Topics | Media Education Lab

Media and Health

Media literacy is a vital component of health education. Children and young people benefit from opportunities to critically analyze alcohol and tobacco advertisements. They can recognize and resist unrealistic beauty ideals. They can understand how media culture shapes our nutritional choices, including diet and exercise.

World Summit on Children and Media
Media educators and advocates for children and media --Join us in Sweden next summer for this important international event!
Media Literacy and Substance Abuse Prevention
On March 25 - 26 in Harrisburg, join us at Drug Free Pennsylvania’s third annual media literacy conference, Media Literacy and Its Impact on Substance Abuse!
Sports and Media Literacy
This special event explored how talk about sports can build awareness of health issues while strengthening media literacy skills among African-American young men.Featuring Patrick Johnson and Erik Sakamoto from Oakland's…
"Critical Eye on the Media" State Conference on Media Literacy and Prevention
More than 35 educators came to Harrisburg on April 2-3, 2009 for two days for a conference with Renee Hobbs and Dr. Brian Primack.

Assignment: Media Literacy
Finally, the comprehensive three-volume curriculum created by Renee Hobbs is available online. This is the 18-unit curriculum developed for Maryland State Department of Education and Discovery Communications, Inc. You can download the PDF files…
Media Literacy and Prescription Drugs
MacNeil Lehrer Productions has created short video that features Renee Hobbs on how media literacy can be used to address the prescription drug industry's messages that influence people to seek…
Students Taking Action, Not Drugs (STAND)
The STAND (Students Taking Action, Not Drugs) project invites young people to use the power of mass media to design, create and deliver meaningful messages to help other teens resist…
The Media Straight Up!
Renee Hobbs and a team of Pennsylvania educators developed The Media Straight Up to bring together literacy and substance abuse prevention goals for middle-school students. The curriculum meets PA standards…

Some of the publications of members of the Media Education Lab team:

Renee Hobbs, Davina Pruitt-Mentle, and others. (2009, July). Internet Safety and Responsible Behavior Online. Threshold, (7) 19-24.
Hobbs, R., Broder, S., Pope, H. & Rowe, J.. (2006, January). How Adolescent Girls Interpret Weight-Loss Advertising. Health Education Research, (21) 719-730.
Primack B.A., Gold M.A., Switzer G.E., Hobbs R., Land S.R., & Fine M.J.. (2006, January). Development and Validation of a Smoking Media Literacy Scale. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 369-374.
Primack, B.A., Hobbs, R., Switzer, G.E., Land, S., Fine, M.F. & Gold, M.. (2006, January). Associations Between Media Literacy and Adolescent Smoking. Journal of Adolescent Health, (38) 93-94.
Mendoza, K.. (2005). Media Literacy and Health Education: What is the Prognosis?. Philadelphia: Temple University
Hobbs, R. . (1998). Start Early to Help Children Combat Alcohol-saturated TV. AAP News , (14) 20-21.
Hobbs, R. . (1995). To Your Health. Cable in the Classroom, 12-13.