[ecrea] Call for papers merzWissenschaft "Media Literacy and Child Development in the First 10 Years"

cfp: Media Literacy and Child Development in the First 10 Years

Edited by: Prof. Dr. Andreas Lange (Hochschule Ravensburg-Weingarten)
and the merzWissenschaft Editing Team (JFF)

Childhood involves a great deal of learning and development. The conditions
under which a child grows up change in tandem with societal developments in
all different spheres of life. For instance, employment, or even lack of
employment, can have a nuanced impact on a family’s life together; such
factors can influence a family’s collective behaviors as well as the way its
members go about their daily routines and enjoy leisure time together. At
the same time, there is an increasing pressure in society to both optimize
oneself personally and put together the most universally lucrative list of
accomplishments. Children are under pressure from a young age to do
everything right – mistakes are taboo. Consequently, the parents are
burdened more than ever with the responsibility to know everything, do
everything and make everything possible.
Furthermore, the use of media is tying itself more and more intricately with
these different spheres of life. This is why, for instance, communication
media is essential for many areas of work, but are also important to the
organization of the family life and the maintenance of familial
relationships and friendships — even children are aware of this. Educational
institutions, which are becoming more and more important for youth in the
modern age, are no exception; media use is growing in these areas just as
well. From a child research perspective, an ever-strengthening link between
everyday life, the maturing processes of children, and the interaction with
media can be well-established. The gradually earlier appearance and
formation of an independent “child culture” in a child’s life supports this
connection. This trend concretely concerns, among other things, the
foundation of identity within the use of certain media brands or even the
development of certain music preferences. On account of these phenomena,
so-called “early tendencies” or tendencies towards early progression in
development – can be discussed whose causes are not exclusively found in the
development of media understanding, but refer instead to the changed
conditions in the socialization of adolescents. Media, with their offerings
in the way of content and chances for new experiences, allow for advanced
opportunities for entertainment, learning, communication and production of
which children can take advantage almost entirely autonomously. The
development of media – online and otherwise – and their interconnection with
the consumer world weaves together a thick, growing mediated network that is
centered around the actual and anticipated needs and capabilities of
children. In this thickly spun web there are unquestionably critique-worthy
opportunities, and alongside all the potential there exist new risks and
problematic areas. More than ever, the treatment of children and the
resources available to them during development play a decisive role in
determining how they will enter into a mediated world, engage critically
with the media, and accustom themselves to mediated content, environments,
and communication structures. Here the central role of children’s guardians
in the process of acquiring media literacy becomes apparent: Can they
creatively incorporate interaction with media to expand their capacity to
effectively raise their children? Where can one identify standardizing
points of orientation in media interaction which prove to be less useful in
raising children?

The current issue of merzWissenschaft takes a look at the dialectic
relationship between the conditions under which children are raised and the
most recent developments in media, with a specific focus on processes of
acquiring media literacy in the first 10 years of life. The following
questions, among others, should be pursued from the perspective of various
disciplines:

• In what ways does the pervasion of media in nearly every aspect of life
have an impact on child development? How does this pervasion alter the
classical idea of the “innocent child”?
• How do children deal with new challenges and requirements that begin to
present themselves in their daily lives? To what extent do these strategies
bring about different demands in the course of development, and in what ways
can media be applied to deal with them?
• How can we systematically describe the subjective mediated networks of
children, and how are these networks arranged among the different social
classes, genders, and ethnicities?
• What theoretical insights from other scientific disciplines could be
heuristically useful in order to appropriately reframe and accommodate the
changes in the subjective mediated networks?
• Can so-called “early tendencies” be measured and dealt with empirically
and theoretically (e. g. in terms of children’s capabilities and necessities
of interacting with media)?
• Does a stronger attachment to media networks change the relationship
between experiences in the real world and experiences in the mediated world
for children? To what extent can we continue to maintain and observe this
juxtaposition in the face of the increasing mediation of society?
• How do parents and other related figures form their strategy for
accompanying their children in growing up with media, and how do these
figures perceive the discourse about children’s interaction with media? What
consequences might this have for studying developmental concepts in a
mediated world?
• How do pedagogical institutions and field specialists react to the
changing demands in raising children through media and its many
developments, and which courses of action have they developed?

merzWissenschaft provides a forum to back up and push forward the scientific
discussion in media pedagogy. We therefore invite you to submit qualified
research papers from the various relevant disciplines to contribute to the
international debate.

The kind of papers sought:
• are based on empirical or theoretical research,
• offer new knowledge, aspects or approaches to the subject,
• explicitly refer to one of the areas or questions outlined above, or
delineate a new issue within the overall context of this call for papers.

In the first instance, interested authors are asked to submit an abstract of
no more than 6,000 characters (including spaces) to our editorial team
((merz /at/ jff.de)) by 13 February 2015. Please ensure that the papers follow the
merzWissenschaft layout guidelines. These are available at
www.merz-zeitschrift.de (? über merz ? für autoren).

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact Susanne Eggert by
phone on +49.89.68989.120 or email: (Susanne.eggert /at/ jff.de)

Deadlines Overview
13 February 2015: Submission of abstracts to (merz /at/ jff.de)
09 March 2015: Notifications of acceptance
12 June 2015: Submission of full papers
12 June - 24 July 2015: Peer review
August/September 2015: Revision Period (several phases if needed)
Final submission: 21 September 2015

--------------------------------------------
Dr. Susanne Eggert
merz - Zeitschrift für Medien und Erziehung
Pfälzer-Wald-Str. 64
81539 München

fon: 089/68989-120
fax: 089/68989-111

www.merz-zeitschrift.de


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