EU's Media Regulatory Mechanisms for Minors, a Briefing

Last month the Library of the European Parliament ("Working for a well-informed European Parliament") published a briefing Protection of minors in the media environment: EU regulatory mechanisms.

The briefing reviews the landscape of European Union nations' media (television, internet, and video games) regulatory policies in relation to the rights and interests of minors.

Summary:
Children are increasingly exposed to online content, through a growing range of mobile devices, and at ever younger ages. At the same time, they have specific needs and vulnerabilities which need to be addressed.

Ways to limit and prohibit the spread of illicit and harmful media content in relation to young people have been debated for many years. Striking a balance between the rights and interests of young viewers on the one hand and the freedom of expression of content providers (and adults in general) on the other, requires a carefully designed regulatory scheme.
In recent years, traditional (State) regulation has come under increased scrutiny. Gradually, less intrusive mechanisms, such as self- and co-regulation, have started replacing State regulation in a move towards user-empowerment.
This type of logic has governed the implementation of binding rules at EU level via the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. For online content and video games, the Commission supports a number of self-regulatory initiatives such as the Coalition to Make the Internet a Better Place for Kids and the Pan European Game Information System.
The European Parliament, however, considers that this type of initiative cannot replace legally binding instruments, and that only a combination of legal, technical and educational measures, including prevention, can adequately address the dangers faced by children online.

Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds

Here's just one finding from the Kaiser Family Foundation's sweeping report on the media use of youth as quoted from the Press Release:

Big changes in TV. For the first time over the course of the study, the amount of time spent watching regularly-scheduled TV declined, by 25 minutes a day (from 2004 to 2009). But the many new ways to watch TV–on the Internet, cell phones, and iPods–actually led to an increase in total TV consumption from 3:51 to 4:29 per day, including :24 of online viewing, :16 on iPods and other MP3 players, and :15 on cell phones. All told, 59% (2:39) of young people’s TV-viewing consists of live TV on a TV set, and 41% (1:50) is time-shifted, DVDs, online, or mobile.

Generation M²: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds is the third in a series of large-scale, nationally representative surveys by the Foundation about young people's media use. It includes data from all three waves of the study (1999, 2004, and 2009), and is among the largest and most comprehensive publicly available sources of information about media use among American youth.

The report was released on Wednesday, January 20, 2010, at a forum in Washington, D.C. The report itself, as well as a webcast of the event surrounding it's release and a documentary on children's media use can be found here.

Special Issues Roundup

A few journals to cross my desk with themed issues, all available as e-journals on library homepage:

Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism (Volume 37, Number 2). Scholars, educators, and activists contribute to this special issue on Media Literacy in a journal that is always in the media vanguard.

Journalism (Volume 10, Number 5, October 2009) is devoted to Newswork, the work that journalists, i.e. newsworkers do in a time when 'journalists are expected to do more with less time, fewer resources, and fewer colleagues" to quote issue editors Mark Deuze and Timothy Majoribanks.

Continuing the theme of newswork, the Fall 2009 Nieman Reports (Volume 63, Number 3) is devoted to social media, Let's Talk: Journalism and Social Media, with articles on the role of blogs, tweets, Facebook, etc. in today's news business.

Communication Research Trends (Volume 28, Number 3, 2009) features the topic, Children's Rights and the Media, guest edited by Katharine Heintz. The issue includes an extensive bibliography of resources on the topic.

October CommQuote

Sarah Nardi's comment on the virtual lives of Japanese youth in the November/December (#86) Adbusters on The Virtual/Natural World:

"In his seventh book, Last Child in the Woods, journalist Richard Louv speaks to a young boy who sums up the sentiment of younger generations with one sentence: "I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are." Louv cites several studies-one shows children are better able to identify Japanese cartoon characters than common animals and plants; another reports that the radius from the home which children were able to roam freely was nine times greater in 1970 than today -as evidence of a nature deficit disorder. He argues that disconnecting children from the natural world, through overwrought parenting, urbanization and a reliance on electronic distraction, has resulted in generations of children prone to obesity, depression and attention deficit disorder. Their intellectual, creative and even physical development is stymied by a sedentary existence. Far from striking out into nature and discovering the world and themselves, they are leashed to their home by cords-seemingly as umbilical as they are electrical."--Sarah Nardi

IZI-Datenbank.de

IZI-Datenbank.deIZI-Datenbank.de is the literature database of the International Central Institute for Youth and Educational Television (IZI). This international bilingual (English/German) database gathers research on

* children's television
* youth television
* educational television

The IZI documentation center researches, collects, and uses controlled vocabulary for indexing internationally relevant sources (books, journal articles, university publications, research reports, conference papers and grey literature).

The database is updated regularly. A search for our own Dr. Amy Jordan results in 25 documents ranging from 1992 to 2008, more hits than the search I did on her name in EBSCO's Communication and Mass Media Complete (12 hits). For students and researchers of children and youth television, this database should definitely not be overlooked. Some of the best things in life are open source!

Consumers International

Consumers International has been around since 1960 and describes itself as serving "as the only independent and authoritative global voice for consumers." It's useful for a more worldly perspective on consumer issues and has lots of media-related reports and projects on such topics as irresponsible drug promotion, junk food marketing, the mobile phone industry and communication about climate change as it relates to consumerism.

Check out these reports and briefings:
Left Wanting More: Food company Policies on Marketing to Children (March 2009)
New Media, same Old Tricks: A Survey of the Marketing of Food to Children on Food Company Websites (March 2009)
Drugs, doctors and Dinners: How Drug Companies Influence Health in the Developing World (October 2007)
Research Briefing: Promotion of Prescription Drugs in the Developing World (2009)

Harry Potter Readers' View of the News Media?

Gee, I don't think I've ever wondered how reading Harry Potter affected childrens' perceptions of the news media, but some folks have in the Vol 10, Issue 01, Spring 2008 issue of American Communication Journal.

Harry Potter and Children’s Perceptions of the News Media, by Amanda Sturgill, Jessica Winney and Tina Libhart.

Abstract
This framing study examines how author J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series of children’s books treats the news media and how that treatment could affect children. Researchers first studied quotes from the first six books regarding the media, and based on the overall categorization of those quotes, they determined the three main frames in which media is viewed: Government Control of Journalism, Misleading Journalism, and Unethical Means of Gathering Information. Based on these frames, researchers argue the Harry Potter series does not put the media in a positive light. Because of this, children could potentially perceive the news media in general as untrustworthy and controlled by the government. Given the prevalence of tabloid journalism and “entertainment” news, children’s understanding of true journalistic integrity, journalism as a career, and even positive social behaviors could be negatively affected due to this depiction, in light of the overwhelming popularity of the series.

International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media

The International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media (formerly the UNESCO International Clearinghouse on Children and Violence on the Screen) was established in 1997 by The Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communication Research, Nordicom Göteborg University Sweden). Financed by the Swedish government and UNESCO, its website is a must-bookmark for anyone interested in research on children and media. "The Clearinghouse informs various groups of users about research on children, young people and media, with special attention to media violence research and practices regarding media education and children’s/young people’s participation in the media measures, activities and research concerning children’s and young people’s media environment." (website)

A centerpiece of Clearinghouse activities is their yearbook. Children, Media and Consumption is this year's offering (currently on order for ASC Reference).

Their current newsletter, News on Children, Youth and Media in the World, is available as well as an archive of all previous issues going back to its inception in 1997.

Two Reports on Children: Violent Entertainment , Food Advertising

Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children: A Fifth Follow-up Review of the Industry Practices in the Motion Picture, Music Recordings, and Electronic Games. A Report to Congress, April 2007 Federal Trade Commission, 138 pages. The first of of these reports was issued in 2000. All previous reports are also available.

Food for Thought: Television: Food Advertising to Children in the United States, released by The Kaiser Family Foundation, is the largest study conducted of TV food advertising to children. Content analysis of TV ads & detailed data on children’s viewing habits for an estimate of the number and type of TV ads seen by children of various ages. Besides the full report which is available at the site, you can also find news releases and an overview; also a webcast of when the report was released at a forum in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, March 28, 2007. It featured U.S. Senator Sam Brownback, food industry leaders, health officials and consumer advocates.

Child Care & Early Education Research Connections

The National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University has recently introduced a newly updated version of Child Care & Early Education Research Connections. Research Connections. is a free, web-based resource for researchers and policymakers, to promote high-quality research and the use of that research in policy making. The site has been recently enhanced and includes a comprehensive guide for navigating and searching it.

The website features a continuously updated, multidisciplinary database of nearly 9,000 resources, including citations for peer-reviewed journal articles, books, research reports, fact sheets and briefs, grey literature, instruments, and government documents. Research Connections selects, archives, and indexes publications and data relevant to early education and child care research and policy, and provides access to bibliographic information and full text for many resources. In addition, Research Connections offers data and statistics for download and analysis, and tools for quick online analysis of data.

There aren't a whole lot of media-related subject headings in the list I browsed (none for television, for instance!) but I did find: Media Influence, Computer Programs, Literacy Campaigns, Literacy Development, and Health Promotion.