Year: 2011
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: The aim of this study was to test a model predicting parental mediation strategies from cultural dimensions and family communication patterns (FCP).Parents from India (n=57) and the United States (n=56) completed a survey for this study.It was proposed that cultural dimensions of individualism-collectivism, power distance and self-construal are related to family communication patterns.Also it was hypothesized that the effect of family communication patterns on various parental mediation strategies would be moderated by perceived risk of media exposure (PRME).The broad goal of the study was to establish FCPs as the mediators between cultural dimensions and parental mediation strategies.Results supported the association between cultural dimensions and family communication patterns.Also it was found that socio oriented parents with high PRME tend to use restrictive mediation.Concept orientation mediated the effect of individualism on active mediation and the effect of independent self-construal on active mediation.iii documented several pro-social effects of media exposure on children, there exist various studies that have investigated numerous adverse media effects on children (for a metaanalytic review see Mares & Woodard, 2001).It is important to see if parents differ cross-culturally in the way they look at media's influence on children or have even have different ways to combat negative media effects on their children through different communication styles.Studies in interpersonal communication have documented the cross-cultural differences in parenting styles across different countries (Chao, 2000, Chen, Hastings, Rubin, Chen, Cen & Stewart 1998;Wu, P., et al., 2002).However, researchers have not yet investigated the different mechanisms that lead to cross-national culture differences in parent-child communication about mediaoften referred to as parental mediation.Nathanson (2001) describes parental mediation as the parent-child interactions about television.To date, parental mediation research has dealt with the conceptualization and effectiveness of various parental mediation techniques.Research has looked at which parent-child communication strategies work best when it comes to mitigating harmful media effects on children (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2005).However there is relatively less literature dealing with what makes parents prefer certain mediation strategies over others.Previous research has attempted to establish a relationship between general family communication patterns and parental mediation strategies (e.g., Fujioka & Austin, 2002).There have been studies that have dealt with cross-national comparisons of parental mediation choices (Hasebrink, Livingstone, Haddon & Olafsson, 2009;Kirwil, 2009;Rose, Bush & Kahle, 1998).However, these studies have not looked at the cultural
Author: Uttara Manohar
Institution: The Ohio State University
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2598295052