Should my child be reading banned books? The influence of parental mediation use in the United States on reading banned books

Recent efforts at book banning in the United States’ schools and libraries have produced a number of material iterations of anti-banning sentiment in online retail spaces like Etsy. Most scholarship on banned books comes from an education or library science perspective, with little book or media studies scholarship focused on how banned books are represented in online spaces. In this paper, we examine the top 50 results from searching “banned books” on Etsy to understand how merchandise that engages with the topic visually represents banned books. We find that banned book imagery often ignores more recent banned books, especially those featuring LGBTQ+ characters, in favor of older or more “classic” banned books. We also find that the banned book merchandise under examination here, like other social media reading spaces such as Instagram and BookTube, participates in glorifying the physical book as an object of credibility, despite the role digital reading devices play as both objects of banning and as a means of resistance. The results of our examination show ongoing disconnect between the perceived threat and the realities of book banning, as well as a desire to maintain an aesthetic of the “classic” as under attack.

A matter of style? Exploring the effects of parental mediation styles on early adolescents’ media violence exposure and aggression

Parents are observed to be engaged in children viewing television with mediation styles used at home. The objective of this study is to examine the various mediation styles (active mediation, restrictive mediation, co-viewing) adopted by parents in their children television watching and to understand parental mediation styles among children. For the purpose of this study, data were gathered from the parents of school children from Coimbatore (n=206) in a total sample size of 206 respondents. Respondents were asked to answer questions in a survey. The responses were analyzed to study the mediation adopted between three styles active mediation, restrictive mediation, and co-viewing with the parental demographic characteristics and children details. The findings of the study revealed that there is significant influence between parent’s gender and the family type. In the preference among various mediation styles across the age group of children and gender the mostly preferred mediation style is Restrictive Mediation i.e. Active Mediation and Co-viewing.

Banning books from public and school libraries has sharply increased in the USA in recent years. I analyze the phenomenon of book banning from the theoretical perspective of how books get ritualized in different textual dimensions. Book bans have a long cultural history in shaping literary and religious canons. Comparison with book burning shows some similar and some distinctive strategies behind book banning. Like book burning, book banning aims to draw public attention and to offend political opponents. In contrast to ritualized destruction of iconic books, however, book banning attacks the expressive dimension of reading texts by trying to prevent access to them. Whereas book burnings aim to offend opponents’ sensibilities, book bans aim to prevent inspiration to imagine different social arrangements and personal identities. That goal is apparent from the disproportionate focus on banning books with multi-cultural and LGBTQIA+ themes. The ban acts as a warning against embracing certain opinions and identities. However, analyzing book banning as ritual also draws attention to well-developed, ongoing traditions of counter-ritualizing by many libraries. They publicize banned book lists and encourage reading them during “Banned Books Week” and similar events. Through this ritual analysis of iconic and expressive texts, book banning emerges as a traditional site of cultural conflict over the means and goals of textual inspiration.

“Banned Books Behind Bars” is a social justice project that aims to shed light on the complex problem of information access in prison and to explore potential prototypes for possible solutions to some of these obstacles, in particular access to books and printed information. The United States is home to five percent of the world’s population but a staggering twenty-five percent of the world’s total prisoners. For many incarcerated individuals, access to information is a struggle: censorship, book banning, and lack of adequate library facilities or collections are common. Over the course of conducting preliminary research, this project evolved through the research process of ideation. Through the participatory action research method, qualitative interviews with volunteers from banned books organizations helped to identify potential digital tools meant to aid in the fight against the First Amendment violations that incarcerated individuals face daily. Furthermore, the interviews clarified that the first step toward creating an impactful digital project involves converting various forms of unstructured data, including newspaper articles, prison censorship forms, and state published banned book lists, into structured data. Through this discovery, “Banned Books Behind Bars” became an endeavor to standardize practices of data aggregation amongst banned books organizations throughout the country. Gathering concrete data about the practice of banning books within prisons requires an elevated level of transparency. Incarcerated individuals, their families, and prison reform activists need a platform for reporting data on censorship practices, and, ultimately, for bringing awareness to the arbitrary application of censorship guidelines within the complex world of incarceration. The final prototype is a digital repository, created with Airtable software, which offers authoritative dataset consolidation for activists and organizations working to deliver books to prisoners.

The family plays an immensely crucial role in the development of adolescents, significantly influencing their behavioral patterns. To explore the impact mechanism of the parental mediation (active mediation, restrictive mediation, and parental monitoring) on adolescents’ smartphone addiction, and analyze the chain-mediating role of basic psychological needs and fear of missing out (FoMO). Parental Mediation Scale, Smartphone Addiction Scale, Basic Psychological Needs Scale and Fear of Missing Out Scale were administered to 5,841 adolescents. The sample comprised 2,772 boys (47.46%) and 3,069 girls (52.54%) with an age range of 11.5 to 15.3 years (M = 13.35, SD = 1.29). The results indicated that active mediation could negatively predict adolescents’ smartphone addiction, whereas restrictive mediation and parental monitoring could positively predict adolescents’ smartphone addiction; and after controlling for sex and age, basic psychological needs had a separate mediating effect on parental mediation and smartphone addiction. Moreover, this study observed a chained mediating effect between basic psychological needs and FoMO on the relationship between parental mediation and smartphone addiction. Meanwhile, FoMO did not have a mediating effect on the relationship between parental mediation and smartphone addiction. Based on social cognitive theory and self-determination theory, this study innovatively integrates parental mediation, adolescents’ basic psychological needs, fear of missing out, and smartphone addiction into a coherent model. More importantly, it separately examines the effects of active mediation, restrictive mediation, and parental monitoring within the same group of participants, allowing for a cross-comparison of the three types of parental mediation in the study. This provides a theoretical reference for reducing adolescents’ smartphone addiction.

While social media influencers are gleaning increasing trust and investment from brands, advertisers, and followers, insights on the role of influencers in adolescents’ relationship formation and consumption behaviors are still rare. Drawing on the literatures of influencer content value, influencer credibility, parental mediation, and parasocial relationship (PSR), this study proposed a conceptual model that expounds the appeal of influencers among adolescents. To test the model, we administered an online survey – recruited in proportion to demographic quotas (i.e., age, gender and ethnicity) – among 500 United States adolescents (aged 10- to 19-years old) via Qualtrics panel. Results revealed that, the entertainment value of influencer-generated content, influencer expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness, and followers’ perceived similarity to their favorite influencers, are positively related to the perceived PSR between adolescent followers and their favorite influencers, which in turn, are associated with adolescents’ materialistic views and purchase intentions. We also explored the role of parental mediation of adolescents’ social media use in their PSR with influencers. Results indicate that, neither active mediation nor restrictive mediation is related to the PSR between adolescents and influencers. Active mediation is negatively associated with adolescents’ materialism, whereas restrictive mediation is positively related to adolescents’ purchase intentions toward influencer-promoted products. This study proposed and tested a comprehensive conceptual model that accounts for the role of influencers in adolescent followers’ materialism and purchase intentions. This study yields three major theoretical contributions. First, it adopts and applies the concept of PSR from the literature of media psychology to explicate influencers’ appeal among adolescents, which lays a theoretical foundation for future research on the impact of influencers. Second, it advances the current literature on social media influencers by specifying key contributing factors for the development of adolescents’ PSR with influencers. Lastly, it explores the roles of the two facets of parental mediation – active and restrictive mediation – in the appeal of influencers among adolescents, which offers directions for future research of parental mediation in the influencer context.

Television is one of the environmental factors which plays important role in children personality development. The process of personality development can be seen from the process of adaptation conducted repeatedly. If broadcast of news regarding violence is repeatedly presented in television, it will be slowly part of children behavior. Children as individual who are vulnerable to negative impact of television should get attention when they are watching television. Therefore, parents have important role to mediate between children and television, because their mediation is a real action to prevent the negative effects of mass media especially television.The objectives of this study were to review and to understand the condition of parental mediation (restrictive mediation, instructive mediation, and co-viewing mediation) and reality perception condition. Thus, this study reviewed the influence of every dimension from parental mediation (restrictive mediation) on reality perception and the influence of reality perception on aggressive behavior of Islamic Integrated Junior High School students in Pekanbaru.The data were collected using questionnaires that had already been assessed through pretest. The questionnaires were distributed to 280 respondents who were selected using proportional random sampling. Then, those data were analyzed mainly using Partial Least Square which did not require various data assumption.The result of this study shows that there is high parental mediation which is in line with its three dimensions and low reality perception. In this case, Parental mediation can be said as moderate and good ability in explaining reality perception. Keywords: Parental mediation, restrictive mediation, reality perception.

BackgroundDigital technology has a two-sided impact whether it is used appropriately or not. It is crucial to promote the benefits of digital technology and reduce its harms by bolstering adolescents’ digital literacy. The appropriateness of the strategies parents use to manage their children’s digital lives plays a key role. This study aims to investigate the separate effects of family socio-demographic factors and varied dimensions of parental mediation on adolescents’ digital literacy separately and simultaneously to explore the appropriate parental mediation strategies even in the absence of favorable family status.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was utilized with a sample of 1894 Chinese adolescents in junior and senior high schools (mean age = 14.01, 48.94% female), using a set of exam questions to test children’s objective digital literacy online. Family socio-demographic factors (parental marital status, economic status, and parental education levels) and varied dimensions of parental mediation were included as predictors of digital literacy. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to estimate the relation between the variables.ResultsHigher parental education levels were positively associated with adolescents’ parental mediation and digital literacy while better family economic status and parental divorce were negatively associated. Among the dimensions of parental mediation, active mediation, restrictive mediation and supervision were significantly associated with adolescents’ digital literacy, but not for co-use. Active mediation and supervision showed significant positive associations with adolescents’ digital literacy, whereas, co-use showed a significant negative association when all parental mediation dimensions were integrated into the model, The significant association between restrictive mediation and digital literacy disappeared. Parental mediation has diluted the impact of family socio-demographic factors on adolescents’ digital literacy.ConclusionsEffective interventions are needed to promote parental active mediation and supervision to help adolescents develop digital literacy and navigate the digital world, especially for adolescents who do not have highly educated parents or whose parents are divorced.

Background/Objectives: Although parental mediation has been widely recognized as a protective factor against cyberbullying, evidence regarding restrictive mediation remains inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. This inconsistency underscores the need to identify potential moderators. The present study examines whether parent-child relationship qualities (trust and alienation) and child gender moderate the associations between restrictive mediation and both cyber-aggression and cyber-victimization. Methods: Participants included 2075 adolescents (Mage = 16.50, SD = 3.11; 926 boys) from Grades 7-12 in urban China. Self-report measures assessed restrictive mediation, parent-child trust and alienation, and adolescents' involvement in cyber-aggression and cyber-victimization. Results: Parental restrictive mediation and parent-child alienation were positively associated with adolescents' cyber-aggression and cyber-victimization, whereas parent-child trust was negatively associated with both outcomes. Moreover, parent-child alienation significantly moderated the associations between parental restrictive mediation and cyberbullying, such that restrictive mediation predicted higher levels of cyber-aggression and cyber-victimization under conditions of greater alienation. These moderating effects were particularly pronounced among boys, whereas for girls, the association was weaker or non-significant. Conclusions: These findings suggest that inconsistencies in prior research may be explained by variations in parent-child alienation and gender. The results highlight the need to foster trust and reduce alienation in parent-child relationships, rather than relying solely on restrictive Internet control, to prevent adolescents' involvement in cyberbullying.

Early adolescent children engage in Internet-based online activities on smartphones and social media, which may result in online risks, including sexual risks. Parental mediation to regulate accessed content and contacts on smartphones and social media may prevent risks. This exploratory, descriptive study investigated parental mediation with early adolescent children 11 to 14 years old. A sample of 102 parents completed a REDCap online or paper-based survey to measure active mediation, co-use, general restrictive mediation, content-specific restrictive mediation, and supervision in response to a pre-survey prompt regarding mediation they use to protect their early adolescent children from sexual risks online. IBM SPSS Statistics 22 were used to analyse parental mediation frequencies. Participants utilized active mediation to communicate about appropriate online activities and restrictive mediation to control accessed content and contacts. Participants infrequently co-used by being online with children or supervised online activities. Future research should explore barriers to co-viewing and supervision.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how parental mediation of children's television viewing varies among urban and rural children in China.Design/methodology/approachA survey of 1,056 children ages 6 to 14 in nine Chinese provinces was conducted. Independent sample t‐tests were performed to make rural‐urban comparisons. Correlation analyses were provided on the relationships between parental mediation styles and children's television usage, and between parental mediation styles and children's purchase request.FindingsThe paper finds that urban parents engage in more instructive mediation and restrictive mediation than rural parents. Urban parents use restrictive mediation the more often, while rural parents use co‐viewing the more frequently. Only urban children's television viewing has a significantly positive relationship with co‐viewing with their parents. In general, children's purchase request is positively related to parental mediation styles in rural and urban China (except for restrictive mediation in rural areas).Research limitations/implicationsThe study is based on an analysis of secondary data. Future studies should adopt established scales of parental mediation styles for the Chinese context.Practical implicationsThe findings should help public policy makers understand the dynamic parents‐children interactions with television, and help marketers find effective and efficient ways to reach young Chinese consumers.Originality/valueThe study represents a preliminary effort to examine the antecedents of television parental mediation, its occurrence, and its potential effects in the Chinese context.

Active and restrictive parental mediation over time: Effects on youths’ self-regulatory competencies and impulsivity

Despite rising adoption rates of mobile devices, few studies have investigated the effectiveness of parental mediation in addressing children’s mobile media use. The current study aimed to fill this gap by examining parental mediation styles in relation to problematic smartphone and tablet use among pre- and early adolescents. Moreover, in line with self-determination theory, we expected autonomy-supportive mediation to increase children’s internalization of parental messages, resulting in elevated self-regulation. Results of two cross-sectional surveys showed that autonomy-supportive, restrictive mediation was directly, negatively related to problematic use. However, this relationship was not mediated through self-regulation. Conversely, controlling and inconsistent mediation styles were generally indirectly associated with more problematic use via emotional and behavioral self-regulation.

Comparing cyberbullying perpetration on social media between primary and secondary school students