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= Children effects with Media = "Media ( usually used with a plural verb ) refers to the means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet, that reach or influence people widely." (refrence). Due to this wide range of spread information; media branches off into different forms. "These mediums play different roles when it comes to communicating to the audiences at large, as well as altering their perceptions."

1. Social media (internet)
"The emergence of Internet-based social media has made it possible for one person to communicate with hundreds or even thousands of other people about products and the companies that provide them" This enables users the opportunity to extend their reach of communication over a virtual space. "Social media is a hybrid element of the promotion mix because in a traditional sense it enables companies to talk to their customers, while in a nontraditional sense it enables customers to talk directly to one another." The development of the internet has provided audiences with far more ways to communicate through a virtual reality. "The Internet has made it possible to contact others worldwide, nationally and locally; to send emails and be a part of chat rooms and conferences; blogging with discussion boards, opinion polls and forums; webcam viewing; global mapping using 'Google Earth'; sending and receiving images and files; downloading from the Internet through websites; signing up to a social networking websites; radio stations with live streaming; video streaming and lots more." News can now be viewed through a virtual satellite therefore allowing news stations to report on events on site and more efficiently. Reporters are also able to broadcast this news online via internet to mass media in a hi-tech way. "Using radio waves and frequency, not to mention satellite transmissions - we are able to access a whole new domain when it comes down to getting what we want and need within minutes." This revolution of the internet has made quick communication, effective business methods, profit and accessing free information accessable to a wide range of people in an easy way.

2. Print media (Newspaper)
This type of media content differs from other forms of mass media due to it focusing on showcasing worldwide content. Print media has been around for longer than any other type of media created. "Newspapers are a worldwide medium, that have been around far back to Julius Caesar's time, in the form of government bulletins. With the industrial revolution, newspaper were made possible to print and were used as a means of communicating in the year 1814, which kick started journalism."

3. Entertainment media (Television)
Television has evolved continuously from black and white screens to colour TV. Plasma screens and LCD TV's has changed this medium that began in the 1930's. Televison initially began with the intent of being used to display news and provide entertainment for its audiences although through time television been used to provide its audience with a far bigger selection of media. "Now, we have advertising, that has been incorporated into entertainment and news, to give viewers a chance to avail from products/services. There's also a new way of accessing the Internet, by using a 'Web TV' that is hooked up instead of a PC, to browse information, and watch streaming videos on large LCD screens." New programs such as talk shows, movies, cooking shoes and much more have took television to a new level incorportating the market place as a way to make income.

4. Broadcast media (Radio)
An evolutionary development for media was the radio. This new form of reaching mass audiences conveyed and transferred information by using sound to grasp the attention of its audiences. "Being the first communications medium that could transfer or transmit live voices over long distances, radio was and still is one of the most effective medium. People depended and still depend upon it as a source of important news, and information." World War 1 showcased the time period where mass media and radio was evidently relied upon the most for news and information. "Radio was used to send diplomatic messages when Germany found out the British had tapped its cables. It made itself a medium that audiences found as their connection to all that happened worldwide."

Etymology of Childhood Studies:
Childhood is socially constructed depending on what culture one is surrounded by. What it means to be a child differs widely therefore the surrounding society constructs the experiences a child would have going forward. Children are competent social actors worth listening too while being worthy of study. Children are able to construct the world they live in and are not just passive beings that life just passes through. Evidently, children hold value in the life they are living while gaining information they choose to hold onto. The modern idea of childhood coexisted alongside the development of childhood studies. "Since the 1990s, the term childhood studies is closely associated with the so-called ‘new sociology of childhood’ (James, Jenks, & Prout, 1998; Qvortrup, 1994) which has positioned itself against the social psychological and cognitive developmental studies of childhood that was until then the mainstream approach within the social sciences." Other disciplines such as anthropology, literary studies, history and gender studies have also worked to analyze the ideologies around children and childhood. The relevant factor within all of these approaches is the evident intersection between children and media consumption. The social study of childhood has become, in a relatively short time, an international and interdisciplinary research field with a recognized place in the scientific community and an acknowledged voice in the public discourse about children (Qvortrup, 2005b). "The adoption by the United Nations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, and its associated international implementation process, was an important element in this success story." Childhood studies is criticized for not focusing on the child’s development into a full functioning adults, meaning-making activity along with a child’s present reality. Instead it orients its analysis around the perspective of the child and his/her lack of capabilities. Through both scientific and political approaches regarding children and childhood, research has shown that there have been more than two hundred years of different ideas and methods. These methods continuously attempt to gain insight on the mind of a child, their actions and the world they see themselves in. “Parallel to the rise of organized modernity, children and ‘their worlds’ were more and more seen as ‘constructed’ and constituted differently from adults, and, thus, a specific and more and more differentiated treatment of the ‘strangeness’ had to be developed to gain knowledge of the inner world of the ‘other’(Honig, 1999).” Within this educational research, children and the study of childhood can be respective not based on an adult perspective of a child’s world but rather the child being able to construct their own reality. “The fundamental motivation for this research agenda was to get more and deeper knowledge about the learning mechanisms and the parameters of the ‘normal development’ (cf. Smith, 2007) of children’s minds and bodies in respect of the idea that childhood and the development of children is controllable and that future citizenship can be ‘created’.” Due to the development of childhood studies, children’s culture is no longer solely viewed as just a stage in the life course. This period of time is seen as a crucial element of social structure and evidently maintains a important role in the child’s learning process.

Children effects with Media
"How childhood has been constructed and understood, both contemporaneously and in the past, is a key concern for scholars of children and the mass media". Popular commentary has stated how children are especially vulnerable to manipulation, exploitation as well as influence through the media and what they are exposed too. This issue has creating growing concerns for audience members who have children subject to these often 'invisible' practices of children marketers. "There is central emphasis on the ways in which children define and construct their social identities through talk about television and other media." . There is a sophistication around children being users of media which can lead to neglect of other knowledge they should be exposed too as well. "The potential impact of harmful material defines children as a special audience with crucial needs and distinctive characteristics." . Media anywhere from television to iPhones to computers are evidently a dominant influential factor in the lives of youth within this society argued to be technological based. Although consumption of media in children has not been proven to be a leading cause of any major health issues; evidence proves that it is a large contributing factor of multiple risks and health factors that youth is being negatively influenced by. This constant consumption of media impacts the developmental process as well as the attentiveness youth is able to withhold. Media literacy and different forms of media technology largely benefit society in more ways than one. These uses enhance knowledge, expand connectedness and develop further health studies. “The overwhelming penetration of media into children’s and teenagers’ lives necessitates a renewed commitment to changing the way paediatricians, parents, teachers, and society address the use of media to mitigate potential health risks and foster appropriate media use.” Recent studies have shown that youth spends more time interacting with forms of media then they do in school making it the leading activity for children and teenagers. “Presence of a television (TV) set in a child’s bedroom increases these figures even more, and 71% of children and teenagers report having a TV in their bedroom.” Adolescents are avid multi-taskers often engaging with multiple types of media technologies at once. “But multitasking teenagers are inefficient. For example, using a mobile phone while driving may result in both poor communication and dangerous driving.” This predominant use of media is not the only thing adults are fearing for youth; what is on the screen that adolescents are consuming is another large concern for parents. “This optimism contrasts strongly with another equally long-standing and persistent debate regarding children and media, namely that concerned with the perceived threats or risk of harm to children of particular forms of media representations or appropriations.” This controversy has gained public attention through a moral panic in the eyes of parents fearing the later risks. “Questions of media harm become drawn into urgent debates over the regulation and governance of both media and childhood, with the laudable desire to protect children from harm uneasily balanced against both adult freedom of expression and, less noticed but equally important, children’s own rights to expression, exploration and, even, risk-taking. (Millwood Hargrave & Livingstone, 2006).” It is evident how the excitement around empowering new media technology in contrast with the fear regarding potentially harmful media are both debates over societal and cultural values effecting children of the future. “They concern, in short, the potential and actual meaning-making processes of communication and social interaction, and these are precisely the defining features of the cultural dimension of life.” These media influences construct children today as well as empowers them. More significantly, children are provided much more agency in terms of personal choice and decision making online. “As the historian Gadlin (1978: 253) observes, ‘the most important characteristic of contemporary child rearing is the continued diminution of parental authority and responsibility’, a claim one might extend to adult authority more generally (including teachers, politicians, community leaders, etc). To many it seems that new forms of interactive and individualized media especially further the emergence of a reverse generation gap by which children are now teaching their parents, transforming normative expectations regarding socialization.”

Statistics of Children and Media
"Nearly all children and teenagers have Internet access (84%), often high-speed, and one-third have access in their own bedroom."

"New technology has arrived in a big way: some 75% of 12- to 17-year-olds now own cell phones, up from 45% in 2004."

"Nearly all teenagers (88%) use text messaging. Teenagers actually talk less on their phones than any other age group except for senior citizens,5,6 but in the first 3 months of 2011, teenagers 13 through 17 years of age sent an average of 3364 texts per month."

"One study found that 20% of adolescents either sent or received a sexually explicit image by cell phone or Internet."

"According to a recent study, the average 8- to 10-year-old spends nearly 8 hours a day with a variety of different media, and older children and teenagers spend >11 hours per day."

"TV remains the predominant medium (>4 hours per day) but nearly one-third of TV programming is viewed on alternative platforms (computers, iPads, or cell phones)."

History of Childhood Media
The ideologies around childhood and the media are constantly evolving therefore further investigating has gone into these theories over the years. "Over the past two decades, childhood has gradually emerged as a focus of concern in academic Media and Cultural Studies, although it still remains fairly marginal to the field, at least in English-speaking countries." . The emergence of further development into contemporary childhood studies as a multidisciplinary field is to study the historical development throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. "By the end of the nineteenth century, conceptions of children as innocent, ignorant, dependent, vulnerable, incompetent and in need of protection and discipline were widespread." . Throughout different social classes and groups these ideologies about children and media had widespread after the twentieth century. Due to this outbreak of knowledge, these social groupings reinforced the effort to turn the family and school environment into the ‘proper place’ for children to grow properly and cultivate. This was the ideology that children do not belong in a public setting but should be placed in an ideal reality at all times rather then the real world. “When poor children in India with little or no schooling get the opportunity to take up computing, access the internet and enter game worlds, questions begin to be asked about these children’s position in public life, the material and symbolic resources which grant them a voice and a new visibility, and the institutional consequences of such ‘digital inclusion’. Questions began to arise regarding the development of a child’s identity as well as their inclusion within a community based environment through this new media. Debates regarding children’s use of new media has emerged due to the overwhelming amount of modern media in the 19th century. This evolutionary shift transforms childhood showcasing the ideology that media shapes global discourses within society.

Jean Piaget with Media
"Swiss Jean Piaget’s developmental psychology has provided the dominant research paradigm for many decades, with the focus on the individual child’s cognitive development in “ages and stages” that are defined in universal terms with little attention being paid to socio-cultural divergences." Piaget argues the child is an active participant within the development process of its growth period therefore this role is less social and more cognitive. The environment the child is surrounded by stimulates learning with the engaged curiosity shown through the child. This driving force of curiosity is a very vulnerable characteristic that must be nurtured properly. Piaget argues how family is central to the socialization process of a child. The child’s development relies on these interpersonal forms of interaction and play therefore less attention is paid to norms, values and social practices. Piaget emphasizes throughout her studies the ways in which media aids the child’s cognitive development as they glide through each stage of their growth period. As the child is working to understand the next stage of development they are presented with social and cultural importances of learning. “They have also examined children’s developing understanding of the ‘reality claims’ of television, proposing stages of progression towards a mature adult understanding (Dorr, 1986) and exploring the confusions about modality that, productively, stimulate the move to the next stage (Hodge & Tripp, 1986) and, ultimately, to adulthood.” This ideology regarding the importance of learning through culture and socialization was developed by Piaget’s contemporary, Vygotsky who identified how important social interaction was to a child’s developmental stages. “Vygotsky, who stressed how child development is mediated by social interactions with others, so that the child gains not only cognitive sophistication but also the shared symbolic knowledge of its culture and, thus, of his or herself (Vygotsky, 1934/1986).” This analysis of media and communication directly effecting the child remains underdeveloped in relation to the further analytical development of media literacy and its effects instead. “Piaget’s work on intelligence and child development has had a global impact on paediatric care and practice.” Piaget’s ‘genetic epistemology’ works to display the structure of thought descriptively while dissecting nature itself done through learning theory. Piaget’s work impacts all types of social sciences strongly contributing to philosophy. “Piaget suggests that all children acquire cognitive competencies according to a universal sequence.” This ideology has been criticized due to his ideal of adult cognitive competence. Piaget views this through a particularly Western philosophical ideal rather then viewing the world world with the concepts and principles of Western logic. For example, “Piaget was concerned to understand how the adult human comes to acquire the Kantian categories of space, time and causality.”

Paediatricians should recommend the following to parents:

 * "Limit the amount of total entertainment screen time to <1 to 2 hours per day."
 * "Discourage screen media exposure for children <2 years of age."
 * "Keep the TV set and Internet-connected electronic devices out of the child’s bedroom."
 * "Monitor what media their children are using and accessing, including any Web sites they are visiting and social media sites they may be using."
 * "Coview TV, movies, and videos with children and teenagers, and use this as a way of discussing important family values."
 * "Model active parenting by establishing a family home use plan for all media. As part of the plan, enforce a mealtime and bedtime “curfew” for media devices, including cell phones. Establish reasonable but firm rules about cell phones, texting, Internet, and social media use."