ABSTRACT
The Media Panel Program group dates its origin back to 1969, when two of its members, Professors Karl Erik Rosengren and Sven Windahl, started a series of studies focused on individual use of the media (see Rosengren and Windahl 1972, 1977). Gradually, a growing consensus emerged among the participants in the project about the necessity for a large, longitudinal study of media use among children and adolescents. There were several reasons for this, one being our interest in individuals' mass media use, its causes and consequences, another, an equally strong interest in the interplay between those very basic agents of socialization, the family, the peer group, school, and the mass media.
