Professor Sonia Livingstone

Biography

Sonia Livingstone (BSc Psychology, UCL; DPhil Social Psychology, Oxford) is Professor of Social Psychology and Head of the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is author or editor of fourteen books and many academic articles and chapters. Her research examines children, young people and the internet; social and family contexts and uses of ICT; media and digital literacies; the mediated public sphere; audience reception for diverse television genres; internet use and policy; public understanding of communications regulation; and research methods in media and communications.

Sonia Livingstone serves on Executive Board of the UK's Council for Child Internet Safety, for which she chairs the Expert Research Panel. She also serves on DCSF's Home Access Programme Advisory Group, Ofcom's Media Literacy Research Forum, the Board of the Voice of the Listener and Viewer and, until 2006, as Vice-Chair of the Internet Watch Foundation. At various times, she has advised Ofcom, Department for Children, Schools and Families, Home Office, Economic and Social Research Council, BBC and Higher Education Funding Council for England. She was President of the International Communication Association (2007-8) and continues to serve on ICA's Executive Committee.

Books include Making Sense of Television (2nd edition, Routledge, 1998), Mass Consumption and Personal Identity (with Peter Lunt; Open University Press, 1992), Talk on Television (with Peter Lunt; Routledge, 1994), Children and Their Changing Media Environment (edited with Moira Bovill, Erlbaum, 2001), The Handbook of New Media (edited with Leah Lievrouw; Sage, 2002, updated 2006), Young People and New Media (Sage, 2002), Audiences and Publics (edited; Intellect, 2005), Harm and Offence in Media Content (with Andrea Millwood Hargrave; Intellect, 2006, second edition 2009), Lo Spettatore Intraprendente: Analisi del pubblico televisivo (Carocci, 2006), Media Consumption and Public Engagement (with Nick Couldry and Tim Markham; Palgrave, 2007), The International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture (edited with Kirsten Drotner; Sage, 2008), New Media. Sage Benchmarks in Communication (Vols. 1-4, edited with Leah Lievrouw; Sage, 2009), Children and the Internet (Polity, 2009) and Kids Online (edited with Leslie Haddon, The Policy Press, in press).

Sonia Livingstone currently directs the research network, EU Kids Online II, for the EC’s Safer Internet Programmme. Over the years, she has been awarded research funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, European Science Foundation, European Commission, European Parliament, British Telecom, the BBC, Ofcom, Independent Television Commission, Broadcasting Standards Commission, Advertising Association, ITVA, Leverhulme Trust, and Yorkshire/Tyne-Tees Television. She has held visiting professor positions at the Universities of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Bergen, Illinois, Milan, and Paris II, and is on the editorial board of several leading journals, including New Media and Society, The Communication Review, Journal of Communication, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, European Journal of Communication and Journal of Children and Media.

Books published

	Livingstone, S. (2009) Children and the Internet: Great Expectations and Challenging Realities. Cambridge: Polity. See book flyer for UK and USA.		Livingstone, S. (Ed.) (2005) Audiences and Publics: When Cultural Engagement Matters for the Public Sphere. Bristol: Intellect Press.
	Livingstone, S., and Haddon, L. (Eds.) (2009) Kids Online: Opportunities and risks for children. Bristol: The Policy Press. See book flyer.		Livingstone, S. (2002) Young People and New Media: Childhood and the Changing Media Environment. London: Sage. Draws on the report: Young People, New Media.
	Millwood Hargave, A., and Livingstone, S. (2009) Harm and Offence in Media Content: A review of the evidence. Second edition. Bristol: Intellect. See book flyer.		Lievrouw, L., and Livingstone, S. (Eds.) (2002) Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Social Consequences. London: Sage.
	Lievrouw, L., and Livingstone, S. (Eds.) (2009) New Media. Sage Benchmarks in Communication (Volumes 1-4). London: Sage. See contents and book flyer.		Livingstone, S., and Bovill, M. (Eds.) (2001) Children and their Changing Media Environment: A European Comparative Study. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. See overview
	Drotner, K., and Livingstone, S. (Eds.)(2008) The International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture. London: Sage. See book flyer.		Livingstone, S. (1998) Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of Audience Interpretation. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge.
	Couldry, N., Livingstone, S., and Markham, T. (2007) Media Consumption and Public Engagement: Beyond the presumption of attention. Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan. See also project report and flyer.		Livingstone, S., and Lunt, P. (1994) Talk on Television: Audience Participation and Public Debate. London: Routledge.
	Livingstone, S. (2006) Lo Spettatore Intraprendente: Analisi del pubblico televisivo. Translated by Daniela Cardini. Rome: Carocci.		Lunt, P., and Livingstone, S. (1992) Mass Consumption and Personal Identity: Everyday Economic Experience. Buckingham: Open University Press.
	Lievrouw, L., and Livingstone, S. (Eds.) (2006) Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Social Consequences. Fully revised student edition. London: Sage.

Publications

For all publications, see here.

Selected articles can be downloaded here (or visit http://eprints.lse.ac.uk and search 'Livingstone').

Teaching

I contribute to core courses in theories and research methods, and teach a graduate-level option course, 'The Audience in Media and Communications' (MC402). The doctoral students that I supervise work on a range of themes including media audiences, engagement with digital media, media cultures, young people's media uses and related topics. I am currently Head of the Department of Media and Communications (2009-2012).

Research projects

Media Audiences
Mediated Citizens in the Public Sphere
EU Kids Online
The Educational and Social Impact of New Technologies on Young People in Britain
Media Literacy
UK Children Go Online
Public Understanding of Regimes of Risk Regulation
Child Audiences
Children and Advertising
Research Methods

Media Audiences

I am interested in all aspects of media audiences, focusing on people's interpretative engagement with different media genres, as discussed in Making Sense of Television (2nd ed., Routledge, 1998) and in Talk on Television (with Peter Lunt; Routledge, 1994). For selected online articles, see:

Livingstone, S. (1990) Interpreting television narrative: How viewers see a story. Journal of Communication, 40(1), 72-82.

Livingstone, S. (1991) Audience reception: The role of the viewer in retelling romantic drama. In Mass Media and Society, J. Curran and M. Gurevitch (Eds.), London: Edward Arnold. First ed.

Livingstone, S. (1992) The resourceful reader: Interpreting television characters and narratives. Communication Yearbook, 15, 58-90.

Livingstone, S. (1993) The rise and fall of audience research: an old story with a new ending. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 5-12.

Livingstone, S. (1998) Relationships between media and audiences: Prospects for future audience reception studies. In Liebes, T., and Curran, J. (Eds.), Media, Ritual and Identity: Essays in Honor of Elihu Katz. London: Routledge.

Reiner, R., and Livingstone, S. (1997) Discipline or desubordination? Changing media images of crime. End of Award Report to the ESRC.

Livingstone, S. (1998) Audience research at the crossroads: the 'implied audience' in media and cultural theory. European Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 1(2), 193-217.

Livingstone, S. (1999) New media, new audiences? New Media & Society, 1(1), 59-66.

Livingstone, S. (2000) Television and the active audience. In D. Fleming (Ed.), Formations: A 21st Century Media Studies Textbook (175-193). Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Livingstone, S., Allen, J., and Reiner, R. (2001) The audience for crime media 1946-91: A historical approach to reception studies. Communication Review, 4(2): 165-192.

Livingstone, S. (2003) The changing nature of audiences: From the mass audience to the interactive media user. In A. Valdivia (Ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Media Research (337-359). Oxford: Blackwell. Second ed. (2006).

Livingstone, S. (2004) The challenge of changing audiences: or, what is the audience researcher to do in the internet age? European Journal of Communication, 19(1), 75-86.

Livingstone, S. (2006) On the influence of 'Personal Influence' on the study of audiences. In P. Simonson (Ed.), Politics, social networks, and the history of mass communications research: Re-reading Personal Influence. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 608: 233-250.

Lievrouw, L., and Livingstone, S. (2006) Introduction to the updated student edition. In Lievrouw, L., & Livingstone, S. (Eds), Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Social Consequences (1-14). Fully revised student edition. London: Sage.

Press, A., and Livingstone, S. (2006) Taking audience research into the age of new media: Old problems and new challenges. In M. White and J. Schwoch (Eds.), The Question of Method in Cultural Studies (175-200). Oxford: Blackwell.

Livingstone, S. (2007) On the material and the symbolic: Silverstone's double articulation of research traditions in new media studies. New Media & Society, 9(1): 16-24.

Livingstone, S. (2007) Audiences and interpretations. e-Compós, vol. 10. At http://www.compos.org.br/files/01_Livingstone.pdf .English version at http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/5645

Mediated Citizens in the Public Sphere

The 'Media Consumption and Public Connection' project has been reported in Couldry, N., Livingstone, S., and Markham, T. (2007) Public Connection? Media Consumption and the Presumption of Attention. Houndmills: Palgrave. See www.publicconnection.org.uk.

The final project report is available here. It observes that, underlying many views of democratic politics is an assumption that shared media sustain people's connection to the public spaces where politics goes on and citizenship is enacted. But how is that connection sustained, and how do individuals think about the ways in which they are, or are not, connected to wider public spaces? Related publications are below:

Livingstone, S. (2005) On the relation between audiences and publics. In S. Livingstone (Ed.), Audiences and Publics: When Cultural Engagement Matters for the Public Sphere (17-41). Bristol: Intellect.

Livingstone, S. (2005) Critical debates in internet studies: Reflections on an emerging field. In Curran, J., and Gurevitch, M. (Eds.), Mass Media and Society, Fifth Ed (9-28). London: Sage.

EU Kids Online

EU Kids Online is a thematic network directed by Sonia Livingstone and funded by the EC Safer Internet plus Programme.

The first project, EU Kids Online I (2006-9), examined European research on cultural, contextual and risk issues in children's safe use of the internet and new media in 21 member states.

The second project, EU Kids Online II (2009-11) is conducting a multinational comparative survey of children’s online uses, risks, safety and parental mediation across Europe.

See www.eukidsonline.net for information on both projects and for downloadable copies of all reports. For further updates, please sign up on the website.

The Educational and Social Impact of New Technologies on Young People in Britain

This ESRC funded Seminar Series runs from 2007-2009. It seeks to engage researchers who combine a knowledge of adolescent development, an interest in new technologies, and a commitment to capacity building in the research community and is guided by the recognition that, although new technologies are frequently seen as potentially harmful to children and young people, the positive benefits too often go unrecognised. The seminars bring together those who have an interest in sharing ideas about the positive benefits of technology for young people.

For more information on seminars, on the final conference in July 2009, and on the seminar reports, see http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/esrcseries/home/index.php.

Media Literacy

With the growing importance of media, information and communications in society, media literacy serves three key purposes, contributing to (i) democracy, participation and active citizenship; (ii) the knowledge economy, competitiveness and choice; and (iii) lifelong learning, cultural expression and personal fulfilment.

Selected academic and policy papers are available below.

Livingstone, S. (2004) Media literacy and the challenge of new information and communication technologies. Communication Review, 7: 3-14.

Livingstone, S., Van Couvering, E. J., and Thumim, N. (2005) Adult media literacy: A review of the research literature. London: Ofcom.

Livingstone, S. (2004) What is media literacy? Intermedia, 32(3), 18-20. September.

Livingstone, S. (2008) Internet literacy: Young people's negotiation of new online opportunities. In T. McPherson (Ed.), Unexpected outcomes and innovative uses of digital media by youth (101-121). MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning, Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press. At http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dmal.9780262633598.101.

UK Children Go Online

This project combined a national survey of 9-19 year olds and their parents with a range of qualitative methods to ask how the internet may be transforming - or may itself be shaped by - family life, peer networks, risks to inclusion and safety, and informal learning processes.

The research is reported in six online project reports and a series of publications, some of which are available at http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/children-go-online/ and below. See also Livingstone, S. (2009) Children and the Internet: Great Expectations, Challenging Realities. Cambridge: Polity.

Livingstone, S. (2001) Online freedom and safety for children. IPPR/Citizens Online Research Publication No. 3.

Livingstone, S., and Bober, M. (2003) UK children go online: Listening to young people's experiences. London: LSE Report.

Livingstone, S., and Bober, M. (2004) UK children go online: Surveying the experiences of young people and their parents. London: LSE Report.

Livingstone, S., Bober, M., and Helsper, E. J. (2004) Active Participation or Just More Information? Young people's take up of opportunities to act and interact on the internet. London: LSE Report.

Livingstone, S., and Bober, M. (2004) Taking up opportunities? Children's uses of the internet for education, communication and participation. E-Learning, 1(3), 395-419.

Livingstone, S. (2005) Mediating the public/private boundary at home: Children's use of the internet for privacy and participation. Journal of Media Practice, 6(1), 41-51.

Livingstone, S., Bober, M., and Helsper, E. J. (2005) Active participation or just more information? Young people's take up of opportunities to act and interact on the internet. Information, Communication and Society, 8(3), 287-314.

Livingstone, S., Bober, M., and Helsper, E. J. (2005) Internet literacy among children and young people. London: LSE Report.

Livingstone, S., Bober, M., and Helsper, E. J. (2005) Inequalities and the digital divide in children and young people's internet use. London: LSE Report.

Livingstone, S. and Bober, M. (2005) UK children go online: Final report of key project findings. London: LSE Research Online.

Livingstone, S. (2006) Drawing conclusions from new media research: Reflections and puzzles regarding children's experience of the internet. The Information Society, 22(4), 219-230.

Livingstone, S., and Bober, M. (2006) Regulating the internet at home: Contrasting the perspectives of children and parents. In D. Buckingham and R. Willett (Eds.), Digital Generations (93-113). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Livingstone, S. (2007) Strategies of parental regulation in the media-rich home. Computers in Human Behavior, 23(3), 920-941.

Livingstone, S., and Helsper, E. J. (2007) Gradations in digital inclusion: Children, young people and the digital divide. New Media & Society, 9: 671-696.

Livingstone, S. (2007) The challenge of engaging youth online: Contrasting producers' and teenagers' interpretations of websites. European Journal of Communication, 22(2), 165-184.

Livingstone, S., and Bober, M. (2007) UK children go online: A child-centred approach to the experience of using the internet. In B. Anderson, M. Brynin, J. Gershuny and Y. Raban (Eds.), Information and Communication Technologies in Society: E-Living in a Digital Europe. pp. 104-118.

Public Understanding of Regimes of Risk Regulation

This project examines the implications for audiences and publics - or citizens and consumers - of the changing regimes of regulation in the media and communications, and financial services sectors, following the establishment in the UK of Ofcom and the FSA. See www.lse.ac.uk/collections/PURRR/ . For selected online publications, see below.

Livingstone, S., Lunt, P., and Miller, L. (2007) Citizens and consumers: Discursive debates during and after the Communications Act 2003. Media, Culture & Society, 29(4): 613-638.

Livingstone, S., Lunt, P., and Miller, L. (2007) Citizens, consumers and the citizen-consumer: Articulating the interests at stake in media and communications regulation. Discourse and Communication, 1(1): 85-111.

Livingstone, S., and Lunt, P. (2007) Representing citizens and consumers in media and communications regulation. In 'The Politics of Consumption/ The Consumption of Politics, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 611: 51-65.

Lunt, P., and Livingstone, S. (2007) Regulating markets in the interest of consumers? On the changing regime of governance in the financial service and communications sectors. In M. Bevir and F. Trentmann (Eds.), Governance, citizens, and consumers: Agency and resistance in contemporary politics (139-161). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lunt, P., Livingstone, S., and Malik, S. (2008) Public understanding of regimes of risk regulation: A report on focus group discussions with citizens and consumers. Social Contexts and Responses to Risk Network (SCARR) Working Paper series (WP26). http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/21445
Lunt, P., and Livingstone, S. (2008) Final project report: public understanding of regimes of risk regulation. London: Brunel/LSE.

Child Audiences

Between 1995 and 2000 I led a pan-European team exploring the access, uses and meanings of media - old and new - for children and young people. Comparing 12 European countries, using qualitative and quantitative methods, we examined the extension of the 'child audience' into 'new media users', updating the seminal LSE study from the mid-50s when television arrived in British homes (Himmelweit et al's Television and the Child, 1958).

See Livingstone, S., Young People and New Media (Sage, 2002) and Livingstone, S., and Bovill, M. (eds), Children and their Changing Media Environment (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001). Selected articles are also available below:

Livingstone, S. (1998) Mediated childhoods: A comparative approach to the lifeworld of young people in a changing media environment. European Journal of Communication, 13(4), 435-456.

Livingstone, S., d'Haenens, L., and Hasebrink, U. (2001) Childhood in Europe: Contexts for comparison. In Livingstone, S., and Bovill, M. (Eds.), Children and their Changing Media Environment: A European Comparative Study. Marwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Bovill, M. F., and Livingstone, S. (2001) Bedroom culture and the privatization of media use. In Livingstone, S., and Bovill, M. (Eds.), Children and their Changing Media Environment: A European Comparative Study. Marwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Livingstone, S., and Millwood Hargrave, A. (2006) Harmful to children? Drawing conclusions from empirical research on media effects. In U. Carlsson (Ed.), Regulation, Awareness, Empowerment: Young People and Harmful Media Content in the Digital Age (21-48). Goteborg: Nordicom/Unesco.

Livingstone, S. (2007) Do the media harm children? Reflections on new approaches to an old problem. Journal of Children and Media, 1(1), 5-14.

Millwood Hargrave, A., and Livingstone, S. (2008) Harm and Offence in Media Content: An update on the 2005 literature review. London: The Office of Communications. Annex to Ofcom's response to The Byron Review, www.ofcom.org.uk.

Livingstone, S., et al. (Eds.) (2008) Theorising the benefits of new technology for youth: Controversies of learning and development. Report on an ESRC Seminar, March.

Children and Advertising

Livingstone, S. (2004) A commentary on the research evidence regarding the effects of food promotion on children. Report, Research Department of the Office of Communications (Ofcom), February.

Livingstone, S., and Helsper, E. (2004) Advertising 'unhealthy' foods to children: Understanding Promotion In The Context Of Children's Daily Lives. A review of the literature for the Research Department of the Office of Communications (Ofcom), April.

Livingstone, S. (2005) Assessing the research base for the policy debate over the effects of food advertising to children. International Journal of Advertising, 24(3), 273-296.

Livingstone, S., and Helsper, E. J. (2006) Does advertising literacy mediate the effects of advertising on children? A critical examination of two linked research literatures in relation to obesity and food choice. Journal of Communication, 56: 560-584.

Livingstone, S. (2006) New research on advertising foods to children: An updated review of the literature Prepared for the Research Department of the Office of Communications (Ofcom), January. Published as Annex 9 to the report, Television Advertising of Food and Drink Products to Children. London: Ofcom, March 2006.

Livingstone, S. (2006) Does TV advertising make children fat? What the evidence tells us. Public Policy Research, 13(1), 54-61.

Research Methods

Online publications relating to research methods for audiences, especially comparative research and research with children, can be downloaded below:

Lunt, P., and Livingstone, S. (1996) Rethinking the focus group in media and communications research. Journal of Communication, 46(2), 79-98.

Livingstone, S. (2003) On the challenges of cross-national comparative media research. European Journal of Communication, 18(4): 477-500.

Livingstone, S., and Lemish, D. (2001) Doing comparative research with children and young people. In Livingstone, S., and Bovill, M. (Eds.), Children and their Changing Media Environment: A European Comparative Study. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Lobe, B., Livingstone, S., and Haddon, L., with others (2007) Researching Children's Experiences Online across Countries: Issues and Problems in Methodology. EU Kids Online Deliverable D4.1 Methodological Issues Review for the EC Safer Internet plus programme. London: LSE.

Lobe, B., Livingstone, S., Olafsson, K., and Simoes, J. A. (2008) Best Practice Research Guide: How to research children and online technologies in comparative perspective. EU Kids Online Deliverable D4.2 the EC Safer Internet plus programme. London: LSE. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/21658/ Also available online as Frequently Asked Questions at www.eukidsonline.net

Contact details

Professor Sonia Livingstone
Room S105
Department of Media and Communications
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street,
London WC2A 2AE
UK
Tel +44 (0)20 7955 7710
Fax +44 (0)20 7955 7248
E-mail s.livingstone@lse.ac.uk

If you are coming to LSE, my office is the first floor of the St Clements Building, just above Waterstone's bookshop. Map here.

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This page was last updated on 14/01/10