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Research 

Books 

Tween Girls and their Mediated Friends 

Jennings 

(2014, Peter Lang)

Through examining the characters and the text in which their stories take place, the book sheds light on what is important to tween girls, about the traits they value in others, and the traits they value in themselves.

20 Questions about Youth and the Media (2nd Edition) 

Jennings & Mazzarell (Eds.)

(2018, Peter Lang)

The revised edition of 20 Questions about Youth and the Media is an updated and comprehensive guide to today’s most compelling issues in the study of children, tweens, teens and the media. 

The Marketing of Children's Toys: Critical Perspective on Children's Consumer Culture

Hains & Jennings (Eds.) 

(2021, Palgrave) 

This book offers rich critical perspectives on the marketing of a variety of toys, brands, and product categories. 

                                                Articles and Book Chapters 

Refereed Articles:

Wartella, E., & Jennings. N.  (2001).  The role of computers in children’s lives.  The Future of children:  Children and computer technology, 10(2), 31-43.

 

Wartella, E., & Jennings, N.  (2001).  New members of the family:  The digital revolution in the home.  Journal of Family Communication, 1(1), 59-69.

Stout, P. A., Staiger, J., & Jennings, N. A. (2007).  Affective Stories: Understanding the Lack of Progress of Women Faculty, NWSA Journal, 19(3), 124-144.

 

Pike, J., & Jennings, N. (2005). The effects of commercials on children’s perceptions of gender appropriate toy use.  Sex Roles, (52), 83-91.

Jennings, N., & Collins, C.  (2008).  Virtual or virtually U:  Educational institutions in Second Life, International Journal of Social Sciences, 2(3), 180-186.

Jennings, N. A., & Alper, M. (2016).  Young Children’s Positive and Negative Parasocial Relationships with Media Characters.  Communication Research Reports, 33(2), 96-102.

 

Moses, A. M., Jennings, N. A., Brod, R., Hooker, S. D., Cordell, B., & Sallee, T.  (2014).  The Effects of Literacy Messages in an Educational Television program:  A Content Analysis and Experiment.  NHSA Dialog:  The Research to Practice Journal for the Early Childhood Field, 17(1), 20-35.  Available online:  https://journals.uncc.edu/dialog/article/view/208

  

Moses, A. M., Jennings, N. A., Brod, R., Hooker, S. D., Cordell, B., & Sallee, T.  (2014).  How an Educational Television Program Depicts Literacy and How its Messages Affect Young Children’s Literacy Attitudes.  NHSA Dialog:  The Research to Practice Journal for the Early Childhood Field, 17(1), 93-97.  Available online:  https://journals.uncc.edu/dialog/article/view/146

 

Piotrowski, J. T., Jennings, N. A., & Linebarger, D. L.  (2012).  Extending the Lessons of Educational Television with Young American Children.  Journal of Children and Media, 7(2), 216-234.

 

Haas, S., Irr, M., Jennings, N., & Wagner, L.  (2011).  Communicating Thin:  Stigma and the Co-Construction of Online Enabling Support Groups in the Pro-Anorexia Movement, New Media & Society, 13(1), 40-57.

 

Seo, K. K., Curran, A., Jennings, N., & Collins, C.  (2010). Creating a new mobile learning community with podcasting. International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, 20(1), 103-114.

Liao, T., Jennings, N. A., Dell, L., & Collins, C.  (2019).  Could the Virtual Dinosaur See You? Understanding Children’s Perceptions of Presence and Reality Distinction in Virtual Reality Environments, Journal of Virtual World Research, 12(2).  https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/index.php/jvwr/article/view/7361 

Oh, D., Banjo, O., & Jennings, N. A.  (2022).  Whose voices count?: Sourcing U.S. American television news about the world.  International Journal of Communication, 16, 4210-4230.  https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/18835/3877 

Book Chapters and Non-Refereed Articles: 

Whitney, C., Wartella, E., Lasorsa, D., Danielson, W., Olivarez, A., Jennings, N., & Lopez, R.  (1998).  Television violence in “reality” (non-fictional) programming: University of Texas at Austin Study.  In Center for Communication and Social Policy (Ed.), National television violence study, Volume 3, (pp. 221-284).  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage Publications.

 

Wartella, E., Whitney, C., Lasorsa, D., Danielson, W., Olivarez, A., Lopez, R., Jennings, N. & Klijn, M.  (1998).  Television violence in “reality” programming: University of Texas at Austin Study.  In Center for Communication and Social Policy (Ed.), National television violence study, Volume 2, (pp. 205-266).  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage Publications.

Collins, C., & Jennings, N. (2007).  Emerging “Best Practices” for Campus Builds in Second Life. In D. Livingston and J. Kemp (Eds.) Proceedings of the Second Life Education Workshop 2007: Part of the Second Life Community Convention 2007, (pp. 78-81). Available from: http://cis.paisley.ac.uk/livi-ci0/slccedu2007rev2.doc

Jennings, N. A.  (2013). And Now a Click from Our Sponsors:  Changes in Children’s Advertising in the United States. In A. N. Valdivia (Gen. Ed.) & S. R. Mazzarella (Ed.), The international encyclopedia of media studies. Vol. 3: Content and representation (pp. 54-73). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Jennings, N. A. (2016).  I am who I am.  TelevIZIon, 29, 33-35.  Available:  http://www.br-online.de/jugend/izi/english/publication/televizion/29_2016_E/Jennings-I_am_who_I_am.pdf

 

Jennings, N. A. with Gruber, F., Lahusen, S., Hildebrand, E., Koray, S., Baykal, G. E., Gomez, P., Toro, Y., Klempin, A., Sirichotchumnarn, P., Termsirikamol, W., Talbot, S., Stein, K. & Götz, M.  (2016).  What shapes my self, TelevIZIon, 29, 14-19.  Available:  http://www.br-online.de/jugend/izi/english/publication/televizion/29_2016_E/Jennings_Gruber_Lahusen-What_shapes_my_self.pdf

Götz, M., Mendel, C., Lemish, D., Jennings, N., Hains, R., … Yee, A.  (2020).  Children, COVID-19 and the media:  A Study on the Challenges Children are Facing in the 2020 Coronavirus Crisis.  TelevIZIon, 33, 4-9.  Available:  http://www.br-online.de/jugend/izi/english/publication/televizion/33_2020_E/Goetz_Mendel_Lemish-Children_COVID-19_and_the_media.pdf

 

Jennings, N. A. (2019).  Mobilizing Adult Fans of LEGO:  Playing Well into Adulthood.  In R. Hains and S. Mazzarella (Eds.), More Than Just Bricks: Critical Perspectives on LEGO in Popular Culture (pp. 221-243).  Cham, Switzerland:  Palgrave Macmillan.

Jennings, N. A., Caplovitz, A. G., & Alper, M.  (2022).  Media Use Among Children with Chronic Health Conditions During the Early Days of the Coronavirus Crisis.  In D. Lemish & M. Götz (Eds.), Children worldwide and media in a time of pandemic. (pp. 167-180). Peter Lang.

Götz, M., & Jennings, N. A. (2022).  Being an adolescent in the pandemic: Young people from Germany and the United States.  In D. Lemish & M. Götz (Eds.), Children worldwide and media in a time of pandemic. (pp. 181-194).  Peter Lang. 

Bond, B. J., Dill-Shackleford, K. E., Dibble, J. L., Gleason, T. R., Jennings, N., Rosaen, S. F., & Tukachinsky Forster, R. (2024). Parasocial relationships in children and teens. In D. A. Christakis & L. Hale (Eds.), Children and screens: A handbook on digital media and the development, health, and well-being of children and adolescents. Springer Nature.

 

Jennings, N. A., & Bali, A.  (2024).  Significant Difference, Cultural Distance, and Cultural Humility in Children’s Media Research, Journal of Content Community & Communication, Special Issue:  Media and children – Intersections and Reflections, 20(10), 4-7. https://www.amity.edu/gwalior/jccc/pdf/02-doi-jccc-06-24.pdf

 

Jennings, N. & Hawkins, V. (2024). Chapter 25 Entertainment-Education Media: Where Learning Is Fun. In N. Bowman (Ed.), Entertainment Media and Communication (pp. 369-382). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi-org.uc.idm.oclc.org/10.1515/9783110792881-026

 

Jennings, N. A. (2023).  Parasocial Relationships and Young Children.  In R. Tukachinsky Forster (Ed.), Handbook of Parasocial Experiences. (pp. 173-189), Oxford University Press.

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