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This special issue responds to the current discourse on cinema and education from a philosophical point of view. Considering the fact that young people worldwide are watching films and series via their smartphones or personal computers, we here explore the educative aspects of this popular activity. Does this wide-ranging habit mis-educate the next generation? Or does cinema carry a potential for ethical-political education, parallel to the ancient Greek tragedies and the modernist Bildungsroman? The authors of this special issue deliberate this question by exploring the intersection between cinema and philosophy and the potential powers of cinematic education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Movies and TV programs directed to children contain food information that can potentially negative influence their food consumption. The NOVA classification is a useful system for monitoring food informational environment. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate food content on children movies using the NOVA classification. Methods: The 13 top box office children movies released from 2013 to 2018 were evaluated. Each food reference was classified as unprocessed or minimally processed, processed and ultraprocessed food (UPF) and as positive, negative, and neutral message transmitted. Results: One hundred and ninety-eight (n = 198) scenes that contained 555 food references were included. The frequency of references to unprocessed and minimally processed foods (60.1%) was similar to references of UPF (59.1%). Fruit/vegetables and sweets represented 37.9% of food appearances each. Scenes containing fruit/vegetables conveyed more negative (62.5%) or neutral messages (49.3%) than positive (26.4%). UPF scenes contained more positive (70.9%) and negative content (75.0%) than neutral (37.3%). Regarding UPF subcategories, sweets scenes were more positive (49.1%) than neutral (22.4%) and fast food meals scenes were more negative (37.5%) than neutral (5.9%). Conclusions: UPF, unprocessed food, and minimally processed foods have similar frequency in the movies. Except for fast food meals, UPF were commonly more associated with positive situations and unprocessed and minimally processed foods were more commonly associated with negative contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cinema had long been hailed by Bolshevik party leaders as a crucial ally of the Soviet mass enlightenment project. By the mid-1920s, however, Soviet psychologists, educators and practitioners of 'child science' (pedology) were pointing to the grave effects that the consumption of commercial cinema was exerting on the physical, mental and moral health of Soviet young people. Diagnosing an epidemic of 'film mania', specialists battled to curtail the NEP-era practices of film production and demonstration that had rendered cinema 'toxic' to children. Campaigns to 'healthify' Soviet cinema, first manifesting in the organization of child-friendly screenings and forms of 'cultural enlightenment work', soon extended to attempts to develop a new children's film repertoire based on the results of psycho-physiological viewer studies. A vast variety of pedological research institutions established during the late 1920s and early 1930s began to experimentally test cinema's effects on children with the view of assisting the production of films that could cultivate a sound mind and body. Tracing a link between the findings of pedological viewer studies and the 'healthy' cinema championed in the 1930s, this article sheds light on the vital role played by medical and scientific expertise in shaping Stalinist culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses two experiments that aimed to establish the educational value of cinema: the 1925 Cinema Commission's report The Cinema in Education, and The Film in the Classroom, an experiment carried out by Glasgow Corporation between 1932 and 1933. Both experiments were part of a discourse on educational cinema that recognized film as a powerful visual medium with a profound impact on how children learned about and interacted with the world around them. The experiments contributed to the fledging of the educational film movement of the 1930s without, however, mirroring the transition to sound occurring in cinemas at that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media contents and their suitability for consumption by the young are a source of ongoing concern. The current investigation has assessed how movies later nominated for or awarded the best movie of the year by US and British children were evaluated by the US, British and Australian film advisory boards, and the US media advocacy and education organization Common Sense Media (CSM). The findings indicate that the movies these two populations of children consider the year’s finest differ considerably, that the movies chosen are assigned to different age classifications, with each board using a different dominant combination of justifications to explain these age restrictions. CSM ratings reveal that British children prefer movies with positive messages, and their US peers prefer those infused with profanity, sex, and consumerism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth are heavy consumers of media, and exposure to mature media content is associated with initiation and progression of substance use. Parental restriction of such content has been shown to be an effective mechanism to reduce negative consequences attributed to exposure to mature media content. This study assessed the influence of parental restriction of movie watching across Motion Picture Association of America rating categories on subsequent alcohol and marijuana initiation at 1- and 2-year follow-up. Using data from a longitudinal study of adolescent substance use (N = 1023), we used logistic regression analyses to determine the odds of alcohol and marijuana initiation across movie rating categories, within R-rated restriction categories in particular, and based on changes in parental restriction of movies over time. All analyses controlled for important parental, personality, and behavioral correlates of adolescent substance use. Results suggest that restriction of R-rated movies is protective of both alcohol and marijuana initiation. Important differences among parental restriction of R-rated movie categories emerged such that being allowed to watch them with adult supervision was protective of substance use, while those who reported watching R-rated films despite parental restrictions were at heightened risk for alcohol initiation. Changes in parental movie restrictions were not predictive of substance use initiation over the subsequent year. Implications of these findings for media literacy program prevention strategies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the role of cinema machine in the construction of children’s identity. Along with discussing some conceptual issues around visual language, two lines of inquiry are offered through which we try to demonstrate the performative nature of the cinematographic image in the production of childhood: the use of the film camera in psychology research of childhood and an analysis of some tropes of childhood that emerge in contemporary Chilean cinema. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Adolescence is a time of heightened impulsivity as well as substantial exposure to the effects of popular media. Specifically, R-rated movie content and sensation seeking have been shown to be individually and multiplicatively associated with early alcohol initiation, as well as to mutually influence one another over time. The present study attempts to replicate and extend these findings to cigarette and marijuana use, considering several peer, parental, and individual correlates, as well as substance-specific movie exposure, among 1023 youth (mean age 12.4 years, 52% female), using a combination of cross-lagged path models, latent growth models, and discrete-time survival models. Changes over time were associated between R-rated movie watching and sensation seeking, and both individually, not multiplicatively, predicted earlier alcohol initiation. R-rated movie watching (but not sensation seeking) also predicted earlier smoking and marijuana initiation. Parental R-rated movie restriction may thus potentially delay smoking and marijuana initiation as well as adolescent drinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of stereotypes about disability in movies is evident. As most studies are intuitive, it is necessary to ask how characters are perceived to classify them in this way. This investigation try to check that verbal and nonverbal communication are essential tools in the perception of stereotypes. The results of the analysis of the character Hook (Peter Pan), along the views of 100 children surveyed, have revealed that these processes includes the biggest amount of the information we process. Thus, it is fundamental to pay attention to them when creating characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Barbie’s popularity began to decline across the first decade of the twenty-first century, the iconic doll underwent a makeover and became a maven of the straight-to-DVD sector. Across the movies produced since 2001, the narratives reflect an awareness of feminist criticism and seek to remediate Barbie’s particular femininity and the associated gender performance that has fallen into disfavor. Interestingly, these efforts are often facilitated by a movement in time and place that relocates Barbie from the here and now, as she plays the protagonist role in adaptations of classic works of fiction set in the past. Working with methods of textual analysis and informed by the history of literature for children, media studies, and feminist theory, we explore the complex composition of Mattel’s straight-to-DVD Barbie movies and consider how the adaptations intersect with feminist discourses. Looking closely at Barbie and the Three Musketeers (2009) in the wider context of the DVD series, we argue that the Barbie DVDs perform a post-feminist pedagogy and inculcate the post-feminist sensibility among young viewers and consumers worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) film rating system particularly the Parental Guidance (PG)-13 rating. Topics explored include the intention of the MPAA for introducing the PG-13 rating, the way films such as Tobe Hooper's "Poltergeist" and Steven Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" contributed to controversies associated with the creation of the PG-13 rating, and the inadequacy of the PG rating for some horror and family-friendly films.

In this article, we investigate the complex relationship between concerns about children and young people's exposure to cinema in 1920s Australia and the use of film in education. In part, the Royal Commission into the Moving Picture Industry in Australia aimed to ‘ascertain the effect and the extent of the power of film upon juveniles’ and Commissioners spoke to educationalists, psychologists, medical professions, police officers and parents to gain insight into the impacts of movies on children. Numerous issues were canvassed in the Commission hearings such as exposure to sexual content, ‘excesses’ in film content, children's inability to concentrate at school following cinema attendance and the influence of cinema on youth crime. While the Commission ultimately suggested it was parents’ role to police children's engagements with cinema, it did make recommendations for restricting children's access to films with inappropriate themes. Meanwhile, the Commission was very positive about film's educational role stating that ‘the advantage to be gained by the use of the cinematograph as an adjunct to educational methods should be assisted in every possible way by the Commonwealth’. We draw on the Commission's minutes of evidence, the Commission report and newspaper articles from the 1920s to the 1940s to argue that the Commission provides valuable insight into the beginnings of the use of screen content in formal schooling, both as a resource across the curriculum and as a specific focus of education through film appreciation and, later, broader forms of media education. The article argues debates about screen entertainment and education rehearsed in the Commission are reflected today as parents, concerned citizens and educators ponder the dangers and potential of new media technologies and media content used by children and young people such as video games, social media and interactive content. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Better understanding of the developing brain's functional mechanisms is critical for improving diagnosis and treatment of different developmental disorders. Particularly, characterizing how the developing brain dynamically reorganizes during different cognitive states may offer novel insight into the neuronal mechanisms of cognitive deficits. Imaging the brain during naturalistic conditions, like movie watching, provides a highly practical way to study young children's developing functional brain systems. In this study we compared the network-level functional organization of 6-year-old children while they were at rest with their functional connectivity as they watched short video clips. We employed both a data-driven independent component analysis (ICA) approach and a hypothesis-driven seed-based analysis to identify changes in network-level functional interactions during the shift from resting to video watching. Our ICA results showed that naturally watching a movie elicits significant changes in the functional connectivity between the visual system and the dorsal attention network when compared to rest (t(32) = 5.02, p = 0.0001). More interestingly, children showed an immature, but qualitatively adult-like, pattern of reorganization among three of the brain's higherorder networks (frontal control, default-mode and dorsal attention). For both ICA and seed-based approaches, we observed a decrease in the frontal network's correlation with the dorsal attention network (ICA: t(32) = -2.46, p = 0.02; Seed-based: t(32) = -1.62, p =0.12) and an increase in its connectivity with the default mode network (ICA: t(32) = 2.84, p = 0.008; Seed-based: t(32) = 2.28, p =0.03), which is highly consistent with the pattern observed in adults. These results offer improved understanding of the developing brain's dynamic network-level interaction patterns during the transition between different brain states and call for further studies to examine potential alterations to such dynamic patterns in different developmental disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bakhtin teaches us that seeing empathetically and seeing aesthetically are distinct moments: the moment of empathizing, Bakhtin says, must be followed by a moment of return to one's own point of view (1993, p. 11). In this paper, we study how this happens and how it fails to happen when a pair of toddlers see a North Korean monster movie and listen to a parent reading a traditional story. We look at how they respond to book and video, comic and tragic versions of the story with a Korean word which can mean "bad" in either an ethical sense or in an aesthetic one, and we discover the moment that the former appears to emerge from the latter. On the one hand, we find that it does not appear to matter much whether the story was presented in written text or in video, or, for that matter, as tragedy or comedy, just so long as opportunities for dialogue were many and varied. On the other hand, we found that Bakhtin's ideas give us a surprisingly accurate way of predicting the various moments when ethical terms emerge from aesthetic ones. As Bakhtin teaches us, the key appears to be not an empathetic seeing or an aesthetic one by itself but instead the ability to change from one point of view to the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is a reception history of adolescents' encounters with cinema in the working-class and predominantly Italian and Puerto Rican neighborhood of 1930s East Harlem. From 1929 to 1934, sociologists at the Payne Foundation conducted a "Motion Picture Study" on the allegedly deleterious effects of Hollywood cinema on the area's male youths, with two similar studies of girls also undertaken at this time. I examine the institutional forces shaping these young people's testimonies and the ways in which these testimonies show immigrant teenagers' using films and movie-going as a means of negotiating both their roles and independence in this urban environment. I also analyze the gangster movies and romances they discuss in order to understand the aesthetic and gendered influences these films exerted on the formation of new youth identities in East Harlem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the European Conference on Children's Film (ECCF) and the KIDS Regio Forum that was held in Erfurt, Germany from June 18-20, 2014. It mentions that the conference was initiated by professor, Sven Jöckel from the University of Erfurt, Faculty of Philosophy. Topics discussed include the status and different aspects of European children's films, literature studies and film sociology.

In addition to 273 million illiterates (2001 Census), India has an estimated 389 million officially "literate" people who cannot read a simple text. Same Language Subtitling (SLS), the concept of subtitling audiovisual content in the same language as the audio, has been promoted as a low-cost solution to addressing functional illiteracy using existing film songs on television that 740 million viewers already watch regularly. SLS was implemented for five years on Rangoli, a nationally telecast, popular weekly TV program of Bollywood film songs in Hindi. Data collection for the baseline (2002) and endline (2007) was conducted by Nielsen's ORG-CSR on a number of literacy skill indicators in reading, writing, and self-perception. The agency drew a random sample from five Hindi states (n 7,409). Self-reported regular Rangoli viewers (treatment or SLS group) were compared to those who saw it rarely or never (control or no-SLS group). For children in school (6-14) and youth/adults (15), the SLS group showed substantially greater mean improvement on all the indicators of literacy skill than the no-SLS group. Regression analyses confirmed the significant effect of SLS on literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the 1938 film "Angels With Dirty Faces" starring James Cagney. Particular focus is given to the ambiguity of the film's ending and its treatment of criminals as related to developments in the field of urban sociology during this period. Details on the young actors known as the 'Dead End' Kids and the 1934 Production Code of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA) are presented. Emphasis is given to motion pictures' perceived influence on children.

On April 28, 1916, the little known writer Alejandro Larrubiera (born in Madrid) published in El Liberal newspaper an article about cinema and children's audience. Cinema was then gaining social and cultural popularity. Larrubiera wondered if the kind of plots employed in cinema, usually fabulous, was suitable for children. Although he did not mention Cervantes and other Golden Age writers, his reflections are the continuation of a longstanding literary controversy. Larrubiera's article is key to get to know the poetics and sociology of early cinema in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plural phrases are open to many interpretations in English, where cumulative interpretations of noun and verb phrases are possible without any disambiguating morphology. A sentence likeEvery week, the high school kids went to the movies or the ballgamemight involve quantifying over multiple occurrences of a single scenario, in which subsets of the kids do different things, or it might involve quantifying over distinct scenarios, in which all of the kids do one thing or all of them do the other. We pursue the No Extra Times principle that favors interpretations where a phrase is construed as describing a single event taking place during a given time period. In two written interpretation studies, we found that participants more often interpret indeterminate sentences with disjunctive predicates by partitioning the set of individuals rather than partitioning the predicate to denote distinct scenarios or times. We conclude by offering some speculations about why partitioning the eventuality denoted by the verb phrase into multiple times is more costly than partitioning the entities denoted by its subject noun phrase into multiple sets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The authors discuss their participant observation study with the 10-year-old boy and 8-year-old girl who collaborated on making digital videos at home. Major themes that emerged from this research include appropriation of popular culture texts, parody, gender play, and managing self-representations. These themes highlight the benefits of video production for children and youth, which allows them to take on the roles of writers, producers, directors, actors, and editors in their own right and understand the inner workings of new media enterprise. It also offers them an opportunity to respond to and rework popular images, scripts, and characters; try on and enact multiple identities; and make important decisions about their self-representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a speech written by Norris Church Mailer, a novelist and wife of U.S. author Norman Mailer, as a toast at the wedding reception of her son Matthew Norris Mailer and Salina on South Padre Island, Texas, in 2005. Mailer remembers the childhood of Matthew, including his interest to watch horror movies, and his career as a filmmaker. She also describes her encounters with Salina.

The article discusses the works of André Bazin, French film critic who was renowned for his essays. It presents the views of the author on the relationship between cinema and childhood. He wrote various articles on the way movies deal with children, which revealed his crucial thoughts on the psychological tendency of childhood, the mystery of innocence of the child and his feelings. It analyzes the essay "Ontology of the Photographic Image," which was considered to be the most famous essay written by him. He also discussed human infancy, a psychic substance which refers to the origination of language and how it connects with cinema.

Movies unite their audience as one collective intellect and one psyche thus allowing researchers to consider all audience as one individual. In other words analysis of a film is also analyses the collective psychology too. Just as the human physiology human psychology is alike too and moves through the same psychological development stages. So Freud described five stages of child development. Two of these periods, the oral and, puberty periods, will be used to explain the symbolic expression of two cinema figures: The vampire and the werewolf Monsters in the mental mind originate from the visions and fantasies of the childhood psychology. Visually children create their monsters in childish style however since the intellectual and aesthetic capacity develops in the course of time these monsters develop too. Both in character and visual form their development and complexity goes to such extend that some becomes archetypal in character and becomes property of culture, folklore and even property of the complete humanity. Vampires and werewolves are also within the monsters of such manner. They tell much as a psychological metaphor of the human nature. A metaphor of such nature is the psychosexual and psychosocial stages of the childhood development. Also it should be noted that until now such perspective is mostly neglected by the critics and analysts of the horror genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eye tracking offers a powerful research tool for developmental scientists. In this brief article, the author introduces the methodology and issues associated with its applications in developmental research, beginning with an overview of eye movements and eye-tracking technologies, followed by examples of how it is used to study the developing mind and discussions of the eye-mind relationship. The author also addresses a number of practical issues involved in starting eye-tracking research and provides resources for further reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the representation of violence in 23 trailers of animated films produced by Walt Disney Pictures. Using the methodology of content and narrative analysis, and the previous experience of the researcher in the analysis of violence in advertising spots, the profile representation of violence is extracted. The conclusions outlined in the model representation of violence in the trailers analyzed disadvantage with respect to the possible cognitive effects on minors, like imitation or insensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the presence of children as audience members at nickelodeons in the U.S. that exhibited silent films. The author comments on the role of nickelodeons in working children's recreational activities and suggests nickelodeons offered children a refuge from their home life and from life on the streets. She notes how activists sought to protect children from living environments perceived to be poor and comments on the depiction of children in films such as "The Land Beyond Sunset" and comedy films directed by Edwin Porter. Reports from the management of Keith/Albee theaters focusing on vocalizations of child audience members are described. The author describes how musical accompaniment and changes in audience led to the promotion of silence in motion picture theaters.

The article uses the motion picture "The Spirit of the Beehive," directed by Victor Erice, to illustrate how enthusiasm for motion pictures, also known as cinephilia, has been disavowed by film theorists and compares it to aspects of childhood. The author describes a scene in the film during which a young girl watching the motion picture "Frankenstein" has an epiphany that changes her perceptions of life. He suggests the scene illustrates that motion pictures offer more than escapism and notes Erice's views on the effect of motion pictures on children from wartime environments.

Abstract: Exposure to different forms of narrative media may influence children''s development of theory-of-mind. Because engagement with fictional narratives provides one with information about the social world, and possibly draws upon theory-of-mind processes during comprehension, exposure to storybooks, movies, and television may influence theory-of-mind development. We examined 4–6 year-olds’ inferred exposure to children''s literature, television, and film, using an objective measure that controls for socially desirable responding. Theory-of-mind was assessed using a battery of five tasks. Controlling for age, gender, vocabulary, and parental income, inferred exposure to children''s storybooks predicted theory-of-mind abilities. Inferred exposure to children''s movies also predicted theory-of-mind development, but inferred exposure to children''s television did not. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

To evaluate the usefulness of Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings for parental selection of appropriate films for children, the 100 top grossing movies each year from 1996 through 2004 (N = 900) were content analyzed to measure risk behaviors in each film. More restrictive MPAA ratings (R and PG-13) were associated with increased mean seconds of portrayals of tobacco use, alcohol use, and sexual content; increased frequency of violent content; and increased salience of drug use. MPAA ratings, however, did not clearly distinguish films based on tobacco or alcohol use. Fifty percent of R-rated movies contained 124 seconds or more of tobacco use, comparable with 26% of PG-13 and 17% of PG movies. Fifty percent of R-rated movies contained 162 seconds or more of alcohol use, comparable with 49% of PG-13 and 25% of PG movies. Because of the high degree of overlap in alcohol and tobacco content between rating categories, the MPAA rating system, as currently defined, is not adequate for parents who wish to limit their children's exposure to tobacco or alcohol content in movies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonhuman animals are primarily defined according to their form of relation with human beings, which broadly depends on the perceived utility of those animals to humans. These relations may be analyzed to generate typologies, membership of which circumscribes the probable fate of nonhuman animals when they enter into contact with humans. However, these judgments of utility and category membership are contingent and socially constructed, as demonstrated by cultural and historical variability in the species and individual animals assigned to particular types. This paper explores how the combination of childhood literary and film traditions relating to animals and associated promotional food tie-ins aimed at children contribute to a food socialization process whereby children learn to conceptually distance the animals they eat from those with whom they have an emotional bond or for whom they feel ethically responsible. In so doing, we develop a theoretical scheme for the differentiated positioning of animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advisory ratings and content descriptions are assigned to motion pictures by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and represent the primary social policy in the United States for advising parents about movie content, with a goal of limiting minor children's exposure to material deemed inappropriate for their age. To examine possible historical trends in MPAA ratings information, the present study analyzed the content of PG, PG-13, and R movie rating justification phrases (e.g., “Rated PG-13 for violence and language”) applied to movies released in the years 1993–2005. A random sample of 1820 movie titles was selected, and all words in the rating justification phrases were coded as primary content terms or modifier terms. Results indicated that content terms for language, violence, and sexuality appeared frequently at all rating levels. Historical trends were found for terms indicating stronger depictions of violence and language and more mature thematic material in PG movie phrases, and more adult language, substance use, and sexual content in PG-13 movie phrases, across the sampled years, a pattern termed “ratings creep.” Policy changes and psychological processes affecting MPAA raters and the ratings process are discussed as plausible causes of ratings creep, as are implications of these ratings changes for media consumers and society at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exposure to violence in media, including television, movies, music, and video games, represents a significant risk to the health of children and adolescents. Extensive research evidence indicates that media violence can contribute to aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, nightmares, and fear of being harmed. Pediatricians should assess their patients' level of media exposure and intervene on media-related health risks. Pediatricians and other child health care providers can advocate for a safer media environment for children by encouraging media literacy, more thoughtful and proactive use of media by children and their parents, more responsible portrayal of violence by media producers, and more useful and effective media ratings. Office counseling has been shown to be effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how adult paid work is portrayed in 'family' feature length films. The study extends previous critical media literature which has overwhelmingly focused on depictions of gender and violence, exploring the visual content of films that is relevant to adult employment. Forty-two G/PG films were analyzed for relevant themes. Consistent with the exploratory nature of the research, themes emerged inductively from the films' content. Results reveal six major themes: males are more visible in adult work roles than women; the division of labour remains gendered; work and home are not mutually exclusive domains; organizational authority and power is wielded in punitive ways; there are avenues to better employment prospects; and status/money is paramount. The findings of the study reflect a range of subject matters related to occupational characteristics and work-related communication and interactions which are typically viewed by children in contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ethics of advertising to children has been identified as one of the most important topics worthy of academic research in the marketing field. A fast growing advertising technique is product placement, and its use in children’s films is becoming more and more common. The limited evidence existing suggests that product placements are especially potent in their effects upon children. Yet regulations regarding placements targeted at children are virtually non-existent, with advertising guidelines suggesting that it remains the prime responsibility of the parents to provide guidance for children. This study measured the ethical evaluations of parents in the UK and Canada regarding product placements in children’s films. After exposing parents to a four-type typology of product placements, results show that explicit placements of ethically charged products were perceived as the most unethical type of placements. Parents in the UK were more sensitive to the use of the technique and there was a significant difference in relativism between the two groups. Both sets of respondents would like to see more regulation on the use of placements, especially placements of alcohol, tobacco and fast foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will discuss the way children across three schools in Bristol, United Kingdom have been engaged in a unique short film experiment. The video project they were involved with aimed to inspire the young participants to actively consider notions of storytelling, spoken language and narrative structure. The article challenges narrative conventions and the way audiences read film; asking how much audiences make their own connections of received messages to create their own narrative structures, and how much control producers have over this process. It goes on to argue the importance of Community Media educational activity in research culture and also highlight the potential of media literacy activity as being a conduit in schools to enhancing learning in non-arts subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND. Previous studies showed an association between viewing of smoking in movies and initiation of smoking among adolescents. However, all studies except one were cross-sectional, and none updated movie smoking exposure prospectively or assessed its influence on children. METHODS. We enrolled elementary school students, 9 to 12 years of age, in a longitudinal study to assess the influence of movie smoking exposure on smoking initiation among children. Movie smoking content was coded for the most popular movie releases; exposure was assessed by asking children which movies they had seen, on the basis of unique lists of 50 movies sampled randomly from top box office hits and video rentals. Data collection occurred in 3 waves (the baseline survey and 2 follow-up surveys), ~ 1 year apart. Movie lists were updated for each data collection wave, to reflect recent releases. Movie smoking exposure was analyzed in relation to smoking initiation by the end of the study period. RESULTS. Approximately 80% of the children's smoking exposure occurred through movies rated G, PG, or PG-13. Children's movie smoking exposure predicted smoking initiation significantly, after adjustment for multiple covariates including child and parent characteristics. The relative risks were 1.09, 1.09, and 1.07 for a 1-decile increase of movie smoking exposure measured at the baseline, second, and third data collection waves, respectively. The adjusted attributable risk of smoking initiation attributable to movie smoking exposure was 0.35. CONCLUSION. Our study, which is the first to enroll children in elementary school and to update movie smoking exposure longitudinally, indicates that early exposure has as much influence on smoking risk as does exposure nearer the outcome. Overall, movie smoking may be responsible for at least one third of smoking initiation for children in this age group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standardized sets of films have been shown to be effective for eliciting emotional states in adults, but no comparable validated stimuli are available for children. We therefore examined the effects of three pre-selected film clips each of 3-min duration in eliciting a pleasant, neutral and unpleasant emotional state in 297 children aged between 6 and 12 years. After the films were presented on a video projector, affective ratings were obtained with the Self-Assessment-Manikin on the emotional dimensions of valence and arousal. Increasing pleasure ratings were observed from the unpleasant to the neutral to the pleasant film. Associated arousal ratings were stronger for the unpleasant and pleasant films compared to the neutral film. Overall, results showed successful elicitation of targeted emotional states only marginally influenced by age, gender or prior experience with the films. The use of these films is therefore suggested for future studies on emotions in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]