Children and Media

Taking a global and interdisciplinary approach, Children and Media explores the role of modern media, including the internet, television, mobile media and video games, in the development of children, adolescents, and childhood.

• Primer to global issues and core research into children and the media integrating work from around the world

• Comprehensive integration of work that bridges disciplines, theoretical and research traditions and methods
• Covers both critical/qualitative and quantitative approaches to the topic

Preface xi

Companion Website xv

Introduction 1

1 Media and Children at Home 13

2 Media and Individual Development 38

3 Media, Learning, and Literacy 72

4 Media and Health-related Behaviors 98

5 Media and Perceptions of Self and Society 135

6 Media, Sociality, and Participation 176

7 Media Literacy Education 195

8 Policy and Advocacy 208

Conclusions: Growing Up with Media 233

References 243

Index 268

Dafna Lemish is Professor of Communication and Associate Dean at Rutgers University, and founding editor of the Journal of Children and Media. An ICA fellow, she is author and editor of numerous books and articles on children, media and gender representations including most recently: The Routledge International Handbook on Children, Adolescents and Media (2013), Screening Gender on Children’s Television: The Views of Producers around the World (2010), and Children and Television: Global Perspectives (Wiley-Blackwell 2007).

Children and Media is the definitive overview of the intersection of children and media, which provides a sweeping picture of the field from the accumulated interdisciplinary and global literature of the past 60 years. The text is a comprehensive integration of different theoretical traditions and research practices, and one of the only books on the market to cover both critical qualitative and quantitative approaches to the topic. It brings together developmental psychology, cultural studies, sociology of childhood and health studies, among others, providing an understanding of the roles media have in the changing nature of childhoods around the world. Lemish covers the entire scope of media that children are exposed to, including television, internet, video games and mobile media.

With a distinctively international and accessible approach, Children and Media balances the need to contextualize media in children’s lives in their unique cultural spaces, as well as searching for universal understandings that hold true for children and youth around the world. In so doing, it avoids a judgemental approach as to whether media are good or bad for children, and instead focuses on their unique uses, roles, and meanings in children’s everyday lives, offering readers a thorough understanding of the nature of today’s childhoods.

“What a wonderful resource for scholars and students alike. Dafna Lemish has identified, reviewed and reflected upon a vast array of research on children and media in order to draw out its key themes, significant debates and emerging conclusions. She also lays down a challenge to us all to develop this rich seam of ideas for the future benefit of children worldwide.”

Sonia Livingstone, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science.

“Dafna Lemish has written a wonderful book---it examines the literature on children and media from multiple perspectives: developmental, global and cultural....no other book is as comprehensive and accessible.”

Ellen Wartella, Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University