Strategies for the Communications Unit: How Can We Become Central to the University and Its Mission?

This article presents the author\u27s comments on reasons for the perception that communication units are not central to the University and its mission. First, our name itself is a problem. This can mean that one studies mass media, as I do, or it may refer to scholars of interpersonal communication, rhetorical analysis, cultural studies, organizational studies, or a variety of other subspecialties. Second, this lack of unity and intellectual diversity, often poses special political problems. The political battles across communication programs on campuses is only one of our on-campus political problems. Finally, perhaps at the root of our battles about centrality to the mission of the university is the sense that our curriculum and our literature is not addressing the public questions about communication practice in the world

Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers

Presents the findings of a national study of more than 1,000 parents of children ages six months through six years, conducted from April 11 to June 9, 2003. Includes the impact of TV on reading, and parent's views on the educational value of media

“The Kids Hate It, but We Love It!”: Parents’ Reviews of Circle

The contribution aims to present a critical analysis of Circle—a screen time management and parental control device—through the lens of parental mediation, children’s surveillance, and children’s rights to online participation. Circle promises to sell parents peace of mind by allowing them to monitor their children’s online activities. In order to investigate how parents themselves understand Circle, we conducted a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of a sample of 154 parental reviews about the device on Amazon and Searchman by parents of children from early childhood to adolescence, with respect to perceived advantages and disadvantages of the device, parenting styles, and (the absence of) children’s voice and agency. Results suggest an ambivalent relationship between parents and the device. Most reviews adhere to the dominant discourses on ‘screen time,’ framing children’s ‘intimate surveillance’ as a good parenting practice, and emphasize the need for the ‘responsible parents’ to manage their children’s online experiences with the aid of Circle. Others, in turn, criticize the device for failing to enable fine grained monitoring, while few reported the device could dismiss children’s voice and cause conflicts in the households. Overall, findings suggest that parental control devices may promote restrictive mediation styles hindering children’s voice and their exploratory and participatory agency online

The Role of Adolescent Development in Social Networking Site Use: Theory and Evidence

Using survey data collected from 260 children, adolescents, and young adults between the ages of 9 and 26, this paper offers evidence for a relationship between social networking site use and Imaginary Audience, a developmental variable in which adolescents believe others are thinking about them at all times. Specifically, after controlling for a number of variables, results indicate a significant, positive relationship between social networking site use and Imaginary Audience ideation. Additionally, results indicate a positive relationship between Imaginary Audience ideation and Facebook customization practices. Together, these findings provide evidence, based on Vygotskian developmental theory, for a general consideration of the role that currently available tools, in this case social networking sites, can have on development. Thus, findings implicate both the role of development on social networking site use, as well as the role of social networking site use on development. Overall, these findings have important implications for the study of media and human development, which are discussed in detail

The Role of Adolescent Development in Social Networking Site Use: Theory and Evidence

Using survey data collected from 260 children, adolescents, and young adults between the ages of 9 and 26, this paper offers evidence for a relationship between social networking site use and Imaginary Audience, a developmental variable in which adolescents believe others are thinking about them at all times. Specifically, after controlling for a number of variables, results indicate a significant, positive relationship between social networking site use and Imaginary Audience ideation. Additionally, results indicate a positive relationship between Imaginary Audience ideation and Facebook customization practices. Together, these findings provide evidence, based on Vygotskian developmental theory, for a general consideration of the role that currently available tools, in this case social networking sites, can have on development. Thus, findings implicate both the role of development on social networking site use, as well as the role of social networking site use on development. Overall, these findings have important implications for the study of media and human development, which are discussed in detail

Behind the Reasons: The Relationship Between Adolescent and Young Adult Mental Health Risk Factors and Exposure to Season One of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why

With increasing media choice, particularly through the rise of streaming services, it has become more important for empirical research to examine how youth decide which programs to view, particularly when the content focuses on difficult health topics such as suicide. The present study investigated why adolescents and young adults chose to view or not view season 1 of 13 Reasons Why and how individual-level variables related to adolescents’ and young adults’ viewing. Using survey data gathered from a sample of 1,100 adolescents and young adult viewers and non-viewers of the series in the United States, we examined how participants’ resilience, loneliness, and social anxiety related to whether participants viewed the first season or not. Our descriptive results indicate that adolescents who watched the show reported that it accurately depicted the social realities of their age group, they watched it because friends recommended it, and they found the subject matter to be interesting. Non-viewers reported that they chose not to view the show because the nature of the content was upsetting to them. In addition, results demonstrated that participants’ social anxiety and resilience related to participants’ viewing decisions, such that those with higher social anxiety and higher resilience were more likely to report watching season 1. Together, these data suggest that youth make intentional decisions about mental health-related media use in an attempt to choose content that is a good fit for based on individual characteristics

The datafication of childhood: examining children's and parent's data practices, children's right to privacy and parent's dilemmas

With an ever-growing use and variety of digital devices, most recently the Internet of Things, children’s and family privacy is an important topic with many under-researched aspects (Livingstone, Stoilova, Nandagiri, 2019). Although children and adolescents might be more likely to share greater amounts of personal information than adults, and to apply more lenient privacy settings on social media (Walrave, Vanwesenbeeck, & Heirman, 2012), studies have also shown that young people tend to care about their privacy (see e.g. boyd, 2014; Marwick & boyd, 2014). In this article, we examine “privacy concern” as a possible source of motivation for privacy protecting behaviors. According to the widely used Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory (Petronio, 2002, 2015), higher privacy concern leads to employing more restrictive privacy behaviors. Nonetheless, previous research has also identified the concept of “privacy paradox” (De Wolf cf. Acquisti & Gross, 2006; Hargittai & Marwick, 2016), which proposes that despite reported privacy concern, young people nonetheless disclose large amounts of information about themselves. A possible explanation is in the feeling of a lack of control in networked environments generating “apathy” and “cynicism” and the impression that “privacy violations are inevitable” (Hargittai & Marwick, 2016, p. 3752). We test the paradox by studying whether children who report greater privacy concern actually disclose more or less personal information about themselves; or otherwise engage in behaviors that might jeopardize their privacy (e.g. by using wearable devices and the Internet of Things, which might expose them to increased levels of data collection for commercial purposes). We further examine whether children whose parents or caregivers share significant amounts of information about them, and children who have experienced sharentingrelated breaches (such as being upset about what their parents have posted online) are more likely to be concerned about their privacy than other children. Following CPM, such breaches, which the theory terms as “turbulence” would lead to higher privacy concern. Finally, we also test whether children whose parents display higher levels of privacy concern tend to be more concerned about their privacy as well. We study these questions on a nationally representative sample of 9-17-year-old Internet using children from Norway and one of their parents/caregivers, conducted as part of the EU Kids Online project in 2018. As a case study, Norway is a country where the use of digital technology among youth is very high, as confirmed by the most recent analyses on nationally representative samples of children in 19 European countries; and so is exposure to risks (Smahel et al., 2020; Helsper et al., 2013). While children’s independent smartphone and social media use starts early, children also tend to enjoy significant family, social and policy-level support for safe digital media use, as compared to other European countries. With this in mind, we ask the following research questions: RQ1: What are the characteristics of children who report grater levels of concern for their privacy online and with digital technology? RQ1a: Are children with higher digital skills more worried about their privacy (because they are more aware of the dangers)? RQ1b: Are children who have experienced privacy or data-protection-related harms more likely to report privacy concerns? RQ2: What are the characteristics of families of children who report grater levels of concern for their privacy online and with digital technology? RQ2a: How are parental attitudes to privacy online and with digital technology related to children’s levels of concern for their privacy? RQ2b: What is the relationship between parental digital skills and children’s levels of concern for their privacy? RQ3: Do children who report higher privacy concern share more information about themselves online than children who report lower concern? RQ3a: Are children who report higher privacy concern less likely than other children to use wearable devices and the Internet of Things devices? Sampling and method This study relies on a nationally representative survey sample of Internet-using children in Norway. The data was collected between June and October 2018 within the EU Kids Online research project. 1001 children of both sexes, aged from 9 to 17 years, were interviewed via CASI method. The data was collected by Ipsos Mori. 47.1% of the sample was female, Mage= 13.3. The sampling frame was stratified by the economic characteristics of municipalities as well as the number of 9 to 17-year-old children who lived there. Respondents were initially recruited by telephone, followed by face-to-face interviews at home. Respondents’ anonymity and confidentiality were secured. The data collection was approved by the Norwegian national Data Authority (Datatilsynet), and followed procedures established by the National Ethical Committees for Social Science and Humanities and by the Norwegian Center for Research Data (NSD). Informed consent was obtained from each parent and each child that participated. Data analyses and initial results In order to verify determinants of higher levels of privacy concern in children and teenagers, we conducted a series of logistic regression analyses in the proportional odds model, controlling for child demographics and psychological characteristics. Findings indicate that privacy breaches such as sharenting, as well as general risk experiences significantly predict higher levels of privacy concern. Furthermore, children who declare having found themselves in a situation where they could use the privacyrelated advice (e.g. on sharing personal information online) are also more concerned about their privacy online. Additionally, parental level of privacy concern seems to have a modelling effect on a child’s attitude towards privacy online. Preliminary analyses into privacy paradox did not provide support for nor evidence against the effect

A View from the Past Into our Collective Future: The Oncofertility Consortium Vision Statement

Today, male and female adult and pediatric cancer patients, individuals transitioning between gender identities, and other individuals facing health extending but fertility limiting treatments can look forward to a fertile future. This is, in part, due to the work of members associated with the Oncofertility Consortium. The Oncofertility Consortium is an international, interdisciplinary initiative originally designed to explore the urgent unmet need associated with the reproductive future of cancer survivors. As the strategies for fertility management were invented, developed or applied, the individuals for who the program offered hope, similarly expanded. As a community of practice, Consortium participants share information in an open and rapid manner to addresses the complex health care and quality-of-life issues of cancer, transgender and other patients. To ensure that the organization remains contemporary to the needs of the community, the field designed a fully inclusive mechanism for strategic planning and here present the findings of this process. This interprofessional network of medical specialists, scientists, and scholars in the law, medical ethics, religious studies and other disciplines associated with human interventions, explore the relationships between health, disease, survivorship, treatment, gender and reproductive longevity. The goals are to continually integrate the best science in the service of the needs of patients and build a community of care that is ready for the challenges of the field in the future

Más que una niñera. Puntos de vista de los padres sobre los medios de comunicación dirigidos a bebés

Los niños menores de dos años ven medios de comunicación visuales durante gran parte del tiempo, a pesar de las recomendaciones de la Academia Estadounidense de Pediatría (AAP, American Academy of Pediatrics) de que los niños de dicha edad no se deben exponer a estos medios de comunicación. Los DVD’s infantiles se comercializan implícita y explícitamente como educativos, resaltando áreas de contenido tales como formas, números, habilidades de lectura, colores, idioma extranjero, música y ciencia. Los videos para bebés son populares, a pesar de la escasa evidencia investigativa sobre su eficacia didáctica. Setenta y tres padres de niños menores de dos años fueron encuestados sobre la importancia de los medios de comunicación de uso educativo y no educativo dirigidos a bebés. Los resultados demuestran que los padres generalmente esperan mucho de la producción audiovisual orientada hacia los bebés. Además, las familias con un ingreso económico bajo y los padres con menos educación, tienen una mayor tendencia a ver positivamente dicha producción audiovisual debido a que la consideran como un recurso cognitivo que no se puede obtener de otro modo

Más que una niñera. Puntos de vista de los padres sobre los medios de comunicación dirigidos a bebés

Los niños menores de dos años ven medios de comunicación visuales durante gran parte del tiempo, a pesar de las recomendaciones de la Academia Estadounidense de Pediatría (AAP, American Academy of Pediatrics) de que los niños de dicha edad no se deben exponer a estos medios de comunicación. Los DVD’s infantiles se comercializan implícita y explícitamente como educativos, resaltando áreas de contenido tales como formas, números, habilidades de lectura, colores, idioma extranjero, música y ciencia. Los videos para bebés son populares, a pesar de la escasa evidencia investigativa sobre su eficacia didáctica. Setenta y tres padres de niños menores de dos años fueron encuestados sobre la importancia de los medios de comunicación de uso educativo y no educativo dirigidos a bebés. Los resultados demuestran que los padres generalmente esperan mucho de la producción audiovisual orientada hacia los bebés. Además, las familias con un ingreso económico bajo y los padres con menos educación, tienen una mayor tendencia a ver positivamente dicha producción audiovisual debido a que la consideran como un recurso cognitivo que no se puede obtener de otro modo