LAUSR

I’ve been in children’s media for over three decades – long enough to have seen dramatically positive (if not always linear) progress in the relationship between industry and academia. Media Exposure during Infancy and Early Childhood – Springer’s new volume edited by Rachel Barr and Deborah Nichols Linebarger – sets out to strengthen that relationship by pairing research chapters on a variety of topics with chapters written by content creators/industry representatives. In doing so, the book illuminates important new perspectives, but also treads some familiar territory. For me, three brief snapshots reveal the evolving courtship of researchers and content creators: In 1994, at a Children Now conference, I moderated a panel that mimicked a television creative development meeting for a new series. One of the best researchers of the time kicked things off with a nuanced and deep social, emotional, cognitive, and cultural profile of our inner-city tween girl protagonist (a proxy for our intended audience). With hardly a pause, the producers and network executives ignored our expert’s sociological and developmental insights and said, “OK, our pilot episode is about getting her first bra.” You could see the researcher slump in her chair. At the time, except for Sesame Street, creators were generally loath to work with researchers, feeling they were there solely to tell them “no” or usurp the producers’ creative role. Fast forward a bit to 1999, when the Children’s Television Act was codified in the United States. Suddenly, academic or educational advisors were back “in” as they were needed to certify a television series as “FCC friendly” (a spectacularly cynical term, suggesting attention to the wrong audience). The relationship – at least in the USA – had grown closer, but not deeper. A friend who guided Standards and Practices for major children’s media companies told me later that she had revised her business cards several times over the years, removing or adding back “Ph.D.” to fit the zeitgeist. Most recently, in 2013, I organized a panel of academic and industry leaders for New York’s Children’s Media Association. The evening was divided into two broad questions: what I’d like the other “side” to know about my work, and what I’d like to know about theirs. As part of the former, Vikki Katz of Rutgers University delivered a concise distinction between the “process-based” academic research field and the “results-based” media world: