In September 2007, ICA approved the establishment of a new Interest Group: Children, Adolescents, and the Media (CAM). In that month, we presented a petition on behalf of 46 active ICA members who argued that a group of scholars in children and media exists within ICA but has long been scattered among many other Divisions and other associations, and that a new Interest Group will provide this group with many new possibilities for collaboration and growth. In the past decades, children and adolescents have become the defining users of many entertainment media and media technologies. Despite a booming media industry specifically aimed at children and young people, relatively little is known about the contents, uses, and implications of these media productions.
The Special Interest group Children, Adolescents, and the Media (CAM) strives to be a fruitful intellectual forum for academics from all over the world who study the role of media in the lives of children and young people. It aims to facilitate the exchange of ideas among scholars of different backgrounds and disciplinary orientations, informed by a variety of theoretical and empirical approaches. CAM's orientation is interdisciplinary: It attempts to draw on and contribute to communication theory, but also to psychological, sociological, cultural, and critical theories. CAM's approach is multimethodological: It welcomes all theoretical and empirical studies based on quantitative and qualitative research methods.
It is possible to become a member of CAM now! If you haven't renewed your ICA-membership yet, please do not forget to click on Special Interest Group #24: Children, Adolescents, and the Media! We are in an exciting phase. We will have an organizational meeting in Montreal, where the officers will be elected, some important future plans will be outlined, and, more importantly, the kick-off of CAM will be celebrated! We will keep you posted on the place and date of this organizational meeting. Of course we hope to welcome all children and media researchers at ICA at the kick-off meeting!
CAM will accept papers and panel proposals as from the 2009 Chicago conference. In the coming years, we would like to unite as many researchers focusing on young people as possible - so please come and join ICA's new interest group Children, Adolescents and the Media! If you have any questions, please email me at p.m.valkenburg@uva.nl.
Patti Valkenburg (chair)
U of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research
Kloveniersburgwal 48
1012 CX Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Ph. 31-20-525-2348
Fax 31-20-525-3681
p.m.valkenburg@uva.nl
