Amy Aidman, Ph.D.

Amy Aidman (Ph.D. 1993, University of Illinois) is a senior research fellow at the MARIAL Center conducting research on "Media as Myth and Ritual in Family Life". She is on leave from the University of Illinois' College of Media where she is associate dean for research and associate professor in the Institute of Communications Research.

Dr. Aidman is co-author of Media and the Make-Believe Worlds of Children: When Harry Potter Meets Pokemon in Disneyland, an international study of children's fantasies and their relationship to media with the IZI, a research institute of the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation. She is a contributing author of two volumes: Creating Competent Communicators: Activities for Teaching, Speaking, Listening; and Media Literacy in the K-12 Classroom.

She is the former research director for the Center for Media Education, in Washington, D.C., and has worked with the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education and the National Parent Information Network, where she oversaw the creation of a statewide electronic information service for parents and families in Illinois. She was a visiting lecturer in the University of Haifa's Department of Communication.  Among Dr. Aidman's research interests are: media in family life, childhood and culture, parenting, and media literacy.
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