Kids and Media in America

This 2003 book was the first comprehensive national sample study of US young people's media use.

Donald F. Roberts (Author), Ulla G. Foehr (Author), Victoria J. Rideout (With), Mollyanne Brodie (With)

9780521821025, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 September 2003

408 pages, 73 b/w illus. 228 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.71 kg

"The study is well-designed and well-executed." Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare

This 2003 book reports the only national, random sample survey of US children and adolescents' use of all of the various media available to them conducted in at least the past 30 years. In addition to providing the first comprehensive look at how media-saturated our young people's lives have become, it is the first study to examine young people's overall media budgets, and the first to attempt to describe distinctly different types of young media users. Extensive background information and chapters devoted to each of the various media, to the overall media budget, and to particular types of media users, enables the authors to describe perhaps the most detailed map of US young people's media behavior ever assembled.

1. The changing media landscape
2. The measurement of media behavior: measuring young people's media behavior
The samples
Questionnaires
3. The media environment
Media in the home
Multiple media homes
Media in young people's bedrooms
Household television orientation
Summing up the media environment
4. Screen media: television, videos, and movies: Amount of screen exposure
Content preferences
The context of exposure
Attitudes toward television
Summing up screen media exposure
5. Audio media: radio, tapes and CDs: attitudes toward television
Music content preferences
Audio media: a coda
6. Print media: books, magazines, and newspapers: amount of print exposure
Content preferences: what young people read
Summing up print behavior
7. Interactive media: who uses computers?
Amount of computer use
Videogames
Content preferences
Summing up interactive media use
8. Patterns of overall media consumption: exposure versus use
Overall media exposure
9. Media behavior: a youth perspective: personal contentedness and media use
Academic performance and media use
Heavy versus light media users
A typology of young people's media behavior
10. Summary and conclusions.

Subject Areas: Sociology & anthropology [JH], Media studies [JFD]