On March 8, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee approved, by voice vote, a bill (S. 1902) to establish a program on children and the media within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to study the role and impact of electronic media in the development of children. A similar bill (H.R. 4124) was introduced in the House by Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA).
In a press release announcing committee passage of the bill he sponsored, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) said, “Today’s vote by the HELP Committee is a big step toward helping parents get the information they need about the effect of media on their children…America is a media-rich society, but despite the flood of information, we still lack critical information. As policymakers and as parents we have a responsibility to examine the effects of media on our children, a responsibility this legislation can better enable us to fulfill. No one is looking out, in a systematic way, for cumulative impact of today’s newer electronic media on our children. The questions about the effects positive or negative – of media on our children’s health, education, and development are too important to go unasked and unanswered.”
The Children and Media Research Advancement (CAMRA) Act would direct the CDC to work in collaboration with the National Academy of Science and the Institute of Medicine to establish an independent panel of experts. The panel would “review, synthesize, and report on research, theory, and applications in the social, behavioral, and biological sciences…[concerning] the role and impact of electronic media in children’s and adolescents’ cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and behavioral development.” Electronic media use, including television, motion pictures, DVDs, interactive games, and the Internet, would be studied with a particular focus on media content, format, length of exposure, age of the child or adolescent, and nature of parental involvement. The Department of Health and Human Services would be required to conduct initial pilot projects to supplement and inform the panel’s work. Upon completion of a post-panel review, the CDC also would be responsible for developing and implementing a program to fund additional research determined to be necessary by the panel.
S. 1902 would authorize $10 million in FY2006, $15 million in each of FY2007 through FY2008, and $25 million in each of FY2009 through FY2010.
