International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture

This essential volume brings together the work of internationally-renowned researchers, each experts in their field, in order to capture the diversity of children and young people's media cultures around the world. Why are the media such a crucial part of childrens daily lives? Are they becoming more important, more influential, and in what ways? Or does a historical perspective reveal how past media have long framed childrens cultural horizons or, perhaps, how families - however constituted - have long shaped the ways children relate to media?In addressing such questions, the contributors present detailed empirical cases to uncover how children weave together diverse forms and technologies to create a rich symbolic tapestry which, in turn, shapes their social relationships. At the same time, many concerns - even public panics - arise regarding childrens engagement with media, leading the contributors also to inquire into the risky or problematic aspects of todays highly mediated world.Deliberately selected to represent as many parts of the globe as possible, and with a commitment to recognizing both the similarities and differences in children and young peoples lives - from China to Denmark, from Canada to India, from Japan to Iceland, from - the authors offer a rich contextualization of childrens engagement with their particular media and communication environment, while also pursuing cross-cutting themes in terms of comparative and global trends.Each chapter provides a clear orientation for new readers to the main debates and core issues addressed, combined with a depth of analysis and argumentation to stimulate the thinking of advanced students and established scholars. Since children and young people are a focus of study across different disciplines, the volume is thoroughly multi-disciplinary. Yet since children and young people are all too easily neglected by these same disciplines, this volume hopes to accord their interests and concerns they surely merit.