Reducing Harm From Media: A Meta-Analysis of Parental Mediation

Abstract

This research investigated the effectiveness of parental mediation on reducing harm from media. Specifically, it examined the magnitude of the effects of three main parental mediation strategies on reducing the amount of media use and the incidence of media-related risks. A meta-analysis was conducted using 52 empirical studies on parental mediation, which represented a total sample of 74,159 participants and yielded 122 independent correlations. The results indicated that restrictive mediation was more effective than active mediation in decreasing the amount of time children spent on media, whereas the effects of active mediation and co-using were greater than those of restrictive mediation on reducing the incidence of media-related risks. According to the moderator analyses, age, risk type, medium, and culture significantly moderated the effects of active and restrictive mediation on reducing the amount of media use and the incidence of media-related risks.