Media effects research
Research teams at KFN have investigated various aspects of media use and their effects on recipients over a number of years. Linking crime-related issues with theories and methods of media use and media effects research is currently a key concern in several KFN projects. Questionnaire-based surveys are accompanied here by other empirical social science research methods, including content analysis, social science based experiments and expert interviews.
Three current projects deal with media use by children and adolescents. Medien im Kindesalter (Media in Childhood) accompanies a cohort of Hanover primary schoolchildren through a period of several years, focusing on their media socialisation, their experience of violence in the family and at school, and their school development. Selected children participate in yearly or two-yearly written surveys on these aspects of their lives up to secondary school level. A similar research approach is followed by Mediennutzung und Schulleistung (Media Use and School Achievement), which annually surveys a panel of Berlin primary schoolchildren. The research focus here is on how media use in leisure time relates to the ability to perform at school. To enable better interpretation of the exact cause-effect mechanisms between media use and school achievement, the Berlin panel study is supported by media psychology and neuropsychological experiments looking at the influence of media reception on memory consolidation of newly encountered knowledge. In a third project, an interdisciplinary research team with psychology, media and law expertise studies the age ratings assigned to computer games by USK, a German self-regulatory body set up by the entertainment software industry.
A fourth project deals with television reporting on violent crime in Germany and investigates the motives and decision structures of programme makers. The project is based on a qualitative questionnaire-based survey of journalists and analysis of current television news broadcasts, tabloid magazines and features.
The topic of media use by children and adolescents was also a focus of annual questionnaire-based surveys of school pupils in 2005 and 2007.
Three current projects deal with media use by children and adolescents. Medien im Kindesalter (Media in Childhood) accompanies a cohort of Hanover primary schoolchildren through a period of several years, focusing on their media socialisation, their experience of violence in the family and at school, and their school development. Selected children participate in yearly or two-yearly written surveys on these aspects of their lives up to secondary school level. A similar research approach is followed by Mediennutzung und Schulleistung (Media Use and School Achievement), which annually surveys a panel of Berlin primary schoolchildren. The research focus here is on how media use in leisure time relates to the ability to perform at school. To enable better interpretation of the exact cause-effect mechanisms between media use and school achievement, the Berlin panel study is supported by media psychology and neuropsychological experiments looking at the influence of media reception on memory consolidation of newly encountered knowledge. In a third project, an interdisciplinary research team with psychology, media and law expertise studies the age ratings assigned to computer games by USK, a German self-regulatory body set up by the entertainment software industry.
A fourth project deals with television reporting on violent crime in Germany and investigates the motives and decision structures of programme makers. The project is based on a qualitative questionnaire-based survey of journalists and analysis of current television news broadcasts, tabloid magazines and features.
The topic of media use by children and adolescents was also a focus of annual questionnaire-based surveys of school pupils in 2005 and 2007.
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