Recent Publications

Publications and Posters from The Children's Digital Media Center Sites, Click here

Handbook of Children, Media, and Development. Boston, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Calvert, S.L. & Wilson, B.J. (Eds.)(2008).Boston, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Media use starts early, in the first year of life. Initial experiences are controlled by parents and caregivers, but increasingly give way to children's preferences as favorite programs and preferred modes of interaction emerge. The degree to which these experiences are a positive as well as a negative source of developmental change in cognitive, social, and health areas is an ongoing intellectual debate with significant implications for today's society.

The Handbook of Children, Media, and Development brings together an interdisciplinary group of experts in the fields of developmental psychology, developmental science, communication, and medicine to provide an authoritative, comprehensive, and up-to-date look at the empirical research on media and media policies within the field.

For more information about the book, click here.

Food Marketing to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity? J.M McGinnis, J. A. Gootman and V. I. Kraak (Eds) and the Institute of Medicine Committee on Food Marketing and the Diets of Children and Youth. (2006). Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.

Creating an environment in which children in the United States grow up healthy should be a high priority for the nation. Yet the prevailing pattern of food and beverage marketing to children in America represents, at best, a missed opportunity, and at worst, a direct threat to the health prospects of the next generation. Children s dietary and related health patterns are shaped by the interplay of many factors: their biological affinities, their culture and values, their economic status, their physical and social environments, and their commercial media environments. This book focuses on the impact of food and beverage marketing on the dietary patterns and health status of American children. This knowledge has the potential to shape the health status of our nation's children and is the focus of Food Marketing to Children and Youth. This book will be of interest to parents, federal and state government agencies, educators and schools, health care professionals, industry companies, industry trade groups, media, and those involved in community and consumer advocacy.

For more information about the book, click here.

Children’s Journeys through the Information Age. Calvert, S.L. (1999). Boston: McGraw Hill.

Children's Journeys Through the Information Age by Sandra Calvert addresses many of the issues surrounding our culture's continuing immersion into technology, looking particularly at the current and emerging information technologies influencing children. Calvert poses questions about the effects of these technologies and discusses their meaning for parents, teachers, and policymakers. For instance, Calvert looks at specific software designs and mediums (i.e. TV, Diskette, CD-ROM) to explore how gender role, ethnic, and racial stereotypes are carried to intended audiences through implicit messages in these programs.

Dr. Calvert's book is part of The McGraw-Hill Series in Developmental Psychology.

For more information about the book, click here.
To order the book from Amazon.com, click here.

Children in the Digital Age: Electronic Media and Children’s Development. Calvert, S.L., Jordan, A.B. & Cocking, R.R. (2002).Westport, CT: Praeger.

Television will be interactive, computers will provide feature-length motion pictures and TV programs, and information will be delivered like never before. Access to digital technologies is rapidly changing how children experience media, and how technologies will impact children's development, and is making media an increasingly active gateway for experiencing and learning about the world. This volume considers how children use media today and how new media is emerging and merging with existing technologies. The distinctive features of both older and newer media are examined along with why these technologies are attractive to children and adolescents.

An interdisciplinary group of scholars from the fields of psychology, communication, sociology, and linguistics examine the effect of media experiences on children's social, cognitive, familial, and consumerist experiences. Social policy implications of media effects are also considered.


For more information about the book, click here.
To order the book from Amazon.com, click here.

Special Journal Issues:

Researchers from the Children’s Digital Media Center (CDMC) published three special journal issues about recent findings in the children and media area. The first focuses on the role that screen exposure plays in development during infancy and early childhood, a matter of considerable controversy. This special issue, edited by Ellen Wartella and Elizabeth Vandewater from CDMC and Victoria Rideout from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, appears in the January 2005 issue of American Behavioral Scientist.

The second special issue, titled Developing Children, Developing Media, focuses on the role of emerging media on development. This issue was published in the December 2004 issue of Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology with guest editors Patricia Greenfield and Sandra Calvert, both from CDMC.

The third special issue, titled The Impact of the US Television Act on Children's Learning, authored by Sandra Calvert and Jennifer Kotler, addresses the role that public policy plays in improving children's media choices. This issue was published in August 2003, in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.

See our Publications and Papers section for more details.

Recent Publications and Papers

Exner, A. & Calvert, S.L. (in press). Exergames for physical education courses: Physical, social, and cognitive benefits. Child Development Perspectives.

Barr, R., Lauricella, A., Zack, E. & Calvert, S.L. (in press). Infant and early childhood exposure to adult-directed and child-directed television programming: Relations with cognitive skills at age four. Merrill Palmer Quarterly.

Goodrich, S., Pempek, T., & Calvert, S.L. (2009). Formal production features of infant and toddler DVDs. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 163, 1151-1156 .

Lauricella, A. R., Barr, R. F., & Calvert, S.L. (2009). Emerging computer skills. Journal of Children and Media, 3(3), 217-233.

Pempek, T. & Calvert, S.L. (2009). Tipping the balance: Use of advergames to promote consumption of nutritious foods and beverages by low-income African American children. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 163(7), 633-637.

Calvert, S.L., Strouse, G.A., Strong, B.L., Huffaker, D.A., Lai, S. (2009). Preadolescent Girls' and Boys' Virtual MUD Play. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 30(3), 250-264.

Pempek, T., Yermolayeva, Y. & Calvert, S.L. (2009). College students' social networking experiences on Facebook. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 30(3), 227-238.

Calvert, S.L. (2008). Production features as scaffolds: Maximizing informal learning from digital technologies: Lessons for instructional design. In S. Neuman(Ed). Literacy achievement for young children from poverty. Brookes.

Calvert, S.L. (2008). Children as consumers: advertising and marketing. The Future of Children, 18(1), 205-234.

Alvy, E. & Calvert, S.L. (2008). Food marketing on popular children's websites: A content analysis. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 108, 710-713.

Calvert, S.L., Strong, B.L., Jacobs, E.L. & Conger, E.E. (2007).
Interaction and participation for young Hispanic and Caucasian
children's learning of media content. Media Psychology 9(2), 431-445.

Calvert, S.L., Strouse, G. & Murray, K. (2006). The role of
empathy in adolescents' role model selection and learning of DVD
content. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 27, 444-455.

Calvert, S. L., Strong, Bonnie L., & Gallagher, Lizann. (2005). Control as an engagement feature for young children’s attention to and learning of computer content. American Behavioral Scientist, 48, 562-577.

Calvert, S. L., Rideout, V. J., Woolard, J. L., Barr, R. F., & Strouse, G. A. (2005). Age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic patterns in early computer use: A national survey. American Behavioral Scientist, 48, 590-607.

Calvert, S. L., Murray, K. J., & Conger, E. A. (2004). Heroic DVD portrals: What US and Taiwanese adolescents admire and understand. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 25, 699-716.

Zehnder, S. M. & Calvert, S. L. (2004). Between the hero and the shadow: Developmental differences in adolescent's perceptions and understanding of mythic themes in film. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 28, 122-137.

Huffaker, D. (2004). Spinning yarns around the digital fire: Storytelling and dialogue among youth on the Internet. First Monday, 9(1).

Huffaker, D. (2003). Reconnecting the classroom: E-learning pedagogy in US public high schools. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 19, 356-370.

Calvert, S. L., Mahler, B.A., Zehnder, S.M., Jenkins, A. & Lee, M. (2003). Gender differences in preadolescent children online interactions: Symbolic modes of self-presentation and self-expression. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24, 627-644.

Calvert, S. L. (2003). Future faces of selling to children. In E. Palmer (Ed.), The faces of televisual media: Teaching, violence, selling to children (2nd ed., pp. 347-357). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Huffaker, D. A. & Calvert, S. L. (2003). The new science of learning: Active learning, metacognition, and transfer of knowledge in E-learning applications. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 29, 325-334.

Calvert, S. L. & Kotler, J. A. (2003). Lessons from children’s television: The impact of the Children’s Television Act on children’s learning. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24, 275-335.

Calvert, S. L., Kotler, J. A., Zehnder, S. M. & Shockey, E. M. (2003). Gender stereotyping in children’s reports about educational and informational television programs. Media Psychology, 5, 139-162.

Kotler, J. A. & Calvert, S. L. (2003). Children’s and adolescents’ exposure to different kinds of media violence: Recurring choices and recurring themes. In D. Gentile (Ed.), Media violence and children (pp. 171-213). Westport, CT: Praeger.