33

The Role of Parental Mediation in the Development of Media Literacy and the Prevention of Substance Use

Yi-Chun (Yvonnes) Chen and Erica Weintraub Austin

Mediation in Homes and Schools

The omnipresent nature of the media, its sometimes questionable content, and its potentially harmful effects frequently alarm those responsible for protecting the welfare of children and adolescents. A plethora of literature has explored approaches that could effectively mitigate children's and adolescents' responses to certain television content and improve their understanding of beneficial content. Perhaps the most noticeable examples of these approaches are grounded either in a familial environment – that is, parental (or primary caregiver-based) communication – or in media education grounded outside of a familial environment, such as media literacy training in educational systems.

Parental communication regarding the media, a multi-dimensional construct that includes active mediation, rulemaking (often called restrictive mediation), and coviewing, describes the avenues by which primary caregivers approach media use and content with their children, usually in a home environment. Although many scholars believe parents can play an important role in facilitating children's understanding of media messages and in reducing potentially negative effects of television content, many parents fail to engage actively in media-related conversations with their children. As a consequence, not all types of parental communication regarding the media effectively produce prosocial effects.

It seems intuitive that parents should have major influences on their children's uses and interpretations of media in decision-making. Ironically, however, research often has documented parental communication effects regarding media as modest or non-significant (e.g., Austin & Chen, 2003; Ennett, Bauman, Foshee, Pemberton, & Hicks, 2001; Nathanson, 2001a). Because many researchers remain convinced of the importance of the parents' role, the challenge of explaining how and why parents mediate media influences on their children has inspired some to focus on refining measurement and conceptualizations of parental communication avenues. In addition, others have investigated the potential for media education outside the home. Recent developments have included the emergence of professional organizations focused on advocacy, training, and research on media education.

One aim of media education is to give viewers sufficient skills to protect themselves from objectionable content and more effectively select beneficial content delivered through mass media channels (see Chapter 32). Media literacy training thus empowers individuals to use media for the greatest personal benefit instead of merely permitting media producers to use them as profitable consumers. Even though both parental mediation and media literacy can have beneficial effects for modifying children's responses to various media content, no studies to date have connected types of parental mediation to media literacy skills and, in turn, to behavioral outcomes. Parental mediation at its best is media literacy training from the most influential of teachers. It is likely, therefore, that various types of parental communication differentially impact the ways in which children interpret media messages, which in turn leads to different results in terms of the internalization of media messages and, as a result, different behavioral outcomes as children grow up to draw their own conclusions and make their own choices.

To provide a more complete picture of the existing state of knowledge regarding parental communication and media literacy in relation to substance use, this chapter discusses (1) parental mediation and its effects on children and adolescents, (2) relationships between parental communication and media literacy, and (3) how each factor (i.e., parental mediation and media literacy) relates to substance use. The chapter includes highlights from a new study that integrates parental communication and media literacy into substance-use research among emerging adults. It then ends with discussions of venues for substance-use research and other topics based on the parental mediation and media literacy literature.

Parental Mediation and its Effects on Children and Adolescents

Parental mediation generally is defined as communication from primary caregivers about children's media viewing, particularly grounded in the context of television viewing (Austin, 1993; Fujioka & Austin, 2002; Nathanson, 1999; Valkenburg, Krcmar, Peeters, & Marseille, 1999). Despite the existence of various terminologies and typologies describing types of parental mediation, scholars by and large have come to a consensus that parental communication about media includes three specific behaviors in which parents engage: active mediation, rulemaking, and coviewing.

Active mediation or instructive mediation is defined as the extent to which parents or primary caregivers actively discuss certain aspects of television with their children either during or after viewing (Austin, 1993; Fujioka & Austin, 2002; Nathanson, 1999, 2001b). Active mediation seeks to help children interpret media messages by ways of categorization (i.e., how television reflects the world in which we live), validation (i.e., endorsing or criticizing media representation of the world in which we live), and supplementation (i.e., providing additional information to help children understand television messages) (Austin, 1993; Messaris, 1982). The focus of active mediation research emphasizes the occurrence of validation activities within the family, the precursors of various styles of mediation, and the effects of mediation on mitigating children's interpretations of media messages and their behavior (for a review, see Valkenburg et al., 1999).

Active mediation has been linked to children's increased understanding of television, such as educational television and plots (Corder-Bolz, 1980; Desmond, Singer, Singer, Calam, & Colimore, 1985; Singer, Singer, Desmond, Hirsch, & Nicol, 1988; see Chapter 30) and their attention to political affairs news and political involvement (Austin, 1993). Parents and primary caregivers, however, can take on different forms of active mediation, including positive active mediation and negative active mediation (Austin, Bolls, Fujioka, & Engelbertson, 1999; Austin & Pinkleton, 2001; Fujioka & Austin, 2002; Nathanson & Botta, 2003). Positive active mediation refers to parents' endorsement and support of certain aspects of television programming (e.g., “I like the product on TV” and “I agree with what they just said on TV”), whereas negative active mediation describes parents' negative comments or disapproval of television programming (e.g., “Things on TV are not real” and “The actions done by someone on TV were not okay”).

Depending on the nature of media content or caregivers' attitudes toward television messages, caregivers can employ either positive active mediation or negative active mediation to facilitate children's understanding of media messages or mitigate the potential negative impact of objectionable media content (Austin, Knaus, & Meneguelli, 1998; Nathanson, 2001b). The bulk of active mediation research, however, focuses primarily on negative active mediation either explicitly or implicitly by the way active mediation has been operationalized (e.g., Austin, 1993; Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2005; Buijzen, Walma van der Molen, & Sondij, 2007; Fujioka & Austin, 2003; Hoffner & Buchanan, 2002; Nathanson, 1999, 2001b; Nathanson & Botta, 2003). This is likely to be due, in part, to scholars' concern over questionable media content, such as advertising, violent television shows, and shows with sexual content.

Research has shown that negative active mediation can lead to a variety of prosocial attitudinal and behavioral outcomes among children. Studies have found that negative active mediation lessens children's degree of aggression (Corder-Bolz, 1980; Nathanson, 1999; Nathanson & Cantor, 2000) and also successfully modifies children's materialistic attitudes and purchasing requests after exposure to advertising (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2005). Through reasoning-centered discussion, negative active mediation is also associated with parents' skepticism toward advertising, which in turn is associated with children's critical viewing skills and discussions of political affairs between parents and their children (Austin, 1993; Austin & Pinkleton, 2001; Austin, Pinkleton, & Fujioka, 2000).

Positive active mediation, on the other hand, has received less attention but shows effects distinct from negative mediation. More specifically, research has shown that the effects of positive active mediation on modifying children's understanding of and attitudes toward television greatly depend on what kind of media content parents mediate. For example, positive active mediation has been shown to relate to children's increased learning of cultural television programming, such as opera (Valkenburg, Krcmar, & De Roos, 1998) and educational programs, such as Sesame Street (Fisch & Truglio, 2001). Yet, in the context of violent media and alcohol messages, positive active mediation appears to be a counterproductive intervention strategy. It has been found to increase children's imitation of violent media (Hicks, 1968) and to be ineffective in facilitating discussions of political affairs between parents and their children (Austin & Pinkleton, 2001). Positive mediation shows moderate associations with negative mediation and has demonstrated potential for beneficial outcomes as noted previously, but negative active mediation appears to be more effective as a protective strategy against problematic media content and persuasive influences after considering the age of the child and type of content. In addition, negative mediation appears to be more effective for fostering critical-thinking abilities and media skepticism among children (Austin, 1993; Austin et al., 2000; Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2005; Desmond et al., 1985; Fujioka & Austin, 2003).

A second type of parental communication strategy is rulemaking, often referred to as restrictive mediation. This describes how parents set rules for television viewing hours or for prohibiting the viewing of certain content (Valkenburg et al., 1999). Most of the rulemaking is related to what children can watch rather than how much time they can spend with media (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010). A recent report shows that younger children (8- to 10-year-olds) have significantly more rules about which shows they can watch than children who are 15 to 18 years old (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010).

From a protectionist perspective, parents who use this communication approach express concern that television watching is potentially harmful to their children, particularly younger children (Barkin, et al., 2006; Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010; Lin & Atkin, 1989; Warren, 2005; Wiman, 1983). Because it represents an avoidance strategy and does not facilitate critical discussion, however, we believe it is a stretch to refer to rulemaking as “mediation.” Indeed, it can facilitate family discord without providing constructive opportunities for critical analysis of actual content. As a result, to the extent children require rehearsal and experimentation with decision-making to develop independent communication competence, rulemaking represents a counterproductive approach to media effects intervention. In other words, simply prohibiting children from watching potentially objectionable content does not facilitate their autonomy in making important decisions regarding key issues (not to drink alcohol, not to use tobacco, to solve conflicts without aggression, etc.)

Having some rules that limit amounts of media use can be beneficial, particularly for young children not yet able to interpret many aspects of a message on their own (Baranowski, Baranowski, Thompson, & Greaves, 2005; Desmond et al., 1985; Nathanson, 1999). For example, in a study of low-income preschool children in New York, the odds ratio of children having a body mass index above the 85th percentile increased 1.06% for each additional hour of television viewing (Baranowski et al., 2005). In addition, having some rules associates with less media use overall – an average of almost three hours less among 8- to 18-year-olds – perhaps encouraging selectivity (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010). Much of children's media use is unsupervised, however, with 71% of children (76% of adolescents) having television in their bedrooms, and about a third having computers and Internet access in their bedrooms. As a result, prohibitions often have limited impact as young people obtain unsupervised access to media within the rules or by circumventing them at friends' houses. Rulemaking, therefore, can encourage some degree of selectivity but has limited effects in the absence of active guidance that helps children practice using information sources critically in their decision-making. For example, research has shown that rulemaking is associated with children's positive attitudes toward television shows with objectionable content, such as violent and sexual media, more viewing of the content with their friends, and children's negative attitudes toward their parents (Buijzen et al., 2007; Nathanson, 2002).

The third type of parental communication strategy is coviewing, in which primary caregivers and children watch or enjoy a television program together without engaging in any discussion activities. Some scholars conceptualize coviewing in ways consistent with positive mediation, referring to it as social coviewing (Valkenburg et al., 1999). While active mediation and rulemaking often are indicators of either parents' concern about television effects or their (dis)approval of the programs, parents' own positive attitudes toward the programs (e.g., liking) strongly predict their coviewing behavior with the child (Nathanson, 2001b). Children often interpret coviewing with parents or primary caregivers as parental approval of television programming; apparent endorsement of certain messages, such as violent television shows, is often positively associated with children's television-induced aggressive tendencies and behavior (Krcmar, 1998; Nathanson, 1999, 2001b). Although coviewing caregivers may not expressly endorse content during viewing, it has long been established that a lack of negative reinforcement can be interpreted as endorsement, particularly in ambiguous or antisocial situations (Bandura, 1965). As a largely passive activity, therefore, coviewing produces little in terms of positive effects on children's decision-making (Dorr, Kovaric, & Doubleday, 1989) and appears primarily to reinforce children's perception that television characters are real and representative of people in the real world (Messaris & Kerr, 1984).

Parental Mediation and Substance Use

Research that examines parental mediation as it relates to substance-use attitudes, behavioral intention, and behavior among children and adolescents has revealed the extent to which parental factors reinforce or ameliorate positive imagery of substance use in the media (Austin et al., 2000; Austin & Chen, 2003; Dalton et al., 2006; Fujioka & Austin, 2003; Hanewinkel, Morgenstern, Tanski, & Sargent, 2008). In the context of alcohol advertising, Fujioka and Austin (2003) found that third, sixth, and ninth grader's self-reported parental mediation is linked to their decision-making concerning alcohol. Characters in alcohol advertisements were attractive and fun for children whose parents provided positive comments about advertisements at home. A positive relationship between active positive mediation and identification with characters in advertisements also was found. Children's self-reported active negative mediation was not related to their decision factors, however.

Expanding the study by Fujioka and Austin (2003), Austin and Chen (2003) self-reported results from a dataset that surveyed emerging adults. Consistent with prior research (Fujioka & Austin, 2003), recalled parental active positive mediation had a positive association with emerging adults' perceived desirability of alcohol advertising. Active positive mediation was further linked to their perceived positive consequences of alcohol experimentation and use, which was directly linked to greater alcohol use and alcohol experimentation at a young age.

Research conducted by Dalton et al. (2006) and Hanewinkel et al. (2008) has found that prohibiting children from watching “R-rated” movies and coviewing R-rated movies with their children each independently decreased children's risk for smoking and drinking. In summary, positive active mediation, in comparison to other forms of parental intervention, seems to be a risk factor that directly impacts the pathway through which positive portrayals of substance use are reinforced and behavior emulation and enactment are strengthened.

Relationships between Parental Communication and Media Literacy

The overall assumption underlying existing research regarding parental communication strategies has been that parents, as primary influencers and information sources for their children, should have considerable effects on their children's development of media literacy skills. Some strategies, however, appear to have greater effectiveness than others, and not all parents appear to be sufficiently media literate themselves. For example, parents sometimes know less than their children do about new technologies or popular topics (Livingstone, 2004). Others are unwilling to discuss objectionable content preferring – often unrealistically – to simply keep it at bay. As a result, media literacy education has become increasingly embraced as an essential skill for public education. All 50 United States, for example, now have media literacy principles instilled in their Standard of Learning requirements in social studies, language arts, or health and consumer education (Baker, 2010).

Conceptualizations of media literacy have become more precise and consistent as this interdisciplinary field has grown in sophistication; also, avenues for cross-discipline sharing of ideas have increased. Media literacy education generally is defined as an individual's ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media in a variety of forms (Aufderheide, 1993; see Chapter 32, this volume). The four crucial media literacy components – access, analysis, evaluation, and content creation – emphasize media literacy as a “skills-based approach” to media awareness education (Livingstone, 2004). Particularly in terms of providing systematic pedagogical approaches and opportunities for content creation, school-based media literacy education has presented some advantages over home-based, caregiver-sourced communication strategies. In addition, some curricula have targeted concerned teachers and parents as students, to help them more effectively teach children about the media (Brown, 2001; Buckingham, 2005; Singer & Singer, 1998). Given the primary nature of caregivers as influencers despite the potentially systematic, comprehensive approaches offered by trained educators, it is important for research to establish more specifically how parental communication strategies contribute to media literacy skills, particularly in terms of caregivers' probable emphasis on the skills of access, analysis and evaluation.

As an empowerment education strategy that fosters healthy skepticism and reflective-thinking skills, media literacy education frequently emphasizes the understanding of persuasive intent and techniques as a fundamental skill that will motivate further analysis and evaluation (e.g., Austin & Johnson, 1997a, 1997b). Many educational programs therefore provide youngsters with knowledge about how advertising controls the media industry, intended to help them understand that advertising and television programming are purposefully crafted to capture the attention of predetermined audiences (Bazalgette, 1991; Hobbs, 2001, 2007; Piette & Giroux, 2001; Villani, 2001). Media literacy activities often involve analysis of the underlying purpose for the advertisement, its intended target audience, its persuasive techniques, and its content elements as part of the instruction intended to foster improved media literacy skills (Austin, Chen, Pinkleton, & Quintero Johnson, 2006; Brown, 1991, 1998, 2001; The Center for Media Literacy, 2005; Pinkleton, Austin, Cohen, Miller, & Fitzgerald, 2007).

Media Literacy and Substance Use

Youngsters gain competency in critiquing, evaluating, and interpreting media messages by drawing from their knowledge structures. As children develop greater cognitive sophistication and the ability for abstract thinking, they become better able to generalize lessons from media literacy to other contexts, such as substance use, in which they need to evaluate information for use in decision-making that could later impact their behavior. Media literacy engages youth in critical analysis of glamorized and unrealistic depictions of advertising messages and encourages youth to produce counteradvertising messages to “talk back” to the media industry. This approach not only modifies youth's responses to substance-use advertising messages, but also empowers them to reflect on the negative impact media might have on their health.

Theoretically based media literacy has become an effective tool to prevent or alter substance-use behavior among youth (Austin, Pinkleton, Hust, & Cohen, 2005; Banerjee & Greene, 2007; Johnson, 1997a, 1997b; Pinkleton et al., 2007; Pinkleton, Austin, Cohen, Chen, & Fitzgerald, 2008;). Built on the message interpretation process model, Austin and Johnson (1997a) designed an experiment that compared results from the general and alcohol-specific media literacy training with third graders. Inspired by the theoretical principles of parental mediation, the alcohol-specific media literacy training discussed various aspects of advertising representations, such as categorization (e.g., Is it real or not real?), validation (e.g., Is it right or wrong?), and supplementation (e.g., media messages do not represent real-life examples). This technique, in comparison to the general media literacy training that only focuses on advertising skepticism, was more effective in increasing third graders' understanding of the media. In general, the treatment group participants had an increased understanding of alcohol advertisers' persuasive intent, which then led to a decreased level of expectancies for alcohol consumption a few months later compared to third graders who did not receive such training (Austin & Johnson, 1997a, 1997b). Gender differences also were observed in the treatment group as girls were more likely to indicate a lower likelihood of alcohol use than boys.

Integrating Parental Communication, Media Literacy, and Substance Use

Even though the familial environment factor (e.g., parental communication) and the individual factor (e.g., level of media literacy) examined in this chapter each have been uniquely linked to substance use, the literature has yet to examine the conjoint influence of parental mediation and media literacy as they relate to substance use. Fortunately, young adulthood provides an opportune time to examine the confluence of primary caregiver influences and media literacy skills as predictors of decision-making outcomes.

A natural connection exists between active parental mediation and media literacy. When the media content in question is presumed or shown in prior research to lead to negative effects, the link can be disrupted through negative active mediation and media literacy education. Both approaches aim at effectively increasing youngsters' skepticism toward advertising and other media portrayals by training them to use critical-thinking skills and consider what is present along with what is missing in a given message. By the time they are emerging adults, media literate individuals should possess critical-viewing skills enabling them to identify a variety of visual symbol representations and meanings embedded in messages, to determine effects of the media, and to understand points of view presented in messages (Brown, 1991, 1998, 2001).

As a result, negative active mediation should predict higher levels of media literacy skills, particularly as represented by the existence of critical thinking and skepticism toward advertising and, more generally, the media portrayals. Positive active mediation, on the other hand, seems to reinforce the persuasive aspect of media messages, such as alcohol advertising (Austin et al., 2000; Fujioka & Austin, 2002), and should be negatively associated with media literacy outcomes. In addition, prior research has suggested that avoidance and passive communication strategies characterized by rulemaking and coviewing do not enhance critical-thinking skills in children and do not necessarily prevent children from accessing objectionable content. Simply put, limiting access to the content children could watch and coviewing are expected to detract from emerging adults' comprehension of the complex interrelations of advertising and the media industry.

We recently collected data from emerging adults to explore these issues. Participants were recruited from a large mid-Atlantic university to participate in one of two cross-sectional Internet-based surveys. Two versions of the survey were created to focus either on alcohol-use behavior or on tobacco-use behavior. Both contained previously validated parental mediation activities (Austin, 1993; Austin et al., 1999; Austin et al., 2000; Fujioka & Austin, 2003; Nathanson, 2001b, 2002; Nikken & Jansz, 2006) and media literacy measures, operationalized as skepticism for advertising, media skepticism and critical thinking (Austin & Pinkleton, 2001; Austin et al., 2005; Austin et al., 2006; Fujioka & Austin, 2003; Pinkleton et al., 2008). The surveys were administered through an online research participation system that included undergraduate students from various disciplines across the university. Results are reported here for the general sample and for alcohol use as a behaviorally based dependent variable.

Emerging adults, roughly defined as individuals aged 18 to 25, face as many identity exploration and formation challenges as adolescents do (Arnett, 2000). Emerging adults are considerably more independent from their adolescent years, but are not entirely ready to embrace the responsibilities of adulthood. A significant characteristic of emerging adulthood is the continuous cognitive and identity development through the late teens and the twenties (Arnnett, 2000). Therefore, this period is appropriate in that the results may shed light on the role of active and passive parent-child communication about the media in fostering emerging adults' media literacy skills in order to document their direct and indirect effects on current substance-use behavior.

We expected to find that negative active mediation would predict higher levels of media literacy among emerging adults as represented by skepticism toward advertising, skepticism toward media, and critical thinking, whereas positive active mediation, rulemaking, and coviewing would predict lower levels of media literacy among emerging adults. In addition, we thought it especially likely that higher levels of media literacy would predict lower levels of alcohol and tobacco use among emerging adults.

Given the primary nature of caregiver influences, we thought it would be possible to trace these direct effects of parental communication strategies even into adulthood. Generally, for example, in the context of substance use, previous studies have shown that parental discussion-based intervention strategies either reinforce or counter-reinforce substance-use messages in the media, which then associate with higher levels of alcohol and tobacco experimentation and use among adolescents (Austin et al., 2000; Fujioka & Austin, 2002; Jackson, 2002). Overall, the literature appears to suggest that parental reinforcement (i.e., positive active mediation and passive coviewing) and counter-reinforcement (i.e., negative active mediation) will continue to affect emerging adults' behavioral intentions and behavior (Kafka & London, 1991). In our study, we tested whether positive active mediation and coviewing would predict higher levels of alcohol use among emerging adults, and whether negative active mediation would predict lower levels of substance use. We also tested for effects of rulemaking, because parental mediation research rarely has tested how rulemaking affects young people's behavioral choices.

Table 33.1 Associations between parent–child communication about media and media literacy

The results revealed that mediation and coviewing variables had distinctive relationships with media literacy measures, such that coviewing predicted less advertising skepticism but more critical thinking, negative mediation consistently associated with higher levels of media literacy, rulemaking associated with lower levels of critical thinking, and positive mediation associated with lower levels of advertising skepticism but was unrelated to critical thinking.

Even with demographic variables and media literacy variables controlled, parental coviewing was positively associated with increased levels of alcohol use. Negative and positive mediation had no direct relationship to current alcohol use. Media skepticism predicted lower levels of current alcohol use, but advertising skepticism and critical thinking were unrelated to the behavioral measures of substance use. For detailed results, see Table 33.1 and Table 33.2.

Conclusion

The abundant media effects literature has repeatedly concluded that exposure to potentially harmful media messages directly impacts youth's behavior through their decision–making processes. Two approaches – parental communication and media education – have been investigated to theorize possible mitigating pathways through which negative media effects could be countered and positive effects amplified. Parental communication and an individual's level of media literacy may each have a waxing and waning influence throughout a child's developmental trajectory. Within the familial environment, parental communication about the media has garnered much attention as primary caregivers, to some degree, shape and form younger children's conceptual understanding of the media.

Table 33.2 Associations among parental communication, media literacy, and alcohol use

Not all types of parental communication lead to positive outcomes in children, however, especially when the questionable media content (i.e., violent, sexual, alcohol, and tobacco messages) is examined. Within that context, negative active mediation is found to be effective in reducing youth's positive attitudes toward the questionable content and behavioral intention of imitating the depicted behavior. On the other hand, positive mediation, rulemaking, and coviewing generally produce more harm than good in that positive attitudes toward the content appear to lead to behavior enactment. For example, positive mediation associates with increased levels of youths' desirability toward alcohol advertising and wishful identification with its characters.

Similar to the positive outcomes of negative active mediation, media literacy education, the other commonly used approach for mitigating negative media influences, has enjoyed much success in substance-use prevention and intervention among youth. By developing an individual's ability to critically analyze and produce countermedia messages to “talk back” to the big media industry, media education increases youth skepticism toward advertising, enhances reflective thinking and lowers behavioral intention toward substance use.

The direct and indirect impact of parental communication and media literacy is best examined through emerging adulthood as parental influences may still have the residual effects that influence their media literacy levels. The condensed results reported in this chapter are the first to establish that certain forms of parent-child communication about the media are associated with emerging adults' media literacy skills. These results also confirm that parental communication and media literacy skills independently shape emerging adults' substance-use behavior.

One of the contributions of this research is to extend parent-child communication about the media and media literacy research to the context of emerging adults. Much of the research on parental communication and media literacy focuses on children and adolescents. Yet, very little research has concentrated on the interrelations between emerging adults' past parental communication and their current media literacy skills. This chapter suggests that negative active mediation is effective in fostering children's competency in media literacy into adulthood, whereas the passive activity of coviewing, the avoidance strategy of rulemaking and the reinforcement of message receptivity inherent in positive mediation are – at least in isolation – weak or counterproductive influences for the development of media literacy skills. On the other hand, deficiencies in media literacy can lead to risk-taking behaviors among adolescents and may exacerbate those behaviors when they reach emerging adulthood. It will be important for future research to explore how these influences interrelate with a more diverse population, to test hypotheses with longitudinal datasets, to examine these factors in other contexts (e.g., violence, obesity, body image, other substance-use behavior, and Internet safety), and to investigate whether the same patterns would be observed when studying positive media programming. In addition, it will be valuable to include the role of other communication mediators, such as peer and sibling interaction, in the study of how children develop independent information selection and processing skills that ultimately lead to important behavioral decisions.

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FURTHER READING

Atkin, D., Greenberg, B. S., & Baldwin, T. F. (1991). The home ecology of children's television viewing: Parental mediation and the new video environment. Journal of Communication, 41, 40–52.

Austin, E. W. (2001). Effects of family communication on children's interpretation of Television. In J. Bryant & J. A. Bryant (Eds.), Television and the American family (2nd ed., pp. 377–398). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Coughlin, J. W., & Kalodner, C. (2006). Media literacy as a prevention intervention for college women at low- or high-risk for eating disorders. Body Image, 3, 35–43.

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Hoffner, C., & Buchanan, M. (2002). Parents'responses to television violence: The third-person perception, parental mediation, and support for censorship. Media Psychology, 4(3), 231–52.

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