Fictional medical television programs have long been a staple of television programming, and they remain popular today. We aimed to examine published literature assessing the influence of medical television programs on health outcomes. We conducted systematic literature searches in PubMed, PsychINFO and CINAHL. Selected studies had to be scholarly…

In this article, Erica Edwards and Jennifer Esposito review the fourth season of "Love and Hip Hop New York," which is just a small part of the larger "Love and Hip Hop" reality TV series, which characterizes love through narrow representations of race, gender, and sexuality. Their analysis reports that this television program…

This article examines the perceptions of education in Turkey, which refer to a nebulous package of formal education and a cultured stance. Guided by the literature on symbolic violence, we argue that underprivileged groups misrecognize arbitrary hierarchies by considering them just and inevitable. Elite tastes have been internalized by other…

Media play an important role in young people's lives as an agent of socialization, both generally and with regard to mathematics. To understand the mathematics-related messages disseminated to young people via popular media, we analyzed portrayals of mathematics and mathematicians in over 40 media examples (television shows, movies, websites,…

This article examines an informal online community dedicated to "The Tudors," a historical television show, and the ways in which its members engaged with a variety of sources in their discussions of the drama's real-life past. Data were collected over a 5-month period. The analysis included the types of sources used in conversation;…

Today, there is a widespread idea that parents need to learn how to carry out their roles as parents. Practices of parental learning operate throughout society. This article deals with one particular practice of parental learning, namely nanny TV, and the way in which ideal parents are constructed through such programmes. The point of departure is…

The Texas Board of Education's sweeping approval of roughly one hundred changes to the social studies and history curriculum, a ban on so-called ''interpretive history'' in Florida, and a vitriolic campaign of book-banning in Arizona, indicate the extent to which American education and curriculum is currently under assault…

Background: Consumption of social media has quickly evolved into a primary source of health information for many consumers. This seems to be particularly true for individuals seeking to modify chronic health conditions like weight loss, obesity, and obesity-related diseases. Purpose: This study explores whether watching Dr. Oz weight loss episodes…

There has been much concern about the perceived increase in sexualised media and its potential impact on children's well-being and development. This phenomenon was examined in a four-phase study focusing, specifically on music media. Phase 1 investigated the prevalence of sexualised music media broadcast on Australian free-to-air television in…

Despite a significant increase in gay representation in contemporary television fiction, many media scholars argue that the representation of gay men and women is governed by heteronormativity. They postulate that even rounded and heterogeneous representations of gay men and women are characters that desire to participate in institutions,…

When Alexandra Gold described her composition course: one that situates feminist and queer theory as a lens through which to view, analyze, and discuss contemporary television, a male acquaintance responded by saying he would not pay for that class. Another female acquaintance assured Gold that although she had loved a similar class at her Ivy…

Young people can be motivated to learn science using the power of various entertainment media. The author states the need to recognise that they are accessing science through informal learning outside school. With children saying they have learnt from cartoons such as Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants, it would seem that entertaining animations…

Symbolic competence (Kramsch, 2009, 2011) has been proposed as a crucial addition to world language learning, as it enables a language learner to negotiate the complex symbolism of words, expressions, and discursive events from the target culture in order to reference them effectively and in the appropriate contexts. However, fostering symbolic…

This article examines how undergraduate instructors of pre-service educators can address complex issues of sexuality and sexual orientation within the classroom. First, we explain our own backgrounds and positionalities to provide a context for our ensuing ideas and discussions. Second, by reviewing the literature on homophobic bullying, we…

It can be difficult to interest students in academic topics if they have no prior exposure to or experience of the subject. The authors introduce and discuss a pedagogic innovation designed to trigger interest in entrepreneurship and "enterprise culture". They use fiction in the form of Gothic context and the vampire motif to move the…