10 Resources on Media & Family Values

http://www.mediafamily.org/
National Institute on Media and the Family exists to educate families about the effects of mass media on children. There give reviews on video games and movies, and they provide many articles on topics ranging from effects of TV on literacy to usefulness of cell phones.

http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/media_and_values_6.html
Media & Values is published by the Center for Media Literacy. Articles address everything from violence in the media to sexual issues. I found the article “New Heroes for a New Age” particularly interesting in looking at how TV and movies portray a certain type of hero that is not functional in the “real world.”

http://www.aap.org/family/mediaimpact.htm
The American Academy of Pediatrics published this article on how media affects children and families. They pay extra attention to how children mimic what they see on TV and in movies and give good ideas on how to talk about it with your children.

http://home.earthlink.net/~ankfamily/media.html
This article provides practical ways that a family can discuss and think through the messages that media is sending their youth and children regarding “what it means to be young, how to handle interactions with others, how to have fun, and how to gain status as an adult.”

http://www.afa.net/journal/may/2002/harris.asp
This article put out by the American Family Association discusses how media is reshaping reality for everyone, even Christians. They note how Bible and Christian truth is treated by the media. A poignant quote from Josh Harris reads, “The mind set of many believers is “trying to figure out how much sinful content from media they can handle and still be okay.” He likens that attitude to taking half a poison pill. “When it comes to what we watch or read or listen to, we shouldn’t ask how many halves of poison pills we can take without dying. We need to examine the cumulative effect of our media habits on our attitude toward God and sin and the world.”


http://www.pluggedinonline.com/
This ministry of Focus on the Family provides reviews for movies, television shows, and music albums. I was glad to see that they were able to glean minutely positive things even out of movies as morally predictable as 40 Year Old virgin and Wedding Crasher, which it would be tempting to just focus on their negative aspects.

http://www.kff.org/entmedia/1535-index.cfm
This project entitled “Kids and the Media @the New Millennium” was backed by the Kaiser Family Foundation. It provides a great deal of comprehensive statistics on media use by children.

http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/discernment/mediawisefamilyguide.html
This articles talks about developing “media wisdom.” “…parents need to teach their children and teenagers how to be media-wise, intelligent consumers rather than just passive couch potatoes.” They give some good concrete advice. However, I wish they would differentiate between the “magic and witchcraft” used in Harry Potter and that used in Lord of the Rings, and why one is more Christian than the other.

http://familysafemedia.com/
Ok, so this organization is producing family friendly movies. This begs the question: What’s worse, well done, multimillion dollar movies with some redeeming qualities or low budget movies built around redeeming qualities?

http://www.aacap.org/publications/factsfam/violence.htm
This article was published by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. It discusses the effects on children of violence in the media. It also provides links to articles on the effects of music, rock videos and the internet.

Reflection to follow.