Media fascinations. Perspectives on young people's meaning making

The media have always fascinated children and young people. The starting point for this book is to situate media research on children and young people in contemporary discourses on childhood and growing up in modern society.The authors present recent Scandinavian qualitative studies, sometimes case studies, on how children use, interpret and negotiate the meaning of popular television programs, computer games and Internet. Media Fascinations provides insights into such diverse issues as media literacy, the gendered nature of the media, the role of children's socio-cultural background as well as how programming content influences meaning making. It also brings up issues concerning commercial versus public service programming for children as well as specific content features such as children's interpretations of irony and parody. Throughout the book, as a subtext, the authors show their awareness of the methodological issues involved in studying children's media use.