Children, Youth and Media

The Children, Youth and Media section serves as the Europe-wide network for researchers and practitioners interested in a broad spectrum of media- and communication- related activities undertaken by, for and about children and young people in a mediated society.

This section aims to foster multidisciplinary perspectives on a wide range of research topics, addressing children and youth from infancy to young adulthood, whether framed in terms of child and adolescent psychosocial development, critical constructions of ‘youth’, cultural analyses of childhood in diverse settings, media effects or media design issues. In our discussions and reflections, we consider variables such as age, gender, SES, ethnicity, nationality, cultural and family experiences, media affordances and more. As children’s and youths’ experiences of media diversify in an increasingly complex media landscape, drawing together diverse research insights and projects becomes all the more important and fascinating. This explains why we create a platform for scholars working within various related field not only limited to media and communication, but also welcoming historians, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, legal researchers, child-computer interaction designers, literature specialists, educationalists, clinicians and more. The result is a lively set of deliberations over theory and methods, and a sensitivity for the societal implications.