Gendered media meanings and uses

Many previous studies on children and media point to gender differences along expected traditional divisions. In Sweden, Rosengren and Windahl (1989) found that boys aged 6 to 15 watch television more than girls, listen more to radio, go more often to the cinema, and read more comics, whereas girls read more books and magazines than boys and, as they get older, also listen more to music. Boys are shown to have a preference for sports and nature programs, and girls for music and children’s programs. Films, serials, and detective stories, on the other hand, are equally liked by boys and girls. In a study of Flemish children, tellingly entitled “Boys will be boys and girls will be girls,�? Roe (1998) found substantial gender differences in patterns of media use that increase with age. Here, too, boys devote more time to elec- tronic games, whereas girls read more and listen more to music. Roe con- cluded, "... it is perhaps not too much of an exaggeration to say that, in this period of their lives, boys and girls increasingly inhabit different media worlds�? (p. 23).