The "G" in family movie ratings clearly doesn't stand for "girl-power." Researchers at the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Southern California studied 101 kids' flicks and found that male roles predominate: three of four characters are male, and fewer than one in three of speaking roles overall belongs to a female. There's evidence that exposure to television is a "significant and positive" predictor of sex role acceptance and attitudes among children and adults. The study was study sponsored by the nonprofit Dads and Daughters and its See Jane program.

Here’s some good news about technology’s impact on kids. While traditional video games are among the culprits behind an increasingly inactive lifestyle for children, a new type of video game is actually helping kids become more physically active. These "exergames" require kids to move around to win. Get Up and Move, an organization of scientists, medical professionals, and artists, has the low-down on games that help kids get down – and dance, run, skip, or maneuver their way into more active lifestyles.

Third Way , a progressive strategy center, has issued a report detailing the extent to which the Internet pornography industry influences children’s lives, and the steps parents, policymakers, the porn industry, and others can take to prevent harm to children. Among the facts the group cites: the largest group of consumers of Internet pornography are youth 12-17 years of age.

About 70 percent of all network television shows contain some sexual content, showing an average of five sexual scenes per hour, and the number of scenes containing such content has increased 96 percent since 1998. The rate of references to safer sex issues is down slightly from 2002, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation report.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is proposing changes to the “verifiable parental permission” component of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which requires parental approval before commercial Web sites can gather and use information on children under 13. The changes permanently allow e-mail plus parental notification (right now a temporary measure)—making it easier for companies meet their COPPA requirements, but potentially leaving children and parents in the dark. The FTC is seeking public comments, which must be filed by February 14.

How important is a free press to a democracy anyway? Only about half of America's high school students think newspapers should be allowed to run stories without government approval. In a study funded by the Knight Foundation, researchers at the University of Connecticut questioned more than 100,000 high school students, nearly 8,000 teachers, and more than 500 administrators and principals. Nearly three-fourths of high school students either do not know how they feel about the First Amendment or admit they take it for granted, and more than one-third of students surveyed say the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees. The more students study the First Amendment, use news media in the classroom, and are involved in student journalism, the greater their appreciation of First Amendment rights.

In the wake of Michael Powell's resignation, Children Now of California called on President Bush to appoint a new Federal Communications Committee (FCC) chairperson who will make protecting children's interests a top priority. Among the issues the new chair will face are determining whether digital broadcasters will be allowed to target children with interactive advertisements and collect personal information for marketing purposes.

In exchange for use of the public airwaves, the Children's Television
Act of 1990 required that each television licensee offer programming to
serve the "educational and informational needs" of children. In the
years since, the FCC has clarified and added rules. The November 2004
revisions include changes to the "three-hour rule" that requires
stations to air three hours of specifically designed educational and
informational programming for kids each week. The legal department of
the National Association of Broadcasters offers a summary of the FCC's
newly adopted children's television rules.

Many health care professionals and consumer activists are calling for greater government oversight of food advertising to kids. On January 5, 2005, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) released new Guidelines for Responsible Food Marketing to Children – aimed at food manufacturers, broadcasters, restaurants, movie studios, and schools. Unlike the food industry's self-imposed guidelines, CSPI proposes basic nutritional thresholds to determine which foods should be marketed to kids.

The fall 2004 issue of "The Evaluation Exchange" explores the contribution of technology to evaluation practice, including a special feature on how youth programs are using media and video production to engage youth in participatory evaluation, and the challenges and benefits of using technology in youth programming and other settings.