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Meaty perspective on sexting

June 26, 2009 By Anne Leave a Comment

Teens sharing nude or provocative photos is not brand-new, says Dr. Richard Chalfen at the Center for Media and Child Health, and there are “at least 4 kinds of sub-cultures crucial to understanding the ‘sexting’ phenomenon”; “media culture,” “digital culture,” “intense visual culture,” and “adolescent culture.” Chalfen explains each one in “Teen Culture,” the first of a very digestible three-part series. In Part 2, “Photo Sharing Behavior,” he gives examples of “sexting” past, then talks about influences of the current media environment, including reports of adults misusing cellphone cams, intimate paparazzi photos of celebrities, ethically challenged citizen “photojournalists” and even professional photojournalists, reality TV, graphical language and stories in talkshows, and the general blurring of public and private. In Part 3, Dr. Chalfen discusses some of the consequences, with an eye toward family discussion. A related new resource – another project of the Center, a joint venture of Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard School of Public Health – is “Ask the Mediatrician,” where people can email media-related child-health-related questions to and find in-site answers from Dr. Michael Rich, a pediatrician, parent, and director of the Center. It’s a brilliant concept. I’d just like to see a search box in the site and – in answer to a question about Internet safety – a link to research down the street at the Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center, “Enhancing Child Safety & Online Technologies,” which found, among other things, that a child’s psychosocial makeup and environment are better predictors of online risk than the technology the child uses.

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Filed Under: Internet safety task force, Risk & Safety, sexting Tagged With: Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, ISTTF, media culture, mediatrician, Michael Rich, Richard Chalfen

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Anne Collier


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2016 TEDx Talk on
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IMPORTANT RESOURCES

Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Innovative Public Health Research
Childnet International
Committee for Children
Congressional Internet Caucus Academy
ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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