Rydin, Ingegerd (ed.), 'Media Fascinations: Perspectives on Young People's Meaning Making': Northern Perspectives Series 4, Nordicom, Goteberg University, 2003, ISBN 9189471202, 167 pp. Distributor: Nordicom.

Abstract

This collection of essays is published by Nordicom, a Northern European research network best known internationally for its 'Clearinghouse' bulletins listing current research on Children, Youth and Media. Most of the researchers represented in the collection utilise 'empirical' methodologies: laboratory observations of children viewing media texts, together with qualitative analysis of a variety of discourses generated by children and their parents, including interviews, questionnaires and written essays by young people. The goal of the collection is thus to 'capture the child's or adolescent's own conceptions, opinions or dispositions in relation to media texts' (p. 9). Karin Hake, a media researcher with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, uses a test group of 30 five-year-old children to compare differential affective responses to a public service program designed specifically for a 'preoperational' audience - to use Piaget's terminology - with one scheduled by a commercial network to capture a broader group of child viewers. ... A major theme of this volume is children's affective response to media texts - the 'fascination' factor. In Hake's previously cited essay, she describes 'fascination' as excitement, titillation and a certain hesitance towards the media text.