Dan Romer, director of APPC’s Adolescent Health and Communication Institutes, reviews the evidence on ways to prevent drug abuse in middle and high school youth, focusing on mandatory random drug testing. Since the 1990s, interest has been growing in the use of such tests to deter drug use among teenagers. The review finds that mandatory

In a city with high smoking rates, 52 percent of smokers with pre-teen children in their households said they permit smoking at home, a new study has found. The study, by researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, also suggested that certain antismoking messages, including a focus on

On the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a bipartisan task force of homeland-security experts, government officials and former members of the 9/11 Commission has released a report outlining the need for stronger and clearer Congressional oversight of national security.

Amy Jordan, Ph.D., associate director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, has been awarded a top teaching honor from the National Communication Association. Dr. Jordan was presented with the 2013 NCA Mass Comm. Division Teaching Award, honoring her “dedication and commitment to excellence in teaching and mentoring,” at the NCA’s 99th annual convention in Washington,

The amount of time that children and teens spend watching television may have more to do with their parents’ TV habits than with family media rules or the location of TVs within the home, according to a study in the August 2013 issue of Pediatrics, “The Relationship Between Parents’ and Children’s Television Viewing,” published online

Two FlackCheck.org videos about an imagined 1864 campaign against Abraham Lincoln using today’s technology and methods are the recipients of 2013 Bronze Telly awards: Steamboat Veterans for Truth and Battle Hymn.   The Telly Awards honor excellence in film and video productions, online video content, and local, regional, & cable TV commercials and programs. The

Sarah Vaala, Ph.D., a Martin Fishbein postdoctoral fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, offered her expertise on the effects of new technologies on young children to the Courier-Post (Cherry Hill, N.J.). The article was also picked up by USA Today. Parents adopt own rules to curb children’s ‘media diet’ (USA Today, May 21, 2013)

Children, Adolescents, and the Media (Sage, Third Edition, 2013), co-authored by Victor C. Strasburger, M.D., University of New Mexico School of Medicine,  Barbara J. Wilson, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and APPC Area Director Amy B. Jordan, Ph.D., has been updated to reflect cutting-edge research on the impact of media on youth. (From the

In a recently published paper in the Journal of Adolescent Health, a team led by Dan Romer studied the use of different screen media by a national panel of over 700 adolescents and young adults over a 1-year period. Despite research that lumps all screen media use together, the study found that heavy TV use

The results of a study by APPC researchers Sarah E. Vaala, Ph.D., Amy Bleakley, Ph.D., and Amy B. Jordan, Ph.D., were published in the journal Zero to Three (March 2013)   “The media environments and television-viewing diets of infants and toddlers”   Abstract: High rates of infant and toddler screen media use coupled with research