Television and Child Development

Unique in that it directly combines communication and psychological perspectives for a truly comprehensive look at children's television experiences, this book addresses the complexity of the interactions among children, content, technological, and contextual variables, and provides a broader conceptualization of both theoretical and practical issues than has been previously available.

The first section of this text deals with children's cognitive processing of television information, addressing how information is extracted, the effect certain kinds of content have on children, and how children and content variables interact. The second section deals with television's impact on various areas of children's social and emotional development and behavior, once again with special consideration paid to differences among children and content variables. The final section of Television and Child Development offers a review of specific theoretical perspectives from psychological and communication literature. It is the author's hope that this integrative approach will allow researchers to better understand and explain television's influence and impact on children.