Expert on Children and Media Violence to Speak

Joanne Cantor, the author of numerous publications on children and the mass media, will present "From Bambi to Bin Laden: Mass Media and Children’s Fears" on Tuesday, February 12. Sponsored by Project Look Sharp, a media literacy program based at the College, the talk will begin at 7:00 p.m. in Textor 102. The event is free and open to the public.

"Now, more than ever, children are being confronted by frightening media images, ranging from child-marketed movies and television shows to news reports of domestic terror attacks and images of war," says Cantor. In her lecture she will discuss the reactions of children of different ages to this wide array of media images and tailoring age-appropriate coping strategies to children’s needs. She will also talk about such parental tools as media ratings and content filters, and describe websites that provide useful information for parents, teachers, and others concerned with the welfare of children.

A professor emerita of communications arts at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Cantor has published more than 70 scholarly articles and chapters about the effects of mass media. Since the early 1980s her research has focused primarily on the influences of television on children, placing major emphasis on children’s emotional reactions to scenes involving violence and other disturbing images. This research, which is grounded in developmental psychology, has explored the types of mass media images and events that frighten children at different ages as well as the intervention and coping strategies that are most effective for different age groups. Her 1998 book, Mommy, I’m Scared: How TV and Movies Frighten Children and What We Can Do to Protect Them, summarizes this research and its implications for a general audience.

Cantor has become highly visible in the national media because of her research on television ratings. In the fall of 1996, when the television industry was developing the new rating system that is now being used with the "V-chip," she collaborated with the national PTA on a survey of what parents wanted in the new system. Her finding that parents wanted content information rather than age recommendations helped bring together a national coalition of child-advocacy groups to oppose the industry’s age-based rating system and to lobby for more informative ratings.

Cantor has testified before committees of both the U.S. House and Senate and has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and The News with Brian Williams. Her research has been featured on ABC’s 20/20.

Ithaca College cosponsors of Cantor’s talk are the Center for Teacher Education, Roy H. Park School of Communications, and Student Psychology Association. Community cosponsors are Day Care and Child Development Council of Tompkins County, Ithaca Community Child Care Center, Planned Parenthood of Tompkins County, and Task Force for Battered Women/Child Sexual Abuse Project.

For more information visit www.ithaca.edu/looksharp/cantor.html or call Project Look Sharp at 274-3471.