Renee Hobbs, director of the Media Education Lab at the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island, cautions us to stop using the term "fake news" with students and be more precise about the types of disinformation prevalent in content today, from hoaxes and satire to clickbait. In this article, she…

Can parents identify leadership lessons in children's media and use them to teach their children leadership? Thirty participants were asked to answer questions about leadership in children's media before and after watching clips of a popular G-rated children's movie. The results from the questionnaire indicated that parents do recognize leadership…

Social studies teachers are tasked with aiding their students' abilities to engage in public debate and make politically sound decisions. One way the authors have found to help facilitate this is to draw connections between content knowledge and current political conversations through the use of clips from "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." While…

Certain popular films contextualize the access, use, and interpretation of information within a political and social framework. As a result, these films function as alternative pedagogical sites for analysis and critique, facilitating critical thinking about information beyond the library and the classroom, and leading students to a deeper…

Conferences and colleagues can provide some guidance to those who are searching for new ways to understand their alumni and those who are looking for insights into fundraising, ideas for coping with change, or new approaches to their career in advancement. However, the author suggests that sometimes it's best to turn to that age-old source of…

Through television, many different images of ethnic, cultural, and ability groups are presented. Different people perceive these images in different ways. These perceptions affect how people value themselves and judge and interact with others. This article first summaries research on TV images and people's meaning and reaction to them. Second, it…

Research on the lack of civic and political engagement on the part of today's youth has relied on traditional, often quantitative, measures of political knowledge that may miss important elements of the process. Using an ethnographic approach with a group of inner-city high school students, our study reveals a richer construction of students'…

Identifies four motivations adolescents report for viewing graphic horror films: gore watching, thrill watching, independent watching, and problem watching. Argues that viewing motivations are predictors of responses to graphic horror. Finds that viewing motivations were related to viewers' cognitive and affective responses and a tendency to…

A study examined use of MPAA television advisory ratings in the decision-making of parents of 129 gifted children. In comparison to parents of 459 typical children, the parents of gifted children were more likely to utilize TV ratings information in the mediation of their children's television viewing and were more concerned with the effects of…

With the help of parents, television can expand a child's world and be a springboard to reading. This brochure discusses things parents and caregivers can do to make television a partner in helping children grow and learn. It suggests: make a "TV plan"; getting involved while children watch television; using the VCR and videos; and turning TV time…

This classroom guide and "Better Viewing" guide accompany a 28-minute videotape on television literacy called "Master Control." The classroom guide explains the purpose behind the video, pointing out that "Master Control" is not about doing away with TV, but about a youngster's getting the most out of his or her TV…

This paper discusses the relationship of reading and television and describes a "critical viewing skills" program ("Spudbuster") for combatting the effects of prolonged TV watching. The paper enumerates helpful suggestions for both parents and teachers to ensure that children's television watching is not excessive and that what…

This booklet (Practitioner's Guide), in both an English version and a Spanish version, is intended to help parents apply the findings of research to parental mediation of television viewing by their children, including gifted children. Research facts are briefly summarized and implications for the home are drawn. Suggestions for parents are…

This paper presents a 2-week unit on stereotype and bias in the media (using wolves as an example) to develop children's critical viewing of television and to develop their thinking skills. The paper begins with a description of the daily grammar, weekly spelling, and science activities, and then presents a description of class activities for each…

The communication technologies of television and common carriers have an important correlativity to message formation, due to their ability to bring the public information at lightning speed. Historicity, the science of writing history, can be used by the television critic in order to critique national and international broadcasting. Blacks,…