart, A. 121, 125, 128, 130–31, 133, 172, 177,
Lapierre, M.A. 305–06, 309 219, 226, 319–20, 325
Larkin, J. 418 Leon-Boys, D. xxi, 282, 335, 355–56, 361,
Larkins, C. 178 368, 375
Larøi, F. 124 Leonardi‐Bee, J. 273
Larsen, J.J. 209 Lepper, M.R. 206, 209
Larson, R.W. 347, 353 Lesitaokana, W.O. 349, 353
Lasseter, J. 96, 99 Lesser, G.S. 37, 39

544
 Author Index

Lessig, L. 451, 457 Lingelbach, D. 151

Leung, J. 274 Linn, S. 441, 448
Leung, L. 128, 133 Linne, O. 213, 218
Leung, R. 266 Linton, S.J. 192
Leurs, K. 366, 369, 373, 378 Linz, D. 39, 242
Levelink, B. 206, 209 Literat, I. 299, 350, 353, 403, 408, 410, 477, 481
Leventhal, A.M. 209, 490 Liu, D. 187–88, 192, 328, 333, 348, 354
Levin, S.R. 208 Liu, K. 489
Levine, K.J. 236, 241 Liu, S. 134, 192
Levine, M.H. 381, 385, 474, 505 Liu, X. 208
Levine, Z. 505 Liu, Y. 227, 234
Levinson, A. 364, 369 Liubyva, T. 481
Levitas, J. 234 Livingston, G. 314, 318
Lewallen, J. 362 Livingstone, S. xxii, 20, 24, 34–35, 39, 45, 47–48,
Lewin, T. 358, 361 78, 80, 82, 110–17, 126, 167, 169, 172, 175,
Lewis, C. 309 177–78, 192, 235, 241, 277, 279–80, 282–84,
Lewis, S. 273, 418 296, 298, 300, 303, 309, 320, 325, 341, 343,
Leyn, I.M. 92 345–46, 356, 360–62, 381, 385, 388–89,
Li, H. 213, 217 391–93, 396, 401, 405, 407, 410, 446, 448,
Li, J. 130, 133 452–54, 457, 467, 474
Li, J.Y. 481 Ljungblad, S. 159
Li, M. 299 Llorente, C. 463, 466
Li, T.Q. 209 Lloyd, K. 187, 191
Li, Y. 131, 133, 490 Lo Coco, G. 132
Li, Z. 248 Lobato, R. 101, 108, 438–39
Liao, L.L. 479, 481 Lobe, B. 355, 361
Liao, R. 467, 474 Lockee, B.B. 482
Liao, Y. 256 Logie, C. 394
Liddle, H. 345 Logrieco, G. 69, 71
Liebenberg, L. 412, 418 Long, M.W. 258
Liebes, T. 64, 213, 217 Longfield, J. 266
Liekweg, K. 503 Longobardi, C. 209
Lievens, E. 115, 117, 455, 457 Loof, T. 503
Lievrouw, L.A. 467, 474 Looije, R. 153, 160
Light, J.M. 275 Lookatch, S.J. 273
Liguori, G. 490 Loparco, C. 272
Lill, A. 139–40, 142 Lopez De Bonetti, B. 504
Lillard, A.S. 204–05, 207, 209, 217 Lopez, L.K. 369
Lim, C.C. 268, 274 Lorch, E.P. 208
Lim, C.G. 208 Lorenz, T. 296, 300
Lim, S.M.Y. 145–46, 151 Lou, C. 130, 134
Lim, S.S. xxi, 39, 117, 127–30, 133, 325, 327, 333, Lovegrove, E. 42, 48
335, 347–48, 350, 353–54, 393 Low, D. 47
Limperos, A.M. 241 Lowe, M.J. 209
Lin, J. 39 Lu, A.S. 267
Lin, K. 39, 200 Lu, Y. 134
Lin, L. 192, 346 Lucas, R.E. 191
Lin, S. 206, 209 Luckett, M. 171, 177
Lin, T.B. 477, 481 Luder, M.T. 245, 248
Linder, J.R. 39, 216 Lukose, R.A. 69, 71
Lindgren, A.-L. 126 Lukoševičiūtė, J. 393
Lindquist, K.A. 325 Lumeng, J. 266, 345
Lindstrand, F. 313, 318 Luna, J. 409
Linebarger, D.L. 196–97, 199–201, 204–05, 207, Lund, A.F. 201, 346, 505
209, 345, 365–66, 474, 499, 504 Lunt, P. 115, 117
Ling, P.M. 448 Luo, Z. 161
Ling, R. xxii, 82, 127–31, 133, 325, 349, 352–53 Lupton, D. 387, 394

545
 Author Index

Lury, K. 96, 100 Maloney, J. 226

Lustyik, K. xxii, 70, 421, 430, 432, 434, 436, Maloy, L. 136, 142
440, 446 Maltby, J. 231, 233
Luz, F. C. 404, 409 Manago, A.M. 327, 330, 333
Ly, A. 474 Mandrona, A. 419
Lyle, J. 40 Mandryk, R.L. 125
Lynch, T. 244, 248 Manion, A. 141
Lyness, P. 43, 48 Manios, Y. 266
Lynskey, M. 274 Manktelow, R. 191
Mannan, M. 456
Ma, E. 436, 440 Manning, S. 144, 151
Ma, H. 133, 274 Mansour, N. 373, 377
Ma, K.E. 67, 71 Marchi, R. 286, 291–92, 369
MacArthur, E. 124 Marchili, M.R. 71
Maccoby, E.E. 57, 64, 213, 217 Marengo, D. 209
MacDonald, K. 245, 248 Mares, M. 341, 345
MacDougall, J. 164, 169 Mares, M.-L. 192, 278, 283, 392, 394, 397, 401,
MacEntee, K. 414–15, 418 459, 461, 466, 500, 504
Machackova, H. xxii, 48, 126, 179, 185, Marginson, S. 378, 384
192, 208, 247, 255, 265, 272, 284, 346, Mariën, I. 482
362, 488 Markey, E. 430–31
Machín, N. 393 Markham, T. 300
MacIntyre, M.I. 160 Marks, D.J. 209
MacKintosh, A.M. 266 Marlowe, J. 373, 377
Madan, A. 237, 241 Marôpo, L. 28, 32
Madden, M. 357, 361 Marotta, D. 490
Madianou, M. 79–80 Marquart, F. 266, 405–06, 410
Madigan, S. 134, 342, 345 Marsch, L.A. 271, 274
Madon, M. 376 Marseille, N. 346
Madsen, S.D. 176 Marsh, J. 92, 121, 125, 139–40, 142, 162–64,
Maenner, M.J. 402 168–69, 212, 217
Maes, C. xxii, 176, 181, 243, 245–46, 248 Marsh, K. 138–39, 142
Magnifico, A.M. 473 Marsh, V.L. 472, 474
Magnusson, R. 445, 448 Marshall, D. 147, 151
Maguire, T.O. 204, 206, 208 Marshall, S.J. 261, 266
Mahendran, D. 79, 125, 133, 140, 385, 474 Marske, A.L. 229, 234
Maher, T.V. 352 Martens, L. 54, 56
Maheux, A.J. 243, 248 Martin, A. 489
Mahoney, L.M. 299 Martin, C. 225, 410
Maier, J.A. 504 Martin, D.U. 158, 160
Maitland, C. 373, 377 Martin, F. 457
Maity, N. 148, 151 Martin, G. 346
Makarova, V. 367, 369 Martin, G.N. 92, 187, 193, 490
Mäkitalo, K. 125 Martin, J.D. 134
Maksl, A. 477, 481 Martin, K.A. 148, 151
Malan, H. 257 Martin, M.H. 26, 32
Malau-Aduli, B. 273 Martínez, G. 361
Malaviya, P. 302–03, 309 Martinez, J. 405, 409
Maligkoudi, C. 369 Martinez, J.A. 429, 431
Malik, A. 268, 274 Martínez, K.Z. 79, 125, 133, 141, 385, 474
Malik, C.V. 482 Martinez, L.A. 400
Malkowski, J. 175, 177 Martinho, C. 160
Mallan, K. 173, 177 Martino, S.C. 273
Mallapragada, M. 366, 369 Martins, N. xxiii, 64, 126, 180, 216, 227, 229, 234,
Malmberg, M. 366, 369 279, 283–84, 345, 398–99, 401
Malone, K. 412, 418 Marx, L. 175, 177
Maloney, E. 276 Mascheroni, G. 48, 112, 117, 126, 127, 129, 131,

546
 Author Index

134, 153–55, 160, 162–64, 168–69, 192, 284, McGladrey, M.L. 250, 253, 257
316, 318, 339, 345–46, 362 McGrail, E. 397, 401
Masiha, S. 407, 410 McGraw, M. 18, 24
Mason, M. 271, 274 McGrew, S. 407, 410, 478, 481–82
Massey, Z.B. 274 McInerny, T.K. 209
Massing-Schaffer, M. 320, 325 McIntyre, H. 68, 71
Masterson, M.A. 443, 448 McIntyre, N. 387, 392, 394
Mastro, D. 243, 249 McKay, J.R. 273
Masur, E.F. 198, 200, 343, 345 McKenna, K. 322, 325
Mathews, V.P. 209 McKenzie, R. 433, 440
Matindoost, L. 374, 377 McKinley, C. 448
Matsa, K.E. 295, 300 McLaren, C. 351, 353, 489
Matsuda, M. 129, 134 McLaren, H.J. 374, 378
Mattelart, T. 375, 378 McLaughlin, B. 247–48
Mattheoudakis, M. 367, 369 McLaughlin, C. 30, 32
Matthes, J. 248, 266 McLaughlin, L. 352
Matthew, N. 397, 401 McLaughlin, S. 117, 457
Matthews, A. 260, 266 McLeod, J. 286, 291, 297, 299
Matthews, J. 289, 292 McMellon, C. 117
Maurage, P. 132 McMillin, D.C. xxiii, 65, 67–69, 71, 214, 217
Mavoa, J. 120, 124–25, 315, 318 McNamee, P. 206, 209
Maxon, T. 466 McNeal, J.U. 144–45, 151
Mayer, V. 364, 369 McNeal, S. 443, 448
Mäyrä, F. 119, 125 McRobbie, A. 139, 142
Mayrhofer, M. 266 McTaggart, N. 400
Mazanov, J. 332 Medarić, Z. 369
Mazur, E. 320, 323, 325 Medianu, S. 377
Mazurek, M.O. 204–05, 209 Meerkerk, G.J. 193
Mazzarella, S.R. xxiii, 62–64, 68, 71, 183, 311, Meeus, A. xxiii, 183, 327–30, 333
413, 418 Meganck, S. 377
Mazzer, K. 190, 192 Mehrotra, D. 393
Mazzone, A. 242 Meikle, G. 162–163, 168
Mbelwa, A. 394 Meintjes, H. 416, 418
McAlister, A.R. 35, 39 Mejía, R. 272, 274
McAllister, M.P. 66, 71 Melander, H. 125
McArthur, B. 345, 479, 481 Melinda C.R. 360
McCaffery, H. 489 Melioli, T. 251, 257
McCann Brown, S.K. 461, 465 Mellati, M. 391, 394
McClelland, D.C. 269, 272 Mellin-Olsen, J. 393
McClure, A.C. 275 Melody, W. 101, 108
McClure, E. 199 Meltzoff, A.N. 201
McCool, J. 368 Memmott-Elison, M.K. 273, 344, 346
McCoy, J.K. 258 Mende, C. 89, 92
McCracken, A. 351, 353 Mendel, C. 283
McCracken, B. 272 Mendelsohn, A.L. 198, 200
McCrae, N. 192 Mendelson, A.L. 174, 177, 330, 333
McDade-Montez, E. 314, 318 Mendes, K. 292
McDaniel, B.T. 176, 343, 345, 487, 489 Mendolia, S. 209
McDermot, L. 266 Menezes, I. 292
McDermott, K.W. 242 Meng, W. 193
McDougall, R. 393 Mento, C. 254, 257
McEwen, R.N. 127, 134 Mercer, S.L. 265
McGale, L.S. 260, 262, 266 Mertens, G.E. 481
McGarry, O. 372, 378 Mesch, G.S. xxiii, 183, 319–21, 323–26, 352, 386
McGerr, M. 426, 430n3, 431 Messenger Davies, M. 102, 108, 285, 292
McGinley, L. 445, 448 Messner, M. 377
McGinnis, J.M. 146, 151 Meszaros, G. 393

547
 Author Index

Meter, D.J. 325 Mongiello, M. 457

Meulman, J.J. 334 Monro, F. 330, 333
Meyer, M. 487, 489 Monroy-Hernandez, A. 226
Meyers-Levy, J. 302–03, 309 Monteiro, R. 266
Michalchik, V. 117, 474 Montgomery, H. 74, 80
Michaud, P.A. 248 Montgomery, K. 147, 150
Micheli M. 383, 385 Moodie, M. 489
Midamba, N.A. 487, 489 Moon, H. 214, 217
Mignolo, W.D. 67, 72 Moore, K. 124
Mihailidis, P. 286, 292, 406, 410, 475, 479, 481 Moore, V.M. 489
Mijke S. 361 Moorthy, S. 463, 466
Mikos, L. 499, 504 Morales, F. 364, 369
Milanaik, R.L. 352 Morales, P.Z. 368
Milani, R. 292 Moran, K. C. 359, 561
Milas, G. 243, 248 Moran, M. 385
Miles, J.N. 276 Moran, M.B. 275
Milkie, M. 253, 257 Moran, P. 67, 72
Miller, A. 261, 266, 345 Moreland, J.J. 327, 329–30, 332
Miller, B. 429, 431 Morelli, M. 244, 248
Miller, C. 448 Moreno, G. 368
Miller, C.H. 271, 274 Moreno, M.A. 192, 269, 274–5, 360, 487, 489
Miller, C.J. 205, 209 Morey, L. 99
Miller, C.L. 265 Morgan, M. 242, 317
Miller, D. 79–80 Morgenstern, M. 272
Miller, S. 192 Mori, C. 131, 134
Miller, S.R. 209 Morin, A.J.S. 193
Millner, A. 226 Morin, D. 273
Milosovic, T. 242 Morishima, R. 209
Milovidov, E. 457 Morita, M. 206, 209
Minkkinen, J. 185, 192 Morley, D. 77, 80
Minkoff, R. 954, 99–100 Morley, K.I. 274
Minks, A. 138, 142 Moroney, E. 209
Minow, N. 106, 108 Morrell, E. 479, 481
Mirrlees, T. 388, 394 Morris, A.S. 231, 233
Mishna, F. 324, 326 Morsi, H. 457
Misman, N. 371–72, 378 Mortensen, M. 288, 292
Mistiaen, V. 375–76, 378 Mortensen, T.E. 121, 125
Mitchell, A.J. 255 Morton, S. 115, 117
Mitchell, C. xxiii, 337, 409, 412–19 Moser, A. 200–01
Mitchell, K.J. 394 Moses, A. 201
Mitchell, K.M. 236, 241 Moses, A.M. 199, 201
Mitnick, S. 141 Moses, L.J. 333
Mitroff, D. 101, 108 Mosher, J.F. 442, 448
Miyata, K. 128, 134 Mößle, T. 398, 401
Miyazaki, H. 96, 100 Mourão, R.R. 299
Mkhize, N. 418 Mouritsen, F. 119, 125
Moberly, N.J. 233 Mousavi, A. 369
Möckel, T. 480 Moye, D. 166, 169
Mohamad, S.M. 69, 72 Moyer-Gusé, E. 232, 234, 242, 292, 503
Mohanty, S.H. 333 Moyser, R. 438–39
Mol, A. 123, 125 Mrazek, D. 208
Moletsane, R. 412, 414, 417–19 Mrug, S. 237, 241
Molina, P. 234 Mu, M. 489
Möller, J. 410 Muentener, P. 199, 503
Mollier-Sabet, P. 232 Mufson, S. 149, 151
Mommers, M. 209 Mullany, E.C. 275
Monchalin, R. 418 Mulvey, L. 100

548
 Author Index

Munger, K. 219, 226 Nichols Linebarger, D.L. 474

Murdey, I. 266 Nichols, D.L. xxiii, 179, 194, 201, 459
Murphy, K. 409 Nieding, G. 480
Murphy, L.A. 200, 345 Nielsen, P. 298, 300, 343, 345
Murray, J.P. 484, 489 Nielsen, S. 255
Murray, R.L. 272–73, 447 Niemi, R.G. 294, 300
Murray, W. 435, 438, 440 Nierwinska, K. 267
Murrock, E. 478, 481 Nieto, C. 385
Murru, M.F. 410 Nigg, J.T. 203, 209
Muscatello, M.R.A. 257 Nikkelen, S.W.C. 202–03, 206–07, 209, 238, 241
Mustaffa, M.F. 376 Nikken, P. xxiv, 278, 283, 290, 292, 335, 339–41,
Mutz, D.C. 261, 266 344–46
Myrick, Y. 400 Nishida, A. 209
Nkwanyana, C.B. 418
Nabi, R.L. 231, 233, 340, 345 Noll, S.M. 252, 257
Nacher, V. 121, 125 Norenzayan, A. 361, 514, 516
Naderer, B. 252, 257, 260, 266 Noriega, G.M. 466
Nadjat-Haiem, C. 257 Norman, J.O. 242
Naeem, T. 389, 394 Norman, M.S. 234
Naezer, M. 61, 64, 140, 147, 316, 318, 454, 457 Norris, M. L. 251, 257
Nally, B. 398, 401 North, A. 244, 248
Nam, J.K. 133 Notley, T. 297, 300, 477, 481
Nandi, A. 116 Nouwen, M. 346
Narayan, B. 89, 92 Novosat, C.L. 441, 448
Nardi, A. 481 Nowland, R. 189, 192
Nasie, M. 299 Nunez-Davis, R. 333
Nastasia, D. 217 Nyamnjoh, F.B. 432, 440
Nastasia, S. 217 Nyamogo, E. 89, 92
Nath, S. 233 Nyborn, J. 447
Nathanson, A.I. 39, 238, 241, 341, 344–45, 348, Nyhout, A. 201
353, 462, 465, 478, 481, 483 Nyst, C. 49, 52, 56
Navarro, A. 275
Navarro, E. 125 O’Connor, S.M. 257
Navsaria, D. 275, 448 O’Day, E.B. 188, 192
Nayar, P. 117, 393 O’Doherty, K. 196, 199, 200, 505
Nayar, U.S. 117, 393 O’Donnell, L. 167, 169
Naylor, K.T. 392 O’Hara, R.E. 245, 248
Neag, A. 373, 378 O’Keefe, G.J. 294, 300
Neale, M. 257 O’Keeffe, G.S. 327, 328, 333
Necka, E.A. 192 O’Malley, D. 242
Neerincx, M.A. 160 O’Melia, G. 67, 72
Nelson, D.A. 216 O’Neill, B. 117, xxiv, 422, 430, 446, 450, 455, 457
Nelson, L.J. 176, 241 O’Shea, A. 258
Nelson, M.R. 302, 308, 442, 447, 477, 479, 481 Oates, C. 457
Nerghes, A. 375, 378 Odallo, D. 418
Nesi, J. 256, 322, 325 Odgers, C.L. 219, 225–26, 340, 345
Nettlefold, J. 477, 481 Ogan, C.L. 367, 369
Neubauer, G. 64 Ogle, J.P. 251, 255
Neumark-Sztainer, D. 250, 254, 257 Ohler, J. 277, 283
Neuss, N. 213, 217 Ohler, P. 480
Newton, R.L. 267 Ohme, J. 294, 300, 410
Ngai, S.S. 249 Ojeda, C. 299
Nguyen, D. 489 Okabe, D. 141
Nguyen, P. 487, 489 Okada, T. 349, 353
Nhean, S. 447 Oko-Epelle, L. 389, 394
Niccolini, A.D. 374, 377 Oksman, V. 128, 134, 172, 177

549
 Author Index

Ola, B. 274 Papaioannou, T. xxiv, 291, 298, 337, 403, 407–08,

Ólafsson, K. 284, 325, 346, 361–62, 48, 126–27, 410, 417
129, 131, 134, 192 Papp-Green, M. 257
Oldmeadow, J.A. 327, 329, 333 Pardun, C.J. 247
Oleaga, J.A. 353 Parish‐Morris, J. 505
Olenik-Shemesh, D. 377 Park, E. 417, 419
Oliver, V. 418 Park, J. 117, 130, 134, 359, 361, 364–66, 369, 393
Olivier, M. 171, 177 Park, J.H. 128, 134
Olsen, S.H. 393, 461, 465 Park, M.C. 443, 447
Olson, C. 192, 242, 477, 481–82 Park, M.-J. 67, 71
Olson, C.D. 176 Park, M.Y. 364–65, 369
Olson, C.J. 58, 64 Park, S.-Y. 269, 273, 275
Olson, D. xxiv, 13, 23, 25, 356, 361 Park, S.E. 201
Olson, J. 200, 345 Park, Y.J. 131–32
Ong, T. 166, 169 Parker, E.B. 40
Ono, H. 386 Parlakian, R. 199
Onofre, E. 385 Parnell P. 92
Onut, G. 481–82 Parry, B. 233
Onyima, J.K. 349, 353 Parry, E. 282
Ooi, J. 348, 353 Parsons, T. 346
Opazo-Breton M. 447 Pascarella, J. 418
Oppegaard, B. 128, 133 Pascoe, C.J. 79, 125, 133, 141, 385, 474
Oppenheim, A.N. 79 Pasnik, S. 463, 466
Orben, A. 187, 192 Pasquale, L. 453, 457, 505
Oriol-Granado, X. 489 Pasquier, D. 347, 353
Ortega, T. 410, 481 Pasquini, E. 474
Ortiz, M. 122, 124, 279, 282 Passmore, C.J. 122, 125
Ortiz, R.R. 243, 248, 314, 318 Pastor, P.N. 208
Orwin, R. 274 Patchin, J.W. 323, 326
Ostrosky, M.M. 401 Pater, J. 176
Oswald, K. 416, 418 Patil, T.V. 374, 378
Oswald, T.K. 487, 489 Patino, A. 146, 151
Otremba, K. 356, 362 Patton, G. 274
Ott, M.A. 248 Paul, B. 243, 247
Overbeek, G. 247 Paus-Hasebrink, I. xxiv, 14, 41, 46–48, 277,
Överlien, C. 178 281, 283
Owen, D. 217 Pauze, E. 266
Owen, L.H. 266, 305, 308–09 Paxton, S.J. 258
Payler, J. 216
Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. 79–80 Pearce, C. 120, 124, 126
Padilla‐Walker, L.M. 176, 241, 273, 327–29, 332, Pearce, L.J. 238, 242
341, 344, 346 Pearce, P. 99
Pagel, M. 194, 200 Pearl, D. 485, 490
Pai, S. 266 Pearson, S.J. 426, 430n3, 431
Paik, H. 34, 39, 43, 48 Pecknold, D. 139, 141–42
Paiva, A. 160 Pecora, N. xxv, 421, 425, 429, 431, 434, 440,
Palfrey, J. 128, 134, 447 446, 456
Palladino, M.A. 504 Pedell, S. 160
Palmer, E. 504 Pedley, C. 266
Palmer, N.A. 394 Pedraza, F.I. 297, 300
Palmer, S. 75, 80 Peebles, A. 333
Pan, Z. 392, 394, 461, 466 Peeters, A.L. 230, 234, 256, 278, 283, 346
Pane, J. 480 Pellicane, A. 50, 55
Panic, K. 309 Pempek, T.A. 195, 198–201, 263, 267, 341–42,
Pantti, M. 366, 369 345–46, 499–500, 503–05
Papacharissi, Z. 174, 177, 330, 333 Peng, W. 356

550
 Author Index

Penuel, W. 117, 474 Pires, P.P. 388, 393

Peplau, L.A. 188, 192 Piteo, E.M. 187–88, 192
Peppler, K. xxv, 117, 180, 219, 221–23, 225–26, Pitta, D.A. 151
240, 471, 474 Pittet, I. 248
Perez-Granados, D.R. 159 Plowman, L. 125, 169
Perez-Hernandez, R. 274 Poel, Y.T. 334
Perez, S. 172, 177 Poell, T. 24
Perkel, D. 79, 125, 133, 141, 385, 474 Poirier, K. 447
Perkinson-Gloor, N. 133 Polansky, J.R. 268, 270, 275–76
Perlman, D. 188, 192 Polechonski, J. 265, 267
Perloff, R.M. 252, 257 Pollard, E.L. 190, 192
Perocco, F. 373, 378 Ponce-Cordero, R. 385
Perrin, A. 125, 132, 225, 317, 431 Ponnet, K. 178, 249
Perry, B.N. 297, 300 Pons, F. 234
Perry, C. 160 Ponte, C. 241, 292, 345
Perry, C.K. 489 Pool, L. 342, 345
Perszyk, D.R. 194, 201 Pope, G. 104, 109
Peruta, A. 280, 283 Popova, L. 448
Peter, C. 257 Popp, J. 45, 47
Peter, J. xxv, 83, 176, 153–60, 168, 172, 177, 185, Popyk, A. 366, 370
193, 208, 210, 245–46, 248–49, 276, 318, Porzelius, L.K. 256
325–26, 334 Postman, N. 18, 24, 75, 80, 113, 117
Peters, C. 322 Potter, A. 67, 72, 103–04, 107, 109
Peters, J.K. 160 Potter, W.J. 39, 237, 242, 271, 275, 306, 308,
Peters, M.P. 415, 417 479, 481
Peterson, J. 204–05, 207, 209 Pottie, K. 373–74, 378
Peterson, M.N. 292 Pouwels, J.L. 247, 325
Petkovski, M. 505 Powell, C. 266
Petronio, S. 69, 72 Powell, L.M. 259, 267
Pettifer, J. 208 Powell, M. 282
Pettigrew, S. 448 Powell, R. 481
Pettitt, A. 333 Power, K. 38–39
Petty, R.E. 302–304, 309 Powers, J. 280, 283
Pfeffer, C. 208 Powers, K.L. 501, 504
Pfeiffer, C. 390, 394 Poyer, H. 256
Pfister, R.C. 224–26, 410 Pratico, M. 257
Phillips, D. 36, 40 Pratt, C.A. 265, 489
Phillips, H. 400 Prell, H. 266
Phillipsen, L. 397, 400 Prendella, K. xxv, 282–83, 337, 395–96, 401,
Phoenix, A. 55 514, 516
Phonethibsavads, A. 220, 226 Prestin, A. 231, 263
Phyfer, J. 117 Price, C. 299
Piaget, J. 34, 36, 39, 277, 283, 286, 292 Price, C.L. 397, 401
Pickard, M. 200 Price, S. 121, 126
Pierroutsakos, S.L. 195, 201 Priester, J.R. 309
Piesse, A. 274 Primack, B.A. 268–69, 275
Pignatiello, A. 392 Prince, L. 240, 272
Piirainen-Marsh, A. 123, 126 Prinsloo, J. 117, 393
Pila, S. 278, 284 Prinstein, M.J. 325
Pina, L.R. 382–83, 385 Prøitz, L. 131, 134
Pingree, S. 279, 283 Prommer, E. 283
Pinhas, L. 257 Prot, S. 240
Pinkard, N. 117, 474 Protano, C. 490
Pinkleton, B.E. 298 Prout, A. 29, 32, 60, 64, 74–76, 80, 125
Piotrowski, J.T. 37, 40, 154–55, 160, 202, 208–10, Przybylski, A.K. 187, 192
236–37, 239–42, 345, 462, 466, 500, 503–04 Psychogiou, L. 227, 233
Pires, F. 315, 318 Pugh, A. J. 147, 151

551
 Author Index

Pugh, G. 54, 56 Recine, E. 266

Punyanunt-Carter, N. 233, 346 Ree, J. 505
Purcell, K. 133 Rees, G. 393
Putnam, M.M. 261, 267 Reeve, B. 445, 448
Putnam, R. 365, 370 Rega, E. 171, 177
Pytash, K.E. 482 Regan, P. 156, 158–59
Regan Shade, L.R. 164, 169
Qian, L. 148–49, 151 Rehak, B. 174, 177
Qiu, J.L. 132, 352 Reich, S.M. 39, 326, 499, 503
Quaid, L. 173, 177 Reid, A. 147, 151
Quan-Haased A. 386 Reid-Nash, K. 294, 300
Quayle, E. 247 Reinhard, C.D. 58, 64
Quester, P. 448 Reinhard, R. 32, 234
Quinn, S. 125, 327, 329, 333 Reinhardt, L. 192
Quintero Johnson, J. 298 Reisner, S.L. 394
Qurait Alenezi, M. 372, 378 Reitsma, M.B. 268, 275
Qvortrup, J. 54, 56, 125 Reitsma, P. 501, 503
Reitz, E. 245, 249
Ra, C.K. 206, 209 Rembusch, M.E. 209
Raats T. 438–39 Rennie, J. 348, 354
Rabinowitz, T. 204–05, 208 Resnick, M. 223, 226
Rademacher, M. 172, 177 Restoule, J.-P. 418
Radesky, J. 270, 275, 343, 345, 360, 441, 442, 448, Retis, J. 359, 361
487, 489 Rettberg, J.W. 375, 378
Rafalow, M.H. 225, 383, 385, 410 Reuben, C.A. 208
Rafik, M.R.S.H.M. 389, 394 Reyes, I. 501, 504
Raine, K. 266 Reynolds K. 25, 31
Rains, S.A. 188, 193 Rhodes, J. 117, 474
Raj, S. 384–85 Ribak, R. 129, 131–32, 172, 177, 323, 325, 349,
Ralph, S. 401 353, 358, 361
Ramachandran, A. 159 Ribbens, W. 376
Raman, U. 284 Ribner, A.D. 198, 201
Ramasubramanian, S. xxv, 182, 277, 281–84, 360, Rice, M.L. 198, 200, 500, 504
479, 482, 514, 516 Rich, M. xxvi, 247, 422, 483, 485–86, 489, 490
Rambaree, K. 372, 378 Richard, G.T. 125
Ramirez, G. 265 Richards, C. 92, 119, 124, 139, 141
Ramo, D.E. 273 Richards, M. 261, 267
Raney, A.A. 280, 282, 284, 312, 317 Richards, M.N. 197, 199–201, 233, 500, 504
Ranieri, M. 479, 481 Richardson, J. 91, 92, 454, 457
Rao, G. 489 Richert, R.A. 199, 201, 232–33, 266, 284
Rapaczynski, W.S. 218 Richey, E.M. 209
Rash, C. 134 Richman, B.A. 461, 465
Rasmussen, E.E. 39, 228, 233–34, 273, 341, Riddle, K. 229, 232, 234, 236, 238, 242, 286–87,
344–46, 400, 503 292, 503
Ratan, R. 159 Rideout, V. 38–39, 42–46, 48, 58, 64, 127,
Ratan, R.A. 283 129–30, 134, 198, 201, 222, 226, 243–44, 249,
Rathke, L. 173, 177 265, 267, 278–79, 284, 328–29, 333, 339, 342,
Ratnayake, A. 378 346, 357–58, 361–62, 381, 383–85, 459,
Rautiainen, P. 128, 133–34, 172, 177 466–67, 474, 485, 487, 490, 498, 504
Ravesloot, J. 334 Rieger, A. 397, 401
Rawan, B. 394 Riewestahl, E. 284
Rayner, M. 266 Rigter, H. 298, 300, 345
Razaghpanah, A. 504 Rikard, R.V. 124
Read, R. 159 Riley, H. 345
Reardon, J. 504 Rim, C. 406, 410
Reay, E. 121, 126, 172 Rindfleisch, A. 309

552
 Author Index

Ringland, K.E. 350, 353 Rooney, M. 167, 169, 276

Ringrose, J. 110, 117, 174–75, 178, 280, 284, Roose, K. 445, 448
454, 457 Root, A.E. 287, 292
Risley, T. 198, 200 Rosaen, S.F. 399, 401
Ritterfeld, U. 501, 504 Rosario-Ramos, E. 365–66, 369
Rivadeneyra, R. 399, 401 Rose, A.J. 329, 333
Rizvi, F. 71 Rose, J. 81, 95
Rizzo, A. 257 Rose, J.P. 329–30, 334
Robb, M.B. xxvi, 38–39, 42–46, 48, 58, 64, 127, Rose, J.S. 95–96, 98, 100
129–30, 134, 195, 197–99, 201, 222, 226, 243, Roseberry, S. 499, 505
249, 265, 267, 278–79, 284, 329, 333, 357–58, Rosen, E.B. 275
361–62, 423, 467, 474, 481, 489, 490, 498, 504 Rosen, L.D. 324, 326, 346
RobbGrieco, M. 477, 480 Rosenbaum, E. 226
Robbin, M. 117 Rosengren, K.E. 213, 217
Robbins, R.A. 201 Rosenkoetter, L.I. 238, 242
Robelia, B. 225 Rosenkoetter, S.E. 242
Roberts, D. 146, 151, 428, 431 Roskos-Ewoldsen, D.R. 303, 310
Roberts, D.F. 48, 139, 142, 266 Ross, D. 79
Roberts, J.J. 163, 165, 169 Ross, S.A. 79
Roberts, L. 251, 257 Rothenberg, M.B. 484, 490
Roberts, L.R. 334 Rothman, E. 475, 482
Roberts, M. 445, 448 Rousseau, A. 327, 330, 333
Roberts, S.R. 248 Roversi, M. 71
Roberts, T.A. 245, 247 Rovner, G. 12
Robertson, H.A. 400 Rowe, P. 139, 142
Robertson, R. 66, 72 Roy, D. 301
Robinson, C. 418 Roy, E. 266
Robinson, L. 79, 125, 133, 141, 323, 326, 379, Rozendaal, E. xxvi, 55, 149, 182, 302, 304–07,
385–86, 474 309–10, 441, 448
Robinson, M. 412–13, 417 Rubinstein, E.A. 489
Robinson, T. 241 Rubio, A. 192
Robinson, T.N. 259, 261, 264, 267 Rudi, J. 328, 334
Robles, P. 445, 448 Rumbold, A.R. 489
Rochadiat, A.M.P. 128, 131, 134 Rumbold, K. 88, 92
Roché, S. 247 Runswick-Cole, K. 399–400
Rodgers, R.F. 251, 257 Rusby, J.C. 270, 275
Rodham, K. 256 Rushman, A.E. 270, 274
Roditis, M.L. 269, 275 Rusk, N. 226
Rodrigo, M. 239–40 Russell, A.E. 233
Rodriguez, N.S. 247, 248 Russell, J.A. 228, 234
Rodriguez, P. 258 Russo Johnson, C. 234, 283, 312, 318, 356, 361
Roe, K. 138, 142 Russo, M. xxvi, 423, 498
Rogers, J. 39 Russworm, T.M. 175, 177
Rogers, M.L. 490 Ryan, M. 199
Rogow, F. 477, 482 Ryan, R.M. 328, 330, 332, 334
Rohimi, P. 374, 378 Rydin, I. 367, 370
Rohlinger, D.A. 467, 474
Roker, B. 328, 332 Sabanovic, S. 159
Rolandelli, D.R. 211, 217 Sádaba-Chalezquer, C. 127, 134
Roldan, W. 385 Saeed, M.F. 133
Rollins, K. 435, 438, 440 Safdar, G. 394
Romano Spica, V. 490 Sagar, K. 267
Romer, D. 19, 24, 235, 242 Sahari Ashaari, N. 372, 376
Rommes, E. 247 Sahu, M. 130, 134, 343, 346
Romylos, S. 374, 378 Sakamoto, A. 240
Rönnau-Böse, M. 513 Sakr, N. 103, 109, 436, 440
Rooks-Peck, C.R. 265 Sala, M.N. 231, 234

553
 Author Index

Šalčiūnaitė, L. 393 Schilder, E.A. 477, 482

Salen, K. 122, 126, 225, 410, 471, 474 Schimmenti, A. 132
Salen Tekinbaş, K. 117, 471, 474 Schiwy, F. 67, 72
Salerno, K. 199 Schlesinger, M.A. 281, 284
Salim, J. 372, 376 Schlossberg, D. 141
Salmela-Aro, K. 193 Schlote, E. 356, 362
Saltman, K.J. 34, 40 Schmalz, M. 350, 354
Salvi, M. 90, 92 Schmidt, M. 485, 490
Samara, M. 453, 457 Schmidt, M.E. 198, 200–01, 342, 345–46,
Samboleap T. 361 500, 505
Samuelsson, T. 126 Schmitt, K.L. 195, 201, 465–66, 471, 474
Sanabria, E. 283 Schneider, B.H. 192
Sanchez, H. 394 Schneider, J. 37, 39
Sandercock, T. 314, 318 Schober, A. 95, 100
Sanders, L.D. 191, 233 Schodt, F.L. 42, 48
Sanders, P. 149–50 Schofield-Clark, L. 340, 346
Sandin, B. 56 Schols, M. 341, 346
Sandler, K.S. 437, 440 Scholte, E.M. 203, 209
Sandry, E. 155, 160 Scholte, R.H.J. 193
Sandstrom, G.M. 328, 334 Schooler, D. 254, 257
Sandywell, B. 21, 24 Schor, J. 117, 145, 151, 441–42, 449, 474
Sangalang, A. 276 Schouten, A.P. 326
Santos, R.M. 401 Schowalter, J. 208
Santra, A. 209 Schramm, W. 34, 40
Saphir, M. 361 Schreurs, L. 248, 382, 386
Sarchiapone, M. 393 Schueller, S. 225–26
Sarda, E. 247 Schultz, J. 447
Sargent, J.D. 248, 269, 272–75 Schulz, J. 386
Sarmiento, I.G. 188–89, 191–92 Schwab-Cartas, J. 418
Sarwatay, D. 279, 284 Schwartz, M.B. 266, 447
Saud, M. 410 Schwartz, S. 444, 449
Sauer, A. 273 Schwarz, J. 228, 233
Saunders, D.P. 429, 431 Scott, F. 125, 169
Savage, R.S. 505 Scott, M. 503
Savirimuthu, J. 451, 457 Scott, S. 56
Savitz, R. 47 Scull, T. 273, 477, 479, 482
Sawyer, K.S. 227, 234 Seabrook, R. 400
Sawyer, R.K. 220, 226 Sealander, J. 426, 431
Saxon, D.P. 482 Searle, K. 226
Sayehmiri, F. 273 Sebastian-Honig, M. 56
Sayehmiri, K. 273 Sebire, S. 345
Sayfo, O. 28, 32 Sedmak, M. 369
Saylor, M.M. 200, 201 Seekamp, E. 292
Scanlon, M. 46–47 Seese, S. 400
Scannell, P. 113, 117 Sefton-Green, J. 51, 55, 78, 80, 117, 348, 352,
Scantlin, R. 358, 362, 460, 466 400, 474
Scassellati, B. 159 Seidmann, V. 64
Scharrer, E. xxvii, 180, 235–36, 239, 241–42, 282, Seiter, E. 51, 56
284, 315, 317, 360, 459, 478–79, 481–82, Sekarasih, L. 239, 242, 479, 481–82
514, 516 Selander, S. 318
Schatz, J. 503 Sells, L. 150
Scheffner Hammer, C. 363, 365, 368 Selwyn, N. 110, 117, 171, 178
Schejter, A.M. 132 Şenel, M. 394
Schermbeck, R. 267 Serra-Majem, L. 266
Scherr, S. 283 Sesler, B.S. 241
Scheutz, M. 158, 160 Setliff, A.E. 198, 201
Schieve, L.A. 402 Settanni, M. 206, 209

554
 Author Index

Setty, E. 454, 457 Silk, J.S. 192, 233

Sevigny, E.L. 275 Silva, A. 264, 267
Sey, A. 132, 352 Silva, A.C.S. 332
Shabir, G. 390, 394 Silver, J. 226
Shade, L.R. 53, 56 Silverberg, S.B. 372, 378
Shadel, W.G. 273 Silverman, B. 226
Shaffer, A. 466 Silvestri, M.C. 257
Shah, A. 442, 449 Simelio, N. 364, 369
Shah, K.G. 234 Simensky, L. xxvii, 423, 491–92, 497
Shah, S. 400 Simpson, A. 209, 370
Shaheen, J.G. 374, 378 Sims, C. 79, 125, 133, 141, 385, 474
Shahid, S. 153, 160 Singer, D.G. 210, 212–13, 210, 212–13, 216, 218
Shakespeare, T. 396, 401 Singer, J.L. 210, 212–13, 210, 212–13, 216, 218
Shanahan, J. 242 Singer, M. 459, 466
Shane, H.C. 396, 398, 401 Singh, S. 266, 314, 318
Shang, M. 395, 399, 401 Singleton, C. 172, 176
Shannon, D. 295, 299 Singpurwalla, D. 393
Shapiro, L.R. 283 Sink, A. 243, 249
Shapiro, S. 428, 431 Sinner, P. 283
Shapiro, T. 208 Siraj, S.A. 394
Share, M. 365, 370 Sirk, D. 93, 100
Sharma, L.L. 445, 449 Sisk, C. 257
Sharma, M.K. 134, 346 Siyad, F. 370
Sharpsteen, B. 99 Siyahhan, S. 345, 364, 370, 474
Shea, D.M. 298, 300 Sjöberg, J. 56
Shea, J. 171, 178 Sjöberg, U. 367, 370–71, 378
Shearer, E. 295, 300 Sjöblom, B. 120, 126
Sheikh, A.A. 313, 318, 372 Skoric, M. 350, 353
Shen, F. 350, 353 Slater, A. 253, 258
Shen, X. 149, 151 Slater, M.D. 237, 242, 269–70, 275
Sherlock, M. 330, 334 Sleator, E.K. 210
Sherman, K. 199 Slonje, R. 131, 134
Sherwood, N.E. 257 Smahel, D. xxvii, 45, 48, 121, 126, 179, 185, 192,
Shewmaker, J.W. 146, 150 208, 247, 255, 265, 272, 277–78, 284, 331, 339,
Shi, J. 193 346, 356, 362, 452, 457, 488
Shibuya, A. 240 Šmahel, D. 284
Shier, J. 434, 440 Šmigelskas, K. 393
Shimpach, S. 65, 70, 72 Smith, A. 125, 419, 483, 490
Shimpi, P. 200 Smith, B.J. 273
Shin, N. 131, 133 Smith, E.D. 209
Shin, W. 67–69, 72 Smith, H.L. 191
Shinskey, J.L. 196, 201 Smith, K.L. 53, 56, 164, 169
Shirilla, M. 503 Smith, P. 457
Shokirova, T. 394 Smith, P.K. 131, 134, 175, 177, 324, 326
Shonkoff, J. 36, 40 Smith, R. 260, 261, 267
Shresthova, S. 117, 418 Smith, R.G. 292
Shrum, L.J. 303, 309 Smith, S. 128, 132
Shuck, L. 199 Smith, S.J. 21, 24, 94, 100
Shuler, C. 499, 505 Smith, S.L. 235, 242, 312, 318
Shwery, C. 201 Smits, T. 263, 267
Si, Y. 193 Snyder, W. 441, 445, 449
Sibalis, A. 482 Soares, S. 240, 325
Siebers, T. 397, 401 Soep, E. 475, 481
Siegel, M. 442, 447 Solomon, S. 326
Siew-Peng, L. 367, 370 Solomou, M. 221, 226
Signorielli, N. 235, 242, 313–14, 317 Somanader, M. 199
Siibak, A. 112, 117 Sondergeld, A. 458

555
 Author Index

Sondij, P. 240 Stewart, M.A. 366, 370

Soneji, S. 270, 275 Stice, E. 253, 255, 257
Sørenssen, I.K. 123–24 Stiglbauer, B. 191
Sorensen, J. 426, 431 Stilinovic, M. 297, 299
Soriani, A. 457 Stiller, A. 398, 401
Sosa, B.B. 283 Stjepanović, D. 274
Sou, G. 375, 378 Stock, T. 147, 151
Sourmelis, T. 471, 474 Stockdale, L. 216, 241, 332, 343, 346
Southerton, D. 56 Stockings, E. 274
Spangler, D. 257 Stoilova, M. 47, 116, 241, 452–54, 457
Sparrman, A. 53, 56, 119–20, 126 Stolc, F.C. 208
Sparrow, L.A. 120, 126 Stoltze, F.M. 449
Speers, S.E. 266 Stone, L.B. 329, 334
Spence, P.R. 154, 160–61 Stone, M.D. 209
Speno, A.G. 255 Stoolmiller, M. 270, 273, 275
Sperry, C. 482 Story, M. 257
Sperry, S. 257 Stower, R. 158, 160
Spijkerman, R. 193 Strasburger, V.C. 35, 37, 39–40
Spitzberg, B. 92, 346 Strasser, S. 144, 151
Sprafkin, J. 396, 398, 401 Strathmann, A.J. 309
Sprague, R.L. 210 Strauman, T.J. 252, 257
Springer, A.E. 368 Strayer, D. 346
Springhall, J. 19, 24 Strnad, R. 292
Spry, D. 358, 362 Strong, B.L. 503
Spyrou, S. 79–80 Strouse, G.A. 197–99, 201, 234, 501, 505
Staiano, A. 263–64, 266–67 Stuart, J. xxviii, 337, 409, 412, 414, 418–19
Staksrud, E. 48, 117, 126, 192, 241, 284, 346, 362, Štulhofer, A. 248
451–52, 457 Sturgeon, J. 437, 440
Stamou, A.G. 291 Suarez, E.B. 390, 394
Stamp, G.H. 22, 24 Subrahmanyam, K. 277, 284, 329, 334
Stana, A. 273 Suess, D. 348, 353
Stanley, N. 174, 178 Suh, E.M. 191
Staples, T. 95, 99 Sui, Y. 193
Starbird, K. 296, 300 Suisman, J.L. 253, 255, 257
Starr, P. 445, 449 Sulaiman, E. 132
Stasiak, K. 368 Suleiman, A.B. 394
Stassen, M. 65, 72 Sullivan, T. 504
Staudte, W. 93, 100 Summerbell, C. 266
Stavrova, O. 191, 193 Sumter, S.R. 334
Stead, M. 266 Sun, H. 67, 72
Steemers, J. xxvii, 65, 72, 81, 101–05, 107, 109, Sun, J.Y. 125
292, 434, 436–40 Sun, Q. 367, 370
Steinberg, L. 208, 372, 378 Sun, T. 274
Steinberg, S. 50, 56, 68, 72 Sundin, E. 376
Steinfield, C. 332 Sung, J. 157, 160
Stephens, S. 140, 142 Suoninen, A. 348, 353
Stephenson, L. 345 Supa, M. 373, 378
Stern, M.J. 173, 178, 386 Surís, J.C. 248
Stern, S. 444, 446–47 Sutherland, J.E. 482
Stern, S.T. 172, 178 Suzor, N. 457
Stevens, A.J. 292 Suzuki, K. 240
Stevens, G. 208 Svedin, C.G. 247
Stevens, R. 500, 505 Swaim, R.C. 242
Stevens, R.C. 268, 275 Sweeney, K. 474
Stevenson, K.T. 117, 292 Swerts, M. 160
Stewart, A. 300 Swinburn, B.A. 267

556
 Author Index

Swing, E.L. 208, 240 Thomson, R. 78, 80

Szczypka, G. 274 Thomson, T.L. 297, 300
Thorhauge, A.M. 315, 318
Taddicken, M. 69, 72 Thorson, E. 299
Taillie, L.S. 441, 449 Thrasher, J.F. 270, 272, 274–75
Tajfel, H. 295, 300 Thulin, E. 172, 178
Takanishi, R. 425, 431 Tian, K. 481
Takeuchi, L.M. 364, 370, 500, 504–05 Tian, Y. 193
Talmud, I. 320–21, 323, 325–26 Tiemeier, H. 209
Tamboer, S.L. 285–86, 288–89, 292–93 Tiggemann, M. 252–54, 256, 258, 327, 330, 333
Tamis-Lemonda, C.S. 200 Tillson, D.R. 135, 142
Tamkin, G. 466 Timms, P. 163, 166, 170
Tan, A.S. 275 Tingstad, V. 54–55
Tan, L. 474 Tisdale, C. 274
Tan, M. 117, 393 Titus, K. 276
Tan, T. 88, 92 To, S. 245, 249
Tanaka, F. 159 Tobin, J. 44, 48, 214, 218
Tang, T. 299 Tokunaga, R.S. 188–89, 193, 323–24, 326
Tang, W.Y. 235, 241 Tolpadi, A. 273
Tanski, S.E. 270, 275 Toma, C.L. 192, 228, 232
Tantleff-Dunn, S. 253, 255 Toma, R. 240
Tarabah, A. 237, 242 Tomaselli, K.G. 414, 417
Tarabochia, D. 134 Tomé, V. 457
Tarrahi, F. 309 Tomlinson, J. 67, 72
Taylor, A. 79–80, 349, 353 Tomopoulos, S. 200
Taylor, B. 191 Tompkins, J.E. 248
Taylor, G. 200 Tong, S.T. 134
Taylor, L.D. 251, 256 Torrance, E.P. 220, 226
Taylor, M. 213, 218 Torrent, J. 110, 113, 116
Teague, P.-A. 273 Toscos, T. 176
Taylor Piotrowski, J. 154, 155, 160 Tötemeyer, A. 88, 92
Tedone, A. 201 Tóth-Király, I. 188, 193
Tedre, M. 125 Toub, T.S. 503
Teixeira, R. 299 Tower, R.B. 204, 210
Telzer, E.H. 325 Traore, A. 273
Temple, J.R. 134 Trappel, J. 389, 394
Teng, A. 127, 134 Treffry-Goatley, A. 418–19
Teppers, E. 188–89, 193 Trekels, J. 248–49
ter Bogt, T.F.M. 193, 244–45, 247, 249 Trentacosta, C.J. 227, 234
Terán, L. 252–53, 257 Tripp, L. 79, 125, 133, 141, 385, 474
Terekhova, N. 369 Troseth, G. 195, 197–201, 234, 505
Teret, S.P. 449 Trouillot, M-R. 67, 72
Tezcan, T. 365, 370 Troxel, M. 400
Tham, S.M. 299 Truglio, R.T. 401
Themistokleous, A. 407, 410 Trültzsch-Wijnen, C.W. 405, 410
Thi Kim Anh, D. 278, 284 Truss, A. 299
Thijs, C. 209 Tsagarousianou, R. 359, 361
Third, A. 111, 116–17 Tsay-Vogel, M. 235, 241
Thompson, J. 416, 419, 345 Tsoulis-Reay, A. 172, 178
Thompson, J.B. 17, 24 Tsuji, S. 195, 197, 201
Thompson, J.K. 255, 257 Tuchman, G. 279, 284
Thompson, K. 21, 24 Tucker, J.S. 269–70, 276
Thompson, K.M. 235, 241–42 Tufte, B. 147, 150
Thompson, R.A. 328, 333 Tung, I. 209
Thompson, T.L. 312, 318 Tupot, M.L. 147, 151
Thomsen, S.R. 254–55, 258 Turkey, M. 232
Thomson E. 447 Turkle, S. 115, 117, 158, 160

557
 Author Index

Turner, A. 165, 170 Van den Berg, P.A. 257

Turner, E. 132, 225, 317 Van den Eijnden, R.J.J.M. 189–90, 193, 208, 247
Turner, G. 27, 32 Van den Putte, B. 274
Turner, J.C. 295, 300 Van der Goot, M.J. 309
Turner, X.X. 431 van der Hof, S. 162–65, 169
Twenge, J.M. 88, 92, 187, 193, 339, 346, 387, van der Molen, J.H.W. 240, 287, 293
391, 394, 487, 490 Van der Ploeg, J.D. 203, 209
Twishime, P.I. 482 van der Rijst, V.G. 193
Tynan, M.A. 268–69, 276 van der Vlegel, M. 209
Tynes, B.M. 125, 296, 300 van der Voort, T.H.A. 218
Tyyskä, V. 30, 32 Van der Wal, A. 235–36, 242
van Deth, J.W. 286, 293
Uakkas, S. 296, 300 Van Deursen, A.J. 330, 334
Udwan, G. 373, 378 Van Dijck, J. 23–24
Uhls, Y. 219, 226 van Driel, I.I. 247–48, 325
Uller, C. 208 Van Eldik, A.K. 369, 377
Ullmann, R.K. 203, 210 van Looy, J. 346
Uncapher, M. 342, 346 Van Mierlo, J. 279, 284
Underwood, M.K. 325 van Oosten, J.M. 244–46, 248–49, 316, 318,
Ungar, L. 275 479, 482
Unkrich, L. 96, 100 Van Ouytsel, J. 173–74, 178, 244, 249
Urbini, F. 248 van Reijmersdal, E.A. xxviii, 55, 149, 182, 266,
Usta, J. 237, 242 302–03, 305, 307–10
Usta, M. 369, 377 Van Roekel, E. 188, 193
Van Rooij, A.J. 132
van Schie, H.T. 309
Vaage, O. 127, 134 van Stralen, M.M. 489
Vaala, S. 196, 201, 467, 474, 499, 505 Van Straten, C.L. 153–56, 158–60
Vadrevu, S. 350, 354 van Tubergen, F. 374, 376
Vahedi, Z. 479, 482 van Vuuren, D.P. 266
Vahey, P. 466 van Zeben-van der Aa, D.M.C.B. 209
Valdivia, A.N. xxviii, 282, 335, 355–57, 359, Vanattenhoven, J. 346
361–62, 368, 375 Vandebosch, H. xxix, 243–46, 248–49, 280, 318,
Valentine, G. 74, 76, 80, 350, 353 382, 386, 479, 482
Valeriani, F. 487, 490 Vanden Abeele, M.M.P. 129, 132, 134, 348, 354
Valerio, G. 490 Vandenbosch, L. xxix, 181, 243–46, 248–49, 280,
Valkenburg, P.M. xxviii, 37, 40, 144, 152, 154–55, 284, 318, 382, 386, 479, 482
160, 172, 177–79, 185, 193, 202–03, 206–10, Vanderborght, M. 199
212, 218, 230, 234, 236–42, 245–49, 270, 276, Vandevijvere, S. 261, 267
309, 320–21, 325–26, 328–29, 334, 340, 346, Vandewater, E.A. 197–98, 201, 342, 346, 490
500, 503–04 Vangeel, L. 244, 249
Vallina-Rodriguez, N. 504 Vanner, C. 418
Valtonen, T. 125 Vanwesenbeeck, I. 249, 310
van Agteren, J.E. 273 Vanwynsberghe, H. 371, 376, 482
Van Aken, M.A. 247 Varcoe, L. 160
Van Alsten, S.C. 250, 258 Vargas, L. 359, 362
Van Audenhove, L. 480, 482 Vargas, R. 275
Van Bauwel, S. 314, 318 Värnik, A. 393
Van Bergen, W. 155, 160 Värnik, P. 393
van Berlo, Z.M. 310 Vartanian, L.R. 334
Van Camp, D. 405, 411 Vartiainen, H. 125
Van Cleemput, K. 321, 326 Vaterlaus, J.M. 131, 134
Van Dalen, W. 333 Velders, F.P. 209
Van Damme, E. 314, 318 Velki, T. 238, 242
van de Bongardt, D. 249 Verbalis, A. 400
Van de Vord, R. 298 Verdoodt, V. 117
Van den Bulck, J. 279, 284 Verhagen, M. 193

558
 Author Index

Verhagen, M.D. 38–39 Wallis, R. 291, 293

Verhulst, F.C. 209 Walrave, M. 178, 249
Verma, S. 347, 353 Walsh-Moorman, E. 478, 482
Vermeulen, A. 228, 234 Walsh, A. 312, 318
Vermeulen, M. 455, 458 Walsh, D. 229, 233
Vermulst, A.A. 193 Walsh, J. 277, 284
Veronis, L. 378 Walsh, K. 455, 458
Verstraeten, R. 361 Walsh, K.R. 242
Vestad, I.L. 136, 138, 142 Walsh, M. 163, 165–66, 170
Vibert, S. 384, 386 Walther, J.B. 156, 161
Vicol, D.-O. 113, 117 Wang, C. 413, 419
Vidales-Bolaños, M.-J. 127, 134 Wang, P. 130, 134, 193
Vignoles, A. 461, 466 Wang, X. 134, 487, 490
Vilasís-Pamos, J. 315, 318 Wang, Y. 209, 227, 234, 330, 334
Vildaite, D. 365, 370 Ward, K. 187–88, 192
Vilhel, B. 172, 178 Ward, L. 277, 280, 284
Villacampa, C. 454, 458 Ward, L.M. 174, 178, 244, 246–47, 249, 256–57,
Villani, A. 71 269, 276, 284, vandenbosch 399, 401
Vince, P. 79 Ward, S. 35, 40
Vincent, J. 127, 134, 318 Ward, Z.J. 250, 258
Viotty, S. 479, 481 Wargo, J.M. 405, 411
Vitali, M. 490 Warren, R. 310, 340, 346
Vitoroulis, I. 192 Warren, S. 482
Vogel, E.A. 330, 334 Warschauer, M. 383, 386
Vogrincic, C. 273 Wartella, E.A. xxix, 40, 199, 201, 232–33, 266–67,
Vogt, P. 154, 157, 160 278, 284, 316, 344, 346, 360–62, 368, 423, 490,
Volgman, M.E. 245, 249 498, 503
Vollmar, M. 293 Warwick, J. 139, 141–42
von Feilitzen, C. 138, 142, 213, 218, 439 Wasko, J. 20, 24, 112, 118, 148, 152
Vonk, H. 377 Wass, L. 292
Vooijs, M.W. 218 Wasserman, D. 393
Vookles, J. 257 Wasserman, H. 388, 390, 394
Vos, M.B. 489 Wasserman, R.C. 209
Vosoughi, S. 295, 301 Watkins, B. 428, 431
Vossen, H.G.M. 207, 209, 237, 241–42 Watkins, S.C. 117, 478
Vygotsky, L.S. 36–37, 40, 278, 284 Watson, J. 387, 392, 394, 461, 466
Watson, S.M. 292
Wachs, S. 237, 242 Watson, T.L. 195, 201
Wackman, D.B. 40, 297, 299 Watt, D.P. 366, 370
Wade, T.D. 258 Watts, M. 315, 217
Waggoner, Z. 172, 178 Waxman, S.R. 194, 199–201
Wagner, A. 346 Weatherholt, T. 482
Wagstaff, D.L. 330, 334 Weaver, A.J. 236, 242
Wainwright, N. 257 Webb, M. 66, 72
Wajcman, J. 59, 64 Weber, E.U. 299
Wakefield, J. 167, 170 Weber, R. 501, 504
Wales, J. 255 Weber, S. 466
Walker, D. 196–98, 200–01 Webster, D. 319, 326
Walker, L. 165, 170 Weeks, H.M. 489
Walker, S. 334 Wei, B. 393, 117
Walkerdine, V. 68, 72 Wei, R. 128, 133
Wall, J. 112, 115, 118 Weier, M. 274
Wall, M. 257 Weinstein, E. 473
Wallace, E. 455, 458 Weitz, I. 240, 272–73
Wallander, J. 318 Wellman, B. 113, 116, 118, 134
Waller, E.M. 333 Wellman, H.M. 153, 156, 159
Wallis, D. 487, 490 Wells, K. 74, 80

559
 Author Index

Wesch, M. 352, 354 Wohlwend, K.E. 121, 126

Wesseling, E. 77, 80 Wojcicki, S. 104, 109
Westcott, T. 104, 109 Wojcik-Andrews, I. 94–95, 100
Westerlund, J. 393 Wok, S. 371–72, 378
Westerlund, M. 393 Wolf, S.A. 91–92, 177
Westerman, D. 155, 161 Wolfson, A. 261, 267
Westermann, D.A. 69, 70 Wood, E. 501, 505
Westling, E. 275 Wood, E.A. 209
Westvall, M. 138, 141 Wood, J. 43, 48
Wethington, H.R. 265 Wood, M. 178
Whitaker, L. 283 Woodard, E.H. 164–65, 459, 465
White, S. 233, 346 Woolley, J.D. 278, 284
Whitehill, J. 275 Word, K. 473
Whittamore, K. 272 Worth, K.A. 273, 275
Wick, M.R. 251, 258 Wortman, A. 410, 225
Wicks, J.B. 304, 310 Wortman-Raring, L. 239, 242
Wicks, R.H. 310 Wright, D.R. 258
Widen, S.C. 228, 234 Wright, H.D. 233–34, 346
Widman, L. 248, 256 Wright, J.C. 460, 464–66
Wiebesiek, L. 418–19 Wright, M.F. 242, 457
Wiegand, W.A. 85, 92 Wright, P. 245, 248, 263, 266, 302, 305–06,
Wiegman, O. 218 310, 448
Wijesekera, P. 504 Wright, P.J. 249
Wijnen, C. 410 Wright, R.A. 237, 241
Wilding, R. 373, 378 Wu, S. 370, 409
Wilkinson, T. 447 Wu, W. 241
Wilksch, S.M. 253, 258 Wu, Y.-T. 138–39, 143
Will, G.F. 440 Wyss, N. 199
Willett, R. xxix, 14, 49, 91–92, 138, 142, 149, 308
Williams, C. 370 Xia, C. 350, 353
Williams, D.C. 58, 64, 279, 122, 126, 283–84 Xie, L. 192
Williams, K. 477, 481 Xie, X. 271, 276
Williams, M. 258 Xiudadad. 149, 152
Williams, R. 112, 118 Xu, B. 192
Williams, T.M. 211, 218 Xu, C.J. 466
Williams, W.C. 228, 234 Xu, L. 365, 370
Williamson, P. 191 Xu, W. 477, 480
Willis, H.A. 300 Xu, Y. 373, 377
Willis, P.E. 51, 56
Willoughby, J. 480 Yagi, T. 209
Willoughby, T. 322, 325 Yamada-Rice, D. 125, 168–69
Wills, T.A. 273, 275 Yaman, İ. 391, 394
Wilmsen, D. 333 Yamasaki, S. 209
Wilson, B.J. 40, 229, 234, 242, 504 Yan, K. 257
Wilson, C. 418 Yang, C.C. 192, 333, 348, 354
Wilson, S. 348, 354 Yang, J. 275
Wilson, T. 300 Yang, L. 192
Wilson, W.C. 213, 217 Yang, M. 303, 310
Windahl, S. 217 Yang, Q. 268, 276
Windhorst, D.A. 209 Yang, X. 134
Windmueller, S. 407, 411 Yang, Y. 68, 72, 378
Wineburg, S. 410, 478, 481–82 Yardi, S. 141
Winfield, A. 284 Ybarra, M.L. 390, 394
Winter, R. 64 Yeo, G.H. 192
Wodarski, P. 267 Yerokhin, O. 209
Wohl, R.R. 213, 217, 230, 233 Yeşilel, D.B.A. 394

560
 Author Index

Yilmaz, M. 233 Zhang, C. 489

Yip, J.C. 382, 385–86 Zhang, D. 193
Yoon, Y. 269 Zhang, G. 134
Young, D.R. 489 Zhang, J. 192, 274
Young, K.S. 487, 490 Zhang, L. 366, 370, 396, 399, 402
Young, P.A. 124 Zhang, S. 189, 193
Young, S. 137–39, 143 Zhang, W. 192
Youssef, A. 456 Zhang, X.M. 240
Yttri, B. 128–29, 133, 349, 353 Zhao, M. 134
Yu, S.S. 365, 370 Zhao, S. 154, 161, 365, 366, 370
Yuan, N. 489 Zhong, R. 219, 226
Yuen, T. 95, 100 Zhou, Y. 133, 276
Yuko, Y. 255 Zhou, Z. 466
Yun, H. 369 Zhu, M.O. 352
Zhuang, P. 436, 440
Zablotsky, B. 395, 402 Ziblatt, D. 294, 301
Zack, E. 198–99, 201 Zill, N. 460, 466
Zaharakis, N. 274 Zillmann, D. 38, 232, 234, 284, 299, 317
Zaki, J. 228, 234 Zimmerman, A. 117, 418
Zakrzewski, C. 430, 431 Zimmerman, E. 122, 126
Zaman, B. 340, 346 Zimmerman, F.J. 196, 201, 204, 210
Zanker, R. 436, 440 Zimmermann, L. 200–01
Zap, N. 501, 505 Zink, J. 487, 490
Zaphiris, P. 474 Zipes, J. 94, 96, 100
Zarouali, B. 309 Zippo, P. 457
Zaveri, M. 406, 411 Zoccali, R.A. 258
Zeijl, E. 329, 334 Zohoori, A.R. 363, 370
Zelizer, V.A. 25, 29, 32 Zolyomi, A. 350, 354
Zeng, P. 134 Zorbas, C. 265
Zepernick, J. 96, 99 Zosh, J.M. 489
Zerbinos, E. 312, 318 Zuboff, S. 166, 170
Zhan, D. 133 Zulficar, A. 235, 242
Zhang, B. 192 Zuwerink, J.R. 307, 310

561