John L Sherry

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Michigan State University

Purpose Video games have the potential to improve brain plasticity in people with Down syndrome. However, little has been done to understand video game preferences in this population. The purpose of the paper is to describe a brief exploration of video game preferences in children with Down syndrome. Design/methodology/approach An online survey...

As more media research has shifted from the negative effects paradigm to a focus on enjoyment and positive outcomes, media flow theory has emerged as a popular line of research. Media flow theory explains the mechanism by which media provides its users with a collection of enjoyable experiences, reward, control, diversion, and escape. This entry ma...

Statements supported mostly by correlational and cross-sectional studies suggest that playing violent video games can cause emotional desensitization. A longitudinal experiment examined (a) whether repeated violent game play leads to emotional desensitization and (b) whether desensitization generalizes to other play and real-life experiences. Parti...

Though communication is a process that unfolds over time, it has been difficult to study it as a dynamic process. This article examines the process of real-life divorce mediations as a dynamic system. First, the article sets out a paradigm of an interaction dynamic, revealing underlying dynamic patterns of frame coordination and how those patterns...

Increasingly, communication scholars are probing the contributions of biology to communication processes. This special issue brought together articles providing substantive overviews of the use of state-of-the-art techniques for performing this type of research, including fMRI, EEG, galvanic skin response, and heart rate measurement. In this articl...

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 5) This popular quote from Hamlet might be recast for the field of communication as " There are more things in science than are dreamt of in our philosophies ". This article will review several new and strange ideas from complexity scienc...

Past research on consequences of video game play have conflated two distinct psychological mechanisms, habituation and generalization, into a unified process dubbed “desensitization.” The current paper reports the results of two studies, a repeated exposure study and a single exposure study, which examine habituation and generalization of biophysio...

Abstract As the movement to capitalize on unique affordances of video games for learning continues to grow, relatively, little research in that area has examined how formal features, such as genre and game mechanics, draw and hold children's attention. This study examines which genres children prefer and the reasons why children prefer those genres...

According to educational gaming advocates, the engaging nature of games encourages sustained game play and enhanced attention to learning outcomes among players. Because children's and adolescents' play time varies by game genre, engagement with a game likely reflects the match between the genre and the player's preferences and needs. Youth learn w...

The current study implements the drive theory of social facilitation to explain the influence of audience presence in video game play. This integration is an important one for research aiming to understand the experience of video game play, as the social aspect of video game play is a relevant dimension of the technology often ignored in research o...

Millions in taxpayer and foundation euros and dollars have been spent building and testing educational video games, games for health, and serious games. What have been the fruits of this frenzy of activity? What educational video game has had the reach and impact of Sesame Street or Blues Clues television shows? By comparison, the Children’s Televi...

IntroductionA Unique VisionGrowing the NetworkA Network of NetworksFinding Ourselves in Virtual SpaceA Digital DivideConclusion GlossaryCross References

This study examined the strength and mood management potential of positive parasocial relationships with favorite television characters in maltreated children. Based on a survey of 270 children (67 maltreated; 203 non-maltreated) between the ages of 5 and 16 years old, maltreated children watched 50 per cent more television per day than non-maltrea...

Abstract— Recently, there has been a great deal of interest in the use of video games for education because of the high level of engagement of players. This article blends research on game engagement from the media flow perspective with current pedagogical theory to advance 2 core design principles for a model educational game design: model matchin...

In communication science, the distinction between applied and basic research is often accompanied by a discussion of the relative value of each. However, the idea that there is a value distinction to be made between applied and basic research is fundamentally inconsistent with scientific epistemology. Rather than different modes of inquiry with dif...

Questionnaires were completed by 5th-, 8th-, and 11th-grade public schools students in rural and suburban school districts and by undergraduates at two universities in the United States (n = 1,242). They were asked about their orientation to video games—the amount of time they played, their motives for doing so, and the game types they preferred—to...

Dating back to work done in Columbia's Bureau of Applied Social Research in the 1940s, media uses and gratifications (U&G) research represents one of the oldest and largest continuous programs of research in the field of communication. The tradition represents hundreds of research projects since the 1940s examining the reasons why people use mass m...

To examine the effectiveness of three modalities for delivery of nutrition education. Between-subjects, repeated-measures design. Data were collected at community agencies or during home visits. Low-income, European American and African American mothers (N = 155). Participants were exposed to nutrition education material in 1 of 3 modalities (a com...

Entertainment—education initiatives face unique problems in media—saturated countries such as the United States. Five media theories (uses and gratifications, cultivation, agenda setting, knowledge gap, and diffusion of innovations) are reviewed for guidance in creating effects in such environments. Recommendations for entertainment—education initi...

This paper reports the results of an experiment that examined the appeal of violence in a full‐length motion picture. College students (N = 134) were randomly assigned to view one of two different versions of The Fugitive. One version was the original theatrical release and the other version was identical except for the fact that nearly all of the...

Media enjoyment is theorized by synthesizing empirical literature from uses and gratifications with Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory. This article argues that enjoyment of media results from a flow experience realized when media message content balances with individual ability to interpret that message. Further, it theorizes that media experience, al...

Media enjoyment is theorized by synthesizing empirical literature from uses and gratifications with Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory. This article argues that enjoyment of media results from a flow experience realized when media message content balances with individual ability to interpret that message. Further, it theorizes that media experience, al...

In this study, we examined gender differences in video game use by focusing on interpersonal needs for inclusion, affection, and control, as well as socially constructed perceptions of gendered game play. Results of a large-scale survey (n = 534) of young adults’ reasons for video game use, preferred game genres, and amount of game play are reporte...

This chapter traces the beginnings of the Internet, focusing on key personalities and technological developments. The history follows the origin of the original ARPANET, including development of TCP/IP protocols, through the emergence of the NSFNET backbone and the development of the World Wide Web. Focus is also placed on the process of discovery,...

In this article, I provide a historical overview of the nature/nurture debate by ex-ploring the philosophical history of the debate leading up to the inception of me-dia effects research. I argue that the media effects tradition was born into a mi-lieu that was exclusively sided with the nurture (environmental determinist) position and has largely...

Entertainment-education initiatives face unique problems in media-saturated countries such as the United States. Five media theories (uses and gratifications, cultivation, agenda setting, knowledge gap, and diffusion of innovations) are reviewed for guidance in creating effects in such environments. Recommendations for entertainment-education initi...

Despite the potential of the uses and gratifications paradigm to explain the etiology of media uses and effects, most research to date has ignored the issue of etiology and has focused on creating motivation typologies. Recent advances in bio-behavioral research provide a new way to address the question Of etiology. A survey of 285 adults showed th...

Violent content video games such as Mortal Kombat and Doom have become very popular among children and adolescents, causing great concern for parents, teachers, and policy makers. This study cumulates findings across existing empirical research on the effects of violent video games to estimate overall effect size and discern important trends and mo...

Adolescents and children in the US and Japan offer an increasingly desirable market segment for advertisers. Considerable advertising effort targets the youth market because children and adolescents have more disposable income than in the past and are believed to be more fashion and brand-conscious. This study looks at how Japanese and US youth com...

There have been a number of examples throughout the world. including some of the projects with which we have been associated. in which people have been reached at the personal level at which decisions are being made. with a resulting dramatic impact on behavior. One of the common ingredients of such social marketing campaigns is utilization of the...

Strident controversy over the often‐bizarre subject matter of daytime television talk shows motivated this content analysis of 11 shows with the highest Nielsen ratings in 1994–95. A sample of 10 episodes of each of the shows was videotaped and subjected to a systematic analysis of the shows’ guests, topics of discussion and interactions. Results i...