Director, Ph.D.Program Department of Communications
Stanford University
Donald F. Roberts is the Thomas More Storke Professor and the Director of the Ph.D. Program in the Department of Communication at Stanford University, where he has also served as Director of the Institute for Communication Research and as Chairman of the Department. Roberts received his A.B. from Columbia University, his M.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, and his Ph.D. from Stanford University. He has devoted over 30 years to research and writing about children and media. Roberts began his career conducting studies of childrenís responses to television violence for the U.S. Surgeon Generalís Report on Television and Social Behavior in the late 1960ís. He has since explored such issues as the relationships between childrenís television viewing and their reading abilities, childrenís responses to the new communication technologies, their comprehension of various kids of television programs, and the role of popular music in the lives of adolescents. He is currently involved in a study of U.S. childrenís media use at the beginning of the 21st century.
Dr. Roberts has also studied childrenís responses to various media content rating and labeling systems, which have made him a strong advocate of informational labeling as opposed to evaluative rating of media content. He has spoken about content labeling to legislative and regulatory bodies in Australia, Korea, and Mexico, as well in the U.S. Roberts was one of the original designers of the Recreational Software Advisory Councilís (RSACi) content advisory system for computer games and Internet pages, which has evolved into the foundation for the International Content Rating Associationís (ICRA) system for content labeling. He served as a member of the RSAC Board of Directors, and is currently a member of the ICRA Board. Dr. Roberts is on the Advisory Board of Mediascope, a U.S. non-profit organization founded to promote constructive depictions of social issues in film, television, music, and on the Internet. He served as the Chairman of the National Television Violence Study Advisory Council (1993 – 1998), and was involved as a conference planner and panelist for Vice President Al Goreís national conference on Families and Media (1995).
Roberts currently works with several television production companies to meet the U.S. Federal Communication Commissionís mandate for informational and educational programming directed at children. He has helped develop pro-social and educational curricula for MGM Animation (e.g., All Dogs Go to Heaven; The Lionhearts) and DIC Entertainment (e.g., Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century; Sabrina: The Animated Series; Archieís Weird Mysteries). He has also worked with The Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and Filmation Studios.
Dr. Roberts has published numerous papers and book chapters on issues related to children and media, including several recent chapters on media content labeling. His books include The Process and Effects of Mass Communication (1971), Television and Human Behavior (1978), and most recently, Itís Not Only Rock and Roll: Popular Music in the Lives of Adolescents (1997) and Substance Use in Popular Movies and Music (1999).