Hey folks.

In this first blog post I want to share a little bit about myself and my goals for this site.

I’m a huge nerd for children’s media research. It started when I took my first children’s media course during my junior year at UW-Madison. Before that class, I had heard a lot about the negative impact of media on children – mainly news stories about television rotting kids’ brains, screen addiction, obesity, etc. But for the first time, this class introduced me to the positive power of media.. and I was hooked.

This class became my obsession. I had always been a good student, but this class brought out a whole new side of me. I read ahead in the textbook, sought out extra material online, and sent emails to my professor asking questions like, “If children learn best from videos containing familiar characters, would home-made videos with parents be better than a Sesame Street episode with Elmo?”

Flash forward 5 years, and that professor I admired is now my graduate advisor. I’ve learned a lot throughout my time as a graduate student, and I’d like to start sharing it with folks like you.

My mission for this site is to share what I study not only with other academics, but with the people who create media (authors, game designers, producers, app developers, etc.), navigate media in the wild (parents, educators, community members, etc.), and curious nerds like junior-year-me.

Thanks for stopping by and let let me know if there are certain topics you’d like me to cover in the future.

Roxy