Children and media. Multidisciplinary approaches

This book offers a large array of approaches to studying childrend and the media, including views from communication theory, developmental psychology, sociology, cultural studies, educational theory and history, with methodologies such as quantitative analysis, ethnographic studies and theoretical inferences.

Topics include chilren”s culture, the child audience, parental regulation of violent TV contents and other forms of parental media guidance, media use and conflict, communication, self-concept and socialisation, problems related to the integration of information and communication technology in schools. The purpose of this multi-and interdisciplinary overview of studies and perspectives is to show how varied and rich are the ways in which children”s use of the media can be studied from the child”s perspective. Throughout this book there is a strong emphasis on children”s experiences and perceptions. Children are active participants in a process of meaning production within the restraints and boundaries of their surroundings and the social and psychological system in which they live. This environment affects them, but – as it all too often ignored – is also affected by them.

While this book studies media and children, the view that children are active participants in producing meaning in their lives is applicable to other areas of interest. This book offers some food for thought and gives provocative perspectives to propagate an active approach to children, an approach that still struggles to complete with the more dominant view of children as mere objects of socialisation.

Bea Van den Bergh is Senior Researcher at the Population and Family Study Centre (CBGS), Brussels.
Jan Van den Bulck is Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.