John M. Culkin Jr. (June 21, 1928 – July 23, 1993)[1] was an American academic and former priest who was a leading media scholar and critic, educator, writer and consultant.
He started a master's program through the center to study media, which was initially at Antioch College and subsequently moved to the New School for Social Research, where he remained until 1978.
He believed that even young children should be taught to analyze mass media, new means of communication should enhance education, and programming quality should be improved and focused on childhood development.
Other topics for his articles included theology, the Chicago Cubs, Trachtenberg system of math, the Dvorak keyboard layout, and how to make the calendar more accurate.
[10][11] Culkin summarized the driving force behind his life work in a 1981 interview with Maria P. Robbins, then a Contributing Editor for Television and Children Journal.
That same energy should be applied to helping children develop their own capacities for judgment, taste and sensitivity, so that they know how to make decisions that are based, we hope, on positive values.”[12]