ABSTRACT
During the better part of the twentieth century, systematic studies of the character, causes, and consequences of individual mass media use have been carried out in a number of countries and have produced a multitude of sometimes contradictory results. This state of affairs raises some questions about the historical specificity versus the invariance over time and space of the phenomenon under study. A serious answer to such questions calls for systematic comparative research, preferably combining spatial and temporal comparisons, as well as cross-sectional and longitudinal data. This chapter presents the Media Panel Program, which has been carried out for some 15 years at the University of Lund in Sweden. Some 3,000 children and their parents living in two Swedish towns have been followed, in some cases from preschool to adulthood. The program is based on a combined cross-sectional/panel design, at present covering eight data collection waves. This chapter presents some central results from the program. Confronting the historical specificity of some results with the “invariant change” found in others, the question is posed whether current generalizations about individual mass media use will survive the ongoing restructuring of the European media scene.
