Framework for Rating and Assessing Media for Early Childhood (FRAME): A Multidimensional Coding System for Analysing Children's Media Content

Abstract

Young children spend an increasing amount of time engaging with screens, including television viewing. Although most research has focused on the quantity of children's viewing, growing evidence suggests that the developmental effects of screen media depend on the quality and characteristics of the content. However, there is currently no comprehensive, developmentally informed framework for systematically assessing the features of child-directed media. We developed the Framework for Rating and Assessing Media for Early childhood (FRAME), a multidimensional content analysis framework grounded in developmental literature that measures prosocial, antisocial and aggressive, educational, emotional, cultural, mental state talk and pacing content in children's television shows. The FRAME was applied to older (N = 22) and contemporary (N = 10) television shows watched by preschool-aged (2-5 years) children in Aotearoa New Zealand to characterize their content. Inter-rater reliability across dimensions and coding categories was acceptable to excellent. Convergent validity was demonstrated through correlations with Common Sense Media ratings, while also highlighting the value of a comprehensive and differentiated coding framework beyond existing measures. These findings demonstrate the reliability and validity of the FRAME and its potential to advance research examining how specific features of child-directed media relate to developmental outcomes.