Abstract
This exploration of the relationship between media and children, with well-being at the centre, considers what theories and major scientific research perspectives have prevailed in the field as well as the assumptions, evidence and results over time. It posits the notion of “mediated well-being” and follows its evolution from early media studies (with a strong sociological component) to current multidisciplinary communication studies applied to complex cross and mixed media such as the Internet and its interactive platforms (with a strong psychological and cognitive component).
Such a complex analysis is conducted by considering three types of controversies around well-being in the media that have helped build the field of communication studies itself: effects versus uses, risk versus play, protection versus participation. These considerations lead to an examination of the main methodological approaches adopted in the area and outline a research agenda for further exploration of the relation between media and well-being. This synthetic analysis suggests that the issue of children’s well-being has been central to the construction of the field of media studies in its origins, that content issues have been central to policymaking, and that children should be more incorporated into the research of what happens in the current situation of a two-way shuttle screen, where a lot of transmedia activities are generated by them and for them.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Aarseth, E. (2003). Playing research: Methodological approaches to game analysis. Proceedings of the digital Arts & culture conference, Melbourne. Available online at www.spilforskning.dk./gameapproaches2.pdf
Allard, L., & Blondeau, L. (2007). Culture numérique, cultures expressives. Médiamorphoses, 21, 18–54.
Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2002). The effects of media violence on society. Science, 295, 2377–2379.
Bandura, A., Blanchard, E. B., & Ritter, B. (1969). The relative efficacy of desensitization and modeling approaches for inducing behavioral, affective and attitudinal changes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13, 173–199.
Barbero, J. M. (1993). Communication, culture and hegemony: From media to mediations. London: Sage.
Bauman, Z. (2006). Liquid fear. London: Polity.
Beck, U. (1992, 1st published 1986). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. London: Sage.
Ben-Arieh, A. (2008). The child indicators movement: Past, present, and future. Child Indicator Research, 1, 3–16.
Ben-Arieh, A., & George, R. M. (Eds.). (2006). Indicators of children’s well-being: Understanding their role, usage and policy influence. New York: Springer.
Bennett, L. W. (2008). Changing citizenship in the digital age. In W. L. Bennett (Ed.), Civic life online: Learning how digital media can engage youth (pp. 1–24). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Berger, C. R., & Chaffee, S. H. (Eds.). (1987). Handbook of communication science. Newbury Park: Sage.
Blumer, H. (1971). Social problems as collective behavior. Social Problems, 18(3), 298–306.
Blumler, J. G., & Katz, E. (1974). The uses of mass communications: Current perspectives on gratifications research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Bovill, M., & Livingstone, S. (2001). Bedroom culture and the privatization of media use. In S. Livingstone & M. Bovill (Eds.), Children and their changing media environment: A European comparative study (pp. 179–200). Mahwah: Erlbaum.
Brown, J. (2002). Mass media influences on sexuality. Journal of Sex Research, 39(22), 42–45.
Brown, J., & L’Engle, K. (2009). X-rated: sexual attitudes and behaviors associated with U.S. Early adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit media. Communication Research, 36, 129–151.
Buckingham, D. (2000a). After the death of childhood: Growing up in the age of electronic media. London: Polity.
Buckingham, D. (2000b). The making of citizens: Young people, news and politics. London: Routledge.
Buckingham, D. (2002). Children and new media. In L. Lievrouw & S. Livingstone (Eds.), Handbook of new media. London: Sage.
Buckingham, D. (2003). Media education: Literacy, learning and contemporary culture. Cambridge: Polity.
Casas, F. (2008). Children’s Cultures and new technologies: A gap between generations? some reflections from the Spanish context. In A. James & A. L. James (Eds.), European childhoods: Cultures, politics and participation (pp. 61–82). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cohen, S. (1973). Folk devils and moral panics. St Albans: Paladin.
Critcher, C. (2003). Moral panics and the media. Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Czitrom, D. (1982). Media and the American mind. Durham: University of North Carolina Press.
Dahlgren, P., & Olsson, T. (2007). Young activists, political horizons and the internet: Adapting the net to one’s purposes. In B. D. Loader (Ed.), Young citizens in the digital age political engagement, young people and new media (pp. 68–81). London: Routledge.
De Singly, F. (Ed.). (2004). Enfants-adultes: Vers une égalité de statuts? Paris: Universalis.
De Singly, F. (2007). Sociologie de la famille contemporaine. Paris: Armand Colin.
Eron, L. D., & Huesmann, L. R. (1980). Adolescent aggression and television. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 347, 319–331.
Fish, S. (1980). Is there a text in this class? The authority of interpretive communities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Fiske, J. (1992). The cultural economy of fandom. In L. Lewis (Ed.), The adoring audience. London: Routledge.
Flyvbjerg, B. (2004). Five misunderstandings about case-study research. In C. Seale, G. Gobo, J. F. Gubrium, & D. Silverman (Eds.), Qualitative research practice (pp. 420–434). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Frau-Meigs, D. (2004). La réglementation des contenus à la télévision: enjeux et limites des solutions actuelles. Questions de communication, hors série “Télévision, justice, regulation”.
Frau-Meigs, D. (2006). Media regulation, self-regulation and education: Debunking some myths and retooling some working paradigms. In C. Von Feilitzen (Ed.), Regulation, awareness, empowerment. Young people and harmful media content in the digital age (pp. 83–100). Nordicom: Goteborg University.
Frau-Meigs, D. (2007). Qui a détourné le 11 septembre? Information et démocratie aux Etats-Unis. Bruxelles et Paris: De Boeck Université/INA.
Frau-Meigs, D., & Jehel, S. (2003). Médias, Jeunes, Violence. Economica: Paris.
Frau-Meigs, D. (2011a). Penser la société de l’écran. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne nouvelle.
Frau-Meigs, D. (2011b). Socialisation des jeunes et éducation aux médias. Toulouse: Eres.
Frau-Meigs, D. (2011c). Media matters in the cultural contradictions of the information society. Towards a human-rights based governance. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
Frau-Meigs, D., & Jehel, S. (1997). Les écrans de la violence. Enjeux économiques et responsabilités sociales. Paris: Economica.
Frau-Meigs, D., & Meigs, D. J. (2009). Browser games and online safety. Global Media Journal
Frau-Meigs, D., & Torrent, J. (Eds.). (2009). Mapping media education policies worldwide. New York: UN Alliance of Civilisations and UNESCO.
Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description. The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic.
Gerbner, G. (1986). The symbolic context of action and communication. In R. L. Rosnow & M. Georgoudi (Eds.), Contextualism and understanding in behavioral science (pp. 251–268). New York: Praeger.
Gerbner, G., & Gross, L. (1976). Living with television. The violence profile. Journal of Communication, 26, 173–199.
Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M., & Signorielli, N. (1980). The ‘mainstreaming’ of America: Violence profile no. 11. Journal of Communication, 30(3), 10–29.
Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M., & Signorielli, N. (1986). Living with television: The dynamics of the cultivation process. In J. Bryant & D. Zillman (Eds.), Perspectives on media effects (pp. 17–40). Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Gerrig, R. (1993). Experiencing narrative worlds: On the psychological activities of reading. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Goldman, S., Booker, A., & McDermott, M. (2008). Mixing the digital, social, and cultural: Learning, identity, and agency in youth participation. In D. Buckingham (Ed.), Youth, identity, and digital media (pp. 185–206). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Gonnet, J. (2003). Les médias et la curiosité du monde. Paris: PUF.
Greenfield, P. M. (2009). Technology and informal education: What is taught, what is learned. Science, 323, 69–71.
Greenfield, P. M., & Subrahmanyam, K. (2012). Digital media and youth: Games, internet and development. In D. Singer & J. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media (2nd ed., pp. 75–96). London/New Delhi: Sage.
Gross, E. F., Juvonen, J., & Gable, S. L. (2002). Internet use and well-being in adolescence. Journal of Social Issues, 58, 75–90.
Hall, S., Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J., & Roberts, B. (1978). Policing the crisis: Mugging, the state and law and order. London: Macmillan.
Hall, S. (1980). Encoding and decoding in the television discourse. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis (Eds.), Culture, media, language (pp. 128–138). London: Hutchinson.
Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. London: Sage.
Hodkinson, P. (2007). Youth cultures: A critical outline of key debates. In P. Hodkinson & W. Deicke (Eds.), Youth culture: Scenes, subcultures and tribes. London: Routledge.
Huntemann, N., & Morgan, M. (2012). Mass media and identity development. In D. G. Singer & J. L. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Huston, A. C., Wartella, E., & Donnerstein, E. (1998). Measuring the effects of sexual content in the media. Menlo Park: Kaiser Family Foundation.
Jacquinot, G. (Ed.). (2002). Les jeunes et les médias. Perspectives de recherche dans le monde. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Jehel, S. (2010). Parents, médias: Qui éduque les pré-adolescents? Toulouse: Eres.
Jenkins, J. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.
Johnson, J., et al. (2002). Television viewing and aggressive behavior during adolescence and adulthood. Science, 295, 2468–2471.
Katz, E., & Liebes, T. (1992). The export of meaning: Cross-cultural readings of “Dallas”. Oxford University Press.
Kotilainen, S. (2009). Promoting youth civic participation with media production: The case of youth voice editorial board. In D. Frau-Meigs & J. Torrent (Eds.), Mapping media education policies in the world. New York: United Nations Alliance of Civilizations.
Kotilainen, S., & Rantala, L. (2009). From seekers to activists: Youth civic identities in relations to media. Information, Communication & Society, 12(5), 658–677.
Lea, M., & Spears, R. (1995). Love at first byte? Building personal relationships over computer networks. In J. T. Wood & S. Duck (Eds.), Understudied relationships: Off the beaten track (pp. 197–233). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Livingstone, S. (2002). Young people and new media. Childhood and the changing media environment. London: Sage.
Livingstone, S., Couldry, N., & Markham, T. (2007). Youthful steps towards civic participation: does the Internet help? In B. D. Loader (Ed.), Political engagement, young people and the Internet (pp. 21–34). London: Routledge.
Livingstone, S., & Lievrouw, L. (2006). Handbook of new media: Social shaping and social consequences. London: Sage.
Lupton, D. (1999). Risk. London: Routledge.
Mares, M. L. (1996). Source confusion and cultivation. Human Communication Research, 23(2), 278–297.
McChesney, R. (1998). The political economy of global media. Media and Development, 45(4), 3–8.
McKenna and Bargh (2004). The internet and social life. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 573–90.
McQuail, D. (1994). Mass communication theory. London: Sage.
Millwood Hargrave, A., & Livingstone, S. (2006). Harm and offence in media content: A review of the evidence. Bristol: Intellect.
Mondzain, M.-J. (2002). L’image peut-elle tuer ? Paris: Bayard.
Montgomery, K. C. (2001). Digital kids: The new online children’s consumer culture. In D. G. Singer & J. L. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media (pp. 635–650). London: Sage.
Montgomery, K.C. (2012). Safeguards for youth in the digital marketing ecosystem. In Singer & Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children in the media (pp. 631–648).
Parks, M. R., & Floyd, K. (1996). Making friends in Cyberspace. Journal of Communication, 46(1), 80–97.
Parks, M. R., & Roberts, L. D. (1998). Making MOOsic: The development of personal relationships on-line and a comparison to their off-line counterparts. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 15, 517–538.
Peter, J., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2009). Adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit internet material and sexual satisfaction: A longitudinal study. Journal of Communication, 59(3), 407–433.
Potter, W. J. (2003). The 11 myths on media violence. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Potter, W. J., & Warren, R. (1996). Considering policies to protect children from TV violence. Journal of Communication, 46(4), 116–138.
Rideout, V. J., Vandewater, V. J., & Wartella, E. A. (2003). Zero to six: Electronic media in the lives of infants, toddlers and preschoolers. Menlo Park: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
Roskos-Ewoldsen, D., & Monahan, J. (2007). Communication and social cognition. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Rowland, W. (1983). The politics of TV violence: Policy uses of communication research. Beverley Hills: Sage.
Sefton-Green, J., & Sinker, R. (Eds.). (2000). Evaluating creativity: Making and learning by young people. London: Routledge.
Shanahan, J., & Morgan, M. (1999). Television and its viewers cultivation theory and research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shrum, L. J. (1995). Assessing the social influence of television: A social cognition perspective on cultivation effects. Communication Research, 22, 402–429.
Signorielli, N. (1989). Television and conceptions about sex roles: Maintaining conventionality and the status quo. Sex Roles, 21, 341–360.
Silverstone, R. (2005). The sociology of mediation and communication. In C. J. Calhoun, C. R. Bryan, & S. Turner (Eds.), The sage handbook of sociology (pp. 187–207). New York: Sage.
Singer, D. G., & Singer, J. L. (Eds.). (2001). Make-believe: Games and activities to foster imaginative play in children. Washington, DC: Magination.
Singer, D. G., & Singer, J. L. (Eds.). (2012). Handbook of children and the media (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Sirota, R. (2006). Eléments pour une sociologie de l’enfance. Rennes: Presse universitaire de Rennes.
Solove, D. G. (2008). Understanding privacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Spector, M., & Kitsuse, J. L. (1977). Constructing social problems. Cummings: Menlo Park.
Spigel, L. (1992). Make room for TV. Television and the family ideal in postwar America. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Stern, S. (2004). Expressions of identity online: Prominent features and gender differences in adolescents’ world wide Web home pages. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 48(2), 218–243.
Tichi, C. (1991). Electronic hearth: Creating an American television culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the internet. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Turkle, S. (2010). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York: Basic.
UNICEF. (2007). Child poverty in perspective: an overview of child well-being in rich countries, Innocenti Report Card 7. http://www.unicefirc.org/publications/pdf/rc7_eng.pdf. Accessed 1 Jan 2012.
Valkenburg, P. M., & Cantor, J. (2001). The development of a child into a consumer. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 22, 61–72.
Walther, J. B. (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal and hyper-personal interaction. Communication Research, 23(1), 3–43.
Wartella, E. (2012). Children and interactive media. In D. G. Singer & J. L. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Wellman, B., & Gulia, M. (1999). Virtual communities as communities: Net surfers don’t ride alone. In M. Smith & P. Kollock (Eds.), Communities in cyberspace (pp. 167–194). New York: Routledge.
Wellman, B., Haase, A.Q., Witte, J., & Hampton K. (2001). Does the Internet increase, decrease, or supplementsocialcapital? American Behavioral Science, 45, 436–455.
Wellman, B., & Haythornwhite (eds) (2002). The internet in everyday life. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Whitaker, R. C., & Burdette, H. L. (2005). Resurrecting free play in young children: Looking beyond fitness and fatness to attention, affiliation, and affect. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 159(1), 46–50.
Whitty, M., & Gavin, J. (2000). Age/sex/location: Uncovering the social cues in the development of online relationships. Cyberpsychology and Behaviour, 4(5), 623–630.
Williams, D., Consalvo, M., Kaplan, S., & Yee, N. (2009). Looking for gender: Gender roles and behaviors among online gamers. Journal of Communication, 59, 700–725.
Wolak, J., Mitchell, K. J., & Finklehor, D. (2003). Escaping or connecting? Characteristics of youth who form close online relationships. Journal of Adolescence, 26(1), 105–119.
Woodhead, M., & Montgomery, H. (Eds.). (2003). Understanding childhood: An interdisciplinary approach. London: Open University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Frau-Meigs, D. (2014). Mediated Well-Being from the Perspective of Media and Communication Studies. In: Ben-Arieh, A., Casas, F., Frønes, I., Korbin, J. (eds) Handbook of Child Well-Being. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_154
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_154
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-9062-1
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-9063-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law