Sofia - 15

Sofia, 15

Media Consumption: ~6 hours a day

Favorite Media/Technology: Snapchat

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How do you and your family interact with media/technology?

My parents don’t have social media accounts, and if they did I wouldn’t let them follow me. Now that my sister is in college, we talk more through social media by sending Snapchats or sending each other funny memes. My family and I use media together when we’re watching a movie or listening to music. My mom doesn’;t like how often I am on my phone, and she usually takes it away from me so we can all spend time together without technology.

How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?

I talk to my friends through our Snapchat group chats everyday. I also use Instagram to like and comment on my friends pictures, and most of my friends have at least two Instagram accounts. When we’re not talking over Snapchat, we usually group Facetime. I don’t really like texting or calling though. Whenever my phone gets taken away, I feel like I am missing so much, and it always takes me a long time to scroll through everything I missed when I get my phone back.

What do you use media for?

Since I can’t drive yet, I use media to stay connected with my friends when we can’t hang out. I also use media when I’m bored, and I spend a lot of time watching Netflix or listening to Spotify. Sometimes, I use media for school related things too, and I am in a lot of group chats where we talk about homework. I also like using Instagram and Pinterest to help me learn more about makeup and fashion. I learn a lot about makeup through watching my favorite Youtubers too.

What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?

My favorite thing about media is being able to talk to my friends whenever I want to. I like staying connected with them when we’re not in school together. I also love learning more about stuff I’m interested in, like makeup and fashion. However, I know that media can have negative effects too. I don’t like that I compare myself to people on Instagram, and sometimes I realize how dependent I am on my phone. I don’t like how stressed out I get when I don’t have access to my phone and my social media.

INTERVIEWED BY:

SERENA SILK

UCLA 2ND YEAR STUDENT

Samara - 13

Samara, 13 

Media Consumption: Weekdays - 1-2 hours per day, Weekends 2-3 hours per day. 

Favorite Media: Instagram and YouTube

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How do you and your family interact with media/technology?

There are certain rules in my household when it comes to being responsible while using media platforms, specifically my parents gave me new rules when I received my cell phone right before I entered middle school. Besides the new rules, they had a conversation with me about how I would now have access to a lot more content, but that doesn’t mean I should be viewing it all and also about what I am deciding to post and have conversations about. They also mediate the social media accounts that I have, like Instagram, by following them to ensure I am being appropriate about what I post. 

How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?

We mainly communicate through Instagram, we comment on each other Instagram stories, DM each other post or tag each other on post/pictures and memes, or just DM each other to talk about other topics. Rarely do I text or call my friends through iMessage, I mainly use that to talk to my parents or other family. I feel like I can always connect with my friends through Instagram, so when it is not available to me I feel a bit disconnected. We also talk about you tubers videos that we watch, because we follow the same people.  

What do you use media for?

I use the media to feel connected, talk to my friends, and look at their posts. I also follow social influencers in order to look at their posts. The people that I follow on Instagram are usually the same people that I follow and am subscribed to on YouTube. For example, I am part of the Royalty Squad, because I follow and am a fan of Queen Naija and watch all the videos she posts. The influencers that I like to follow are girls who share messages that are genuine and are not trying to act like something they are not, and they spread messages about self-love. 

What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?

My favorite thing about social media is that I can connect with my friends through it, we enjoy talking and sharing posts through social media apps. I think that it can also be used to spread and send many positive messages out to people. My least favorite thing about media is that people can feel like they need to be perfect and be similar to others, but i think that this also just depends on the type of people you follow. 

INTERVIEWED BY:

DANIELA RODRIGUEZ

UCLA 4TH YEAR STUDENT

Sue - 14

Sue, 14

Media Consumption: Day: 11 -13 hours, Week: 60-80 hours

Favorite Media/Technology: TikTok/iPhone

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How do you and your family interact with media/technology?

My parents and I do not really interact with one another through technology other than communicating through occasional text messages or phone calls. ​Sometimes, we will watch movies or television shows together when everyone’s schedule is the same. However, my older sister and I enjoy communicating through Snapchat and Instagram Direct Messaging. Depending on the day, we may use one more than another. On Snapchat we send each other funny images or update each other about our school work throughout the day. On Instagram, we send each other pictures/videos we find funny, cute or places we would like to visit. We also send each other new restaurants and foods we would like to try.

How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?

My friends and I are constantly in contact with one another whether it be through social media, text message or FaceTime. I mainly prefer interacting with my peers through FaceTime because of the ease at which we can communicate. ​Often when communicating through other means we may not fully understand each other or miss out on important details. ​I also enjoy scrolling through Instagram but I prefer not to post anything that could be misconstrued or used against me.

What do you use media for?

Being in elementary and middle school, my primary use for technology was to pass the time and keep myself entertained as well as to stay connected with my friends. But as I have grown older, my media use has too. Now as a freshman in high school, I largely use my phone for educational content in addition to entertainment. I also enjoy keeping myself preoccupied with watching Netflix and listening to music.

What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?

I believe that media usage has both positive and negative effects on an individual. I believe that social media applications such as Instagram can have a negative effect on a person psychologically. I attribute negative connotations to Instagram due to its ability to make you feel negatively about yourself. Such as when I see my peers post the “perfect” picture or my friends having fun without me. It makes me feel left out and unimportant. On the other hand, I view applications such as YouTube as positive in terms of both education and entertainment. ​It gives me the ability to learn new things and get help with homework while also allowing me to unwind after a long day at school.

INTERVIEWED BY:

SUMMER GHARAKHANI

UCLA 4TH YEAR STUDENT

Now Playing: The Real Risks of Teen Vaping

Now Playing: The Real Risks of Teen Vaping

People are more likely to start using drugs in their teen years and young adulthood (18–25) than at any other age. Some of the physical, emotional, and social changes that teens experience can make them especially vulnerable to engaging in risky behaviors, including drug use. 

Scientific research has repeatedly found that using drugs presents serious health risks for teens—risks that can have lifelong consequences. Yet teens often underestimate the health risks involved in using drugs. As one example, let’s look at a form of drug use that has become increasingly popular with teens: vaping (using e-cigarettes).

How many teens vape?

Every year since 1975, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has funded a nationwide survey--Monitoring the Future (MTF)—to  measure drug and alcohol use among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders. In 2019, more than 42,000 students from almost 400 schools across the United States answered confidential questionnaires for MTF.

MTF found that vaping has increased dramatically among teens in recent years. Teens’ vaping of nicotine—the addictive ingredient in tobacco—rose in 2019, and there was a rapid rise in vaping of marijuana: About a fifth of 12th graders and 10th graders reported vaping marijuana in the past year. 

In fact, from 2018 to 2019, the percentage of high school seniors who reported that they had vaped marijuana in the past 30 days increased from 7.5 percent to 14 percent—the second-largest one-year increase in any drug use that MTF has recorded in its 45-year history.

Why do teens vape?

Some vaping devices, like the e-cigarette Juul, have a sleek design—similar to a flash drive—that may look “cool” to some teens. That design can also help teens conceal their use of vaping devices at school. 

In the 2019 MTF survey, respondents gave several other reasons for vaping. More than 40 percent said they tried vaping for the flavors. Others said they tried it just to experiment, or to have a good time with friends, or simply because they were bored. However, more than 8 percent said they vaped because they’re “hooked.” 

What are the risks of vaping for teens’ health?

Vaping can have serious effects on a teen’s health, now and in the future: 

• Continued e-cigarette use can lead to nicotine addiction. Although taking drugs at any age can lead to addiction, research shows that the earlier people begin to use drugs, the more likely they are to progress to more serious use. 

• Similarly, research has shown an association between nicotine vaping and progression to smoking tobacco cigarettes.

• When people vape, they inhale several poisonous chemicals.

Storytellers can make a difference in teens’ understanding of the risks of vaping—and of using other drugs as well. For example, the U.S. Surgeon General reports that youth who are exposed to images of smoking in movies are more likely to smoke and those who get the most exposure to onscreen smoking are about twice as likely to begin smoking as those with the least exposure. Yet onscreen depictions of smoking have significantly increased in recent years, in both on-demand shows aimed at viewers age 15 to 24, and broadcast TV shows.

Here are some actionable insights for storytellers:

• Portray the consequences of drug use on teen health and well-being. 

• Avoid showing characters who vape, smoke, or use other drugs as “cool.”

• Mention the risks of drug use to the developing teen brain.

• Address the risks of vaping marijuana and nicotine: for example, inhaling harmful chemicals,  addiction, and progressing from nicotine vaping to smoking tobacco cigarettes.

• Avoid any imagery depicting a drug that is ready for use (i.e., a lit cigarette), as this can be a trigger for those who are addicted to drugs.

• Acknowledge that most teens don’t use drugs. While the most common form of drug use among teens, vaping, has increased dramatically of late, teens’ use of other drugs has either stayed relatively stable (marijuana) or declined (alcohol, cigarettes, inhalants, etc.) in recent years. Storytellers can help deflate the myth that most teens use drugs; this, in turn, can reduce teens’ perception that “everyone else is doing it.”

Barrett Whitener, M.F.A., M.A.

Senior Health Communications Manager, IQ Solutions, Inc., Rockville, MD, For the National Institute on Drug Abuse

Related Resources

Monitoring the Future 2019 Survey Results: Vaping

Monitoring the Future: Trends and Statistics

2019 Monitoring the Future Survey Raises Worries About Teen Marijuana Vaping

 NIDA for Teens Drug Facts: Tobacco, Nicotine, and Vaping (E-Cigarettes)

NIDA for Teens Drug Facts: Brain and Addiction

NIDA for Teens Drugs & Health Blog: E-Cigarettes: Inhaling More Than You Bargained For

Principles of Adolescent Substance Use Disorder Treatment: A Research-Based Guide


Recommended Content on Teen/Tween Vaping for Consideration in Storytelling

Image attribution: Vaping 360

Technology in Tandem: Designing for Joint Media Engagement

Technology in Tandem: Designing for Joint Media Engagement

“Daddy, what’s that?”

“Oh, that’s a walker – it helps people walk when they are a little unsteady. You remember when Grandma was in the hospital after her surgery? She used a walker to help her get around until her leg was feeling better. It looks like the beaver in the show is using a walker while he gets better too!” 

 There’s a common saying that kids are like sponges, soaking up everything around them. And it’s not wrong – kids can pick up a lot. But study after study shows that when it comes to media, like TV, apps, and ebooks, children can absorb the most when an adult uses the media with them. For example, one study conducted at the University of Delaware in the Child’s Play Learning and Development Lab, found that 4- and 5-year-olds understood an e-book’s story better after they read it with a parent than after “reading” it alone using the audio narration. Interactions like the one above probably explain why. Audio narration can read the story to the child, but only an adult can stop to define an advanced word, describe a picture, or relate the story to their child’s life.  

But how much do children and parents use media together?

Despite everything we know about how “joint media engagement” can help children learn, the data show that most of children’s media use happens alone. Only about a third of parents say that they watch TV with their children all or most of the time and only one in five parents say that they use tablets with their child that often. Similarly, only a third of parents report watching online videos with their child most of the time, and less than one in five report playing video games with their child that often. Perhaps not surprisingly, these statistics differ by age: Joint media engagement is highest with younger children and drops off drastically as children get older, especially for tablets and smartphones. 

The role of the media itself

 Very few media properties encourage adults to use media with children.  Although media creators are quite good at making shows and movies that are appealing to children, whatever makes media irresistable for a 4-year-old is not likely to make most adults swoon with delight. Think about parents in the 1990’s complaining about the songs from Barney or those in the 2000’s who couldn’t stand Caillou’s constant whining.  There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. The beloved PBS show Sesame Street features celebrity appearances and humor that is likely to go way over kids’ heads but is targeted right at the parents who might be sitting on the couch with them. Even if they don’t intend to watch with their children, seeing, for example, Tiffany Haddish or John Legend might entice parents away from preparing lunch or scrolling through their email to check out what their child is watching. 

Tablets and smartphones however, may be used even less with children because these devices are not geared towards two people using them together. It feels natural to sit on the couch next to your child to watch a TV show together, but when was the last time you jointly used an iPad? Research has shown that when children use a tablet they place it in their laps or in front of their face, making it more difficult to share.  When children use media on a big screen in the living room, parents can walk by and easily see what their child is watching. Likewise, computers are oriented vertically and have a screen large enough to view over the child’s shoulder. Today’s devices are convenient for use on-the-go, but their smaller screens and handheld nature mean that parents may struggle to see what their children are watching. That makes it doubly difficult to engage casually and jointly with your child and the screen.  

Rethinking media design for joint engagement

Here are some tips about how media creators can craft content that requires joint media engagement:

• When a child opens an app, it could default into a two-player mode, prompting them to go find a parent to collaboratively reach a goal in the game. 

• Activities in apps could allow for multiple screen touches simultaneously, so that parents and children can both be engaging at the same time. 

• Create apps that allow children and parents to play together on multiple screens; for example, a child playing on a tablet in the kitchen could send a digital invitation to their parent’s smartphone in the living room. 

• Consider both children and parents in designing their content. 

In the end, we all know that media is often used as an activity for children when parents need to complete other tasks, as a “babysitter.” But media can have many uses, and children gain much from the kinds of casual interactions around media described in the story of grandma’s walker above.  Media creators should think creatively about how they can engage multiple generations so that both parents and children can have fun and learn from using media together. 

Rebecca Dore

Senior research associate at the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy at The Ohio State University.

Collaborator of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers

Roberta Golinkoff

Professor of Education at the School of Education at the University of Delaware.

Collaborator of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers

Removing Judgement: A New Lens on the Foster Care Approach

Removing Judgement: A New Lens on the Foster Care Approach

Media content has the power to shape perceptions and views on a mass scale. Unfortunately, media portrayals of youth in foster care are often negative and perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes. In this special blog series, The Center for Scholars and Storytellers is exploring this topic from multiple perspectives to inform and inspire the creation of accurate, empowering, and socially responsible media portrayals of foster care. 

I had the privilege of talking with the filmmakers of the recent, moving documentary, FOSTER, on HBO, as well as the doc’s featured social worker (and former youth in foster care), Jessica Chandler. This documentary does an incredible job of showing how complex the foster care system is, and shines a light on common misperceptions and stereotypes. This is part one of our conversation. For content creators, hearing different perspectives about the foster care system will only serve to benefit and inspire stories that are more reflective of what actually happens, and create media that educates and moves the needle in a positive direction.

“I grew up in a family with some of the same issues that bring children into foster care,” reflects filmmaker Mark Harris when I asked him why he wanted to make a documentary on the subject. Thinking back on his childhood and the mental illness within his family, it became clear that if his family had been poorer or less privileged, he could easily have ended up in the foster care system.

Indeed, even though there are over 400,000 children in the foster care system right now, the number of children who could enter into the system based on the situations they’re in is of course extremely high. We often hear about extreme, horrible cases of abuse, but the majority of children enter the foster care system because of neglect. Neglect covers a wide range of issues and severity, including parents with the best of intentions who are simply in situations where they can’t provide their children with the kind of care they need and work enough to pay the bills. 

So why do parents end up in these situations? Here are a few reasons: 

-        Systemic inequality 

-        Lack of mental health treatment

-        Prescription drug crisis 

This goes far beyond the foster care system, “Disrupted childhoods from these issues and more are far too common,” explains FOSTER doc filmmaker Deborah Oppenheimer. “We desperately need a new model of care -- a public health model that helps all families in need of support. A model that is preventative rather than punitive.”

One step in the right direction is referring to the system as “Child Services” rather than “Child Protection.” This is something Harris and and Oppenheimer were encouraged to do in their documentary, “because protection implies that children need to be protected from someone, rather than supporting the family as a unit.”

“As it currently stands, the system intervenes at the time of crisis. We wait for something to go wrong,” explains Harris. “But these families need help before they go into crisis.” It’s worth noting that it’s a lot more effective (both in cost and outcome) to have a preventative model-- this has also been found when addressing issues such as homelessness in various cities around the world. “It also can’t just be social workers involved- we need a multifaceted approach including health care workers, teachers, community members, and more,” says Oppenheimer.  

“Through the situations and stories they create, content creators have the opportunity to provide the context needed for understanding the realities behind why so many children enter the foster care system,” Harris explains. “For instance, picture a single mother with no support. She needs to get a job to keep a roof over their head (or her child could be taken away). So she goes out to a job interview and the child stays unattended at home. If the police spot this or get alerted to it, that could be cause for the child being removed depending on the child’s age. The other problem is that unconscious biases, particularly around race and poverty, too often play a role when a judgment call is made on whether or not a child should be removed.” 

Social worker Jessica Chandler, who was featured in the FOSTER documentary, shares these sentiments. “We need to rethink how and when foster care is implemented. Of course, in cases where kids are being abused, they should be removed. But in the cases where parents have the love and good intentions and just need some help, money could be better spent going to support that family so the children can remain in the home.” Indeed, if they didn’t already have a problem, as soon as you remove a child from their home they definitely do.

“People can’t buy into or believe these things if we don’t show them what it looks like,” explains Chandler. “And media can show these outcomes.” For example, the pediatric neurologist treating the infant in the FOSTER documentary told Harris and Oppenheimer that he now views mothers who use drugs during pregnancy differently after watching the documentary.  

So how exactly can content creators help? Jessica Chandler has multiple actionable insights for content creators:

• Don’t demonize the birth parents. We need to understand them, and we do this by humanizing them. 

• Show how the best thing for the child is not always taking the child away from their birth family. 

• Portray successful reunification stories so people understand that is the goal of foster care system, and see what that looks like. 

Colleen Russo Johnson, PhD

Senior Fellow of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers

This blog series is supported in part by the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families.

Disclaimer: The the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author or those quoted, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Pritzker.

You’ve got a friend in me - The Benefits of Parasocial Relationships

You’ve got a friend in me - The Benefits of Parasocial Relationships

Have you ever wondered why Dora, from Dora the Explorer, takes a deliberately long pause after directing a question to young viewers? This type of interaction invites participation and maintains children’s attention. This seemingly social exchange that occurs through the screen can facilitate relationship-building akin to a face-to-face interaction, such that over time children will form relationships with their favourite media characters. These one-sided, emotionally charged relationships between a person and a media character are called parasocial relationships.

What makes a parasocial relationship?

Parasocial relationships in early childhood (0-8 years old)  typically involve three factors: 1) attachment and friendship, 2) human-like needs (personification), and 3) social realism.

1. Attachment to media characters occurs when children seek proximity to them for comfort and security, as with attachment to a real person. Perceived friendship also strengthens this bond. For instance, preschoolers were more likely to transfer a problem solving solution to a similar, real-life scenario if they had greater trust in the character demonstrating the problem. In addition, school-age children prefer and are more strongly attached to characters of their same gender.

2. Personification refers to children attributing person-like qualities to media characters, including humanlike needs such as hunger. Children’s nurturing behaviors (e.g., putting to bed) towards a physical character toy are positively related to learning from that same character via video.

3. Social realism is the likelihood a media character could exist in the real world. The more realistic a child’s favorite character appears and acts, the greater the strength of the parasocial relationship.  

Can children learn from media characters?

The answer to this question varies and can be largely dependent on the age of the child. For example, young children have trouble applying what they learn from two-dimensional (2D) sources, such as television, to the physical world, which is termed the transfer deficit. This effect can be mitigated when the 2D content is socially relevant to children (e.g., familiarity). For example, toddlers were more likely to learn an early math skill from watching a video of a familiar character, Elmo, than an unfamiliar character from Taiwan, DoDo. Additionally, children did even better on this task if they exhibited nurturing behaviors toward a physical toy of the familiar character (e.g., feeding it, rocking it like a baby).

However, it should be noted that familiarity alone isn’t always enough to promote learning through media. In another study, 18-month-olds were given a toy for three months that was either personalized to them or not personalized at all. The personalized toy said the child’s name and shared similar interests (e.g., same favorite food), whereas the impersonalized toy called the children ‘Pal’, had the opposite gender, and had randomly selected interests. After three months, children in both groups (i.e., those with personalized vs. impersonalized) watched a video demonstration of their toy’s character complete a math task and were then given the opportunity to try the task themselves. Their performance was compared to children who didn’t have the toy for three months and didn’t watch the video demonstration (control group). The children who played with the personalized toy (but not the impersonal toy), outperformed the control group on the math task. Again, more nurturing behaviors during toy play were related to improved performance. The authors concluded that the emotional bond children had with the personalized character was the reason for their improvement, rather than simply being familiar with the character.

Here are some actionable insights into how you might foster these parasocial relationships through media:

• Attachment – create characters that make children feel safe and comfortable. In addition, show diverse characters so children are able to relate to them and build stronger attachments and relationships with them.

• Personification – create characters that children can perceive as friends with thoughts and emotions, wants and needs.

• Social realism – the extent of a character’s social realism becomes increasingly important with a child’s age. Imaginative play and treating characters as real during play begins in toddlerhood and peaks when children are about 4 years old. As children get older, their ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality improves, so it’s important to consider social realism during this developmental transition and beyond.

• Personalization – children learn better when the information presented on-screen is socially relevant to them. For example, providing the option to program a child’s name and interests to a toy/app can be beneficial to learning from that character.

• Take advantage of the multimedia landscape – provide a variety of platforms in which children can engage and interact with their favorite media characters (i.e., toys, apps, websites, shows, etc.).

• Encourage parent participation – design content that invites the parent to participate, such as an eBook that encourages dialogic questioning. Parents can facilitate the parasocial relationship by encouraging their child to interact with the character on and offscreen (toy).  

• Social Contingency – newer media affords the design of intelligent characters that can provide timely, personalized responses to a child’s input, making the interaction more like a face to face conversation. For instance, preschoolers were more likely to respond to an onscreen character when the character seemed to wait for their response or repeated unanswered questions in comparison to when the character waited for a typical 2-second delay. 

Brittany Huber, PhD

Collaborator of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers

Tragic is Magic: Reclaiming My Story

Tragic is Magic: Reclaiming My Story

Media content has the power to shape perceptions and views on a mass scale. Unfortunately, media portrayals of youth in foster care are often negative and perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes. In this special blog series, The Center for Scholars and Storytellers is exploring this topic from multiple perspectives to inform and inspire the creation of accurate, empowering, and socially responsible media portrayals of foster care. 

Editor’s Note: As I set off on this journey to create a series of blogs on foster care for content creators, I assumed I would approach it like I do most topics, by digging first and foremost into academic research. After conducting dozens of interviews, however, it became abundantly clear that the best way to encourage accurate depictions of foster care is to hear from those who have been directly impacted by the foster care system. It’s true, like many topics, that if you’ve met one person who has been in foster care, you’ve met one person who has been in foster care. You can’t generalize. And that is precisely why through this series of blogs I am striving to bring you multiple stories and perspectives, some of which may surprise you. Today, I am honored to bring you an experience directly from the person who experienced it, the incredible Elexus Hunter. 

I often find myself thinking back to the day I entered foster care. Sometimes I just need to be reminded of how this all started to see how far I’ve come.

I was 16 years old, and my 7-year old sister was clinging to my right leg and my 12-year old brother standing to the left of me - all of us in a state of stupor - not moving a muscle. We stood in the common area of Child Protection Services in San Francisco, CA, just waiting for what felt like an eternity for someone to come get us. 

Unlike the loaded images most people have of social workers coming into homes and whisking taking kids away, I was the one who brought us there. I was the one who insisted we leave.

But I’ll never forget the sense of freedom of no longer being under the rule of our abusers at home, juxtaposed with the panging guilt I felt for bringing us into the system. My siblings were understandably scared and angry at me. But I knew I had to proceed forward and couldn’t look back. There had to be a light at the end of all of this. I could feel it.

What I hadn’t anticipated, however, was how difficult the system would be. That there is always someone to answer to, especially when you are a ward of the state. There wasn’t a manual to how this “system” works, you just had to do whatever was asked of you. Countless court hearings, lawyers, and social workers every time I had to go to court. Moving from house to house in constant fear of whether my siblings and I could stay together, and never having the room to be comfortable. It felt like everyone turned against me--  like I was this resentful teenager with no self control, and that my truth was not real, merely an illusion. 

Simply put, my fight for our freedom from abuse was exhausting. 

This is what happens when you try and get help. 

I’ll never forget my mother regaining custody of my younger siblings; I cried for the both of them because I had nothing left in me to fight for them and save them. It crushed my heart, but I had to let go. Ultimately, it let me enjoy more personal freedom and focus on myself for the first time. I suddenly had the power to be a kid for once in my life and enjoy the end of my highschool experience. I felt like I crammed an entire 16 years into a year and half time span. 

As nice as it was, the absence of someone else loving me and supporting me was second to none. The system, in my experience, was not there to coddle you, embrace you, or provide significant financial freedom upon departure. 

This mattered, because against the odds of youth in foster care, I was accepted to multiple colleges. Even though California had recently extended financial assistance for youth in foster care to age 21, this was not information provided to me, even when I inquired about financial help for college. But I was set on attending college so I sacrificed my social life to work more hours and avoided spending on any non-essentials just to get enough funding for me to pay for college. I also spent endless nights applying to scholarships-- Google became my best friend. I googled every scholarship that I could possibly find and applied. In the end, I was awarded enough money to pay off 4 years of college. 

It was a love and hate relationship while being in the “system” because it’s set up for freedom from unsafe home lives, but the journey is anything from promising. It can make or break you. 

To be labeled as a foster youth in this country frames us as inconsistent, non-dreamers, with no goals and false hope. So we survive by any means necessary to make it out - in hopes that someone sees us for our true self and not our circumstances. Because we do matter.

Since aging out of foster care, I’ve graduated from high school top of my class with a 3.80 GPA, and graduated from Clark Atlanta University with honors, and a job offer. But I felt a responsibility and desire to give back to those in similar situations. Therefore, I started my own nonprofit called Tragic is Magic-- a community organization geared to helping California youth in foster care as they age out of the system, as they navigate receiving financial help and mental health support. 

We’re all in this together. I went against the odds of the system and want to empower others to do the same. I refused to be viewed as an entity of shame, and the only “statistic” I want to be is one of success. 

I chose my ending-- a magical one. 

Advice for content creators:

• Flip the script - turn tragic into magic. 

• Show youth who enter foster care on their own accord, not just being swept away by social care workers in the middle of the night. 

• Portray the complexity of the system, the pros and the cons. 

• Reflect the success stories of foster care youth aging out of the system to encourage more and change the way we are seen by the public. 

Elexus Hunter 

Founder of Tragic is Magic

Edited by Colleen Russo Johnson, PhD

Senior Fellow of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers

This blog series is supported in part by the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families.

Challenging Racism on the Screen

Challenging Racism on the Screen

When one hears the term “white supremacist,” it might call to mind vivid film depictions like Edward Norton’s vicious neo-Nazi skinhead in American History X or the ineffectual Ku Klux Klansmen that Quentin Tarantino used for a laugh in Django Unchained. But modern white supremacists are just as apt to hide behind anonymous online hate manifestos before enacting solitary attacks as they are to rally in public with swastika flags and white hoods; and narrow representations of visual villains in film and television don’t adequately prepare us for the insidious realities of everyday extremism.

Moreover, when film and television reflect images of “bad racists” as those who wear symbols of prejudice with pride while verbally and physically assaulting people of color, this extreme imagery leads to the false comfort that as long as we’re not acting out with explicit bias, we are not engaged in racism.  This good/bad binary limits our understanding of what racism is and how white people participate in it.

Studies done by the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity have shown that everyone possesses implicit racial biases, even if they “do not necessarily align with our declared beliefs or even reflect the stances we would explicitly endorse.”  So what shapes these implicit biases from an early age? One of many factors is the narrative content we consume in film and television. You don’t have to look far to find racist stereotypes perpetuated on the screen; but some of the most problematic narratives actually emerge out of films that purport to be on the racially progressive “good” side of the spectrum.

For example, the recent Oscar-winning film Green Book was widely criticized for perpetuating the “magical negro” stereotype, offering a buddy comedy in which the one-dimensional wise black character merely serves to help the white man grow in his fully-fleshed-out journey.

Another stereotypical narrative is the “white savior,” as exemplified in The Blind Side: the story of a middle-class white woman who “rescues” a young black man from a world where every black person is rendered impoverished and/or criminal. And she does so by guiding him towards an arena where whites can accept a black man’s success: sports.

While some filmmakers might defend their work by claiming it’s “historically accurate” or “based on a true story,” these defenses shut down the larger conversation about the creative choices storytellers often make to either glorify or simplify human characters along racial lines.

These well-intentioned but ultimately misguided films demonstrate why it is crucial to change the way we dramatize racism in film and television to encompass both the nuanced offenses as well as some guiding light solutions.

In order to effectively challenge racism on screen, here are some actionable story insights for writers.

1. When portraying white supremacist characters, avoid caricatures that allow the audience to distance themselves without self-reflection. Instead, shine a light on the sinister reality of everyday racists and extremists who might not wear their prejudice on their sleeves.

2. When depicting characters engaged in racist behavior, show the subtler ways in which racism operates (e.g. using coded “us” vs.“them” terminology, as when talking about “safe” vs. “sketchy” neighborhoods as a veiled commentary on how many people of color live in these areas) – and have this racism identified and called out by another white character.

3. Write a story arc for a white character who is openly coming to terms with their own white fragility and privilege; and then growing to consciously engage with racism and challenge white supremacy.

4. Portray people of color as fully realized characters with rich inner and outer lives, rather than stunted stereotypes in service of a white character’s journey.

While these story-focused insights are a great jumping off point, I would encourage every writer to do the work not just within their creative writing, but also within themselves. In order to undo centuries of racial conditioning, we need to engage with and internalize more inclusive perspectives. Although the film and television industry is starting to have more active conversations about diversity and inclusion, the 2019 UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report shows that only 12.6% of writers and 7.8% of directors are people of color.

For this reason, I offer a few more actionable insights that entail putting down the pen to do some larger work.

1. Accept that racism is an issue for white people to actively engage with and educate yourself with books like White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, and The New Jim Crow.

2. Proactively foster both creative and personal relationships across the racial divide.

3. Advocate for more diversity and representation for people of color behind the camera and on the screen.

4. If you witness racism on set or in a writers’ room, speak up and make yourself an ally.

Brian McAuley, MFA

WGA Screenwriter

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Columbia University School of the Arts

Collaborator of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers

Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers.

Scoring Points with Athletic Characters

Scoring Points with Athletic Characters 

Tough. Driven. Focused. Determined. Winner. 

Dumb jock. Butch. One-dimensional. Bully. 

All of the above describe athletic characters we commonly see on TV and in movies. While we have started to move past so many stereotypes in the media it seems the role of the ‘athlete’ hasn’t caught up. Unfortunately, I’m sure we have all seen the far too common scene where a ‘jock’ pushes a ‘nerd’ into the lockers many times.  

Some of the most common stereotypes seen onscreen portray athletes as self-absorbed, bullies, ‘dumb jocks’, one-dimensional and selfish. However, in reality, athletes are incredibly diverse and have the potential to display a number of positive traits. For example, research has found that student athletes have better leadership skills than non-athletes and kids and teens who partake in team sports develop important social skills including empathy and leadership.  Furthermore, one study found that compared to non-athletes, student athletes had higher school attendance, graduation rates, and lower dropout rates. These findings should not be simplified to “athletes are smarter or better than non-athletes”, but rather athletes are not simply ‘dumb jocks’ who are only good at one thing, sports. Within sport, they learn specific skills and develop certain qualities such as motivation, discipline, determination, and time management that help them succeed not only in sports, but in school and other domains as well.  

One other very common misconception in the media is that most athletes onscreen are boys. Girls are often are portrayed as 1) being bad at sports, 2) simply not athletic at all or 3) participating in only stereotypical ‘feminine’ sports (i.e., cheerleading, dance), which is very problematic. Young girls are constantly being bombarded with characters and messages that suggest they will be viewed as butch, unattractive and masculine if they participate in sports. In fact, research has found that children (8-10-years-old) are aware of gender stereotypes that are prevalent in sport. This awareness actually affects their behavior and participation in certain sports such that girls avoid more masculine sports to fit the social norms related to gender.  

As creators of characters that kids love to watch (and emulate), you have the power to create characters and settings that go beyond the common stereotypes we still see onscreen. You have the power to not only entertain kids, but to inspire them as well.

Here are some actionable insights to help you do this!

• Expand your repertoire. There are so many unique physical activities that aren’t necessarily competitive sports but are quite common such as hiking, yoga, dance, bowling, paddling, skiing and frisbee. By showing children a range of physical activities and sports, you are not only introducing them to activities they are likely not exposed to, but you are also showing them that there is a sport for everyone!

• Show being sporty or active as attainable. An athlete does not always have to be extremely talented or super strong to participate in sports or physical activities. Thus, showing a range of diverse characters participating in sports and having fun may help encourage children to participate in activities they may think they ‘aren’t good enough for’

• Break out of old gender stereotypes. Firstly, not all female athletes have to be portrayed as butch or masculine. You can show girls being tough, focused, and successful and still show them being girly and fashionable (Or not!). Secondly, not all male athletes have to be portrayed as strong or aggressive. You can show boys who are more fragile and not aggressive and enjoy participating in more stereotypical ‘feminine’ sports such as skating (Or not!). Having complex characters with a range of athletic abilities and interests is imperative to help children see that participating in sports is not only for certain types of people with only certain qualities and talents.

• Cut the scenes where athletes (and all kids) hide how smart they are. In real life, kids who excel in school are often respected and admired and kids should not be observing characters being ashamed of their intelligence or ‘good grades’. Athletes should not be portrayed as one-dimensional such that they do not only have to be good at sports, but they can also be good at school as well.

• Show the other sides to athletes. A lot of athletes are high achievers, leaders, extremely well spoken, and outgoing. They can also be very creative, musical, and involved in the community. Showing all aspects of a character is very important.

• Show kids being active. A lot of characters on screen are either an ‘athlete’, or they do nothing. Show your characters partaking in a range of physical activities or sports and explain how important and fun exercising can be!

Athletic scenes are full of potential for conflict, drama, and comedy, without falling back on a narrow view of athletes. Moving beyond athletic stereotypes will not only give you tons of material to work with but you’ll have an inspired and devoted audience!

Sue Comeau, B.Sc. (Kin), M.A., CSEP-CEP

Writes on fitness and healthy lifestyle, and is the author of The F.I.T. Files, for kids. 

Let Love Define Family: Portraying a Modern Generation of Foster Parents

Let Love Define Family: 

Portraying a Modern Generation of Foster Parents

Media content has the power to shape perceptions and views on a mass scale. Unfortunately, media portrayals of youth in foster care are often negative and perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes. In this special blog series, The Center for Scholars and Storytellers is exploring this topic from multiple perspectives to inform and inspire the creation of accurate, empowering, and socially responsible media portrayals of foster care. 

Just as there are many destructive stereotypes about youth in foster care, there are countless misperceptions of the type of people who become foster parents and their underlying motivations. From the perfect, savior, do-good foster couple, to the careless, mean foster parent who is only in it for the money, these unhelpful stereotypes prevent everyday people from seeing themselves as a foster parent, thus reducing the options for children waiting for a family. This is particularly problematic when it comes to media portrayals, as it helps to “see it to be it.” Indeed, in the previous post in this special foster care series, a foster parent noted how they are typically portrayed as either “perfect people” or “system milkers.” 

Why is this critical? From talking to countless foster care professionals in the United States and Canada, it’s clear that their number one problem is a shortage of foster parents, particularly from minority groups. Therefore, we flagged this as one of the most important topics to communicate to content creators. Because media has immense power to influence behaviors, portraying foster parents and the motivations behind fostering in a relatable, positive, and realistic way could inspire viewers to consider being foster parents themselves. As Marianne Guilfoyle, Chief Innovations Officer at LA-based Allies for Every Child states, “Media has the ability to drive home the notion-- if not you, then who will answer the call to meet the need of the children in your community?”

More specifically, we need to reach and mobilize a new generation of foster parents. This is the mission behind the LA-based non-profit organization Raise a Child, where they are urging people to “reimagine foster parents.” I spoke with the organization’s founder, Rich Valenza, to learn more about his personal path to fostering and adoption, the goals of the organization, and the message he has for content creators. (Click here to see Valenza and his family featured as the first LGBTQ+ family featured on the annual CBS special, A Home for the Holidays.)

“At Raise a Child, our motto is, Let Love Define Family,” says Valenza. “There are no accidents or sudden decisions in fostering and adopting. You are planning a family and you chose those children. It’s truly a thing of love and acceptance, and it needs to be portrayed that way.”

Valenza suggests we need to “rebrand” what it means and looks like to be a foster parent. Indeed, today, more than ever before, there are countless new drivers for people to become foster parents and adopt through foster parenting. It is more than just heterosexuals couples who can’t conceive biologically who foster, and media content should reflect these modern realities. Foster parents range from  same-sex couples wanting to build a family, to single men and women who don’t want to wait for a partner to start a family, to those who are environmentally conscious looking for a way to raise children without increasing their carbon footprint, to people driven by social justice who want to help elevate kids out of a repressive cycle to make a positive impact on thier community. As Ching-chu Hu and Jim Van-Reeth, multi-racial, well-educated, same-sex couple from Ohio who have adopted four children through the foster care system point out, “There is no more effective way to positively impact children and ultimately society as a whole.”

Speaking further to social justice, there are countless horrible circumstances for children around the world, and even in our own country, that often leave people feeling helpless. “People are justifiably outraged,” explain Hu and Van-Reeth. “Perhaps we can’t do anything about these things, but we can at least help out local children in the foster care system who are from broken homes and give them a fresh start. Helping out locally does positively affect the world.”

The system is also more progressive than some may think. For instance, Hu and Van-Reeth assumed that because they lived in a small, conservative town, they would have to adopt internationally. But during the adoption certification program, they noticed that representatives from the local county foster agency kept approaching them to chat. Being used to prejudice in other areas of their lives, they at first thought they were being further checked out to see if their motives to adopt were pure. It wasn’t until about halfway through the courses that they realized these agency workers were trying to convince them to work with the local foster care agency rather than adopt internationally. As they put it, “The foster care workers didn't see color or sexuality - they were simply evaluating based on capabilities.”

Similarly, going into the foster process Valenza expected to face some discrimnation as a single, gay man. Instead, leadership within LA County Foster Care quickly realized what an incredible foster father and advocate he was, and recruited him to help them encourage more people from the LGBTQ+ community to become foster parents -- the genesis of Raise a Child.

Actionable insights for content creators: 

• Depict relatable foster parents from a variety of backgrounds (e.g. race, culture, LGBTQ+) and family structure. 

  - Media that gets it right: A lesbian couple in The Fosters, An African-American couple in This is Us.

• Include modern motivations for fostering. Examples include: single parents, same-sex parents, people driven by social justice and/or environmental reasons. 

Colleen Russo Johnson, PhD

Senior Fellow of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers

This blog series is supported in part by the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families.

Multimedia Design with an Eye toward Emotions: Why Emotional Design is Central to Creating Better Learning Environments

Are you ever aware of your emotions while learning new information? Have you ever noticed or wondered why it seems easier to learn new information when you’re in a good mood compared to when you’re in a bad mood?

Emotions are thought to be important for learning in any context, but particularly in the context of multimedia environments. In fact, emotional design of multimedia environments aim to evoke emotions for better learning by tapping into emotional and motivational processes. Specifically, individuals who are highly engaged and motivated to complete an educational activity are also more likely to learn from it. This suggests that that the joy learners experience from interacting with a digital learning environment, likely influences a learner’s feelings about the experience, even outside of the digital environment. Thus, highly emotional contexts may be better support for learning. 

One type of learning context that is highly engaging and motivating is game-based learning environments. The research team at the CREATE Lab of New York University examined emotions in game-based digital learning environments. They examined how color, shape, expression, and dimensionality of game characters could be used to induce emotions in a digital game-based learning environment among adolescent learners. After being shown a pair of game characters, participants reported their emotions by selecting the character that best matched the target emotion word (e.g., happy or sad). It was found that the game character’s facial expression (e.g., smiling, neutral, frowning) affected participants’ choices the most. By contrast, dimensionality (e.g., 2D or 3D visual appearance) appeared to affect participants' the most in immersive virtual reality settings. The color of the character (e.g., warm or grayscale pigments) and the shape of the character (e.g., round or square)  influenced decisions to a lesser extent. These findings demonstrate how visual features of a game character could influence how a user feels. More importantly, the findings may suggest that in order to make users feel positively and to promote their learning, designers only need to change a very specific and simple aspect of the digital game environment: character expressions.

In another study, researchers at the CREATE Lab examined whether playing a version of  game-based training with emotional design was associated with improvements in cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility is defined as the ability to flexibly shift between different mental sets and is often measured by how well an individual can learn a new rule for sorting objects by the object’s shape, color, etc. The results indicated that older adolescents improved most on mental set shifting when they played the emotionally designed version (e.g., expressive game characters, warm colors, responsive features) of the game compared with those who played a neutral-looking version (e.g., non-expressive game characters, neutral and grayscale pigments, non-responsive features) of the same game. Taken together, these findings highlight the possibilities for educators and developers to consciously and strategically integrate foundations of emotional design into digital environments to improve learning outcomes. 

There are many possibilities for incorporating elements of emotional design into digital learning environments. While research in this area points to fruitful opportunities, there is evidence that emotional design is associated with increased enjoyment, engagement, and performance. By better applying principles of emotional design to multimedia, we can improve learning outcomes. Both developers and consumers could benefit from understanding emotional design, and how it can be used to sustain engagement for optimal learning through moderate use in digital learning environments that possess educational rigor.

Actionable insights for content creators: 

• Begin with the user in mind. What appeals to the target audience? Considering what personalization, choice, themes, etc. might appeal to the idealized user is important. Particularly for children and adolescents, consciously designing such that the product is not only attractive but also developmentally appropriate is crucial. 

• Align emotional design choices with the goals of learning. To understand this recommendation, it may be helpful to understand the distinction between game mechanics and learning mechanics. Game mechanics refer to the methods employed by users that invoke interaction within a game state. Learning mechanics, by contrast, refer to the methods users engage in while performing a learning task within the game. Incorporating emotional design that is not connected with task-specific learning objectives may confuse the user and detract from the effectiveness of task engagement. Ultimately, if integrated properly, emotional design can serve to bypass this confusion and improve associated outcomes.

• Test, evaluate, and design. In the course of designing or evaluating a multimedia learning environment, it is important to understand the users’ actual experience with it. Sometimes “idealized users” (i.e., those imagined by game designers or researchers) don’t reflect the interests and needs of the real users or the target population. Thus, determining how a real life user would interact within the learning environment and using this information to re-design and adjust the environment accordingly can help enhance the users’ learning. 

• Check your emotions when evaluating “educational” learning environments. Not all multimedia digital learning environments are designed for learning, even the ones carrying the label “educational.” These labels are often not applied with any clear or rigorous standards for accountability. A recent developmental science policy report indicated children are spending a considerable amount of time immersed in digital media, and the long-term consequences for development are still not entirely understood. While we may not fully understand the developmental consequences, it should be recognized that emotional design can also lead users down a garden path of intense engagement without substantive learning, even though it contains so many positive applications.

Teresa M. Ober & Maya C. Rose

The Graduate Center CUNY

There’s More to the Picture: What the adults of Foster Care want content creators to know

“There’s More to the Picture”:

What the adults of Foster Care want content creators to know

Media content has the power to shape perceptions and views on a mass scale. Unfortunately, media portrayals of youth in foster care are often negative and perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes. In this special blog series, The Center for Scholars and Storytellers is exploring this topic from multiple perspectives to inform and inspire the creation of accurate, empowering, and socially responsible media portrayals of youth in foster care. 

“I think most people don't really understand why someone would want to be a foster parent. They don't understand the positive effects a foster parent can have on a child and their birth family, and what they get back (emotionally) in return.” 

When we think of foster care, we immediately picture children and teens. But for every youth in care, there are many adults directly attached, including birth parents, foster parents, and  social care workers. So when we look at foster care portrayals in fictional media, it is critical to take a holistic look that includes how the adults within the system are depicted. To do so, we sought feedback from two foster parents (one male, one female) and two foster care professionals (both females in leadership roles at foster care agencies). 

Can fictional media persuade (or dissuade) adults from becoming foster parents?

According to all four respondents, the answer is a resounding yes. But, it does go in both directions. One respondent stated that they believe the negative images in the media have contributed to the difficulty of recruiting foster parents, whereas the foster Dad said it was actually a positive portrayal of foster care in fictional media that initially inspired him to become a foster parent (he specifically noted the CBC special “A Home for the Holidays” and ABC’s “The Fosters”.)

It is difficult for people not involved with the foster care system to understand the motivations for becoming a foster parent. As one respondent stated, “There are some that think foster parents are doing it just for the money. I think most people don't really understand why someone would want to be a foster parent. They don't understand the positive effects a foster parent can have on a child and their birth family, and what they get back (emotionally) in return.” 

The two men featured in our previous blog who were formerly in foster care noted additional motivations they perceived for adults wanting to become foster parents, including: feeling bad about the large number of children in care, wanting to help nurture a child while in retirement, a desire for children but an inability to have biological kids, or because they themselves were in foster care. To that point, one of the former foster youth said he would absolutely consider being a foster parent one day, saying “I was blessed to have been adopted to a loving family and I know the feeling of lost hope. Returning the favor or more importantly having the power to change someone’s life for the better is the ultimate dream”. 

Unfortunately, misunderstandings regarding the type of people who become foster parents seep into media content, and can dissuade people from wanting to explore fostering.  Indeed, another respondent noted how foster care parents are often represented as either “perfect people” or “system milkers”, which just further drives inaccurate stereotypes and prevents viewers from seeing themselves in those roles. Instead, foster care parents want to be “portrayed as multidimensional, from varied backgrounds and economic classes, motivated by caring for kids in care”, and “regular people who desire to help a child in need”. 

When media gets it right. The movie “Instant Family” does a terrific job of showcasing “regular people” who decide to foster for a variety of reasons. The film honestly depicts the rollercoaster of emotions, including realistic doubt in their decision to foster. By portraying a relatable, imperfect, but well-intentioned couple, viewers are more likely to see themselves in that situation and consider becoming foster parents. 

Overcoming the “evil child snatcher” trope of social workers            

Social care workers have one of the most difficult jobs. One respondent mentioned how they are unfortunately part of an overall “failed system”, making their job seemingly impossible at times. Indeed, they are working within a confusing system, in rapidly changing and high-intensity situations. But our respondents noted that the general public really lacks an understanding of what foster care social workers actually do, other than “remove children from their homes”, and simply classify it as a “very difficult job that they themselves would not want to do”. This does not encourage people to enter the job, and media portrayals certainly do not help. Social care workers are often depicted as evil child snatchers or overly do-gooders that few can relate to. The reality is that they are well-intentioned, trained professionals who care about the well-being of children. It’s important that content creators capture this difficulty while still portraying social workers that have a good relationship with the foster youth in their care. 

When media gets it right. The social care worker depicted in season three of the television drama “This Is Us” impressively captures the highs and lows of the job, and showcases the benefit of trust built between a worker and child in care. 

Working towards a more compassionate lens on birth parents 

Media portrayals of birth parents rarely stray from the stereotypes of, as one respondent explained, “bad people who have done horrible things to their children and don’t deserve the chance to make things right or parent their children ever again”, or simply put by another respondent, “awful people”. 

The truth is, more often or not, these are people who have had a hard life and a spout of bad luck. Many people live paycheck to paycheck and could also easily fall into a difficult situation. Furthermore, the disease of addiction can become so overpowering that it consumes them and prevents them from being the parent they want to be at that time. They are flawed people, just like everyone. 

Our respondents all expressed a desire to see birth parents shown in a more compassionate light. One respondent noted wanting to see them as less pathologized and caricatured. Another said “birth parents are often people with mental health issues, substance abuse problems, who come from their own dysfunctional families, and did not set out to hurt their children. They may not be able to parent them, but they do love them. And it is possible for people to change.” Another mentioned that “most birth parents do not intend to hurt or neglect their children, they over discipline for a myriad of reasons, they are addicted to drugs or homeless because they were barely making it to begin with and had an event that tipped the scales.” 

When media gets it right. Season three of “This Is Us” depicts this nuanced role of a birth mother perfectly, showing the desire to be the mom both she (and her daughter) wanted her to be, but doomed by many factors including her own rough upbringing, addictions, and bad partners. Through it all, however, you could see that the love and admiration she had for her daughter was genuine. 

Actionable insights for content creators: 

• Foster parent portrayal: Show relatable characters from a variety of backgrounds (including race, economic, sexual orientation, and cultural). Don’t shy away from them asking taboo questions that potential foster parents might have. Show a realistic experience of the foster parent experience-- the ups and the downs-- but strive for an overall positive outlook. 

• Social worker portrayal: Make an effort to show individuals who truly care about the child’s well being, and are doing their absolute best working in an extremely complex and sometimes failed system. 

• Birth parent portrayal: Avoid falling into stereotypes. Give the character the depth and compassion deserved that explains why he or she ended up in this position. 

Colleen Russo Johnson, PhD

Senior Fellow of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers

This blog series is supported in part by the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families.

Upcoming foster care blog posts in this special series to explore:

• Foster parent perspective, and how to encourage more

• Features on media that “gets it right”

Sara - 18

Sara, Age 18

Media Consumption: 4-5 hours a day on the weekend and 2-3 hours on a weekday.

Favorite Media/Technology: Instagram

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How do you and your family interact with media/technology?

My family and I generally use technology to communicate through text the majority of the time. With me being so far away for school, they tend to use it to check in on me and to make sure that I’m eating. Other times, I tend to give them a call just to reassure them that I am actually fine. In terms of media, we don’t interact at all. I don’t have them as friends on Facebook or any of my other social media platforms mainly because I want to keep that part of my life separate. We do, however, use WeChat as a second form of communication when they cannot reach me via text or call.

How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?

The way that my peers and I interact with media and technology is a lot different than my interaction with my family. One of the main ways is that it is all on social media. We text via Messenger or Snapchat. We don’t usually call one another, and we tend to share content by either tagging one another or just sharing it in group chats. Other times, we use social media to connect with one another and to share exciting news to one another. I use social media to connect mainly with my friends from home because we are all separated for school. We tend to make plans for breaks when we get home with Messenger. Other times, I use social media to share memes with my friends at school. It generally just keeps me connected with my friends throughout the year.

What do you use media for?

Media can be used for a number of things including, but not limited to, communication, research, data collecting, entertainment, raising awareness, and more. With communication, one can connect with someone who may be halfway across the world. They are able to keep in touch with friends and family when they are far from home. With media, research and data collecting will always be able to benefit from it. People are able to learn new things and skills with media. One can always find new forms of entertainment on media when they need something to fill in the time. Lastly, one of the best ways that media is used is for raising awareness. The media can bring new topics into the light that one might not be aware of before and help find ways for them to be apart of the solution.

What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?

My favorite thing about media and technology is the ability to communicate with people around the globe. I am able to communicate with my parents when I am off to school or with my friends when I am home for break. It provides me with the ability to stay connected with the people that I know and keep up with them while I am away from them. It also allows me to learn new skills and things around my neighborhood to enjoy. If I ever need a place to eat, I can just search it up and decide on the variety of options that are provided for me. It makes life a lot easier. 

However, there is always a downside to media and technology, and I dislike the fact that people tend to be so absorbed in their phones and other forms of media/technology that they forget about their surroundings. It’s a great thing to be able to communicate with one another, but I feel like people are forgetting to interact with one another in person since they are constantly on their phones.

INTERVIEWED BY:

JOSHUA BAYSA

UCLA GRADUATE

Advancing the Science of Digital Games for Children’s Learning and Development

Advancing the Science of Digital Games for Children’s Learning and Development 

You walk into a classroom and you notice every fourth grader sitting at their desk holding an iPad and tilting it back and forth as if attempting to balance an invisible ball on it. You hear sounds coming from the children that signify their intense captivation: “Oh I almost got that one.” “Aw, how could I have missed that?” “Yes, got it!” You look over a student’s shoulder and notice a ball, with a fraction written inside it, bouncing on top of a thick line at the bottom of the screen in a forest-like setting. The student is tilting the iPad until the ball falls onto the line. When the ball fails to land on the correct spot, tiny marks appear on the line, which seem to serve as hints. Their teacher walks over to you and says, “Can you believe that this game Motion Math is teaching them fractions?” 

Motion Math and other commercially available educational games have entered classrooms across the country, with research demonstrating benefits of digital game play for K-16 students across a variety of academic subjects, including mathematics, science, and social studies. For example, a study showed that fourth graders who played Motion Mathfor 20 minutes a day for just 5 days outperformed a control group on a fractions test and expressed more favorable attitudes and confidence towards learning fractions. Another study found that third graders who played digital math games such as Motion Math, performed similarly on math tests compared to a control group that had completed digital worksheets. However, the former was associated with higher levels of enjoyment and engagement and children were more likely to play with math games when given several other options during free time. 

Game-based learning is not only limited to educational games, but can also be extended to commercial simulation games such as SimCity and Minecraft. For example, one controlled study found that adolescents demonstrated an increased understanding of urban and civic issues after several weeks of building residential, commercial, public, and industrial city structures in SimCity. Similarly, Minecraft, has been used in schools across the world to support visualization in a wide range of academic content areas including spatial geometry and ancient history. Although there are relatively few controlled studies examining the benefits of Minecraft, a study of college students found that there are several social benefits to the digital game (and other multiplayer digital games) such as improved collaboration and adaptability skills and resourcefulness. Recent case studies suggest that Minecraft and associated forums may also provide supportive contexts for children with autism to engage with peers and for learners of English as a second language to develop communication skills. Such findings are not unexpected, as game play has long served as a social lubricant and tool for building relationships among people of all ages. 

For commercial digital games to contribute effectively to student learning in school settings, professional development may be needed where teachers learn game mechanics and about the participatory culture of game play. Indeed a recent report suggested that K-8 teachers who self-identified as “gamers” were more likely to include digital games for learning in their classes, whereas teachers who did not use games often reported being unsure how to integrate games into the curriculum. Although 74% of teachers reported using digital games in their classroom, only 5% indicated use of commercial video games.  For the most part, teachers tended to use traditional drill-and-practice educational games in their classes as opposed to immersive games designed for entertainment. 

Despite children’s nearly continuous access to digital games via the Internet and their popularity, there remains a paucity of research on the cognitive effects of digital game play for preadolescent youth. As emphasized in a recent Society for Research in Child Development policy report, more research is needed to identify the specific features of digital games that foster cognitive skills development and motivation. Value-added research, comparing minimally different versions of the same game to determine if specific features enhance learning outcomes, needs to be extended to children, as most studies to date have involved college students. As an example, research on game-based multimedia lessons for plant biology, conducted with both seventh graders and college students, demonstrated advantages for inclusion of an animated pedagogical agent who spoke to the game-player as they engaged in the science activity. In a similar vein, research with toddlers has shown that familiarizing them with the featured character of an instructional math video enhanced concept learning as compared to children who did not have prior exposure to the character in the video. Such findings suggest that forming parasocial relationships with on-screen characters while engaging in game play or other multimedia instruction may foster children’s learning and retention of information. 

Overall, digital game play offers a multitude of opportunities for children to learn, but it is necessary for content creators to create appropriate content that is based on empirical research. Building a strong evidence base for optimizing digital games for learning can only be accomplished through dedicated funding. In February 2019, the Children and Media Research Advancement (CAMRA) Act was introduced to Congress with the aim of providing federal funding for scientific investigations of the impact of technology on children’s socio-emotional, physical, and cognitive development. Unfortunately, passage of this bill has stalled. Funding CAMRA is a first step in recognizing at a national level the importance of digital games as a critical context for children’s development and for building partnerships between content creators and researchers aimed at establishing best practices for digital game play in schools and extra-curricular programs. 

Patricia J. Brooks & Maya C. Rose

College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center, CUNY

George - 15

George, Age 15

Media Consumption: Daily, weekdays (1-2 hours), weekends (2-3 hours).

Favorite Media/Technology: Fortnite videogame

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How do you and your family interact with media/technology?

We all use media in my family. Almost every day I watch TV with my parents, but I don’t always get to choose the movie we watch. I enjoy co-viewing movies with my parents some of the times, unless I have something better to do, like playing Fortnite. 

I also have more knowledge of digital media than my parents have. For example, I read articles on how to use phones and additionally I am an assigned beta tester for Apple software. I have been testing Apple software products for years, emailing the company my opinion about certain upcoming digital products.

How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?

I often use my cellphone to text my friends after school in order to find out if they can play Fortnite with me later that day (when I am done with my homework of course!). I rarely use my cellphone to play video games, instead I prefer to play video games when I’m at home. I mostly play Fortnite in order to communicate with my friends that I do not see as often because they go to different schools. Sometimes I play Fortnite by myself, but I would rather play the videogame with my friends because I don’t like to play with strangers.

What do you use media for?

I use media mainly to communicate with my friends and my first cousin, who happens to be my best friend. I use my cellphone to mainly text my friends. When I play Fortnite I am not only doing it for the fun of the game, which I really enjoy, but I also like to connect with my friends and spend time with them.

What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?

I really like playing Fornite with my friends and my cousin because in most cases it’s the only way to stay connected with my friends from my previous school. What I really do not like about media is social media. I do not understand why people like to watch what other people do with their lives, instead of choosing to spend that time living their own lives however they want. I much more prefer to live my own life and not worry about others.

INTERVIEWED BY:

ANASTASIA KEFALAS

UCLA Graduate

“We’re Not Broken”: What two former foster youth want content creators to know

“We’re Not Broken”

What two former foster youth want content creators to know

Media content has the power to shape perceptions and views on a mass scale. Unfortunately, media portrayals of youth in foster care are often negative and perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes. In this special blog series, The Center for Scholars and Storytellers is exploring this topic from multiple perspectives to inform and inspire the creation of accurate, empowering, and socially responsible media portrayals of youth in foster care.

“People would judge me based off of my situation of being in foster care and not based on who I was as a person. A lot of times it’s other children around you that are the most cruel. You are never given a fair chance to show your true colors.” -- Former foster youth

Children and teens in foster care constantly face judgments from others, solely based on their connection to foster care. How foster youth are portrayed in TV shows and movies impacts this perception-- both positively and negatively. The Center for Scholars and Storytellers is in the process of gathering insight from young adults who were previously in foster care. The following features two former foster youth, both men who are now in their early 20s and 30s.

Both men felt that the general public has negative impressions of youth in foster care, which mirror the unhelpful stereotypes they see perpetuated in TV shows and movies. When describing how they think people view foster youth, they used words such as:

Damaged

Helpless

Broken

Problematic

Heavily Traumatized

They felt that media portrayals of foster youth are overall negative, one-dimensional, and rife with damaging stereotypes.

“Most of the times foster children are portrayed in a negative way, as if they are problematic and troubled. In rare cases do you see them shown in a positive light.”

“A lot of stereotypes of what a foster youth is persists in mainstream media and for myself it becomes hard to watch popular shows or movies.”

One man mentioned that in his experience, white or lighter skinned foster children are more likely to be portrayed as ending up with a positive situation, whereas Latinos and African Americans are more often shown as aggressive and/or as criminals. It was also mentioned how the lack of diversity in portrayed foster youth has made it hard for him to relate to the characters.

One of the best ways to tackle this problem is to encourage former foster youth to get involved in the media content creation process. Not just as consultants informing the process, but as creators, writers, producers, directors, and more. One of the men even called this out, saying, “I don't think there's enough foster youth involved behind the scenes in creating and producing media content.”

Regarding one-dimensionality, it was mentioned how there isn’t enough nuance in the conflicting emotions foster youth have with the foster care system itself, let alone everything else happening in their life. The system is often portrayed negatively, which can deter people from getting involved in social work or as foster parents. There are many good things about the foster care system and people working in it that could be highlighted in media content.

“At its core, the foster care program starts from a good place with good intentions for mankind. It allows different people in need of love to unite. Whether you are an adult looking for a child to love, or a child or teen who is often heartbroken and at a loss of love.”

Foster youth have a lot to overcome. For instance, they lack a financial and emotional safety net due to constant moving between foster homes, schools, and sometimes states. This is something that other children often take for granted. When asked who they turn to when they need to talk to someone, both men said they rarely turn to anyone; “Unfortunately, a lot of times you subconsciously adopt the lifestyle of a lone wolf”. Feared consequences for even the smallest of venting, and continued worries of displacement contribute to this lack of trust in others.

But foster youth also learn to be extremely resilient, and both of these men have developed extremely positive outlooks. When asked to reflect on what he would tell his younger self, one man responded: “Great job ....you followed your heart you looked towards a better day and everything worked out.... I would not change anything.”
We also asked them what they would want to tell their future self, and the answers were truly beautiful and inspiring:

“I would say thank you for investing in your dream and not giving up when everyone told you the system is too big to question.”

“I would tell my future self always stay true to yourself and never forget where you came from nor the journey you took to reach the place you are now. If you are ever in a position to change someone’s life or even influence someone’s life for the better, give it your all even if its a complete stranger. I was once a complete stranger to the family I now love and the woman of my life I now call Mom!”

Seeing more positive depictions of youth in foster care can go a long way in changing the narrative around what it means to be a youth in foster care. Indeed both men spoke of their desire for a “better picture to be painted” when it comes to foster youth portrayal in media.

“Instead of broken, youth in foster care should be portrayed as survivors: strong, successful, and rejuvenated.”

Actionable Insights for Content Creators:

• Avoid playing into negative stereotypes about foster care youth and instead focus on their strengths.

• Portray realistic stories and representation by including those who have experienced the foster care system throughout the writing and production process.

Colleen Russo Johnson, PhD

Senior Fellow of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers

This blog series is supported in part by the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families.

Upcoming foster care blog posts in this special series to explore:

• Foster parent perspective, and how to encourage more

• Features on media that “gets it right”

How to Detox Masculinity

How to Detox Masculinity

Poem by Nayyirah Waheed

Growing up as a sensitive youth who attended a conservative all-boys school, I have often felt out of place amongst my fellow men. Popular television shows like Entourage and movies like The Hangover showed me the ways in which guys were supposed to connect with each other and interact with women, but I struggled to relate to the misogynistic behaviors depicted on the screen and echoed by the men around me. Today, as a writer of films and television, I see the power that popular culture has in shaping our conceptions of manhood; and I believe it’s our responsibility as content creators to detoxify the destructive messaging that has pervaded mainstream media for far too long. 

The term “toxic masculinity” is being used more and more these days, but few are defining exactly what it means and why it must be challenged. So let’s take a look at the startling facts of some recent psychological studies to help shed light on the damaging expectations ingrained by historical patriarchy.

Just this year, the American Psychological Association released new guidelines for practice with men and boys, with more than 40 years of research showing that “traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly.”

For the inward echoes, we need only look to a 2018 CDC report, which revealed that suicide rates among American men are over three times that of women. This imbalance was largely attributed to internalized standards that men shouldn’t express emotions or show vulnerability, thus leading to self-destructive behaviors in lieu of seeking help.

The outward echoes of toxic masculinity can be seen in a 2018 United Nations study on global homicide patterns, which revealed that “intimate partner violence against women and girls is rooted in widely-accepted gender norms about men’s authority… and men’s use of violence to exert control over women. Research shows that men and boys who adhere to rigid views of gender roles and masculinity… are more likely to use violence against a partner.”

 These timely studies amount to a harsh reality that toxic masculinity is killing men and women alike; and that its deadly inheritance is deeply rooted in cultural norms. In order for society to evolve past these damaging traditional viewpoints, we need to look at how portrayals of men in the media have perpetuated harmful behaviors and offer positive alternatives to content creators.

To combat toxic masculinity in popular culture and beyond, here are a few actionable insights for writers:

1. Show men crying, expressing vulnerability, and seeking help for emotional distress.

2. Model male characters who are not controlling with their partners, but rather supportive of women’s freedom and independence.

3. Depict men offering emotional support to each other and holding a safe space for vulnerability.

4. Avoid glorifying “boys clubs” that encourage traditional masculine repression and misogynistic exclusion. 

5. Offer representations of equal partnerships where men are not the assumed authority.

6. Demonstrate how men can stand up to other men who are engaged in toxic rhetoric or behavior against women.

7. Portray male-female friendships that are not rooted in sexual prospects.

8. Highlight vulnerability as a male character’s strength, rather than portraying it as an emasculating weakness or the butt of a joke.

It’s time to detox masculinity. Starting with the screen.

 

Brian McAuley, MFA

WGA Screenwriter

Adjunct Professor, Columbia University School of the Arts

Collaborator of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers

Brooke - 17

Brooke, Age 17

Media Consumption: 4 hrs 41 mins per day according to my tracker

Favorite Media/Technology: Instagram/ iPhone

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How do you and your family interact with media/technology?

We don’t use social media when we are together because it is rude, but we do watch TV together. We really like watching The Voice because we talk about whether the acts were good or not during the commercials. I also use media like Skype, to stay in touch with family members who live in other states.

How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?

When me and my friends are not together we don’t really text that much. Instead, we just use Snapchat most of the time to talk to each other because you can do other things on it besides just texting. I feel like the setup of the app makes it feel more interactive and makes texting more fun.

When we are together we try not to be on our phones a lot, but there are times when we are all on our phones showing each other funny memes or videos. We try to have a ‘no-phone’ rule when we are out because we want to have conversations with each other and know what’s going on in everyone’s lives.

What do you use media for?

I use media for a lot of different things. I try to stay in touch with family and friends that live far away and I try and post pictures so they can see what I’m up to. I also like to use social media to keep up with celebrity news and things that are trending on the internet. Youtube is also really fun to use and it helps me to learn about new things. For example, I have watched videos on some conspiracy theories or different educational videos about a variety of topics. However, my media use is mainly for entertainment purposes rather than learning.

What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?

My least favorite thing: I tend to compare myself to other people mostly other girls. They'll post something and their stomachs all flat or like someone will be on vacation or something, and I just find myself like feeling bad about myself. It especially makes me really self conscious with my body. Even though there's a lot of body positive stuff I still find myself making comparisons.  Also, I find that it’s a lot easier for people who don’t like me to be mean to me on social media but don’t say anything to me in person which is really annoying.

My favorite thing: I enjoy seeing pictures of my friends and family and I like knowing what they're up to, and if they are having a good time. I also like posting things. I don't even know why I like posting things. But I always feel so satisfied after I post something.

“ I really like technology and media but I feel like I am always being judged by adults.  They make it seem like I have not experienced anything else in my life except being on my phone which is not true! I have a life outside of media and technology, but adults don’t seem to think so. They just say that my generation is just on our phones and that we don’t experience anything else. It bothers me because even if I didn’t have my phone I would still be finding something to do as a replacement, like something else relaxing and solitary. I know that there are certain experiences that you can't get on the phone, it's not like I've had a phone my whole life. I spend my time doing other things that I like to do. I play sports. I hang out with friends. I feel like I experienced enough to not feel like everything revolves around my phone.”

-Brooke

INTERVIEWED BY:

LAUREN MANFREDI

UCLA GRADUATE

Dennis - 18

Dennis, Age 18

Media Consumption: 5-6 hours

Favorite Media/Technology: Phone

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How do you and your family interact with media/technology?

My mom uses her phone a lot, probably more than I do actually. My parents don’t really check to see what I’m doing other than to tell me to stop playing games so much. Growing up I guess I had a lot of independence with what I do online and I mostly just played a lot of video games, but I also just occupied my time with sports, school clubs, piano, singing and tutoring classes.

How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?

I talk to my friends a lot online when we are playing video games because it’s just like hanging out with them, talking to them and doing an activity with them but in virtual space. We talk about school and what’s going on in our everyday lives.

What do you use media for?

In terms of social media, I mostly just use Reddit and YouTube. I also play video games like League of Legends, Civilization 5, and Minecraft and hang out with my friends online. I talk to my friends a lot over messenger too.

I don’t really use Twitter or Snapchat that often because I feel like while it is easy to trade Instagram handles and Snapchat usernames when you are meeting someone new, it seems more impersonal and is more difficult to create connections and build friendships over retweets and mass snaps.

What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?

One thing I really like about technology is that I am able to maintain relationships and connections easily without having to physically be with people all the time.

I think a bad part about the media is that prominent influencers like Jake Paul and RiceGum can promote sexualized content and glamorize the idea of having a lot of attractive women. On the same token, there are also YouTubers like PewDiePie that can positively influence kids.

INTERVIEWED BY:

GRACE ZHU

UCLA 3RD YEAR STUDENT