Volume 27, Issue 3

Using telephone interviews among a random sample of 537 Dutch children aged 7–12 years old, we investigated (a) the prevalence of fear reactions to television news among younger and older children and among boys and girls, (b) what types of news items children in different age and gender groups refer to as frightening, and (c) whether children's fear reactions to regular adult television news differed from their fear reactions to a special children's news program. Overall, 48.2 % of the children who reported watching the adult or children's news programs, reported fear reactions to adult news, while 32.6 % reported fear of children's news content. For both types of news programs, younger children and girls more often reported fear than older children and boys did. The most prevalent fear-inducing news content categories were (a) interpersonal violence, (b) fires, accidents, and disasters, and (c) visual depictions of the consequences of violence.

This study focused on cultural differences in the portrayal of gender in British and Japanese television advertisements. In all, 196 British advertisements were analyzed using a coding scheme based on established coding categories (Furnham, Babitzkow, and Uguccioni, 2000; McArthur and Resko, 1975). Contrary to prediction, chi-square analyses showed less gender stereotyping in these advertisements than reported in previous British studies (Furnham and Skae, 1997). Next, 228 Japanese advertisements were analyzed. It was found that Japanese advertisements showed a high degree of gender stereotyping as could be expected from Japan's high masculinity score (Hofstede, 1991). Analyses were carried out for ‘visual’ and ‘aural’ characters, and for advertisements with both one and two central figures. Results for the aural and 2-central figure sub-samples were more significant.

A content analysis of 601 commercials was conducted in order to identify the appeals that characterize commercials aimed at children and teenagers. Our findings demonstrated that the use of appeals (a) showed strong age differences and (b) was highly gender-role stereotyped, particularly in commercials aimed at children. The most typical appeals in commercials aimed at male children were action-adventure, sports, and play, whereas commercials aimed at female children emphasized nurturing, physical attractiveness, friendship, and romance. Having the best, competition, and achievement were the dominant appeals in commercials aimed at male teenagers, whereas romance, sexuality, and belonging to a group were emphasized in commercials aimed at female teenagers.

The starting point of the present study is to investigate which environmental factors play a role in the media behavior of ethnic minority youth. To what extent do socio-demographic characteristics (gender, age, education, SES and country of origin) influence ownership and use of the media? We also address the role of religion, cultural origin and the cultural distance between ethnic minority youth and indigenous Dutch youth. Three numerically important groups of ethnic minority youth are discussed: Turks, Moroccans (as examples of a group with greater cultural distance from indigenous Dutch youth) and Surinamese (with less cultural distance from indigenous Dutch youth). In a survey conducted among Turkish, Moroccan and Surinamese youth aged between 12 and 19, residing in the Netherlands, we investigated which environmental factors play a role in the media behavior of ethnic minority youth. A control group of indigenous Dutch youth was established and likewise exposed to the variables under study.

d'Haenens, L. and Seys, F. (Eds.) (2001). Western Broadcasting at the Dawn of the 21 st Century . Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. (pp. 442 plus CD ROM) (Denis McQuail) Louw, P. E. (2001). The media and cultural production . London: Sage. ISBN 0-7619-6583-1 (pp. 229). (Ellen Hijmans) Atton, C. (2001). Alternative Media . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN 0-7619-6770-2 ISBN 0-7619-6771-0 (pbk) (pp.172). (Laura Stein) Gudykunst, W. B. (2001). Asian American Ethnicity and Communication . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN 0-7619-2041-2 ISBN 0-7619-2042-0 (pbk) (pp. 256). (Herman Giesbers)