Children’s Media Use and Responses

This review of current research on children and media, commissioned by the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) of New Zealand (NZ), examines both national and international research on children and media (including new technologies) in four major areas of the literature: physical access, selection and ways of using media, social contexts of media use, and responses to media accessed and used.

Main findings include:

1. Children’s media access and use:

Diversification of media technology in NZ homes allows children access to television, computers, DVDs, video, radio, and mobile phones. "Media multitasking" (e.g.,
talking on a cellphone while viewing television, doing homework on a computer, and listening to background music) is reported as occurring among children as media consumers. The interactivity of new media suggests positive potential for helping children fine-tune cognitive skills, though the document calls for further study in this realm. Findings emphasise that television can expand children's interests and is not supplanting socialisation or sports.

Research on access to technology described here shows that NZ families with children are more likely to have an internet connection than households without children, while single low-income parents are less likely to provide this information access for children. Lack of disposable income and lack of confidence due to literacy issues, absence of computer users in social networks, and lack of local interest-based content are reasons given for low use in some socioeconomic status (SES) groups. Programmes exist to change this pattern, including New Zealand's Computers in Homes scheme to offer a recycled computer, 6 months free internet connection, and free training for an NZ$50 joining fee.

2. Social contexts of media use:

The incidence of children using media alone for extended periods - cited here as a socially constructed concern called here the 'bedroom culture' because of the placement of child-owned media sources in their bedrooms - appears to be more frequent in lower SES groups in New Zealand. Internationally, family structure, parenting style (e.g. authoritarian, democratic), demographics, and the changing nature of family life shape how media is valued and used. Concerns validated by the research reviewed show that placement of media in children's bedrooms increases use - either solitary use or peer-involved use, depending on cultural norms.

Research shows both that media can facilitate social interaction - family or peer discussion of content is an example - and that social interaction can facilitate media use. Child viewers' broad knowledge of subjects outside the particular interests of children, sometimes due to paedagogical aims of programming, was attributed to media use. 'Together time' via shared media, according to one study, can offer “socialisation into, and through, family values and morality; practical and technical competence; educational and cultural awareness and competence; and family ‘togetherness’ and ‘connectedness.” Research on parent intervention in child media use demonstrated varying parental attitudes on the need for regulation of content, as well as the degree of intervention, and varying outcomes.

New media seems to be a rapidly growing part of peer relationship and children's language of communication. New media research examines children's engagement with computers, the internet, and mobile phones, including the effects of culture, identity, gender, and peer networking. The document points out that: "While communication and interaction have begun to dominate children’s internet activity, it is often overlooked that knowledge is becoming an increasingly social product." Because internet micro socio-cultures often have their own languages and required competencies, children learn by participation and peer-to-peer interaction, particularly in communicating through instant messaging (IM).

3. Children’s media responses:

According to the authors, early research on children and the media was designed to address concerns about children’s responses to violent material or to sexual content; however, recent research shows that children can be discerning and critical of what they view, and that they don’t simply emulate what they see on the television screen. Discernment appears to be drawn from parent and peer influenced culturally-bound constructions to recognise and describe ‘right and wrong’ actions. “However, the research as a whole is somewhat divided around what will by now be two familiar divergent positions: children as influenced by media (effects research) and children as self-regulatory users of media."

Parent concerns on media use in New Zealand focus on violence and sexual content, including the unsolicited messages and images on the internet. "The emerging research picture is that relationships between sexual content and effects are highly complex, and depend on a number of factors including television genres, ethnicity, SES, individual personality differences, and parental and peer mediation... [Studies] suggest the media serves a role as a kind of sexual ‘super peer’ for those young people seeking information about sex,... alcohol, tobacco and drugs."

"Some research has pointed to how television can, and does, offer a ‘healthy’ source of information about sex... In America [United States], an organisation called Population Communication International [now called PCI-Media Impact] has established a series of ‘Soap Summits’, which aim to ‘bring a heightened awareness of the importance and power media and the creative community play in shaping attitudes and behaviour’ [including access to information on condom use and contraception, as well as sexually transmitted diseases]."

Children's competencies to cope with potentially disturbing material, as stated here, are "as much reliant upon the child’s developmental stage as they are on the kinds of viewing behaviours and viewing literacy they are socialised into in the home". The authors conclude that children are active agents in relationship to media and bring skills and knowledge to media use, rather than naivete or lack of sophistication.