Abstract
This study is based on an analysis of data drawn from a 2010 survey of 486 adolescents and their parents from the Orava region in Slovakia. This study investigates whether a Dutch scale for assessing parental mediation strategies can be used in a different cultural context. The results demonstrate the applicability of the scale. In addition, this study aims to determine which parental mediation strategies are used among parents in Slovakia in relation to TV viewing and what factors predict the use of given strategies. Aside from the commonly used socio-demographic factors, media-related factors and family communication patterns, religiousness and value orientation were taken into consideration as possible predictors. From all of the variables included, religiousness appears to be an important predictor for all mediation strategies.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Professor Wolfgang Donsbach for tutoring my project and for all of his advice on the methodology issues.
Some of the findings in this paper were presented at Megatrends and Media 2012 conference in Trnava (Slovakia) on April 24 and April 25, and were published in conference proceedings.
Notes
1. Only eighth-grade secondary grammar schools were considered (children enrol in this type of school after finishing the fifth grade at primary school, in contrast to the normal fourth-grade secondary schools in which children enrol after the ninth grade).