Center on Media and Child Health

Research Toolbox: Recently Published Books

Recently published titles of interest on the topics of children, media, and health:

New Books

• Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture By Peggy Orenstein

The author offers a radical, timely wake-up call for parents, revealing the dark side of a pretty and pink culture confronting girls at every turn as they grow into adults.

• CyberSafe Protecting and Empowering Kids in the Digital World of Texting, Gaming, and Social by Media Gwenn Schurgin O’Keeffe, MD, FAAP.

This informative book will guide parents through the landscape of the digital world, helping them better understand things like the history and the future of the Internet, cyberbullying, social networking sites like Facebook and MySpaceGaming and virtual worlds and digital footprints.

• Mediated Girlhoods: New Explorations of Girls' Media Culture by Mary Celeste Kearney (Ed.)

This book is the first anthology devoted specifically to scholarship on girls' media culture. Taking a cultural studies approach, it includes analyses of girls' media representations, media consumption, and media production. The book responds to criticisms of previous research in the field by including studies of girls who are not white, middle-class, heterosexual, or Western, while also including historical research.

• Television Personalities: Stardom and the Small Screen by James Bennett 

This book examines how television personalities function as commodities, and also function ideologically, thus relating them to issues of class, national identity, sexuality, gender and social history.

• The Winter of Our Disconnect: How Three Totally Wired Teenagers (and a Mother Who Slept with Her iPhone) Pulled the Plug on Their Technology and Lived to Tell the Tale  by Susan Maushart  

The author embarked with her three teenagers on a six-month screen blackout (no cellphones, iPods, PCs, laptops, game stations, or television) to discover if the technology intended to stimulate and keep us virtually more connected was, as she suspected, making us actually more disconnected and distracted.

 
Please let us know if you would like to see any books highlighted in the future!

Research Toolbox: Recently Published Books

Recently published titles of interest on the topics of children, media, and health:

New Books

• Children and Youth in the Digital Media Culture by Ulla Carlsson (ed.)

This Yearbook showcases the Nordic countries and the work being done in the research communities of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The focus rests on children, youth and media in a digitized media culture. We believe that the issues treated here will interest a broad range of readers all over the world.

• Emerging Practices in Cyberculture and Social Networking by Daniel Riha & Anna Maj (eds.)

This book aims to present how emergent media penetrate all fields of human cultural activity. The content of this volume reflects theoretical and practical discussions on cultural issues influenced by increased adoption of information and communication technologies.

• The Emerging Media Toddlers by  María Dolores Souza & Patricio Cabello (eds.)

The authors explore topics such as preschools, screen and internet  technology and growing up with media.

• Media, Culture and Society: An Introduction by Paul Hodkinson

This book provides a 'must have' contribution to media and communication studies by bringing together various perspectives on today's media culture and media society.

• Media Literacy Education. Nordic Perspectives by Sirkku Kotilainen & Sol-Britt Arnolds-Granlund (Eds.)

This publication belongs to an effort bringing the Nordic studies on media literacy education in a global sight. Current definitions of media literacy and evaluations of educational case studies are presented in the form of thirteen articles written by Nordic academic experts.

• Producing Serious News for Citizen Children: A Study of the BBC's Children's Program Newsround by Julian Matthews

This ethnographic study examines the changing history, personnel and production regime of the BBC’s popular children’s news program.

• What's Happening to Our Boys?  by Maggie Hamilton

Childhood and teenage life is changing rapidly, leaving parents exhausted and confused as to how best to tackle the many issues they face. How does this high pressure environment affect a boy's confidence, his values and aspirations, his wellbeing, his sense of community, his attitudes to girls and women? The author addresses many of these questions and provides numerous tips for parents and educators

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Please let us know if you would like to see any books highlighted in the future!

Research Toolbox: Recently Published Books

Recently published titles of interest on the topics of children, media, and health:

New Books

• Children, Media and Culture by Maire Messenger Davies

This book addresses the continuing concerns around media 'effects' and critically examines the view that technology has dramatically changed modern children's lives. 

• Mashup Cultures by Sonvilla-Weiss & Stefan (Eds.)

This volume brings together scholars together with young researchers and students, proposing a colorful spectrum of media-theoretical, practical and educational approaches to current creative practices and techniques of production and consumption on and off the web.

• Sells like Teen Spirit: Music, Youth Culture, and Social Crisis By Ryan Moore

The author tells the story of how music and youth culture have changed along with the economic, political, and cultural transformations of American society in the last four decades.

• Television News, Politics and Young People: Generation Disconnected? by Mike Wayne, Julian Petley, Craig Murray & Lesley Henderson.

The authors explore the representation of young people and politics on television news and suggest that there are links between these representations and why young people are turned off news programming.

• Understanding Computer Game Culture: the Cultural Shaping of a New Medium by Jan Van Looy

This book looks at the theoretical challenges and foundations on which to base a cultural shaping approach towards the evolution of video games and proposes a set of concepts for analyzing and describing this process.

• Youth, Society and Mobile Media in Asia by Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson&  Damien Spry (Eds.)

This book examines the influence of mobile media technology on the lives of young people in East and North Asia, South East Asia and Australia. It discusses the impact information communication technologies have today on social identity, well-being, participation and exclusion.

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Please let us know if you would like to see any books highlighted in the future!

Research Toolbox: New Children, Media, and Health Journals

Take a look at Celebrity Studies, a new published journal that focuses on exploring celebrity and fame and its manifestations in society. Also, two upcoming journals will be available this Spring: Childhood Obesity Journal and The Media Education Research Journal will explore issues such as childhood obesity prevention and management strategies and the exchange of media education research into practice.

New Journal

• Celebrity Studies, Routledge, Issue 1 (March 2010) freely available online

Celebrity Studies is a journal that focuses on the critical exploration of celebrity, stardom and fame. It seeks to make sense of celebrity by drawing upon a range of (inter)disciplinary approaches, media forms, historical periods and national contexts.

Upcoming Journals

• Childhood Obesity Journal, Mary Anne Libert, Spring 2010

Childhood Obesity will have a very broad mandate and will provide physicians, nurses, dietitians, diabetes educators, nutritionists, psychologists, educators, school nurses, health counselors, and policymakers with effective prevention and management strategies, patient education and motivation tools, and research advances in the field.

• The Media Education Research Journal, Auteur, Spring 2010

The Media Education Research Journal offers a forum for the exchange of academic research into media education and pedagogy conducted by academics, practitioners and teachers situated in all sectors and contexts for media education. Published twice a year.

Research Toolbox: Recently Published Books

Here is a list of recently published and upcoming titles of interest on the topics of children, media, and health:

New Books

• High-Tech Tots: Childhood in a Digital World by Ilene R. Berson & Michael J. Berson (eds)

The book examines theoretical assumptions as well as the application of innovative strategies that optimize the interface between young children and ICT from a global perspective.

Note: CMCH Senior Scientist Richard Chalfen wrote a chapter titled "Childhood, Cell Phones, and Health."

• Television News, Politics and Young People: Generation Disconnected? by Mike Wayne, Julian Petley, Craig Murray & Lesley Henderson

Why are young people alienated from television news? This book argues that contemporary trends indicating deepening disconnection from news about public life reflect problems both with the way television news covers politics and with the nature of politics itself under neo-liberal capitalism.

• Youth, Society and Mobile Media in Asia by Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson &  Damien Spry (eds.)

This book examines the influence of mobile media technology on the lives of young people in East and North Asia, South East Asia, and Australia.

• Wired Youth: The Social World of Adolescence in the Information Age by Gustavo Mesch&  Ilan Talmud

This book presents an up-to-date review of the literature on youth sociability, relationship formation, and online communication, examining the way young people use the internet to construct or maintain their inter-personal relationships.

Upcoming Books

• Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites by Zizi Papacharissi (ed.)

This book examines self presentation and social connection in the digital age. This collection brings together new work on online social networks by leading scholars from a variety of disciplines. The focus of the volume rests on the construction of the self, and what happens to self-identity when it is presented through networks of social connections in new media environments.

• The Videogames Handbook by David Surman

Featuring contributions from leading figures in the videogames industry; this book surveys both the theory and practice of this fast-growing, yet relatively new disciplinary area.

• Relocating Television: Television in the Digital Context by David Morley

This book offers readers an insight into studying television alongside the internet, participatory media and other technocultural phenomena such as DVDs, user-generated content and everyday digital media production. It also focuses on more specific programmes and phenomena, including The Wire, MSN, amateur footage in TV news, Bollywoodization of TV news, YouTube, fan sites tied to e.g. Grey's Anatomy and X Factor.

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Please let us know if you would like to see any books highlighted in the future!

Research Toolbox: New Book on Children and Television

Professor Dafna Lemish, editor of the Journal of Children and Media, incoming Chair of the Department of Radio-Television in the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts at Southern Illinois University, and visiting scholar at CMCH, has published a new book, Screening Gender on Children’s Television: The Views of Producers Around the World (Routledge, 2010).

The book offers readers insights into the transformations taking place in the presentation of gender portrayals in television productions aimed at younger audiences. It goes far beyond a critical analysis of the existing portrayals of gender and culture by sharing media professionals’ action-oriented recommendations for change that would promote gender equity, social diversity and the well-being of children.

Incorporating interviews with 135 producers of children’s television from 65 countries, this book discusses the role television plays in the lives of young people and, more specifically, in developing gender identity. It examines how gender images presented to children on television are intertwined with important existential and cultural concerns that occupy the social agenda worldwide, including the promotion of education for girls, prevention of HIV/AIDS and domestic violence, and caring for “neglected” boys who lack healthy masculine role models, as well as confronting the pressures of the beauty myth.

The book also explores how children’s television producers struggle to portray issues such as sex/sexuality and the preservation of local cultures in a profit-driven market which continually strives to reinforce gender segregation. The book documents proactive attempts by producers to advance social change, illustrating how television can serve to provide positive, empowering images for children around the world.

Learn more about Professor Lemish’s research exploring the role of media in children's lives.

Research Toolbox: Recently Published Books

Here is a list of recently published titles of interest on the topics of children, media, and health:

New Titles

• Feminism, Inc.:Coming of age in girl power media culture by Emilie Zaslow

This book offers a rich account of the ways in which teen girls understand style, sexuality, motherhood, and feminism in girl power media culture.

• Screening Generation X: The politics and popular memory of youth in contemporary cinema by Christina Lee

This book examines popular representations of Generation X in American and British film.

• Watching TV is not required: Thinking about media and thinking about thinking by Bernard McGrane & John Gunderson

This book introduces the readers to the social construction of reality embedded in the experience of TV.

• Youth engaging with the world:  Media, communication and social change, eds: Thomas Tufte &  Florencia Enghel

This book focuses on youth as a generation of actors and citizens who are increasingly exposed to and making use of media/ICT for entertainment and informational purposes, for social networking and mobilization, and for knowledge sharing.

Forthcoming Titles

• Creating preschool television:  A story of commerce, creativity and curriculum by Jeanette Steemers

Focusing on experience in Britain and the US, this book explains how the preschool television sector has shifted from an essentially small localized and economically restricted industry to become a much more complex, commercially-driven global business. 

• Gendering children's television: A view from producers around the world by Dafna Lemish

This book offers readers insights into the transformations taking place in the presentation of gender portrayals in television productions aimed at younger audiences. It goes far beyond a critical analysis of the existing portrayals of gender and culture by sharing media professionals’ action-oriented recommendations for change that would promote gender equity, social diversity and the wellbeing of children.

• Television news, politics and young people: Generation disconnected? by Mike Wayne, Julian Petley, Craig Murray & Lesley Henderson

Why are young people alienated from television news? This book argues that contemporary trends indicating deepening disconnection from news about public life reflect problems both with the way television news covers politics and with the nature of politics itself under neo-liberal capitalism.

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Research Toolbox: Recently Published Books

Here is a list of recently published titles of interest on the topics of children, media, and health:

• Examining Identity in Sports Media by Heather L. Hundley and Andrew C. Billings (2009)

This book investigates how various identity groups are framed, treated, affected, and shaped by a ubiquitous sports media, including television, magazines, film, the Internet, and newspapers.

• Influences of Mediated Violence. A Brief Research Summary by Cecilia von Feilitzen (2009)

The author has attempted to address the impact of mediated violence, with particular emphasis on the influence of video and computer game violence and violence on the internet.

• Media and Youth: A Developmental Perspective by Steven J. Kirsh (2009)

This book provides a comprehensive review and critique of the research and theoretical literature related to media effects on infants, children, and adolescents, with a unique emphasis on development.

• Seeing Stars: Spectacle, Society and Celebrity Culture by Pramod K Nayar (2009)

This book explores the ways in which celebrities are ‘manufactured’, how they establish their hold on the public imagination, and how social responses enable them to be what they are.

• Young People in the European Digital Media Landscape. A Statistical Overview introduced by Sonia Livingstone and Leslie Haddon (2009) FREE

This booklet of data gives an overview of young people’s media use in Europe. 

Please let us know about any new books you would like to see highlighted in the future!

Research Toolbox: Featured Books

Here is a list of published and upcoming titles of interest on the topics of children, media, and health. Please let us know about any new books you would like to see highlighted in the future!

• Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture by Carrie McLaren and Jason Torchinsky (eds) (2009) 

The authors explore what happens to humans when their brains are constantly assaulted by advertising and corporate messages. The result is an entertaining and eye-opening account of the many ways consumer culture continues to pervade and transform American life.

• Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry by Lenore Skenazy (2009)

Do you ever let your kid ride a bike to the library? Walk alone to school? Take a bus, solo? Drawing on facts, statistics, and humor, Lenore Skenazy argues that this is one of the safest periods for children in the history of the world and highlights that  “childhood is supposed to be about discovering the world, not being held captive.”

• Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture by Allison J. Pugh (2009)

The author teases out the complex factors that contribute to how we buy, from lunchroom conversations about Game Boys to the stark inequalities facing American children.

• Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown (2009)

This book explores the science of play and its essential role in fueling our intelligence and happiness throughout our lives.

Upcoming Book

• Free for All: Fixing School Food in America by Janet Poppendieck (2010)

How did our children end up eating nachos, pizza, and tater tots for lunch? Taking us on an eye-opening journey into the nation's school kitchens, this superbly researched book is the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of school food in the United States.

Featured Books

Here is a list of published and upcoming titles of interest on the topics of children, media, and health. Please let us know about any new books you would like to see highlighted in the future!

• Children and the Internet (2009) by Sonia Livingstone

This new book addresses pressing questions such as: Is the internet really transforming children and young people's lives? And, is the so-called 'digital generation' genuinely benefiting from exciting new opportunities?

• Reclaiming Childhood: Freedom and Play in an Age of Fear (2009) by Helene Guldberg

The author argues that parents need to allow children to grow and flourish, to balance sensible guidance with youthful independence. That means letting children play, experiment, and mess around without adults hovering over them.

• Harm and Offense in Media Content -Second Edition (2009) by Sonia Livingstone and Andrea Millwood

This fully revised edition offers a unique and comprehensive analysis of the latest research on  the media's potential for harm, especially in relation to children.

• WATCH IT! (2009) by by Mary Strom Larson

The author highlights the likely consequences of kids consuming television ad other media without adult intervention.

Upcoming Book

• Serious Games: Mechanisms and Effects (2009) by Ute Ritterfeld, Michael Cody and Peter Vorderer

The central purpose of this book is to examine critically the claim that playing games can provide learning that is deep, sustained and transferable to the "real world."