Net Children 2020 - Growing up with Media

Net Children 2020 – Growing up with Media
A Roadmap on Challenges and Solutions for Media Education and Child Protection in Europe
coordinated by the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth in cooperation
with the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research

Version 2.0 (April 10, 2015)

The Objective
Digital media pose new challenges to children in their roles as users needing protection, as consumers asking
for content that meets their needs and as growing up citizens being interested in participating in the
development of the digital environment. The roadmap “Net Children 2020” sets out to provide an agenda for
policies, research, and NGOs in Europe in order to support children’s development in these different roles. It
builds on the research evidence and the policy strategies that have been developed, amongst others, in the
framework of the Safer Internet Programme, the European strategy for a Better Internet for Children, the CEO
and ICT Coalition; another important reference point is the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.
The roadmap has a dedicated focus on the transnational dimension of the topic and thus builds on the
particularly relevant evidence provided by comparative research and by exchanging practical experiences from
different countries. At the same time the process takes into account that concrete policy actions have to be
implemented within national contexts and thus have to be adapted to the respective political, social, and
cultural conditions.

The future steps
The roadmap will be based on broad and solid expertise from research and practical experiences, as well as
from a wide range of stakeholders. The process is organised along the following steps:

 Version 1.0    March 11: General objectives and structure of the roadmap
                Until March 23, 2015: Collecting feedback from selected experts from different stakeholder
                groups on the national and European level
 Version 2.0    April 10: Based on the feedback, enhanced version of the general objectives and structure of
                the roadmap; distribution to the participants of the “Net Children 2020” expert conference
                April 16, 2015: European expert conference in Berlin, first day (afternoon): Keynote and
                working group discussions on the main challenges related to growing up with media; the
                guiding question is how the digital environment should look like in 2020 with regard to
                provision, protection and participation.
                April 17, 2015: Expert conference in Berlin, second day (morning): Keynote and working
                group discussions on practical approaches to improving children’s digital experiences;
                starting from the discussion of the day before, the guiding question is how different
                stakeholders – parents, media industry, educational institutions, politics, NGOs and others –
                can contribute to improving the evidence base, concrete instruments, and social and
                regulatory frameworks regarding children’s growing up with media.
                April 17, 2015: Expert conference in Berlin, second day (afternoon): Based on reports about
                the results of the working groups a roundtable with politicians, researchers, representatives
                of media industry and NGOs discusses how the draft roadmap should be elaborated, which
                issues are regarded as priorities, and who is regarded as responsible to implement which kind
                of action.

Version 3.0   May 31: Based on the conference discussions and results a revised version of the roadmap is
               submitted to the Member States, the EC, the relevant stakeholders and all participants of the
               conference. This document shall serve as a point of reference for future activities of the
               stakeholders.
               Future occasions, inter alia: Safer Internet Forum; update and evaluation of activities and
               experiences with regard to the roadmap.

1 Preamble
This road map starts from several basic premises that form the common ground for the
upcoming discussions.
    The title “Net Children 2020 – Growing up with media” indicates that media are an
    integral part of children’s everyday lives and do matter in many respects.
    Media education and children and youth protection are complementary perspectives
    that have to be combined.
    Good conditions for children’s growing up with media require a coordinated and
    collective effort of all relevant stakeholders.
    Due to media convergence, efforts to improve children’s growing up with media should
    not focus on particular media, e.g. the most recent “new” media, but have to consider the
    total media ensemble.

2 Challenges concerning children’s media experiences
The roadmap starts from a child-centred perspective. In order to structure a debate on what
children in 2020 will expect from the media environment, it is helpful to start from a
classification that refers to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and differentiates
three different roles that children might apply with regard to media:
    Provision: In their role as users of media content and media services children have
    an interest in media that serve their needs and preferences, e.g. in the areas of
    entertainment, learning and creativity, and thus enable them to develop their full potential.
    The leading question here is: Which kind of media content and services have to be
    provided in 2020 in order to fulfil children’s interests as media users?
    Protection: In their role as users in need of protection children have an interest in
    being protected against media offers or communication services that are linked with
    particular risks and might cause harm. Being aware that (potential) risk has to be clearly
    distinguished from (actual) harm, the leading question here is: Which kinds and levels of
    risk are acceptable and which kinds of harm have to be avoided or reduced in order to
    fulfil children’s interest in being protected?
    Participation: In their role as citizens children have an interest in actively participating in
    and shaping their – strongly mediatized – social contexts. The leading question here is:
    What are the prerequisites for enabling children to actively participate in their different
    social contexts?
Although these three roles go along with different and sometimes even contradictory
implications, all children – at least from time to time – slip into all three roles when they deal
with media. Therefore, even if the role of media users might be dominant in children’s
everyday lives, the other two roles should be considered, too.
This first version of the roadmap has a structuring function at first place; it proposes a set of
major challenges that should be discussed in the next steps for each of the three roles.

2.1 Provision: Children as media users
a) Changing interests and needs of different age groups: It needs a thorough
   discussion about how children’s interests and needs regarding the media are changing
   during the process of growing up. Which kinds of media content and services can meet
   the particular needs of different age groups, keeping in mind biographical experiences,
   siblings and other aspects of family structures?
b) Learning in digital environments: One of the major opportunities provided by media is
   their potential to contribute to formal and informal learning. Which kinds of media can
   meet children’s interests and needs regarding cognitive and social learning?
c) Encouraging creative media use: Media are one option for children to develop, apply,
   and express their creativity. Which kinds of media content and services can encourage
   children’s creative practices and how?
d) Positive content: Provision of and access to positive content for children has always
   been a major issue with regard to improving children’s media experiences; and it still is a
   major challenge in digital media markets and environments. What do we know about
   which kind of content helps children to develop their full potential? How can the
   availability and accessibility of positive content be improved?
e) Identity and social relations: Children use media in order to build their identity and to
   foster their social relationships. In this respect the development of social media services
   has dramatically changed children’s media environments. Which kinds of services and
   functionalities can support children’s identity and relationship management?

2.2 Protection: Children as users in need of protection
a) Risk-based and future-proof approaches: Efforts in enhancing child safety have to be
   flexible and adaptive to the continuous changes of the media environment. How to cope
   with upcoming new risks and challenges in a flexible way?
b) Coping and resilience: Children’s capacities to cope with challenging media
   experiences play an important role in risk-based approaches to child safety. How can
   these capacities be furthered? What are the limits of self-protection?
c) Internalisation and protection by design: The way how particular media services are
   designed shapes the ways how they are used. How can media be designed in order to
   promote safer use?
d) Empowering parents: While parents are expected to play a substantial role in furthering
   child safety, they are often not able to meet these expectations. How can parents’
   capacities to protect and support their children be promoted?
e) Child-specific consumer protection: The increasing number of individualised media
   services used by children raises a number of new challenges within the framework of
   consumer protection, e.g. contracts, terms of service, forms of advertising, privacy
   settings. To what extent are child-specific frameworks for consumer protection
   necessary?

2.3 Participation: Children as citizens
a) Children’s rights: The global discourse on children’s rights regarding media and
   communication refers to all three roles of children. Which specific rights should be in the
   focus regarding children’s media experiences in 2020? Which rights are particularly
   endangered?
b) Participatory approaches of research: Research on children’s media-related interests
   has to include children not only as objects (research about children) but also as subjects
   or actors of research (research with or by children). How can these kinds of participatory

research contribute to assessing the interests and needs of children with regard to
   media?
c) Encouraging children’s social participation: Media can contribute to improve
   children’s engagement in participatory social practices. How can media encourage
   children’s social participation? How can school or youth work encourage children's social
   participation through media or in relation to media?
d) Focus on media-related potentials for children: Public valuation of new media offers
   and services is often driven by their potential risks. How can we systematically consider
   positive potentials of new media for children regarding their social, ethical, informational
   and self-conscious forms of expression?
e) Promoting digital literacy: Within a mediatized world, children’s abilities to apply, to
   critically reflect and to develop digital services and contents build a core prerequisite for
   active participation in social, political and professional contexts. Which kinds of literacies
   are needed in order to ensure that children are well prepared to actively participate in
   digital environments? How and in which context of formal and informal learning can these
   literacies be promoted?

3 Options to improve children’s media experiences
In recent debates on media education and child safety many concrete options and
instruments have been proposed; throughout Europe we find highly ambitious and innovative
initiatives that have the potential to improve children’s growing up with media. However,
many of these initiatives suffer from a lack of sustainability, from a systemic perspective on
risks and opportunities and from solid evaluations of their actual impact. In order to meet the
challenges and requirements regarding children’s media experiences this roadmap starts
from the understanding that a concerted societal action is needed with all relevant
stakeholders being actively involved and developing joint activities. Such a concerted action
should include measures on the following levels:
   Evidence: How can the different relevant stakeholders contribute to knowledge and
   empirical evidence in order to support evidence-based media education and children and
   youth protection?
   Action: How can concrete measures and instruments be implemented in order to support
   media education and youth protection?
   Context: How can social, political and regulatory contexts contribute to media education
   and children and youth protection?

3.1 Evidence
a) Companies: Which kind of theoretical and empirical evidence on media education and
   child safety do companies expect from research? Which kind of data are they able and
   willing to share with academic research? Which kind of research do they regard as
   helpful, and which kind of research do they miss?
b) NGOs and Users: Which kind of theoretical and empirical evidence on media education
   and child safety do NGOs, parents and children expect from research? Which kind of
   data are they able and willing to share with academic research? Which kind of research
   do they regard as helpful, and which kind of research do they miss?
c) Research: Which kind of research is needed to meet the challenges in media education
   and child safety? How can research be organised that is able to provide up-to-date, solid,
   and theoretically reflected empirical evidence? And how can this evidence be
   documented and distributed in order to inform policies as well as educational practices?

d) Policy: Which kind of theoretical and empirical evidence on media education and child
   safety is expected from a policy perspective? Which kind of research do they regard as
   helpful, and which kind of research do they miss?

3.2 Action
a) Companies: What concrete measures – e.g. safety by design, labelling, terms of service,
   default settings, etc. – are regarded, from the perspective of different stakeholders, as
   most efficient and most sustainable in order to promote media education and child online
   safety? How can these measures be evaluated?
b) Policy players: What concrete measures – e.g. rules, incentives, funding, informal
   regulation, nudging etc. – are regarded, from the perspective of different stakeholders, as
   most efficient and most sustainable in order to promote media education and child online
   safety? How can these measures be evaluated?
c) NGOs & Users: What concrete measures – e.g. awareness campaigns, lobbying,
   collaborations with companies and educational institutions, etc. – are regarded, from the
   perspective of different stakeholders, as most efficient and most sustainable in order to
   promote media education and child online safety? How can these measures be
   evaluated?
d) Educational institutions: What concrete measures – e.g. teacher education, curricula,
   peer-teaching approaches, serious games etc. – are regarded, from the perspective of
   different stakeholders, as most efficient and most sustainable in order to promote media
   education and child online safety? How can these measures be evaluated?

3.3 Contexts
a) Educational institutions: How can educational institutions develop to an organisational
   and social framework that helps to promote media education and child safety?
b) Policy: How can policy develop a social, political and regulatory framework that helps to
   promote media education and child safety?
c) NGOs & Users: How can NGOs contribute to developing a social, political, and regulatory
   framework that helps to promote media education and child safety?
d) Companies: How can media companies contribute to developing a social, political and
   regulatory framework that helps to promote media education and child safety?