The current study examined how parental mediation of media (restrictive mediation, active mediation, and coviewing) influenced child outcomes. Three meta-analyses, 1 for each type of mediation, were conducted on a total of 57 studies. Each analysis assessed the effectiveness of parental mediation on 4 pertinent child outcomes: media use, aggression, substance use, and sexual behavior. The overall results indicated small, but significant relationships between child outcomes and restrictive mediation (r+ = -.06), and coviewing (r+ = .09). Overall active mediation was nonsignificant, though active mediation was individually related to lower levels of aggression (r+ = -.08), sexual behavior (r+ = -.06), and substance use (r+ = -.11). This analysis revealed that parents may have the ability to mitigate some of the adverse effects of the media by using certain mediation strategies. Overall, a cooperative effort from the communication and parenting fields is necessary for a comprehensive analysis of parental mediation as well as a disentanglement of the various parental mediation measures. (PsycINFO Database Record

Understanding the family dynamic surrounding media use is crucial to our understanding of media effects, policy development, and the targeting of individuals and families for interventions to benefit child health and development. The Families, Parenting, and Media Workgroup reviewed the relevant research from the past few decades. We find that child characteristics, the parent-child relationship, parental mediation practices, and parents' own use of media all can influence children's media use, their attitudes regarding media, and the effects of media on children. However, gaps remain. First, more research is needed on best practices of parental mediation for both traditional and new media. Ideally, this research will involve large-scale, longitudinal studies that manage children from infancy to adulthood. Second, we need to better understand the relationship between parent media use and child media use and specifically how media may interfere with or strengthen parent-child relationships. Finally, longitudinal research on how developmental processes and individual child characteristics influence the intersection between media and family life is needed. The majority of children's media use takes place within a wider family dynamic. An understanding of this dynamic is crucial to understanding child media use as a whole.

Studies examining the effects of exposure to prosocial media on positive outcomes are increasing in number and strength. However, existing meta-analyses use a broad definition of prosocial media that does not recognize the multidimensionality of prosocial behavior. The aim of the current study is to conduct a meta-analysis on the effects of exposure to prosocial media on prosocial behavior, aggression, and empathic concern while examining multiple moderators that the prosocial behavior literature suggests are important to our understanding of why individuals voluntarily help others (e.g., target, type, cost). Results from 72 studies involving 243 effect sizes revealed that exposure to prosocial media was related to higher levels of prosocial behavior and empathic concern and lower levels of aggressive behavior. Moderation analyses suggest that several moderators accounted for heterogeneity in the model, including age of participant, region, media type (active vs. passive), and study design. In terms of multidimensional moderators, prosocial media had stronger effects on prosocial behavior toward strangers than did any other target and on helping and prosocial thinking but not donating or volunteering. Comparisons with other meta-analyses on media effects are made and implications for parents, media producers, and researchers are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

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The current study examined longitudinal relations between parental media monitoring and adolescent behavior, and explored indirect effects via sympathy and self-regulation. A sample of adolescents and their mothers from Northwestern and Mountain West cities in the USA participated in a study at three time points, approximately one year apart (N ¼ 681; M age of child at Time 3 ¼ 13.33, SD ¼ 1.06; 51% female; 73% European American, 9% African American, 17% Multi-ethnic). Though findings varied by reporter, results suggested that restrictive and active media monitoring were indirectly associated with adolescents' prosocial behavior, aggression, and externalizing behavior, with restrictive monitoring being somewhat maladaptive and active monitoring adaptive. The discussion focuses on the need to examine multiple aspects of media monitoring, and highlights implications of findings for parents.