Center on Media and Child Health

Research Toolbox: Children and Media Newsletters from Around the World

Check out these children and media newsletters from around the world:

• Media Health Matters by the Center on Media and Child Health (CMCH)

This quarterly e-newsletter from the Center on Media and Child Health (CMCH) offers news, tools, and tips that can help families make informed media choices. Click here to subscribe.

• Small Screen by Young Media Australia

Published by Young Media Australia, small screen is a unique monthly review of the latest events, press clippings, new and proposed legislation changes, seminars and conferences, publications, and research into the effects of films, television, video games and new media on children.

• Newsletter on Children, Youth and Media in the World by the International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media

The newsletter contains brief articles, news items, presentation of new literature and ongoing research projects from different parts of the world. The publication addresses researchers, policymakers, media professionals, teachers, voluntary organizations and interested individuals worldwide.The newsletter is published twice a year on the Internet only, in April/May and November/December.

• Medea Awards Newsletter

The MEDEA Awards encourages innovation and good practice in the use of media (audio, video, graphics and animation) in education. The Awards also recognize and promote excellence in the production and pedagogical design of media-rich learning resources. Click here to subscribe.

• The Drum Beat by the Communication Initiative

This is a weekly electronic newsletter featuring summarized information related to communication as a fundamental tool for economic and social development and change included on the Communication Initiative website. Click here to subscribe.

Research Wrap-Up: Recently Published Studies-December 18, 2009

Here is a list of recently published studies on children, media, and health which explore a range of topics:

Aires, L., Andersen, L.B.; Mendonça, D.; Martins, C.; Silva, G.. & Mota, J. (2009) A 3-year longitudinal analysis of changes in fitness, physical activity, fatness and screen time. Acta Pædiatrica, 99 (1), 140-144.

• This study seeks to evaluate whether changes in physical activity index (PAI), screen time (ST: television, computer) and body mass index (BMI) made a contribution to longitudinal changes in fitness of children and adolescents.

Almeida, D. (2009). Where have all the children gone? A visual semiotic account of advertisements for fashion dolls. Visual Communication, 8( 4), 481-501.

• This article attempts to reveal the structures of signification behind the visual discourse of advertisements for fashion dolls retrieved from the children’s toy website: www.mgae.com.

Dorey, E., Roberts, V., Maddison, R., Meagher-Lundberg, P., Dixon, R. &  Ni Mhurchu, C. (2009).  Children and television watching: A qualitative study of New Zealand parents' perceptions and views. Child Care Health Dev. Available Online Nov 30

• This study explores the potential of electronic devices to restrict the amount and content of TV viewing in order to reduce background TV.

Sharif, I.; Wills,  T.A. & Sargent, J.D. (2009) Effect of visual media use on school performance: A prospective study. Journal of Adolescent Health, 46 (1), 52-6.

• To identify mechanisms for the impact of visual media use on adolescents' school performance.

Tanes, Z. &  Cemalcilar, Z. (2009). Learning from SimCity: An empirical study of Turkish adolescents. Journal of Adolescence,  Available online 20 November.

• This study investigates whether playing SimCity could change Turkish adolescents' perception of the city they live in. We hypothesized that playing the game would lead to perceptional changes in the players regarding their ideal and real cities.

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Use the free CMCH Database of Research to find other studies on children, media, and health.

Research Toolbox: Using Twitter as a Research Tool

Twitter is a social messaging tool for friends, family, co–workers, and communities to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages. It is a great place for keeping people informed on what you are doing without the need to spend a lot of time writing an entire blog post on the topic. The message can be a link to a study, a report, or a news article.

Here at CMCH, we use Twitter to promote the various CMCH information tools such as Facebook , CMCH Blog and Ask the Mediatrician, and to keep up on the latest research and posts on the topic of media and children’s health. 

How can you use Twitter to keep you informed on the latest research? Here are a few tools and tips to help you start using this tool:

Twitter in Plain English

• This YouTube video gives you a  quick intro the micro-blogging service

Twittering for Beginnings by Paul Boutin, New York Times

• One-page cheat sheet for getting started

Twitter? It’s What You Make It by David Pogue, New York Times

• Offers good advice for beginners on what to expect, and not expect

Twitter for Research: Why and How to Do It, Including Case Studies by Hendry Lee

• Provides insightful information to use Twitter effectively as a research tool

How to Ask Effective Questions on Twitter

• This post offers a few tips for asking questions effectively on Twitter

Research Wrap-Up: Recently Published Studies-December 11, 2009

Here is a list of recently published studies on children, media, and health which explore a range of topics:

Bauman, S. (2009). Cyberbullying in a rural intermediate school: An exploratory study. The Journal of Early Adolescence. Available online December 9.

• In this study, students in an intermediate school in a rural area of the Southwestern United States completed a survey regarding their familiarity with technology and their experiences with cyberbullying during the school year.

Davis, K. (2010) Coming of age online: The developmental underpinnings of girls’ blogs. Journal of Adolescent Research, 25(1), 145-171.

• In this study, the author interviewed 20 girls, aged 17 to 21, who had been blogging for 3 or more years. Consistent with previous studies involving youths’ online activities, the girls discussed their use of blogging for self-expression and peer interaction.

Haddock, B.L., Siegel,S.R., Wikin, L.D. (2009). The addition of a video game to stationary cycling: The impact on energy expenditure in overweight children. Open Sports Sci J., 1 (2), 42-46.

• The purpose of this study was to determine if riding a stationary bike that controlled a video game would lead to significantly greater energy expenditure than riding the same bike without the video game connected.

Mazur, E & Kozarian, L.  (2010). Self-presentation and interaction in blogs of adolescents and young emerging adult.  Journal of Adolescent Research, 25(1), 124-144.

• This article analyzed 124 blogs, chronological, journal-type entries published on public hosting Web sites, as new and popular places for adolescents and emerging adults aged 15 to 19 to play openly with their self-presentation, an important aspect of identity exploration.

Peña, V., Watson, A. J., Kvedar, J.C., &  Grant, R.W. (2009). Mobile phone technology for children with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes: A parent survey. Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, 3(6),  1481–1489.

• In this study, over two-thirds of the parents of children with Type 1 diabetes and Type 2 diabetes  completing an online survey had a 'very positive' response to the proposed mobile phone glucometer (blood sugar or glucose monitor) prototype.

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Use the free CMCH Database of Research to find other studies on children, media, and health.

Research Toolbox: New Tool To Rate Music

The Boston Public Health Commission's Start Strong Initiative recently unveiled a tool to rate healthy- or unhealthy- songs. The new tool, Sound Relationships Nutritional Label, patterned after common food nutritional labels, invites consumers to become song lyric nutritionists by helping them identify relationship ingredients that make up a song.

Using this tool, teens involved in the development of the nutrition label, created their own "Top 10" lists of songs with unhealthy and healthy relationship themes.

⇒ Watch this video to better understand the development and application of this tool.

Research Wrap-Up: Recently Published Studies: December 4, 2009

Here is a list of recently published studies on children, media, and health which explore a range of topics:

Christakis, D.A. &  Garrison, M.M.  (2009). Preschool-aged children's television viewing in child care settings. Pediatrics, Available  Online November 23.

• The goal of this study was to quantify television viewing in day care settings and to investigate the characteristics of programs that predict viewing.

Hayes, S. & Tantleff-Dunn, S. (2009). Am I too fat to be a princess? Examining the effects of popular children's media on young girls' body image. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, Available Online Dec 3.

• The current study investigated the effects of brief exposure to appearance-related media on young girls' body image.

King. C 3rd, Siegel, M., Jernigan, D.H., Wulach, L., Ross, C., Dixon, K. & Ostroff J. (2009). Adolescent exposure to alcohol advertising in magazines: An evaluation of advertising placement in relation to underage youth readership. J Adolesc Health, 45(6), 626-33.

• This study investigates whether alcoholic beverages popular among underage youths are more likely than those less popular among these youths to be advertised in magazines with high underage youth readerships.

Lemal, M. & Van den Bulck, J. (2009). Exposure to semi-explicit sexual television content is related to adolescents' reduced fear of AIDS. Eur J Contracept Reprod Health Care, 14(6),406-409.

• This study investigates the relationship between adolescents' frequency of watching semi-explicit sexual television content and their fear of getting AIDS.

Sixsmith, R.& Furnham, A.(2009). A content analysis of British food advertisements aimed at children and adults.  Health Promot Int., Available Online Nov 20.

• This study explored the differences between 35 child-focused and 52 adult-focused food advertisements sampled from 45 hrs of British television.

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Use the free CMCH Database of Research to find other studies on children, media, and health.

Research Toolbox: Studies on Media and HIV/AIDS

According to United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (Unaids) there are now 33.4 million people living with HIV, including 2.1 million children. To celebrate World AIDS Day 2009, we selected a list of studies which evaluate the impact of sexual, HIV and AIDS media messages on children and teens’ health:

Lemal, M. & Van den Bulck, J. (2009). Exposure to semi-explicit sexual television content is related to adolescents' reduced fear of AIDS. Eur J Contracept Reprod Health Care, 14(6), 406-409.

• This study investigates the relationship between adolescents' frequency of watching semi-explicit sexual television content and their fear of getting AIDS.

Horner, J. R. et al. (2008). Using culture-centered qualitative formative research to design broadcast messages for HIV prevention for African American adolescents." J Health Commun, 13(4), 309-25.

• This article describes a culture-centered approach for developing messages to promote sexual risk reduction in urban African American adolescents.

Ito, K. E. et al. (2008). Let's Talk About Sex: Pilot study of an interactive CD-ROM to prevent HIV/STIS in female adolescents." AIDS Educ Prev, 20(1), 78-89.

• This study explores the effectiveness of an interactive CD-ROM developed by researchers to teach adolescent females about Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs).

Geary, C. W. et al. (2006).  Does MTV reach an appropriate audience for HIV prevention messages? Evidence from MTV viewership data in Nepal and Brazil. J Health Commun, 11(7), 665-81.

• This study examines the audience of MTV and the concurrent teaching capabilities of MTV in relation to HIV/AIDS awareness.

Escobar-Chaves, S.L., Tortolero, S.R., Markham, C.M., Low, B.J., Eitel, P.,Thickstun, P.(2005). Impact of the media on adolescent sexual attitudes and behaviors. Pediatrics, 116(1), 303-26.

• This study explores the effects of mass media on adolescent sexual attitudes and behaviors.

Collins, R. L. et al. (2004). Watching sex on television predicts adolescent initiation of sexual behavior. Pediatrics, 114(3), e280-e289.

• This study explores the relationship between exposure to sex on television and adolescent sexual behavior.

Segal, L., et al. (2002). Developing an HIV/AIDS education curriculum for "Takalani Sesame," South Africa's "Sesame Street." Early Education & Development, 13(4), 363-78.

• This study describes the process of developing an HIV/AIDS education curriculum for "Takalani Sesame," an educational media project for young South African children.

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Use the free CMCH Database of Research to find other studies on children, media, and health.

"Can an iPhone be good for your 3 year old?" Discussion

Earlier this month, Dr. Michael Rich, Director of CMCH, was quoted in an article titled "Why an iPhone Could Actually Be Good for your 3-year-old." Writer Neil Swidey explores what benefits may come from letting preschoolers play with iPhones and the apps that are being made specifically for their age group. 

Last week, the Elliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at nearby Tufts University organized a brown bag lunch for faculty, grad students, and others to come discuss the article.  One of the goals of the session was to come up with potential questions and topics for further exploration by the research community.  Here is a summary of the panelists' ideas from what turned out to be a very lively discussion:

Professor Richard Lerner wondered if we are destroying the integrity of the established developmental sequence by always trying to "hurry-up" childhood learning.

Professor Marina Bers was very interested in how apps could be designed specifically to optimize children's learning instead of trying to evaluate whether what's currently offered is beneficial.

Professor Ann Easterbrooks thinks that we need to find out if kids are able to receive the  things they need to thrive through the use of smartphones. 

Writer Neil Swidey pondered the "video deficit" (it takes kids a lot longer to learn something from a video than for them to learn something from a person).  He wonders if smartphones are an "in-between" way of delivering instruction that would decrease the amount of time it takes to learn from a video because smartphones allow for interaction.

So graduate students -- if you don't have a dissertation topic yet and the deadline is approaching, you might consider some of these questions.  We need you and other researchers to generate answers so that society can continue to use technology in ways that optimize children's learning and development.  

For those who attended, we encourage you to check out our free resources at www.cmch.tv/interact for ways to keep up with news and research on media and child health. 

Research Wrap-Up: Recently Published Studies

Here is a list of recently published studies on children, media, and health which explore a range of topics:

Brandtzæ, P.B.;  Staksrud; E.,  Hagen; I. &  Wold, T. (2009). Norwegian children's experiences of cyberbullying when using different technological platforms. Journal of Children and Media, 3(4), 349-365.

• The study examines whether children's experience of cyberbullying differs according to technological platforms and socio-demographic variables.

Gorely, T., Biddle, S.,  Marshall, S.J. & Cameron, N. (2009). The prevalence of leisure time sedentary behaviour and physical activity in adolescent boys: An ecological momentary assessment approach. Journal International Journal of Pediatric Obesity, 4(4), 289-298.

• This study aims to describe how adolescent boys in the United Kingdom spend their leisure time.

Hennessy, M.;  Bleakley, A.,  Fishbein, M.,  Jordan. A. (2009). Estimating the longitudinal association between adolescent sexual behavior and exposure to sexual media content. Journal of Sex Research, 46( 6), 586-596.

• The purpose of this study is to estimate the association between adolescent sexual behavior and exposure to sexual media content.

King III, C. et al. (2009). Adolescent exposure to alcohol advertising in magazines: An evaluation of advertising placement in relation to underage youth readership. Journal of Adolescent Health, 45 (6), 626-633.

• This study investigates whether alcoholic beverages popular among underage youths are more likely than those less popular among these youths to be advertised in magazines with high underage youth readerships.

Murphy, E. C-S., Carson, L., William Neal, W., Baylis, C., David Donley, D. & Yeater, R. (2009), Effects of an exercise intervention using Dance Dance Revolution on endothelial function and other risk factors in overweight children. Journal International Journal of Pediatric Obesity, 4(4), 205-214.

• This study aims to determine whether an exercise intervention using an active video game (Dance Dance Revolution™  is effective in improving endothelial dysfunction and other risk factors in overweight children.

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Use the free CMCH Database of Research to find other studies on children, media, and health.

Research Toolbox: Upcoming Conferences

Save the dates! To help you keep track of relevant conferences and events, here is a list of upcoming conferences from around the world that may be of interest:

Conferences-Updated

• The Impact of Media and New Technologies on Languages, December 7-9, 2009, Minya, Egypt.

• Is Food Marketing to Children Getting Any Healthier? December 14, 2009, Washington, D.C.

• Society for Cinema and Media Studies, 2010 Conference- Panel: Children's Television Channels in a Global Context. March 17-21, 2010, Los Angeles, CA.

• Media Literacy and Its Impact on Substance Abuse, March 25-26, 2010, Harrisburg, PA.

• e-Youth: Balancing Between Opportunities and Risks? May 27-28 , 2010, Belgium.

• Child and Teen Consumption 2010- Interdisciplinarity, Theory and Practice, June 21-23 2010, Sweden.

Audio Conference

• Preventing & Responding to Cyberbullying: What Educators Can & Can't Do" December 1, 2009 - 1:00-2:00 p.m.