Preface- Aletha C. Huston

Part 1: Historical, Conceptual and Financial Underpinnings

Part 2: Media Access and Differential Use Patterns

Part 3: Cognitive Effects of Media: How & What Children Learn

Part 4: Social Effects of Media

Part 5: Health Effects of Media

Part 6: Media Policy & Interventions

About the Editors and Contributors

"This handbook is a meticulously researched 'tour-de-force' of the role media play in shaping child and family development. Through a multi-disciplinary analysis of the varied impacts the media are having on children's learning, social interactions, and healthy development, the handbook offers an authoritative, balanced perspective, while identifying pressing issues to be addressed by policymakers. It is a must-read for those who wish to understand the rich and subtle ways media influence children's lives every day."
--Michael Levine, PhD, Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop

"The Handbook of Children, Media and Development assembles the most accomplished researchers in the field and presents in-depth and theoretically driven analyses of the most important research advances, including novel theorizing on recent technological innovations in the media. Essential as a text or reference for students, scholars, and policymakers. Understandable to undergraduates, but with depth and accuracy that scholars will appreciate."
--Joanne Cantor, Director, Center for Communication Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"Calvert and Wilson have gathered together a collection of up-to-the-moment research on how children use and are influenced by various mass media, but also on the business models underlying the industry and an array of possible policies and interventions designed to protect children. Students, scholars, policymakers, and parents will all find this book an invaluable resource."
--Donald F. Roberts, Thomas More Storke Professor Emeritus, Stanford University

Sandra L. Calvert, the Director of the Children's Digital Media Center, is a Professor of Psychology at Georgetown University. A fellow of the American Psychological Association, she has consulted for Nickelodeon Online, Sesame Workplace, Blue's Clues, and Sega of America, to influence the development of children's television programs, Internet software, and video games. She is author of Children's Journeys through the Information Age (1999), and co-editor of Children in the Digital Age: Influences of Electronic Media on Development (2002).

Barbara J. Wilson is a Professor and Head of the Department of Speech Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is co-author of Children, Adolescents, and the Media (2002) and three book volumes of the National Television Violence Study (1997-1998).

S. L. Calvert, Georgetown University; B. J. Wilson, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign