Children in the Media
- LAST MODIFIED: 23 August 2022
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0262
- LAST MODIFIED: 23 August 2022
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0262
Introduction
Children in the media is one of the three main areas at the conjunction of childhood studies and media studies, with the other two being media production and its effects on children as audience/consumers, and children’s relationship with the media as active participants of media culture. While pedagogical, psychological, and communication research mostly focuses on the effects of the media on children, since the earlier years of the discipline, the focus of much childhood studies has been on centering the agentic child, thus children’s media cultures has been an important and widely studied topic. This has left relatively smaller room for the study of children in the media in childhood scholarship, with the exception of the study of the fictional child in literature, film, theater, and other media. Although not as widely seized by childhood studies as children’s media cultures, the study of children in the media presents an important opportunity to bridge several disciplines, including media and communication studies, sociology, history, psychology, and cultural studies. This bibliography uses a broad definition of media to include both traditional and newer types of media. The definition of children is also broad and does not exclude older children and teens. A review of scholarship reveals some central analytical foci, which is reflected by the organization of this bibliography. The most prevalent of these foci is the study of representations of children and childhood in the media, including children’s self-representation. The sections on representation include Images of Children, Children’s Self-Representations, and Fictional Children. The following sections on Politics of Childhood, News About Children, and Moral Panics introduce works that discuss media’s role in the perception and social construction of childhood. Due to its methodological versatility, this line of research lends itself well to exploring specific topics in relation to childhood in the media. Some of these topics are outlined under Major Themes in Children in the Media Research, and include Children and Conflict, Child Abuse, Children and Social Justice, Children and Consumption, and Girlhood, Boyhood, and Queer Childhoods.
Reference Works
In addition to more focused reference works compiled by scholars with specific interest in children and the media, including Arnett 2007 and Drotner and Livingstone 2008, children in the media is also covered by wider reference works on childhood studies and sociology of childhood. These include Qvortrup, et al. 2009, and more recently, Cook 2020.
Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen, ed. Encyclopedia of Children, Adolescents, and the Media. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2007.
An interdisciplinary and global two-volume encyclopedia with four hundred entries, with more focus on media effects on children. Includes entries on parental involvement, regulation, and policy.
Cook, Daniel Thomas, ed. SAGE Encyclopedia of Childhood Studies. London: SAGE, 2020.
Up-to-date reference resource on childhood studies, with entries on several topics related to children in the media, including children in film, representations of youth, child actors, and more.
Drotner, Kirsten, and Sonia Livingstone. The International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture. London: SAGE, 2008.
This is a carefully put together reference work that contextualizes children and young people’s media cultures, and outlines concerns about children’s relations to the media. It has a multidisciplinary and global framework.
Qvortrup, Jens, William A. Corsaro, and Michael-Sebastian Honig, eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
This is one of the most influential interdisciplinary reference works on childhood studies, with chapters on children and media, including television and digital media.
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Article
- Abduction of Children
- Aboriginal Childhoods
- Addams, Jane
- ADHD, Sociological Perspectives on
- Adolescence and Youth
- Adolescent Consent to Medical Treatment
- Adoption and Fostering
- Adoption and Fostering, History of Cross-Country
- Adoption and Fostering in Canada, History of
- Advertising and Marketing, Psychological Approaches to
- Advertising and Marketing, Sociocultural Approaches to
- Africa, Children and Young People in
- African American Children and Childhood
- After-school Hours and Activities
- Aggression across the Lifespan
- Ancient Near and Middle East, Child Sacrifice in the
- Animals, Children and
- Animations, Comic Books, and Manga
- Anthropology of Childhood
- Archaeology of Childhood
- Ariès, Philippe
- Attachment in Children and Adolescents
- Australia, History of Adoption and Fostering in
- Australian Indigenous Contexts and Childhood Experiences
- Autism, Females and
- Autism, Medical Model Perspectives on
- Autobiography and Childhood
- Benjamin, Walter
- Bereavement
- Best Interest of the Child
- Bioarchaeology of Childhood
- Body, Children and the
- Body Image
- Bourdieu, Pierre
- Boy Scouts/Girl Guides
- Boys and Fatherhood
- Breastfeeding
- Bronfenbrenner, Urie
- Bruner, Jerome
- Buddhist Views of Childhood
- Byzantine Childhoods
- Child and Adolescent Anger
- Child Beauty Pageants
- Child Homelessness
- Child Mortality, Historical Perspectives on Infant and
- Child Protection
- Child Protection, Children, Neoliberalism, and
- Child Public Health
- Child Trafficking and Slavery
- Childcare Manuals
- Childhood and Borders
- Childhood and Empire
- Childhood as Discourse
- Childhood, Confucian Views of Children and
- Childhood, Memory and
- Childhood Studies and Leisure Studies
- Childhood Studies in France
- Childhood Studies, Interdisciplinarity in
- Childhood Studies, Posthumanism and
- Childhoods in the United States, Sports and
- Childism
- Children and Dance
- Children and Film-Making
- Children and Money
- Children and Social Media
- Children and Sport
- Children and Sustainable Cities
- Children as Language Brokers
- Children as Perpetrators of Crime
- Children, Code-switching and
- Children in the Industrial Revolution
- Children with Autism in a Brazilian Context
- Children, Young People, and Architecture
- Children's Humor
- Children’s Museums
- Children’s Parliaments
- Children’s Reading Development and Instruction
- Children's Views of Childhood
- China, Japan, and Korea
- China’s One Child Policy
- Citizenship
- Civil Rights Movement and Desegregation
- Class
- Classical World, Children in the
- Clothes and Costume, Children’s
- Colonial America, Child Witches in
- Colonization and Nationalism
- Color Symbolism and Child Development
- Common World Childhoods
- Competitiveness, Children and
- Conceptual Development in Early Childhood
- Congenital Disabilities
- Constructivist Approaches to Childhood
- Consumer Culture, Children and
- Consumption, Child and Teen
- Conversation Analysis and Research with Children
- Critical Approaches to Children’s Work and the Concept of ...
- Critical Perspectives on Boys’ Circumcision
- Crying
- Cultural psychology and human development
- Debt and Financialization of Childhood
- Disability
- Discipline and Punishment
- Discrimination
- Disney, Walt
- Divorce And Custody
- Dolls
- Domestic Violence
- Drawings, Children’s
- Early Childhood
- Early Childhood Care and Education, Selected History of
- Eating disorders and obesity
- Education: Learning and Schooling Worldwide
- Environment, Children and the
- Environmental Education and Children
- Ethics in Research with Children
- Eugenics
- Evolutionary Studies of Childhood
- Family Meals
- Fandom (Fan Studies)
- Fathers
- Female Genital Cutting
- Feral and "Wild" Children
- Fetuses and Embryos
- Filicide
- Films about Children
- Films for Children
- Folk Tales, Fairy Tales and
- Folklore
- Food
- Foundlings and Abandoned Children
- Freud, Anna
- Freud, Sigmund
- Friends and Peers: Psychological Perspectives
- Froebel, Friedrich
- Gangs
- Gay and Lesbian Parents
- Gender and Childhood
- Generations, The Concept of
- Geographies, Children's
- Gifted and Talented Children
- Globalization
- Growing Up in the Digital Era
- Hall, G. Stanley
- Happiness in Children
- Hindu Views of Childhood and Child Rearing
- Hispanic Childhoods (U.S.)
- Historical Approaches to Child Witches
- History of Childhood in America
- History of Childhood in Canada
- HIV/AIDS, Growing Up with
- Homeschooling
- Humor and Laughter
- Images of Childhood, Adulthood, and Old Age in Children’s ...
- Infancy and Ethnography
- Infant Mortality in a Global Context
- Innocence and Childhood
- Institutional Care
- Intercultural Learning and Teaching with Children
- Islamic Views of Childhood
- Japan, Childhood in
- Juvenile Detention in the US
- Key, Ellen
- Klein, Melanie
- Labor, Child
- Latin America
- Learning, Language
- Learning to Write
- Legends, Contemporary
- Literary Representations of Childhood
- Literature, Children's
- Love and Care in the Early Years
- Magazines for Teenagers
- Maltreatment, Child
- Maria Montessori
- Marxism and Childhood
- Masculinities/Boyhood
- Material Cultures of Western Childhoods
- Mead, Margaret
- Media, Children in the
- Media Culture, Children's
- Medieval and Anglo-Saxon Childhoods
- Menstruation
- Middle Childhood
- Middle East
- Migration
- Miscarriage
- Missionaries/Evangelism
- Moral Development
- Moral Panics
- Mothers
- Multi-culturalism and Education
- Music and Babies
- Nation and Childhood
- Native American and Aboriginal Canadian Childhood
- New Reproductive Technologies and Assisted Conception
- Nursery Rhymes
- Organizations, Nongovernmental
- Orphans
- Parental Gender Preferences, The Social Construction of
- Parenting
- Pediatrics, History of
- Peer Culture
- Peter Pan
- Philosophy and Childhood
- Piaget, Jean
- Play
- Politics, Children and
- Postcolonial Childhoods
- Post-Modernism
- Poverty, Rights, and Well-being, Child
- Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica Childhoods
- Prostitution and Pornography, Child
- Psychoanalysis
- Queer Theory and Childhood
- Race and Ethnicity
- Racism, Children and
- Radio, Children, and Young People
- Readers, Children as
- Refugee and Displaced Children
- Reimagining Early Childhood Education, Reconceptualizing a...
- Relational Ontologies
- Relational Pedagogies
- Rights, Children’s
- Risk and Resilience
- Russia
- School Shootings
- Sex Education in the United States
- Sexuality
- Siblings
- Social and Cultural Capital of Childhood
- Social Habitus in Childhood
- Social Movements, Children's
- Social Policy, Children and
- Socialization and Child Rearing
- Socio-cultural Perspectives on Children's Spirituality
- Sociology of Childhood
- South African Birth to Twenty Project
- South Asia
- Special Education
- Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence
- Spock, Benjamin
- Sports and Organized Games
- Street Children
- Street Children And Brazil
- Subcultures
- Sure Start
- Teenage Fathers
- Teenage Pregnancy
- Television
- The Bible and Children
- The Harms and Prevention of Drugs and Alcohol on Children
- The Spaces of Childhood
- Theater for Children and Young People
- Theories, Pedagogic
- Tourism
- Toys
- Transgender Children
- Tweens
- Twins and Multiple Births
- Unaccompanied Migrant Children
- United Kingdom, History of Adoption and Fostering in the
- United States, Schooling in the
- Value of Children
- Views of Childhood, Jewish and Christian
- Violence, Children and
- Visual Representations of Childhood
- Voice, Participation, and Agency
- Vygotsky, Lev and His Cultural-historical Approach to Deve...
- War
- Welfare Law in the United States, Child
- Well-Being, Child
- Western Europe and Scandinavia
- Witchcraft in the Contemporary World, Children and
- Work and Apprenticeship, Children's
- Young Carers
- Young Children and Inclusion
- Young Children’s Imagination
- Young Lives
- Young People, Alcohol, and Urban Life
- Young People and Climate Activism
- Young People and Disadvantaged Environments in Affluent Co...