Children and Their Changing Media Environment: A European Comparative Study - Book Review

Adolescence, Fall, 2002

LIVINGSTONE, Sonia, & BOVILL, Moira (Eds.). Children and Their Changing Media Environment: A European Comparative Study. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001. 383pp. $89.95 (h), $39.95 (p).

Focusing on the meanings, uses, and impacts of new media in childhood, family life, peer culture, and the relation between home and school, this volume sets out to address many of the questions, fears, and hopes regarding the changing place of media in the lives of today's children and young people. The scholars contributing to this work argue that such questions -- intellectual, empirical, and policy-related -- can be productively addressed through cross-national research. Hence this volume brings together researchers from 12 countries -- Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland -- to present original and comprehensive findings regarding the diffusion and significance of new media and information technologies among children. Inspired by parallels and differences between the arrival of television in the family home during the 1950s and the present-day arrival of new media, the research is based on in-depth interviews and a d etailed comparative survey of 6- to 16-year-olds across Europe and in Israel. The result is a comprehensive, detailed, and fascinating account of how these technologies are rapidly becoming central to the daily lives of young people.