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This article examines representation of ecological crises in children's media. Children's media constitutes an important area of ecocinema critique due to the particular vulnerability of children to persuasive messaging. Using themes from ecocinema studies, we conduct a textual analysis of two animated motion pictures: Universal Pictures' The Lorax [(2012). The Lorax. Directed by Chris Renaud. Universal City, CA: Author)] and Pixar's Wall-E [(2008). Wall-E. Directed by Andrew Stanton. 2008. Emeryville, CA: Author]. We analyze these films in terms of: (1) anthropomorphic representations; (2) displacement of collective aspects of ecological crisis to the level of interpersonal conflict; (3) greenwashing; and (4) narratives of pastoralism and replenishment. We consider how these films discursively constitute ecological conditions, processes, and crises. We examine these representations as indicators of an underlying crisis in capitalism, of a struggle to come to terms with ecological destabilization. Ultimately, we conclude that a more speculative reimagining of the relationship between humans and the natural world is required to stave off the worst effects of global ecological destabilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children adopt lifelong attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs from media messages, yet little is known about what messages visual media send to children on religion. This study addresses this literature gap by analyzing depictions of religion in holiday specials aired in 2018 from three top preschool networks: Disney Junior, Nick Jr., and PBS Kids. Using qualitative content analysis, this study reveals that preschool holiday specials are shifting away from more in-depth portrayals of diverse religions toward commercialized, generalized, and secularized portrayals of Christmas. Although Chanukah and other non-Christmas religious holiday specials are, on average, older and less common than Christmas specials, they portray non-Christmas traditions in greater religious depth than the more recent and numerous Christmas specials portray Christmas. These findings illumine American religious holiday practices and attitudes and provide insights for enhancing media literacy on religion in children's media and for understanding television's potential influence on children's perceptions of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we consider historical and contemporary ideologies of childhood in China and critically examine notions of 'child' and 'childhood' in Chinese children's literature. We analyse the themes and knowledge that relate to relevant historical and contemporary political events and policies, and how these contribute to the production of childhoods. We focus on three images of childhoods in China: the Confucian child, the Modern child and the Maoist child. Each of the images reflects a way of seeing, a perspective about what a child ought to be and become, and what their childhood should look like. Everyday media are reflected in the texts and stories examined and portray both 'imagined' and 'real-life' narratives of children and their childhoods. The stories, and the connected power relations, represent an important link between the politics of childhood and the pedagogy associated with these politics, including large-scale state investment in the production of desired, ideal and perfect childhoods. Through such an examination of contemporary and historical children's literature and media in China we also explore the ways in which contemporary media revitalise particular notions of child agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mattel's tween girl property Monster High is a transmedia project that reworks classic monsters from history and cinema into teenagers attending a high school specifically for monsters. Much of the work about Monster High has focused on its presentation of sexualized femininity whose 'dolls had a higher number of sexualizing characteristics than Bratz ... or Barbie ...' and its 'taming' of the monstrous through reinforcing conventional beauty standards, or focusing the presence of particular elements of monstrosity such as hair, femininity, and werewolves. This paper focuses on the teenaged vampire Draculaura and her interactions with other monsters, and what those relationships reveal about the construction of her own monstrosity. Her experience as the assumed prey for vampires - her adopted 'father' Count Dracula turned her to save her life, and the emotional abuse of her vampiric ex-boyfriend - have modified her powers and how she 'feeds'. The violation of self by both father and her beloved is in direct contrast to Draculaura's own powers, and presents as a conflict between female monstrosity - explicitly transformative, nurturing, and powerful - and the predatory, ultimately self-defeating monstrosity of the male version. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I examine change and continuity in conceptions of parental agency in public debates about children’s media consumption in Scandinavia, 1945-1975. During this period, public debates about the various kinds of media products children consumed were dominated by different groups of professionals: first, by teachers and librarians in the mid-fifties and, then, by intellectuals and performing artists in the late sixties. With a radically changed professional hegemony and a shifting media landscape, the role of media in children’s lives was described very differently during the period. However, a strong continuity in the debates was the negative influence parents were seen as having on children’s media consumption due to their lack of insight and interest in the topic. Drawing upon recent works on children’s media, consumption and enculturation, I analyse why the negative description of parents as co-consumers prevailed despite radical changes in views on children’s media consumption. In particular, I examine the shared inter-Scandinavian socio-cultural contexts that structured the changing professional and political groups’ pressure on parents to perform according to their norms and values.

Children’s learning of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is important for their achievement in related fields. Before formal schooling, families can expose children to STEM by sharing knowledge and influencing children’s use of learning tools, including media. We investigated whether parent attitudes towards STEM media and having a family member with a STEM career is related to children’s science and math media use, and whether these factors predict children’s science and math skills. We surveyed 296 American parents of children 3- to 5.5-years old on their attitudes toward STEM and their children’s use of STEM television, computer games, and apps. Regression analyses showed that positive attitudes toward science and math media positively predicted children’s science and math media use. Having a STEM-career family member was a negative predictor. Children’s science and math media use was negatively related to their reported science and math skills. However, there was an interaction: children from non-STEM career families who consumed the most science and math media reportedly had worse science and math skills. Our findings have implications for how families can support science and math learning. These results can direct research on the role of media in early STEM education.

Children have traditionally been neglected in the study of news. The emergence of Crinkling News, the only national newspaper specifically produced for young Australians, drew widespread attention before it closed after 20 months of publication in 2018. With the Australian media in a state of flux, the initial success of this newspaper highlighted the importance of introducing children to media literacy. This paper explores the characteristics of the presentation of news for children through the pages of Crinkling News. Utilising news values, this study also investigates the selection of angles and how stories and information are packaged for young audiences. It will examine how traditional content is mixed with user-generated contributions. Drawing on a content analysis of 12 months of issues, the paper outlines the type of coverage and story topics used to engage children in journalism. By providing key insights into generational access to news, this paper develops further understanding into children's media literacy and provides recommendations for future scholarship. It also highlights the importance of enabling children's participation in news as part of the critical public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following qualitative textual analysis examined female characters within the Toy Story trilogy and used grounded theory to explore themes between female characters and male characters based on their interactions. The study, built upon past literature in gaze theory, revealed six distinct interaction themes between female and male characters. Findings included that female characters were often emotionally supportive of male characters, were lusted after by male characters, were romantically aggressive towards male characters, and were paired with male characters at the conclusion of each film. Changes in themes throughout the trilogy and the presence of these themes in children's media, and in relation to existing theory, are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses key questions around the use of the semi-structured interview as both a research method and a means of managing productive academia/industry relations. It argues that the establishment of trust is crucial to the effective use of interviews as a data gathering strategy for production studies research, and to the building of a sustained research dialogue with practitioners. It offers some strategies for trust building, and highlights the benefits that can then flow from conducting multiple interviews with individual practitioners as their careers develop. The insights offered here are applicable beyond the genre of the research project from which they emerged, which is a current Australian Research Council grant-funded project examining global trends in the production and distribution of children’s television. The project engages with the production ecology (Steemers, J. 2010. Creating Pre-school Television: A Story of Commerce, Creativity and Curriculum. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan) of children’s television; that is the industrial, economic, creative and regulatory influences that shape its creation, using a range of disciplinary approaches. Some of the challenges researchers face when engaging in sustained research collaborations with industry practitioners and stakeholders are also discussed, including the risks of a perceived loss of impartiality and independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been a surge of popular interest in the lives and experiences of transgender and gender diverse people. However, this interest has been disproportionately focused on adults and teens, on biomedical framing and persistent binarism, without paying attention to young transgender and gender diverse children's engagement with culture, media and meaning. This article presents data from an ongoing arts-based ethnographic study of young transgender and gender-diverse children (ages 3-10) in the United States. In this study, feminine-identified transgender children repeatedly drew themselves as mermaids in self-portraits and highlighted the importance of other mermaidrelated play throughout their drawings and narratives. Even very young transgirls insisted that their drawings of mermaids represented the joy of being able to be their true selves, affirmations of femininity and nascent trans pride. This article begins with a brief discussion of mermaids in Western culture and media, followed by a more in-depth focus on the applicability of the mermaid as metaphor for understanding young transgirl experience, representation and feminine credentialing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Children's media have the capacity to prepare young learners to develop the knowledge, attitudes, and skills they need to contribute to a more peaceful world. Research suggests international coproductions of Sesame Street and other children's media efforts are linked to positive impact on how viewers perceive themselves and their own cultures, as well as how they perceive others. Creating such media, however, relies on a commitment to a complex development process where the educational needs of children are considered alongside intra‐ and intergroup dynamics and political realities. This paper presents a practitioners’ perspective on the essential components of children's media programs for peacebuilding and, in so doing, recommends a way forward for producing children's media in this domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the gender ratio of characters in the 150 top-grossing full-length animated films from 1980 through 2016. Results show that males hold an overwhelming majority of both central and auxiliary roles. Male characters fill significantly more of the lead or protagonist roles, the speaking roles, the members of the protagonist's main gang, and the film's titles. No significant change has occurred over the years (1980-2016) to alter the gender balance; however, an increase in female authors and screenwriters corresponds with an increase in female characters in all of these roles. The underrepresentation of female characters in animated films exemplifies the ways in which popular media reflects and reproduces social inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper maps out constructions of childhood as reflected in debates about the provision children’s media and various screen-based initiatives in the West Bank. It identifies key issues affecting children’s media in Palestine, through an analysis of the changing discourses of childhood in Palestinian society and the ways in which these discourses are articulated in academic and public debates, and in strategies for children’s screen media. Analysis and findings are based on fieldwork undertaken in April and May 2014; this included participant observation and interviews with stakeholders in the children’s cultural sector in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Nablus. In this paper, I conclude that protectionist discourses based on western Romantic and Lockean constructions of childhood dominate discussion on childhood and the media, and hence children’s television space is ‘occupied’ by adults (parents and producers). Children are constructed as vulnerable and passive victims of their society and are not credited with possessing the tools to play an active role in their own learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well documented that most children consume over four hours of screen media each day (Common Sense Census, 2015). The majority of this time is spent watching traditional television, on a television set in the home. This television consumption statistic has remained relatively consistent over the past five years, even though children have access to numerous forms of digital media via computer and mobile devices. Children’s options for media consumption may extend far beyond traditional television, but their habits are still routed in television. Additionally, their habits remain routed in the two brands that have been the most popular children’s media brands for decades: Nickelodeon and Disney. Through these networks, messages about media creation, media literacy and many related topics (i.e. gender representation) are conveyed. Since children watch programs and episodes on these networks over and over, the messages are conveyed with repetition. What are the messages children are receiving about the role of media in their lives and their relationship and responsibility with media through their television viewing on these popular networks? This research study analyzed the integration of media literacy concepts in current popular children’s television in the USA focusing on four highly-rated television programs from Nickelodeon and Disney Channel: Game Shakers (Nickelodeon), The Loud House (Nickelodeon), Bizaarvark (Disney Channel) and Stuck in the Middle (Disney Channel). Episodes were coded along four key definers of media literacy according to the definition of media literacy from the National Association for Media Literacy Education: access, analyze, evaluate, create. The study assesses the opportunity for increasing media literacy messages, while recognizing that the primary goal of the content is entertainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of smartphones and tablet pcs, children's book apps have emerged as a new type of children's media. While some of them are based on popular children's books such as Mo Willems’ Pigeon books or Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit, others were specifically designed as apps. This paper focuses on examining book apps under the aspects of implied user strategies and narrative structure. Using a narratological framework that also takes into account the unique characteristics of the medium, a terminology for the analysis of book apps will be sketched out. Furthermore, an exemplary analysis of iOS books apps for pre- and grade school children comes to the conclusion that, far from offering the child users room for individual creativity, a large number of apps rather train their users in following prescribed paths of reading.

This article analyses the ways in which technologies such as literacy, picturebooks and feature films have appropriated Hawai'i, its mythology and folklore and its indigenous people from early Western contact to the present. The article is divided into three parts: the first explains how the historical introduction of English literacy transformed Hawaiian mythology and folklore into a Western possession. The second describes the ways in which different genres of folklore and mythology in post-plantation-era children's picturebooks counter, extend and complicate that initial adaptation. The final part situates a critical reading of Disney's Moana within this longer history of appropriation. While most critical reviews of Moana have focused on specific aspects, this article situates key parts of the Moana narrative within the colonial and post-colonial story of Hawai'i that Western adaptations have written from historical times to present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animated television programs have been considered an integral element of the ‘media mix’ or transmedia in Japan. In multiple contexts, the place of such television shows has been framed as a ‘30-minute commercial’ or ‘program length commercial’. This article examines the 2014 anime and media mix Yo-kai Watch as an example of the animation episode as something else: part of a call towards total mobilization. Taking seriously the incendiary remarks by one of Japan’s media mix pioneers – Kadokawa Haruki – who claimed that his model for the media mix was taken from Hitler’s ‘total mobilization’ of fashion, sound, and image for a nationalist endgame, this article considers the Yo-kai Watch media mix in light of the concept of total mobilization. Through a close analysis of the objects, games and animation of Yo-Kai Watch, the author suggests that the endgame of this media mix geared towards very young audiences is their total mobilization towards collection-based consumption. This means thinking a ‘logistics of consumption’ that requires in part an examination of the circulation of objects as well as the function of the anime as an incitement and manual to play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Sexualization is associated with negative mental and physical health consequences for girls. Media exposure, particularly television (TV), is a pervasive source of sexualizing messages yet little work has quantified sexualization in children's media, particularly in media popular with minority youth. The current research examines the prevalence of sexualization in children's TV programs popular among U.S. Latina and White girls aged 6 to 11 through a quantitative content analysis of 32 episodes from the ten most popular children's TV series. Results indicated that sexualization was present in every coded episode, with at least three instances present per episode, and a combined total of 770 instances across all episodes. Female characters were more commonly portrayed in a sexualized manner than were male characters and were sexualized in 72 % of instances. Characters of color were generally sexualized at the same rate as White characters. Although sexualized clothing was the most common form of sexualization in the children's programs, a broad range of sexualizing content was present. Instances of sexualization included sexualizing comments, body exposure, self-sexualizing physical behaviors and activities, sexualizing physical behaviors toward others, verbal and physical objectification, and body/appearance modification. These findings suggest that sexualization is present in children's media popular among both Latina and White girls and that identifying means to counter this influence should be a priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its inception, the relationship between television and the child audience has been the subject of public concern and regulatory attention. Little is known, however, about the recent impact of digitisation on the unfashionable but influential practice of television compliance, that is, the industry's application of state regulations and broadcasters' own editorial standards to children's programmes. Drawing on extended interviews with broadcasters and producers, this article maps developing trends in UK and Australian compliance systems, focusing on their impact on the children's television produced by public service broadcasters. It demonstrates that multi-platform delivery and dedicated children's channels have caused a re-calibration of compliance standards, encouraging conservatism and risk aversion in programme production. Furthermore, as public service broadcasters abandon their efforts to attract teenage viewers, the live action drama series at which Australian producers have traditionally excelled are far less likely to be commissioned because their content and themes are considered unsuitable for young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous quantitative research examining Disney movies has highlighted that whilst prince characters display largely balanced gender profiles, princesses exhibit biased gender role portrayals—performing mostly feminine characteristics, rarely participating in rescue behavior, and concluding movies in romantic relationships with the prince. However, such research, as well as public commentary, has also suggested that princess characters in movies released across the 2000s and 2010s may have more positive gender role portrayals. This study aimed to test these assertions by utilizing content coding analysis to examine the behavioral characteristics, rescue behavior, and romantic conclusions of prince and princess characters in five iconic Disney films released between 2009 and 2016 (The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Brave (released under Pixar), Frozen, and Moana). Comparisons were also made with earlier titles to assess historical changes. Results showed that princesses in “2000s to 2010s„ movies exhibited an almost equal number of masculine and feminine behaviors, thus demonstrating more egalitarian profiles over time. In contrast, princes appeared to adopt a more feminine behavioral profile in later movies. In addition, characters engaged in equal numbers of rescue behaviors, and princesses were more likely to remain single in “2000s to 2010s„ movies. Results therefore suggest that Disney is indeed presenting more diverse, androgynous, balanced characters to viewers, and the theoretical and practical implications for the socialization of young child viewers are discussed.

Both popular and academic discourse has noted progressive change in the gender role portrayals of much-loved Disney princess characters. However, at present, little is known about children’s recognition of such changes, or of their interpretation of princesses’ gendered behavior. This study therefore asked 131 8–9-year-old UK children to attribute various feminine and masculine characteristics to ‘princesses’ both before and after watching an ‘old’ (Sleeping Beauty) versus ‘new’ (Moana) Disney princess movie. Post-movie they were also asked to attribute these characteristics to the princess characters (Aurora and Moana respectively) and were assessed on their labelling of thirteen popular female characters as ‘princesses’. Results showed that whilst children recognized the largely feminine versus androgynous gendered profiles of Aurora versus Moana respectively, viewing a ‘newer’ Disney movie did not change their perception of ‘princesses’ more broadly. Moreover, a large proportion of children did not identify Moana as a princess at all. Results therefore simultaneously complicate and enhance the current discussion regarding the influence of gender role models, particularly those within the Disney franchise, on the development of gender knowledge and identity in young children.

After their release in 2001, Bratz dolls carved into Barbie’s previously monopolistic share of teen doll sales. Amidst their growing popularity, cultural critics expressed a host of concerns about Bratz dolls, especially over how they sexualize youth, but the line grew to include a host of products like costumes, makeup kits, games, books, clothing, and movies. It also inspired new, similar doll lines from other toy companies. In this article, we situate the Bratz’s popularity in a specific cultural moment tied to the history of modern feminism. We use a content analysis of the Bratz movie series to explore the feminist and post-feminist thematics it contains. We identify the images of girlhood that are being marketed through the films and explore how the series repackages not only girlhood but also feminism itself in a way that encourages girls to exchange political power for purchasing power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Girls lose interest in science by age 9, and researchers have attributed this finding to misrepresentations of female scientists in the media. While television, film, the Internet, textbooks, and biographies have been analyzed for such representations, this study examines the extent to which females and minorities are portrayed over time in science sections of a popular children’s magazine, Highlights for Children. Results indicate that, while males and Whites have outnumbered females and minorities in depictions of science, Highlights has consistently exceeded the number of females and minorities actually employed in scientific fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the drooling Mrs Green in the children’s picture book,The Teacher from the Black Lagoonto the best scarer of all time, Dean Hardscrabble fromMonsters University, monstrous female teachers leap out from around the corners and under the desks of popular imaginings of school. In this paper, I focus on the figure of the female monster teacher in popular cultural texts and media produced for and/or consumed by North American youth, including picture books, television, film, and other cultural texts. Although these monster teacher narratives are produced for children and youth, they also work as a form of popular pedagogy for adults. The stakes of these representations are many, including the misogynistic representation of women in power as monstrous, the devaluing of teaching as “women’s work” or “child care,” and, the figuring of boys as “in crisis” in relationship to a predominately female workforce. I argue that, the female monster educator in popular cultural texts offers a corporeal curriculum that seeks to discipline the body of the teacher and to obfuscate the radical potential of teachers as professional women. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Formative research and summative evaluation are required and essential components of 2010-2015 Ready to Learn (RTL) activity. Formative researchers are integral members of the media production team, working closely with the content creators, educators, animators, digital experts, and others. Findings from formative research with the target audience provide ongoing timely feedback to the production team during the development process. Summative evaluations using scientific randomized controlled trials yield strong evidence of the media product's educational effectiveness. Informing the development of educational transmedia products poses complex challenges for both formative and summative activities. A descriptive overview of and analytic refection on RTL research and evaluation offer productive implications and raise important questions as future RTL media products and the educational media industry move increasingly toward transmedia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children experience emotionally tinged parasocial relationships with their favorite media characters across a constantly changing media landscape. On the frontier of this landscape are intelligent agents: digital companions that can socially interact with and educate children. We discuss how research on parasocial relationships with media characters can infuence the design of intelligent "characters" for children. We discuss the components of parasocial relationships--including attachment, character personifcation, and social realism--and how these may play a role in developing intelligent characters as effective educational tools. We also examine the development and dissolution of parasocial relationships, and how these factors can inform intelligent character design. Educational and social implications for these technologies as teaching tools are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children are frequently exposed to anthropomorphic depictions of animals. The impact of anthropomorphism on children's development of factual and biological knowledge about real animals has consequences for how we engage children in early learning about the natural world. In this article, I discuss recent cross-cultural and experimental studies on children's exposure to differing representations of animals, and studies that highlight the role that experiences with and about animals play in the development of biological reasoning and factual learning. Continued research that considers the conditions in which anthropomorphism may support early learning can explain discrepancies in previous research and help advance the ways we address the place of anthropomorphism in early educational experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I examine change and continuity in conceptions of parental agency in public debates about children's media consumption in Scandinavia, 1945-1975. During this period, public debates about the various kinds of media products children consumed were dominated by different groups of professionals: first, by teachers and librarians in the mid-fifties and, then, by intellectuals and performing artists in the late sixties. With a radically changed professional hegemony and a shifting media landscape, the role of media in children's lives was described very differently during the period. However, a strong continuity in the debates was the negative influence parents were seen as having on children's media consumption due to their lack of insight and interest in the topic. Drawing upon recent works on children's media, consumption and enculturation, I analyse why the negative description of parents as co-consumers prevailed despite radical changes in views on children's media consumption. In particular, I examine the shared inter-Scandinavian socio-cultural contexts that structured the changing professional and political groups' pressure on parents to perform according to their norms and values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The long-running Japanese children's media franchiseDoraemonis commonly interpreted both inside and outside academic discourse as a representation of a positive vision of the future, an analysis based partially on its portrayal of a lovable robot. This view is supported by the series' use of ‘science’ to represent unlimited accessibility, and the branding of the series as a companion to children's scientific education.Doraemon's celebration of the future's boundless potential is complicated, however, by the impulse in recent works to reject the same notion of ‘progress’ on which the series relies. The works remain frozen in a romanticised vision of 1960s’ Japan, and have come to connote childhood nostalgia while presenting characters that do not grow or change over time. In the 2008 filmNobita to Midori no Kyojinden, the perpetual act of returning that defines much ofDoraemontoday is taken to a dramatic extreme, as a pre-modern ideal becomes the blueprint for both morality and might.Doraemonconstructs temporal mixtures that simultaneously glorify both the past and the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

National advertisers took an earnest interest in children during the first half of the 20th century. Throughout this period, food advertisers commonly offered children membership in clubs and premiums (prizes) in exchange for proofs of purchase, such as box tops. This article, relying upon primary research from the advertising trade press and ad agency archives, considers box tops as instruments that generated market-relevant knowledge. I argue that the submission of box tops to advertisers was an early form of data mining—used to learn about and better target consumers, but also as an audience metric, an ad hoc ratings system for print and radio broadcast sponsorship investments. These arguments are contextualized in critical theories that suggest commercial media audiences, as well as consumers more broadly, are manufactured and that measurement plays a central role in the processes of audience manufacture and commodification. I draw two important conclusions. First, this research demonstrates that consumer surveillance is not unique to the digital era of advertising. Second, I conclude that by “knowing” children through box top submissions, the advertising industry socially constructed the child consumer; that is, measurement through box tops constructed the very audience it sought to measure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The practice of audience segregation, demographic profiling and manufactured viewerships has become common practice in the television industry since the turn towards niche programming and narrowcasting in an increasingly multichannel environment. While much critical scholarship has been devoted to the way that media companies undertake extensive market research to target their products to specific demographic segments, this article concentrates on the way that untargeted and unexpected viewers have coalesced around certain television programmes, and become the 'accidental audience'. 'Bronies' have become the most well-known accidental audience in recent years, and are a perfect case study by which this phenomenon can be examined. The article therefore explores the way that accidental audiences develop, and how they offer both opportunity and threat to the managed selling of media brands. This article will also engage with the issues surrounding identifying and responding to these accidental audiences. Using the 'Brony' fandom of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, this article asks how accidental audiences develop and how, in particular, the Internet serves to shape and cultivate them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presentation of death in popular culture via media texts can not only serve as a reflection of death’s religious and cultural nuances, but also occupies the potential to influence specific audiences. As developing social beings, children witness ample death-related messaging, including how to deal with death through ritualistic practices. The following article considers the observation of character behavior as an important element to message dissemination and uses 15 animated Disney films to analyze death ritual. Through various themes rooted in symbolism and mythos, Disney demonstrates within these films how death rituals in children’s media remain imbedded with cultural and religious ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]