Abstract
“Children and media” has been a theme of high interest all through the ages, among which this paper focuses on research and surveys conducted in Japan since 2000, when the full spread of the internet started effecting various changes in children’s lives, to summarize and analyze the research trend over this time period. The author specifically looked into diverse research, such as surveys on children’s media contact in their daily lives, panel studies and experimental studies aiming at elucidating media impact on children, and studies on children’s learning and media usage, by dividing the studies according to the subject: “children in elementary school and above” and “infants and preschoolers.”Consequently, the following aspects were found as key characteristics of the “media and children research” conducted during this period: (1) strong interest in the usage of smartphones, tablet terminals, and other newly-emerged media devices, (2) increased interest in research on infants and preschoolers, (3) more emphasis on panel studies, (4) more attention paid not only to quantitative elements but also to qualitative elements such as what is delivered and portrayed in TV programs and online content when discussing the impact of children’s media contact, and (5) more recognition of the importance of forming a framework that can reflect the research findings in classroom, childcare, and educating parents on media use.The trend implicates that these studies have been developed to address issues emerged by the end of the 1990s, but to achieve further development, it is important to continue discussing research frameworks, develop research methods, and make various efforts to secure and improve research environment, and to delve deeper into this theme, it is also vital for the researchers to always
take account of different perspectives on “children” and try to enrich their own research through exchanges and discussions with other researchers in diverse fields.
