My research centers on the ways in which we all use the stories and myths of culture, particularly stories in the entertainment and news media, to make sense of our lives and to ascribe meaning to our actions. I'm especially interested in how our own ideas about "the way things are" tend to echo the taken-for-granted ideas of a society - and how, through life experience and perhaps through our consumption and creation of media, we can learn to question what we think we know. My research looks for models of how and when that happens, particularly among young people and in families.

In addition to the books listed on the home page of this portfolio, I've written several articles and book chapters on young people, families, and media use that have been published in the Journal of Communication, Critical Studies in Media Communication, New Media & Society, and in other places (find them here). For more info on ongoing research projects, go to estlow.org