Childhood Development and Media Use: A Literature Review of the Effects of Media on Children's Physical and Psychosocial Development

Television, computers, and video games are among the most widely used media activities, which engage children and adolescents for increasing amounts of time. There is a sharp increase in both the time spent and the numbers of children who use media over the past 10 years. Parents, educators, and health care providers must understand the effects that media has on childhood development and learn ways to moderate negative effects and maximize positive effects. This literature review seeks to identify the physical and psychosocial effects that media has on children and the variables of media use. Variables that effect media use by children, such as age, gender, time, and content of media, are teased out of the literature to identify those that to lead to health consequences. The three theoretical frameworks chosen for the paper are Social Learning Theory (SLT), Message Interpretation Process Model (MIP), and Displacement Theory (DT). The article offers recommendations to parents and health care providers (HCP) for children's media use. Suggestions are based on policy statements by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF)

Demystifying the Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake

The Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus), Ontario’s only extant venomous snake, has suffered from the overall negative image of snakes created by centuries of traditional storytelling and more recently, mainstream media. Snakes in such media have often been portrayed as evil and dangerous creatures. This paper will examine whether non-fictional visual storytelling can be and should be used as a way of dismantling the misconceptions people might have of rattlesnakes, particularly the Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake (EMR). The Toronto Zoo conducts annual EMR workshops, a traditional form of environmental education, in hopes of trying to dispel the myths, stories and legends that have surrounded these rattlesnakes for decades. Alongside Toronto Zoo’s Adopt-A-Pond wetland conservation programme, we produced a short non-fictional educational film on the EMR and are now incorporating this film into the workshops in hopes to further the conservation messaging. This is the case study for this paper, as my research is concerned with the urgency of integrating visual storytelling to benefit wildlife conservation messaging, especially focusing on the Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake found in Ontario, Canada. This paper will contribute to our understanding of popular media depictions of snakes, as well as add to the existing literature about Disney animated films influence on our imaginations. This paper explores how the portrayal of snakes has been shaped by popular mass media, particularly through present-day Disney animated films and how conservation-based communities should respond in reducing such misconceptions that have risen in our modern societies, especially in children, over the years. My research will conclude by emphasizing on how art & digital media should be used as an educational tool for conservation concerns, causes and organizations such as the Toronto Zoo’s Adopt-A-Pond wetland conservation programme

Parents’ concerns about the negative effects of television viewing on children’s behavior and school performance in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Very little is known regarding parents’ concerns about the undesirable effects of unsupervised TV viewing on children’s development in Ethiopia. This study investigated the extent and areas of parents’ concern about the harmful effects of TV viewing on children’s behavior and school performance. A mixed-methods study design was employed. Quantitative data were collected from 390 parents of schoolchildren aged 7–15 in Addis Ababa using a standardized measure of parental concern. Qualitative data were also collected from Parent-Teacher-Student Association (PTSA) members using FGDs. Results showed a moderate-to-high level of parental concern about the adverse effects of viewing on children’s behavior and school performance. The findings further indicated that children’s learning of offensive language, premature exposure to sexual content, engagement in violent activities, and drug use were reported as parents’ areas of concern in relation to children’s behavior. In the same way, disengagement in academic activities, mainly not doing homework, not studying, and getting poor exam results have been reported as parents' areas of concern in relation to school performance. Statistically significant differences in level of concern across parents’ and children’s socio-demographic characteristics were observed. As children’s screen and digital media environment is fast-changing in Ethiopia, future studies in the area by child developmentalists, educationalists, and health professionals are highly warranted.   

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThis project is an activity-based study of American teens (13-17 years of age) and their material engagement with new media. This study documents the participants' engagement with new media in networked spaces and the everyday practices that surround their participation. Study participants were asked to orally report what they are experiencing as they experience it. Reports and on-screen activities are recorded by a laptop computer. Theoretical findings emerged from the axial coding across four code categories and suggested a leitmotiv pattern of a complex but stable relationship between interpersonal communication channels, the relative immediacy and intimacy of the channel, and the social relationship between participants. This pattern appeared to have a structuring influence on communication practices of youth in networked publics, and led to some tensions, concerns, and strategies relating to controlling the flow of information in those spaces. Overall, 10 code patterns and themes emerged to provide insight into the everyday practices of young people as they negotiate and construct meaning and identity in networked publics. The implications of the findings are discussed in the context; of the research questions. To my wife, Esther, for her love and unwavering support. To my children, who have never known a father who was not in working on a PhD. To my mother and father, who never lost confidence. My family was and is my inspiration

Exploring children's social and moral behaviour in a technology context

The central argument of this thesis is that disclosure of certain information via computer-mediated communication technologies influence specific behaviours in relation to trust, and betrayal for children and young people. The main aim of this thesis is to extend the computer mediated communication literature by investigating young people‘s use of digital communication devices in an effort to explore interactions between methods of computer mediated communication and young people‘s subsequent social and moral behaviour. The thesis begins with qualitative analyses of data gathered via focus groups to raise a broad range of issues important to the young user rather than the issues deemed important by parents and educators. Young people indicate clearly that they are aware of the safety issues that concern parents and academics eager to protect them from predators. Whilst the single most popular reason they identify for engaging with technology is to communicate, they identify three key areas of concern related to technology use; usage preferences, positive aspects of technology use and negative aspects of technology use. The topics relating to the latter two themes combine social and moral behaviours forming a preliminary framework for understanding behaviour within the HCI agenda. Subjective and objective methodology is implemented, typically via questionnaires and content analysis. In depth examination and assessment of those concerns deemed important to the young user is achieved via questionnaire studies developed from the issues raised in the focus groups. Building upon the preliminary framework identified in the first study, the thesis employs a questionnaire study to examine whether technology has an impact on trust by young people and how any betrayal of trust might impact on their subsequent behaviour. The questionnaire studies reveal that for young people dynamics of trust and forgiveness are functions of both type of medium chosen to convey information, as well as the recipient to whom the information is related. Further investigation confirms that similar elements exist for older users communicating via digital communication technologies. Subsequent investigation reveals that as young users of computer mediated communication adopt each new alternative communication medium, they then manipulate that new medium to fit their communication needs by using them in such a way as to enhance the speed and quality of communication

Growing up in Technoculture: The ontological and perceptual significance of media in the lives of infants and toddlers

It is well documented that young children understand media differently to older children and adults, yet despite years of debate surrounding the psycho-social impact that media may have on children and youth, very little remains known about how they intercede into infants’ and toddlers’ lived experiences. We cannot assume that media have no significance in the lives of infants and toddlers simply because they may not understand the content. The particularities of very young children’s experiences of, engagement with and understanding of media cannot be expected to necessarily relate solely, or even primarily, to the media content. As an alternative this thesis focuses on the relations between very young children and media in terms of their material and corporeal effects and in this respect how media interfaces, as part of infants’ and toddlers’ environments literally mediate very young children’s possibilities for perception and action within 21st century media saturated environments. By focusing on children from birth to three years of age and their contingent material, physical environments, this thesis presents a chronology of child-technology relations as mediated relations which is necessary to understand the effect of media (conventionally understood) on their lived experience. In adopting an interdisciplinary ecological approach which relies on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology (1962), Donald W. Winnicott’s psychoanalysis (1957, 1960) and Don Ihde’s post-phenomenology (1995), this thesis revolves around four central concepts: embodiment, transitional objects, holding spaces and both James Gibson’s (1982) and Donald Norman’s (1990) affordances to offer a complex understanding of the significance of media as material objects in the lives of infants and toddlers. In doing so, it argues that media effect infants and toddlers in ways that are specific to the media themselves, the particular time and place in which they emerge and are used, and to babies’ and toddlers’ situatedness and capacity to act within the world

Multi-Platform Film-Viewing: Taipei Audiences and Generational Variation

Thanks to the evolution of modern audiovisual technology, film audiences nowadays can enjoy the flexibility of watching movies at venues ranging from multiplex theatres to living rooms and bedrooms at home through various film-viewing platforms from broadcast television, cable movie channels, VCR, VCD, and DVD to internet downloading. With the increased amount of transnational audiovisual products imported over the years, Taiwanese audiences can also consume different types of films from different places in these ways. This thesis focuses on the relationship between different generations of film audiences and their 'film-viewing' practices via various viewing platforms, attempting to reveal the social, cultural and economic significance of their everyday practices, and frame them in the structure of the local film industry and the increasingly transnational local cinema culture. The project employs various qualitative research techniques to collect Taipei film audiences' own accounts of their quotidian film-viewing practices through currently available viewing platforms. This multi-platform approach to contemporary film audiences in today's digital-rich media environment contributes to this understudied field of film audience research. Furthermore, the empirical data on the 'film-viewing' practices of five age groups yields an understanding of the complicated interrelationships among film audiences, film texts and viewing platforms. On this basis, it is argued that the conventional 'audience-film' relationship studied in audience research should be reframed as the study of the 'audience-film-viewing platform' relationship