ABSTRACT
Although cognitive-developmental approaches in communication and cultural studies have revealed much about the effects of age on children’s consumption and comprehension of media, we still know very little about the effect of gender. Feminist theories of differences between boys and girls introduced the distinction between sex and gender to differentiate the sociocultural meanings (masculinity and femininity) from the base of biological sex differences (male and female) on which they are erected. Gender differences are assumed to be constructed through complex processes such as socialization, cultivation, and psychological development. It is our purpose in this chapter to examine boys’ and girls’ interactions with media in order to further understanding of how these are involved in the process of gender development. Do media, for example, play a different role in the lives of girls and boys? Do girls use media for different purposes than boys? Are there gender differences in the meanings associated with the various media? Which gender differences are universal and which culturally bounded? The purpose of this chapter is to address these issues by highlighting relevant findings from our comparative work on children in the changing media environment. In the following pages we examine—and, when appropriate, challenge—some of the conventional wisdom regarding gender differences in the place of media in children’s and young people’s lives. We also place media use in the context of gender differences in attitudes to technology, peer and family relationships, and social values and aspirations.
