Richard Cole is chairperson of MSU's Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Retailing.

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EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University and the Michigan Children’s Trust Fund have formed what is being called a “prevention partnership” to determine just how much power the media have over children.

Specifically, the Michigan Children’s Trust Fund will be working with Children’s Central, a research collaborative in MSU’s Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Retailing. Together they will look at marketing messages and free Internet games aimed at children that possibly promote violence or poor eating habits.

The ultimate goal of the project, said department chairperson Richard Cole, is to better understand the power of the media on children and to turn this information into new methods of protecting children.

“This affiliation provides hundreds of MSU students and faculty members an opportunity to become actively involved in research, outreach and educational efforts aimed at reducing child abuse and neglect in Michigan and supporting the ethical treatment of its children,” Cole said. “It gives the department faculty and students a clear mission and new energy for developing and using powerful promotional skills to make a real difference in our state.”

As part of the collaboration, the Michigan Children’s Trust Fund is providing a three-year grant worth $370,000 which will allow faculty to continue to conduct research and pursue additional funding on a variety of issues related to the prevention of child abuse.

MSU research interests include the short- and long-term effects of media and marketing on children. Other areas include the identification of effective advertising and other communication efforts to prevent child abuse; the promotion of fundraising and volunteering activity to support local and statewide efforts to prevent child abuse; and Internet safety and security for children.

Children’s Trust Fund interim director Paul Shaheen said preventing child abuse, in all forms, “requires a greater and broader attention to advocating for positive treatment of all children in the state. While we can’t let our guard down on the need to prevent what we normally think of as child abuse, it is time we expand our thinking to include the more subtle form of abuses that may be occurring.

“TV programs, advertising, and free online and rental video games that may be harming our children are important areas to investigate, and we are fortunate to have a relationship with scholars at MSU who are so willing and able to help us in this effort.”

The Children’s Trust Fund is a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to the prevention of child abuse and neglect. The fund’s board is housed within the Michigan Department of Human Services. Since 1982, the fund has raised more than $60 million and has provided support to more than 6 million Michigan children and their families.

The MSU Children’s Central research collaborative is composed of faculty members from the College of Communication Arts and Sciences, under the direction of advertising professor Nora Rifon.

“Children are the most vulnerable targets for marketing messages,” Rifon said. “It’s time we aggressively pursue research and programming that respects our families and that demands the ethical treatment of children by our society.”

The CTF affiliation and MSU Children’s Central collaborative also will provide funding for as many as 25 faculty “innovation awards” over a three-year period. These grants will stimulate child-abuse prevention-related pilot studies of MSU faculty members in more than 20 departments across the campus.  

Bradley Greenberg, MSU College of Communication Arts and Science interim dean and longtime media effects researcher, will chair the awards distribution process. 

Greenberg and two members of the Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Retailing – Rifon and Elizabeth Taylor Quilliam – also will serve as co-chairs of an international conference on child abuse prevention and the ethical treatment of children in East Lansing in November 2009. The Journal of the American Academy of Advertising has appointed Rifon to serve as co-editor of a special issue of the journal dedicated to exploring issues relating to potential harm of media and marketing on children.

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Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 17 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving.