Media Use and Children's Perceptions of Societal Threat and Personal Vulnerability

Abstract

This study examined children's media use (i.e., amount of television and Internet usage) and relationships to children's perceptions of societal threat and personal vulnerability. The sample consisted of 90 community youth aged 7 to 13 years (M = 10.8; 52.2% male) from diverse economic backgrounds. Analyses found children's television use to be associated with elevated perceptions of personal vulnerability to world threats (i.e., crime, terrorism, earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods). An interactive model of television use and child anxiety in accounting for children's personal threat perceptions was supported, in which the strength of television consumption in predicting children's personal threat perceptions was greater for children with greater anxiety. Relationships were found neither between children's Internet use and threat perceptions nor between media use and perceptions of societal threat.

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Media Use and Children's Perceptions of Societal
Threat and Personal Vulnerability
Jonathan S. Comer a; Jami M. Furr b; Rinad S. Beidas b; Heather M. Babyar c;
Philip C. Kendall b
aDepartment of Psychiatry, Columbia University,
bDepartment of Psychology, Temple University,
cDepartment of Psychology, Kent State University,
Online Publication Date: 01 July 2008
To cite this Article: Comer, Jonathan S., Furr, Jami M., Beidas, Rinad S., Babyar,
Heather M. and Kendall, Philip C. (2008) 'Media Use and Children's Perceptions of
Societal Threat and Personal Vulnerability', Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 37:3, 622 — 630
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Media Use and Children’s Perceptions of Societal Threat
and Personal Vulnerability
Jonathan S. Comer
Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University
Jami M. Furr and Rinad S. Beidas
Department of Psychology, Temple University
Heather M. Babyar
Department of Psychology, Kent State University
Philip C. Kendall
Department of Psychology, Temple University
This study examined children’s media use (i.e., amount of television and Internet usage)
and relationships to children’s perceptions of societal threat and personal vulnerability.
The sample consisted of 90 community youth aged 7 to 13 years (M¼10.8; 52.2%male)
from diverse economic backgrounds. Analyses found children’s television use to be
associated with elevated perceptions of personal vulnerability to world threats (i.e.,
crime, terrorism, earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods). An interactive model of tele-
vision use and child anxiety in accounting for children’s personal threat perceptions
was supported, in which the strength of television consumption in predicting children’s
personal threat perceptions was greater for children with greater anxiety. Relationships
were found neither between children’s Internet use and threat perceptions nor between
media use and perceptions of societal threat.
External forces that influence children’s functioning
provide the contexts within which the development of
youth unfolds. These contexts vary in degree of proxim-
ity to the child and can be described as nested within
one another (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Bronfenbrenner’s
model and its extensions (e.g., Belsky, 1980; Lynch &
Cicchetti, 1998) emphasize how these contexts influence
one another over time to shape child development.
By extending the scope of our perceptions, techno-
logical advances in mass communications have substan-
tially altered the ecology within which the development
of modern youth unfolds. Televisions have become
long-distance eyes, projecting images to us that exist
in the world far beyond our biological vision and
radios have become long-distance ears, propagating
sounds that originate far beyond our range of hearing.
Broadening availability of the Internet brings us closer
to what communications scholar Marshall McLuhan
(1964) called the ‘‘global village’’ in which the limita-
tions of physical space no longer apply and we can inter-
act with the other side of the world with the same
speed and facility afforded in geographically proximal
interactions.
American youth spend an enormous amount of time
consuming mass media. The U.S. Census reported that
This project was supported by a Graduate Student Research Grant
awarded to the first author by Division 53 of the American Psychologi-
cal Association (Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology), a Presi-
dential Fellowship awarded to the first author by Temple University,
and NIH grants 59087 and 64484 awarded to the final author.
Correspondence should be addressed to Jonathan S. Comer,
Columbia University=NYSPI, Division of Child Psychiatry, 1051
Riverside Drive, Unit 74, New York, NY 10032. E-mail: comerj@
childpsych.columbia.edu
Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology,37(3), 622–630, 2008
Copyright #Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1537-4416 print=1537-4424 online
DOI: 10.1080/15374410802148145

Downloaded By: [Comer, Jonathan S.] At: 19:20 21 July 2008
98%of American households have a television set (see
Croteau & Hoynes, 1997), and there is a television set
in the bedroom of two thirds of American youth
between the ages of 8 and 18 (Gentile & Walsh, 2002;
Roberts et al., 2004; Wartella, Heintz, Aidman, &
Mazzarella, 1990). Thus, mass mediated messages
provide an increasingly proximal context for child devel-
opment. Roberts, Henriksen, and Foehr (2004) reported
that the average number of daily hours spent viewing
television is 3:19 for youth aged 8 to 10, 3:30 for youth
aged 11 to 14, and 2:23 for youth aged 15 to 18. In fact,
evidence suggests that almost 20%of youth between the
ages of 2 and 17 watch more than 35 hr of television per
week (Gentile & Walsh, 2002). Such television viewing
includes news programming, with even 3- to 5-year-old
children reportedly viewing an average of more than
1 hr of televised news=week (St. Peters, Fitch, Huston,
Wright, & Easkins, 1991). Roberts et al. (2004) reported
that for youth with Internet access, the total average of
Internet usage is approximately 1 hr online.
Empirical work with adults suggests that long-term
consumption of mass media can have deleterious effects
on global perceptions of threat and vulnerability.
Gerbner’s cultivation theory (Gerbner & Gross, 1976;
Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 1994) points
to how television portrays a world far more dangerous
than the one in which the average viewer actually
inhabits. Correspondingly, heavy television viewing is
believed to result in distorted perceptions of the world
as more dangerous and threatening than it is, yielding
exaggerated beliefs of a ‘‘mean and scary world.’’
Gerbner’s theory has garnered empirical support (see
Morgan & Shanahan, 1997). In a sample of more than
2,300 adults, Romer, Jamieson, and Aday (2003) found
a robust relationship between greater viewing of
televised news and perceptions of personal and societal
risks. Romer and colleagues also found that greater
exposure to televised news is related to a greater percep-
tion that crime is a problem, even after controlling for
actual crime rates in viewers’ neighborhoods.
Less is known about the relationships between media
use and threat perceptions in children. Such relation-
ships are particularly concerning in youth, given empiri-
cal advances highlighting the contributions of vicarious
learning and verbal threat information in the acquisition
of children’s anxious expectations, avoidant behavior,
physiological arousal, long-term fear beliefs, and other
anxious symptoms (e.g., Field & Lawson, 2003; Field &
Schorah, 2007; Field & Storksen-Coulson, 2007; Gerull
& Rapee, 2002). Consistent with evidence suggesting
that conditioning and direct experience with feared
stimuli may not be necessary for the development of
children’s threat perceptions, Smith and Wilson (2002)
found television news viewing to be predictive of chil-
dren’s crime rate perceptions, and Peterson and Zill
(1981) found children who were heavy television viewers
were more likely than light viewers to report distress and
fears of vulnerability to crime. No research has exam-
ined relationships between television use and children’s
perceptions of threat beyond crime, and no empirical
work has examined Internet use and children’s threat
perceptions.
In their review of terrorism-related media presenta-
tions, Comer and Kendall (2007) discussed the discourse
of disaster threat broadcast by the mass media—in
which daily social, cultural, and political events and
decisions are recast within the threat of future disaster.
Although Comer and Kendall focused on terrorism-
related media messages, the notion that disproportion-
ate media presentations of the possibility (rather than
probability) of personal victimization can adversely
affect children’s threat perceptions may hold true for
all disaster-related media presentations. In the wake of
the September 11 terror attacks, the 2004 tsunamis of
southeast Asia, and Hurricane Katrina, the media has
increasingly covered disaster-related threats. The topic
‘‘How safe are we from potential disasters?’’ has
frequently been a focus in news programming, and the
content of dramatic television programming has increas-
ingly incorporated plots about terrorism and disaster.
Statistically speaking, it is unlikely that the vast majority
of youth will ever experience direct exposure to a disas-
ter. However, given the enormous amount of time youth
spend consuming mass media (Roberts et al., 2004;
St. Peters et al., 1991), a substantial proportion of youth
are being exposed to this ongoing broadcast of disaster
threat, expectation, and alert. Research examining
media consumption and children’s threat perceptions
must examine children’s perceptions of vulnerability
to natural and man-made disasters, in addition to
perceptions of crime.
Parental media regulation has been understudied in
regards to child threat perceptions. Children whose
parents do not impose restrictions on their television
consumption watch more television than children
whose parents do impose such restrictions (e.g., Atkin,
Greenberg, & Baldwin, 1991; Krosnick, Anand, &
Hartl, 2003). Broadly speaking parental rule-setting
regarding children’s television viewing has been associa-
ted with less youth aggression (Nathanson, 1999). How-
ever, relationships between parental media regulation
and children’s threat perceptions remain unexamined.
Our study examined children’s media use (television
and Internet), parental media regulation, and their
relationships to children’s societal and personal risk
perceptions. Threat perceptions related to crime, terror-
ism, earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods were examined.
Analyses examined relationships between media use and
threat perceptions in the context of child anxiety; addi-
tive and interactive models were tested. Such analyses
MEDIA USE AND THREAT PERCEPTIONS 623

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afforded examination of the relationships between
media use and threat perceptions beyond those
accounted for by child anxiety, controlling for self-
selection bias, in which anxious youth seek out greater
quantities of threat-related media.
METHODS
Participants
The sample consisted of 90 community youth aged 7 to
13 years (M
age
¼10.78, SD ¼2.0), and their mothers
(M
age
¼39.87, SD ¼7.96). Participants were recruited
from media advertisements and school-based outreach
in the Philadelphia area and were financially compen-
sated $50 for their time, which included participation in
additional studies. Participants had to be English speak-
ing. Youth (52.2%boys) were 47.8%Caucasian, 47.8%
African American, and 4.4%Other. There were 33.3%
from households that earned less than $39,999, 33.3%from
households earning between $40,000 and $69,999, and
33.3%from households earning above $70,000.
Measures
Television and Internet use. Mothers provided
child and family demographic data. Mothers were asked
whether they placed any restriction on their children’s
television use and Internet use, and if so, to indicate
the maximum quantity of hours=week they allow their
child to use television and Internet. Children indicated
the number of hours=week they watch television and
the number of hours=week they are online. Mothers
indicated the number of hours=week they themselves
watch television and are online.
Trait anxiety. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for
Children (STAIC; Spielberger, 1973) A-Trait form was
used to assess child anxiety. The Trait form is a 20-item
child self-report measure of relatively stable individual
differences in anxiety. Children rated the extent to which
they typically experience anxiety symptoms (e.g., ‘‘I
worry about making mistakes;’’ ‘‘I am secretly afraid’’)
using 3-point scales ranging 1 (almost never), 2 (some-
times), and 3 (often). The STAIC has demonstrated
acceptable psychometric properties in community sam-
ples, including strong reliability and validity (Muris,
Merckelbach, Ollendick, King, & Bogie, 2002; Seligman,
Ollendick, Langley, & Baldacci, 2004; Silverman &
Rabian, 1999; a¼.86 in our sample).
Threat perception. Consistent with methodology
employed in the child subjective probability judgment
literature (e.g., Dalgleish et al., 1997), children rated the
likelihood of future threats (crime, terrorism, earth-
quakes, and hurricanes=floods) on 7-point Likert scales
from 0 (definitely will not happen)to6(definitely will hap-
pen). Visual and verbal anchors were provided after each
item to assist children’s comprehension of the scale. Chil-
dren provided two estimates for each threat: societal (e.g.,
‘‘What do you think the likelihood is that a major earth-
quake will occur in the U.S. over the next year?’’) and per-
sonal threat estimates (‘‘What do you think the likelihood
is that a major earthquake will directly affect you or your
family over the next year?’’). This eight-item scale is
referred to as the Societal and Personal Risk Assessment
for Youth (SPRAY; see the Appendix). Given evidence
that personal and societal threat perceptions may vary
independently of one another (Romer et al., 2003;
Smith & Wilson, 2002), analyses examined societal and
personal estimates separately (SPRAY(Societal) ¼sum
of Items 2, 4, 6, and 8; SPRAY(Personal)¼sum of
Items 1, 3, 5, 7). The SPRAY evidenced convergent val-
idity (significant correlation between SPRAY(Personal)
and STAIC—Trait; see Table 2) and good internal con-
sistency (a
societal
¼.71, a
personal
¼.71).
Procedures
Following approval of the protocol by the Institutional
Review Board, interested mother–child dyads, recruited
from media advertisements and school-based outreach,
were directed to contact the first author. English-
speaking dyads were scheduled for an appointment at
the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders Clinic of
Temple University. At their appointment, informed
consent was obtained and mothers and children
completed assessments in separate rooms. Child forms
were completed with the assistance of a psychology
graduate student. At the end of their participation, dyads
received financial compensation and were debriefed.
RESULTS
Preliminary Analyses
Means and standard deviations of study variables are
presented in Table 1. It is possible that world events that
occurred during the data collection phase of the study
(e.g., occurrence of disaster) exerted an influence on
children’s threat perceptions. Participants’ ID numbers
were assigned consecutively and sequentially. To
provide a check on potential cohort effects, participant
ID number was not significantly correlated with any
study variables (i.e., all ps>.05), indicating that study
findings are not related to external (i.e., nonstudy)
events that occurred over the timeframe of the study.
624 COMER ET AL.

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Children reported significantly greater television use
than Internet use, t(89) ¼5.12, p¼.001. Age was
significantly related to media use, with older children
using greater amounts of television (r¼.25, p<.05)
and Internet (r¼.30, p<.01). Boys and girls reported
similar amounts of television, F(1, 88) ¼.22, ns, and
Internet use, F(1, 88) ¼.33, ns. Television use and
Internet use did not significantly differ across income
categories, F(2, 84) ¼1.59, ns,andF(2, 84) ¼.12, ns,
respectively. Child television use was not significantly
related to maternal television use (r¼.10, ns), and child
Internet use was not significantly related to maternal
Internet use (r¼.16, ns).
Only 27%of mothers reported that there is a house-
hold rule regarding quantity of child television viewing;
26%reported presence of rule regarding maximum child
Internet use. Eleven mothers (12.2%) reported rules for
both child television and Internet use; of these mothers,
greater restriction were placed on child Internet use than
on television use, t(10) ¼2.84, p<.05. Demographic
factors were unrelated to parental media regulation.
Children of mothers who imposed restrictions on tele-
vision use were not significantly younger than children
of mothers who did not, F(1, 88) ¼1.38, p>.05. Simi-
larly, children of mothers who imposed restrictions on
Internet use were not significantly younger than children
of mothers who did not, F(1, 88) ¼.01, p>.05. Mothers
of girls were no more likely to impose restrictions on
children’s television use, v
2
(1) ¼2.74, p>.05, and Inter-
net use, v
2
(1) ¼2.09, p>.05, than mothers of boys.
Income level was unrelated to television restriction,
v
2
(2) ¼.49, p>.05, and Internet restriction,
v
2
(2) ¼1.13, p>.05. Differences in maternal TV use
were not found between mothers who did and who
did not impose child television use restriction,
F(1, 87) ¼.56, p>.05. Similarly, differences in maternal
Internet use were not found between mothers who did
and who did not impose child Internet use restriction,
F(1, 86) ¼2.05, p>.05.
Threat Perceptions
Children reported significantly greater societal threat
perception than personal threat perception,
t(89) ¼10.14, p<.001. Differences among personal
threat perceptions (i.e., crime, terrorism, earthquakes,
and hurricanes=floods) were not significant. Among
societal perceptions, children reported greater crime
threat perception than earthquake threat perception,
t(89) ¼2.6, p¼.01, and than hurricane=flood threat
perceptions, t(89) ¼2.01, p<.05; remaining societal
threat differences were nonsignificant. Age was
unrelated to children’s personal threat perceptions
(r¼.06, ns) but was positively related to societal
threat perceptions (r¼.26, p<.05), with reports of
societal threat rising with child age. Boys and girls
reported similar levels of personal, F(1, 88) ¼1.20,
p>.05, and societal threat, F(1, 88) ¼1.64, p>.05.
Children across income levels reported similar levels of
personal, F(2, 84) ¼.58, p>.05, and societal threat,
F(2, 84) ¼1.32, p>.05.
Media Consumption and Threat Perceptions
Hierarchical multiple regressions examined the relative
contributions of media consumption, child anxiety,
TABLE 1
Distribution of Study Variables
Variables M SD
Television Use (hr=week) 15.17 12.61
Internet Use (hr=week) 7.58 11.93
Child Anxiety 34.17 7.42
Parental TV Regulation (max hr=week)
a
10.86 7.36
Parental Internet Regulation (max hr=week)
b
5.17 4.12
Threat Perception Personal Societal Personal
c
Societal
c
Terrorism 1.30 2.82 1.43 1.88
Earthquake 1.22 2.56 1.34 1.88
Hurricane=Flood 1.22 2.74 1.33 1.95
Crime 1.11 3.27 1.18 2.15
Total 4.86 11.39 3.89 5.74
a
Estimate reflects data from subsample of 24 mothers (26.7%) who reported presence of a household rule about
maximum amount of child television viewing allowed.
b
Estimate reflects data from sub-sample of 23 mothers (25.6%) who reported presence of a household rule about
maximum amount of child Internet use allowed.
c
Estimates reflect data from sub-sample of 11 mothers (12.2%) who reported presence of household rules about
maximum amount of child television viewing allowed and maximum amount of child Internet use allowed.
MEDIA USE AND THREAT PERCEPTIONS 625

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child age, and their potential interactions in the predic-
tion of child threat perceptions. Given the identified
age differences in media use, for each set of hierarchi-
cal analyses, age was entered in the first step. To
examine the contribution of media consumption
beyond that accounted for by child anxiety (i.e., self-
selection bias), for each set of hierarchical analyses,
anxiety was entered in the second step, and television
and Internet use were entered simultaneously in the
third step. The products of media use and child anxi-
ety (variables centered) were entered in the fourth step,
to examine interactive models. Significant contribu-
tions of child anxiety and media use in Step 3 (in
the absence of significant contributions of their inter-
action terms in Step 4) support additive models of
anxiety and media use. Significant contributions of
their product terms in Step 4 support interactive (i.e.,
moderation) models of anxiety and media use. Table
2 presents the correlations among predictor variables
and child threat perceptions. Correlations among
predictor variables were not problematic (i.e., all corre-
lations <.60) and Variance Inflation Factor values
were more than 2, confirming that multicollinearity
was not a problem.
In the prediction of personal threat perceptions (see
Table 3), child age did not provide a significant contri-
bution, F(1, 88) ¼.32, p>.05. Entering child anxiety
added a significant contribution F
change
(1, 87) ¼5.17,
p<.05, accounting for an additional 6%of the
variation. Entering media use added a significant contri-
bution to the prediction of personal threat perceptions,
F
change
(2, 85) ¼7.50, p<.001, accounting for an
additional 14%of the variation. After controlling for
child age and anxiety, children’s television use remained
positively correlated with personal threat perception
(r
partial
¼.38, p<.001), such that the greater amount
of television children consume, the greater their reports
of personal threat perception. Internet use did not add a
significant contribution in the prediction of personal
threat perception.
TABLE 3
Multiple Regression Analysis Predicting Personal Threat Perception
Variable Entered B SE(B) bt
Step 1
Child Age .12 .21 .06 .57
Step 2
Child Age .01 .21 .01 .02
Child Anxiety .13 .06 .24 2.27
Step 3
Child Age .19 .21 .10 .92
Child Anxiety .11 .05 .22 2.16
TV Use .12 .03 .40 3.77
Internet Use .01 .04 .03 .26
Step 4
Child Age .18 .20 .09 .90
Child Anxiety .13 .05 .24 2.47
TV Use .13 .03 .42 4.05
Internet Use .03 .04 .09 .86
Child Anxiety TV Use
a
.01 .01 .20 2.00
Child Anxiety Internet Use
a
.01 .01 .09 .89
Note:R
2
¼.01 for Step 1; Adjusted R
2
¼.01 for Step 1; DR
2
¼.06 for Step 2 (p<.05); DR
2
¼.14 for Step 3
(p<.001); DR
2
¼.06 for Step 4 ( p<.05).
a
Variables centered before products were generated.
p<.05. p<.001.
TABLE 2
Correlations Among Media Use, Child Anxiety, and Children’s Threat Perceptions
1234 5
1. Personal Threat — — — — —
2. Societal Threat .24—— — —
3. TV Use .36 .06 — — —
4. Internet Use .08 .17 .34 ——
5. Anxiety .24.05 .01 .01 —
6. Child Age .06 .26 .25 .30 .24
p<.05, two-tailed. p<.01, two-tailed.
626 COMER ET AL.

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Entering the Media Use Anxiety interactions
added a significant contribution to the prediction of per-
sonal threat perception, F
change
(2, 83) ¼3.15, p<.05,
accounting for an additional 6%of variation. Specifi-
cally, an interactive model of child anxiety and television
use was supported (i.e., significant contribution of Child
Anxiety Television Use product term in Step 4), in
which the contribution of television use in predicting
children’s personal threat perceptions depended on
(i.e., was moderated by) level of child anxiety. Simul-
taneously, the contribution of child anxiety in predicting
children’s personal threat perceptions depended on the
amount of television use they reported. Analyses did
not support an interactive effect for the contributions
of child anxiety and Internet use in the prediction
personal threat perceptions.
In the prediction of societal threat perceptions (see
Table 4), child age (entered in Step 1) provided a signifi-
cant contribution, F(1, 88) ¼6.56, p<.05, with societal
threat perceptions increasing with age. Child anxiety did
not add a significant contribution, F
change
(1, 87) ¼1.39,
p>.05, nor did media use (entered in Step 3), F
change
(2,
85) ¼.38, p>.05. Interactive models of media use and
child anxiety were not supported—that is, the Media
Use Anxiety interactions did not add a significant con-
tribution to the prediction of societal threat perception,
F
change
(2, 83) ¼1.04, p>.05.
Parental Media Regulation and Threat Perceptions
Regarding personal threat perceptions, significant differ-
ences were found neither between children whose mothers
restricted their television use and those whose mothers did
not, F(1, 88) ¼1.58, p>.05, nor between children whose
mothers restricted their Internet use and those whose
mothers did not, F(1, 88) ¼.04, p>.05. Regarding
societal threat perceptions, significant differences were
found neither between children whose mothers restricted
their television use and those whose mothers did not,
F(1, 88) ¼.04, p>.05, nor between children whose
mothers restricted Internet use and those whose mothers
did not, F(1, 88) ¼1.20, p>.05.
DISCUSSION
Consistent with previous work (Gentile & Walsh, 2002;
Roberts et al., 2004), children reported on average more
than 2 hr of daily television use and 1 hr of Internet use,
with media use increasing with age. Within a child sam-
ple, our findings provide partial support for Gerbner’s
(Gerbner & Gross, 1976; Gerbner et al., 1994) notion that
heavy television viewing is related to heightened percep-
tions of risk. Children’s television use was associated with
elevated perceptions of personal (but not societal) vulner-
ability to world threats (i.e., crime, terrorism, earth-
quakes, hurricanes, and floods), and this finding was
particularly strong in youth with high anxiety. Significant
relationships were not found between children’s Internet
use and threat perceptions. Although children’s societal
and personal risk estimations were significantly related
to one another, children reported significantly greater
perceptions of societal risk, and (unlike perceptions of
personal risk) these perceptions were not associated with
TABLE 4
Multiple Regression Analysis Predicting Societal Threat Perception
Variable Entered B SE(B) bt
Step 1
Child Age .76 .30 .26 2.56
Step 2
Child Age .84 .30 .29 2.78
Child Anxiety .10 .08 .13 1.18
Step 3
Child Age .78 .33 .27 2.40
Child Anxiety .09 .08 .12 1.14
TV Use .02 .05 .04 .38
Internet Use .05 .06 .10 .86
Step 4
Child Age .79 .33 .28 2.42
Child Anxiety .12 .08 .14 1.28
TV Use .01 .05 .03 .24
Internet Use .03 .06 .06 .47
Child Anxiety TV Use
a
.01 .01 .12 1.04
Child Anxiety Internet Use
a
.01 .01 .07 .62
Note:R
2
¼.07 for Step 1; Adjusted R
2
¼.06 for Step 1; DR
2
¼.02 for Step 2, ns;DR
2
¼.01 for
Step 3, ns;DR
2
¼.02 for Step 4, ns.
a
Variables centered before products were generated.
p<.05. p<.01.
MEDIA USE AND THREAT PERCEPTIONS 627

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children’s media use. Thus, our findings suggest that the
development of children’s societal and personal risk per-
ceptions may be governed by distinct pathways.
Television usage and anxiety both predicted chil-
dren’s personal threat perceptions, but the contribution
of television use in predicting children’s personal threat
perceptions depended on (i.e., was moderated by) the
level of the child’s anxiety, supporting an interactive
model of television use and child anxiety in accounting
for children’s personal threat perceptions. Simul-
taneously, the strength of child anxiety in predicting
children’s personal threat perceptions was greater for
children who consume greater amounts of television.
Interactive models were not supported when considering
children’s Internet use, or when accounting for chil-
dren’s societal threat perceptions.
Consistent with previous work examining media use
and children’s anxious symptoms (e.g., Pfefferbaum
et al., 2001; Saylor, Cowart, Lipovsky, Jackson, & Finch,
2003; Smith & Wilson, 2002), our study relied on chil-
dren’s retrospective self-reports of media exposure.
Future work may do well to have children report on their
media use via diary methods or personal digital assis-
tants. In addition, whereas our study broadly examined
quantity of media use, future work needs to examine
particular types of media presentations and their relation-
ships with children’s threat perceptions. Televised news
may be particularly problematic for youth (Cantor &
Nathanson, 1996; Smith & Wilson, 2002), and research
has found that news coverage of traumatic events can
result in posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology
and extended distress (Comer & Kendall, 2007; Otto
et al., 2007; Pfefferbaum et al., 2001; Saylor et al., 2003;
Simons & Silveira, 1994). Moreover, our study findings
are correlational, and as such causal inferences cannot
be made. Our findings controlled for child anxiety, to
account for the potential that anxious youth may both
be vulnerable to high personal threat perceptions and
seek out extended media use, but prospective longitudinal
work is needed. In addition, experimental work in which
children are presented with different forms of media pre-
sentations (e.g., news broadcasts, dramatic program-
ming) will be helpful in this regard. Finally, findings
may not generalize to youth in regions marked by more
frequent and=or destructive disasters and adverse events
(e.g., regions beset by recurrent terrorist attacks). Future
work comparing youth from different regions is needed
to examine whether associations between media use and
threat perceptions are affected by actual probabilities
of the occurrence of adverse events.
Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice
Associations between media use and perceptions of
threat and vulnerability are particularly concerning in
children, given that children are still developing a stable
sense of security about their worlds and may have less
control over the media they consume. Given associa-
tions identified between television use and children’s
personal threat perceptions, it is worrisome that more
than 70%of mothers reported the absence of a house-
hold rule regarding their children’s television use. Con-
tinued empirical efforts are needed to identify the
optimal extent to which parents should regulate youth
television exposure. Although not examined in our
study, future work needs to examine how parents pro-
cess media messages with their children, helping them
distinguish threatening possibilities depicted by the
media from the actual probabilities of their personally
experiencing such events. It may be that promoting
media literacy in youth (Comer & Kendall, 2007;
Nathanson, 1999, 2001) can offset the link between
media use and children’ threat perceptions of personal
vulnerability. In addition, given that a disproportionate
cognitive emphasis upon the possibilities (rather than
probabilities) of unwanted events lies at the heart of
many childhood anxiety disorders (e.g., Daleiden &
Vasey, 1997; Kendall & Treadwell, 2007; Muris & van
Doorn, 2003; Spence, Donovan, & Brechman-
Toussaint, 1999; Treadwell & Kendall, 1996), offsetting
threat perceptions associated media use may benefit
from the extensive gains made in the treatment of child-
hood anxiety disorders (e.g., Barrett, Dadds, & Rapee,
1996; Kendall et al., 1997).
Whereas greater long-term television use predicts
societal threat perceptions in adults (e.g., Romer et al.,
2003), our findings suggest that this may not be the case
with children. Future work should examine children’s
media use and threat perceptions within the context of
cognitive development. Threat perception involves the
ability to mentally represent the future, requiring a
capacity to go beyond that which is observable and con-
sider that which is possible (see Vasey, Crnic, & Carter,
1994). It may be that the ability to mentally represent
future threat to oneself emerges earlier than the ability
to mentally represent future threat to others. Supporting
this notion, analyses found age to be unrelated to
personal threat perceptions but significantly related to
societal threat perceptions, with reports of societal
threat increasing with age.
Moreover, the finding that television use was related
to children’s perceptions of personal vulnerability to
events that, statistically speaking, the majority of youth
in the study had not directly experienced adds to the
increasing body of literature documenting the contri-
butions of verbal information and vicarious learning
in the acquisition of fear and anxiety in youth (see
Field & Lawson, 2003; Field & Schorah, 2007; Field &
Storksen-Coulson, 2007; Gerull & Rapee, 2002). Find-
ings are consistent with evidence suggesting that
628 COMER ET AL.

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conditioning and direct experience with feared stimuli
may not be necessary for the development of children’s
threat perceptions (see Field, 2006).
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APPENDIX
Societal and Personal Risk Assessment for Youth
1) What do you think the likelihood is that a terrorist
attack will directly affect you or your family over the
next year?
0123456
It definitely
will not happen
It might
happen
It definitely
will happen
2) What do you think the likelihood is that a terrorist
attack will occur in the US over the next year?
0123456
It definitely
will not happen
It might
happen
It definitely
will happen
3) What do you think the likelihood is that a major
earthquake will directly affect you or your family over
the next year?
0123456
It definitely
will not happen
It might
happen
It definitely
will happen
4) What do you think the likelihood is that a major
earthquake will occur in the US over the next year?
0123456
It definitely
will not happen
It might
happen
It definitely
will happen
5) What do you think the likelihood is that a major hur-
ricane or flood will directly affect you or your family
over the next year?
0123456
It definitely
will not happen
It might
happen
It definitely
will happen
6) What do you think the likelihood is that a major hur-
ricane or flood will occur in the US over the next year?
0123456
It definitely
will not happen
It might
happen
It definitely
will happen
7) What do you think the likelihood is that you or some-
one in your family will be the victim of a bad crime?
0123456
It definitely
will not happen
It might
happen
It definitely
will happen
8) What do you think the likelihood is that crime will
rise in the US over the next year?
0123456
It definitely
will not happen
It might
happen
It definitely
will happen
630 COMER ET AL.