Stranger danger', 'abduction risks' and 'fear' : media coverage of children's independent mobility and parental attitudes

S. K. Bennetts, A. R. Cooklin, J. M. Nicholson, N. J. Hackworth, Julie Green, S. R. Zubrick, S. B. Crawford

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

The media plays a powerful role in shaping health-related attitudes and behaviours. We investigated media reports about children's independent mobility (CIM) and associations with parental attitudes towards CIM. CIM-related media reports (newspaper, online, television) during a 3-month period were extracted from two databases. Concurrent parental attitudes were collected via telephone interview from 1779 parents of children aged 9-15 years. Media reports were overwhelmingly negative: 94% mentioned only risks and 6% mentioned benefits. There was no association between media reports and parental attitudes. Parental CIM attitudes are often complex and pervasive and may not be shifted by media coverage alone.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1846-1864
Number of pages19
JournalChildren & Society
Volume37
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Children & Society published by National Children's Bureau and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Open Access - Access Right Statement

© 2022 The Authors. Children & Society published by National Children's Bureau and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and repro- duction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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