The Edward R. Murrow School of Communication
Erica Weintraub Austin
Taking on the Media as a Tool for Healthy Decision Making

Download a printable pdf

Children and adolescents encounter media messages almost every waking minute. They use these messages to make sense of their world and to decide how they should act. Because children make more decisions for themselves as they approach adulthood, adults need to help children learn how to use the media well in their decision making.

Some media messages come from well-intended advocates focused on children’s best interests. Some, however, come from companies focused on making money efficiently and viewing children as a profitable market. Children who do not keep this in mind end up at a disadvantage. According to Dr. Erica Weintraub Austin, this makes children’s ability to interpret media messages effectively an essential skill.

Children’s skill for using the media, often called media literacy, first evolves in the context of children’s most important influence, the family. Dr. Austin has developed a heavily cited model of parental influence that examines how parents affect children’s interpretations of media messages. She has shown that parents watching television with their children can unintentionally reinforce messages they might not want their children to emulate.

Dr. Austin’s research has demonstrated children and adolescents interpret messages in ways that affect how they consider options, possible consequences, and obstacles to their decisions. A model of information processing developed by Dr. Austin and her colleagues, called the Message Interpretation Process Model, traces important decision-making benchmarks that come between message exposure and later behavior. Her research team has tested the model with individuals ranging from third grade to college age. This body of work has shown that individuals’ message interpretation processes often have “bugs” that training can help fix. Her work has made her a leading expert in the development of theoretically based and scientifically validated media literacy strategies.

Contact Information
Erica Weintraub Austin, Ph.D.
Professor
The Edward R. Murrow School
of Communication

Washington State University
PO Box 642520
Pullman, WA 99164-2520

Telephone: 509-335-8840
E-mail: eaustin@wsu.edu