Media education through media production by young people

1. Media education through media production by young people How can these productions be defined better? The difficult mapping Cristina Ponte Seminaire EUROMEDUC Paris, July 2 2008

2. PlacingMedia Education and young producers in the EU Kids Online Project

3. A thematic network, lead by Sonia Livingstone (LSE), examining European research on cultural, contextual and risk issues in children's safe use of the internet and new media Funded by the EC Safer Internet plus Programme (2006-9) Network of 21 research teams: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, United Kingdom EU Kids Online

4. Aims of the network To compare recent and ongoing empirical research across Europe: • To identify and evaluate available data on children’s use of online technologies • To inform the research agenda, noting gaps in the evidence base • To compare findings across Europe, contextualising similarities and differences • To produce a best practice guide for methodological issues and challenges • To develop policy recommendations for awareness-raising and media literacy

5. Versus National International Versus Adult society Kids … Online … EU ... Under 18 Children Youth Parents Home Teachers School Access/use Opportunities Risks Regulation Mediation Literacy Safety Comparative (mainly) Internet Mobile Games, etc Versus Offline world

6. 342 research projects identified, coded and searchable in our online repository (NB 235 shown) Criteria: recent + online + under 18s + European Research unevenly distributed across Europe countries, as shown Most are single country studies; the remainder are cross-national or pan-European Now adding three more countries and many new studies Available data

7. Most research on teenagers, not younger; some on parents, teachers, etc. Mostly national studies, funded by Governments (though EC funds aid comparisons) Most is quantitative; less qualitative/ mixed methods (except for young children) Over half of all research is online; little reaches academic publication Research on access, use, interests & activities in all countries, but needs updating Nearly all is on fixed internet, not on mobile, gaming or other platforms Regarding risk, more research is on content risks (harmful and illegal, hate, etc) Too little on contact, commercial, suicide, anorexia, drugs, gambling, privacy risks Little known of parental regulation or of children’s psychological coping with risk Little research on use and effectiveness of safety strategies (e.g. filtering) or empowering awareness (e.g. peers mediation; media literacy) The evidence base and key gaps

8. Figure 1: Overview of the structure of the research field Online activities of children Access Age Gender Risks and opportunities SES/inequality Usage Attitudes and skills Mediation by parents, teachers and peers Individual level of analysis Media environment ICT regulation Public discourse Attitudes and values Educational system Country level of analysis

9. Research results of the 21 countries available in September 2008 in the Project website www.eukidsonline.net

10. Media literacy,risks and opportunities Several activities regarded as opportunities by children (e.g. social networking, posting personal information, downloding music, visiting chat rooms) are considered risks by parents, teachers and other adults. • How to consider children?

11. Children’s experiences on online risks and opportunities

12. Varieties of online risks

13. Varieties of online opportunities

14. Research shows the more teens take up online benefits, the more risks they encounter Conversely, safety initiatives to reduce risk tend also reduce opportunities Important to balance children’s protection against children’s rights (to opportunities) Like riding a bike, research shows more skill means more, not less, risk Parental (and school) regulation difficult to implement and not (yet) shown to be effective Activities seen as risky by adults may be opportunity to teens (make new friends, share intimacies, push adult boundaries, enjoy risk-taking) Blurring especially problematic for ‘vulnerable’ teens (more likely victims and perpetrators) Risks and opportunities linked

15. … • Being often more expert than parents and adults, teens play games to evade parental and other mediation outside their peers • Teens value their privacy online and seek to protect it (especially from parents) • They fear parents becoming more restrictive (and sometimes parents are the threat) • Children and teens can be confused e.g. privacy settings, who to trust, etc.

16. Prospects for positive action • Legislation • Contested, slow to achieve, but then accepted if not always implemented • e.g. Grooming, obscenity, race hate • Safety by design • Structure safety considerations into online space as for towns, roads and parks • e.g. Report abuse buttons, defaults, pre-installed filters, warnings, age verification • Awareness-raising • Among teachers, IT professionals, child welfare specialists, adults, children • e.g. Safer Internet Day, media reporting, specific campaigns • Parental regulation • Safety widely accepted as parental responsibility but unevenly implemented • Unclear if restrictions, discussions or other guidance really work • Media literacy • Growing interest, since treats child as agent and seeks to empower their decisions • Important to stress critical, analytic and creative skills, as well as self-protection • But expensive, unevenly implemented, best if integrated with education

17. … • Being often more expert than parents and adults, teens play games to evade parental mediation • Teens value their privacy online and seek to protect it (especially from parents) • They fear parents becoming more restrictive (and sometimes parents are the threat) • Children and teens can be confused e.g. privacy settings, who to trust, etc.

18. Thank you Sonia Livingstone Department of Media and Communications London School of Economics and Political Science s.livingstone@lse.ac.uk www.eukidsonline.net