Suchergebnisse

Foreword / Aletha C. Huston -- Introduction: Media and Children's Development / Sandra L. Calvert and Barbara J. Wilson -- pt. I. Historical, Conceptual, and Financial Underpinnings of Media -- 1. Historical and Recurring Concerns about Children's Use of the Mass Media / Ellen Wartella and Michael Robb -- 2. Business Models for Children's Media / Alice Cahn, Terry Kalagian and Catherine Lyon -- pt. II. Media Access and Differential Use Patterns -- 3. Media Use Across Childhood: Access, Time, and Content / Ronda Scantlin -- 4. Children, Race, Ethnicity, and Media / Bradley S. Greenberg and Dana E. Mastro -- 5. Gender, Media Use, and Effects / Stacey J.T. Hust and Jane D. Brown -- 6. Media and the Family / Alison Alexander -- pt. III. Cognitive Effects of Media: How and What Children Learn -- 7. Attention and Learning from Media during Infancy and Early Childhood / Rachel Barr -- 8. Media Symbol Systems and Cognitive Processes / Kaveri Subrahmanyam and Patricia Greenfield -- 9. Learning from Educational Media / Heather L. Kirkorian and Daniel R. Anderson -- 10. News, Reality Shows, and Children's Fears: Examining Content Patterns, Theories, and Negative Effects / Stacy L. Smith, Katherine M. Pieper and Emily J. Moyer-Guse -- pt. IV. Social Effects of Media -- 11. Media Violence and Aggression in Youth / Barbara J. Wilson -- 12. Prosocial Effects of Media Exposure / Marie-Louise Mares, Edward Palmer and Tia Sullivan -- 13. Make-Believe Play, Imagination, and Creativity: Links to Children's Media Exposure / Dorothy G. Singer and Jerome L. Singer -- 14. Parasocial and Online Social Relationships / Cynthia Hoffner -- 15. Fear Responses to Media Entertainment / Patti M. Valkenburg and Moniek Buijzen -- pt. V. Health Effects of Media -- 16. Media Use and Childhood Obesity / Elizabeth A. Vandewater and Hope M. Cummings

Marketing and advertising support the U.S. economy by promoting the sale of goods and services to consumers, both adults and children. Sandra Calvert addresses product marketing to children and shows that although marketers have targeted children for decades, two recent trends have increased their interest in child consumers. First, both the discretionary income of children and their power to influence parent purchases have increased over time. Second, as the enormous increase in the number of available television channels has led to smaller audiences for each channel, digital interactive technologies have simultaneously opened new routes to narrow cast to children, thereby creating a growing media space just for children and children's products. Calvert explains that paid advertising to children primarily involves television spots that feature toys and food products, most of which are high in fat and sugar and low in nutritional value. Newer marketing approaches have led to online advertising and to so-called stealth marketing techniques, such as embedding products in the program content in films, online, and in video games. All these marketing strategies, says Calvert, make children younger than eight especially vulner-able because they lack the cognitive skills to understand the persuasive intent of television and online advertisements. The new stealth techniques can also undermine the consumer defenses even of older children and adolescents. Calvert explains that government regulations implemented by the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission provide some protection for children from advertising and marketing practices. Regulators exert more control over content on scarce television airwaves that belong to the public than over content on the more open online spaces. Overall, Calvert concludes, children live and grow up in a highly sophisticated marketing environment that influences their preferences and behaviors.

This volume contains 25 essays that present the latest research on how children use and are influenced by various mass media, but also on the business models underlying the industry and an array of possible policies and interventions designed to protect children. The editors draw upon experts in the fields of developmental psychology, developmental science, communication, and medicine to provide an authoritative, comprehensive look at the empirical research on media and media policies within the field

In three experiments, 32-month-old children ( n = 40 for Experiment 1, n = 36 for Experiment 2) and 24-month-old children ( n = 33 for Experiment 3) were asked to judge the credibility of information presented on a touchscreen device. The information was delivered by a familiar and an unfamiliar media character. Two app conditions varied on which character was accurate in naming familiar fruits. Then both characters labeled four novel fruits with nonsense words. Feedback about the accuracy of the characters' labels of the familiar fruits was provided in Experiments 1 and 3, but no such feedback was provided in Experiment 2. Children were more likely to endorse the accurate character as the correct labeler of the novel fruits, regardless of prior familiarity with the character, the feedback presented in the touchscreen application, or the age of the child. Parent scaffolding affected only the 24-month-old children. The results reveal that very young children can make relatively sophisticated judgments about the credibility of information encountered on touchscreen devices.

Children and adolescents in developed countries are heavily immersed in digital media, creating an inexpensive, far‐reaching marketing opportunity for the food industry and the gaming industry. However, exposure to nonnutritious food and beverage advertisements combined with the use of stationary media create a conflict between entertainment and public health. Using the popular digital gaming platforms advergames (online games that market branded products) and exergames (video games that involves gross motor activity for play) as exemplars, the following article provides an analysis of the negative and positive health impacts of digital gaming as they relate specifically to overweight and obesity outcomes for children and adolescents. Theoretical explanations including the food marketing defense model, persuasion knowledge model, and social cognitive theory are used to explain the influence of gaming on young players' health. Throughout the article, we discuss the role of public policy to encourage the development and use of health‐promoting digital games as an innovative, effective tool to combat the pediatric obesity crisis.

A Review of Gender Identities and Education: The Impact of Starting School, by Barbara Lloyd and Gerald Duveen.

This article examines a study in which young children were exposed to a computer story that varied the amount of control that children had over the visual and verbal content. Children who controlled the computer demonstrated more attention and involvement than those who watched an adult control the experience. Boys who had an adult control the program were more likely to try to gain control of the activity by making attempts to get the mouse or by asking to change activities. Control, however, had no effect on children's memory of visual or verbal content. The implication is that control is an engagement feature that has its greatest impact when examining attention and interest, a lesson that may facilitate constructive early adult-child interactions with educational computer software.

Obesogenic environments promote excessive caloric and fat intake. A total of 23 low-income, African American adolescents digitally photographed their lunchtime food environment at a school buffet during summer camp. Depicted food was coded for nutritional content on the platescape (own plate or others' plates) and the tablescape (open buffet). Students digitally depicted high-caloric and high-fat content, particularly students who had higher baseline waist-to-hip ratio. Students who included higher caloric and fat content in their digital diaries gained more weight over the 4-week program than those who did not. Digital photography connects adolescents' perceived food environment with weight gain, revealing the environmental cues that promote excessive caloric and fat intake. Digital photography can also identify adolescents with problematic eating behaviors that increase risk for obesity.