No. 2, 2008 Published by The International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media at Nordicom Göteborg University Box 713 SE-405 30 Göteborg SWEDEN Editor: Catharina Bucht Publisher: Ulla Carlsson

Children's and Young People's Participation Just Published: Yearbook 2008 on Children and Media in Africa Communication Strategies used by Chilean Teenagers in the Educational Movement of May 2006 (1) When Youths Have a Voice: An Ethnographic Study of Media and Youth Cultures in Portugal Objective News for Burmese Youth The Third International Youth Media Summit COMPASITO – Manual on Human Rights Education for Children Media Access and Media Use Children’s Media Encounters in Contemporary India: Exclusion, Leisure and Learning New Zealand Children's Film Viewing Practices with a Favourite Feature Film Popularity and Usability of Educational Television among German Youths New Reports from the EUKidsOnline project New Publication: Mediated Crossroads Media Education/Media Literacy/Awareness “Txting”: A Valid Pedagogical Strategy for Teaching/Learning especially Content Related to Languages Media Education’s First Steps in Nigeria Pilot Teacher Training Curricula for Media and Information Literacy New Digital Media Literacy Resource in Australia Safety Tips to Parents Regarding Virtual Worlds Measures and Regulations Instituto Alana’s Child and Commercialism Project: A Brazilian Experience Internet Governance Forum 2008 Regulation on Advertising Aimed at Children in Europe in New Publication Parents Misled by Food Marketing Media Influences Female Image on Chilean Television Seen by Eight to Ten-Year-Old Girls Study on Violent Video Game Play and Aggression in the US and Japan No Baby Television in France Early Television Viewing Is Related to Delayed Language Development – A Thailand Study Media and Child and Adolescent Health Children's and Young People's Participation Just Published: Yearbook 2008 on Children and Media in Africa [Children's and Young People's Participation] African Media, African Children is the title of the tenth Yearbook of the International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media. Over the years, we have focused attention on a wide range of topics, from issues relating to media violence, new media technologies, soap operas and globalization of media to issues of regulation, media education and media literacy. This is the first Yearbook with a geographical focus, and a vast continent at that. A focus on Africa seems both timely and important. When issues about children and media are discussed, all too often the frame of reference is the media culture of the Western world. There is an urgent need for the agenda to become open to non-Western thoughts and intercultural approaches to a much higher degree than is the case at present. The essays in this volume reflect a wide-range of issues and concerns related to children’s media culture in Africa. For example, several address the role of entertainment television in Addis Abba, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, and Zambia and in the lives of Muslim children. Other essays introduce us to children-centered media from Ghana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, and the innovative programs of PLAN-International. In addition to entertainment media and children-centered media, media education and digital media literacy are also discussed. The Yearbook will be distributed to participants in the Clearinghouse network. For orders and more information about content, please click here African Media, African Children. Yearbook 2008. Norma Pecora, Enyonam Osei-Hwere and Ulla Carlsson (Eds.), with an introduction by Firdoze Bulbulia ISSN 1651-6028, ISBN 978-91-89471-68-9 Top Communication Strategies used by Chilean Teenagers in the Educational Movement of May 2006 (1) [Children's and Young People's Participation] by Ana Rayén Condeza Dall’Orso Université de Montréal, Canada (Joint PhD Candidate) and Media Studies Institute Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile Santiago, Chile The underlying purpose of this study was to outline how adolescents use existing media as tools and platforms for communication for social change. More specifically, it focused on understanding the strategies of action and the communication practices displayed between May and July of 2006 by more than a half million Chilean teenagers during the self-directed organizing movement in favour of the right to a high quality public education. In observing their daily actions during the movement, I noticed how they employed not only the street as the traditional mythical place for democratic revolutions in modern society (Hirsch, 2006), but mainly media and new technologies, creating their own space to get their message and arguments out to the broad public. Because the study was developed in 2007 in Montréal, the Web was employed as a site particularly useful for working on the historiography of youth communication practices for social change. In fact, in arguing that the Web is a flexible methodological repository containing traces of facts, reported by different actors and dotted about the net, I was in search of the youths’ – but also of social and communication – fingerprints about this historical Chilean adolescent movement still circulating on the net. Gap between Public and Private Education The Chilean context in which these youth communication practices for social action emerged is better explained by the precariousness of public education, which has been continually underlined by national and international evaluations. According to the students’ own messages, the main factor explaining this situation has been the education law, one of the final heritages from the three last days of dictatorship in 1990, which did not ensure the quality of public education and which was still in force in 2006, after sixteen years of democracy. As educational experts analyze, the LOCE’s law (The Organic Constitutional Law on Teaching, Law No. 18, 962) continues to produce a profound gap between public and private education (Cortés, 2003; González et al, 2006). For the majority of students in Chile, choice in education is determined by their ability to pay (Matear, 2006). Technically speaking, the more than half million Chilean adolescents involved were not "experts" in education. However, they had a 'social knowledge' about it. As María Jesús Sanhueza, one of the leaders of the Chilean youth movement, interviewed on the Spanish website of BBC World, said: "Student dissatisfaction with the education that is being received is everywhere. We are the main ones affected by the poor quality of education, and by the social inequalities this situation produces. However, we have never been asked about the educational model." "The inequity existing in Chilean education is abysmal. Students from public municipal schools obtain much lower results than those studying in private schools. The reality is that few students from public schools have access to universities. This way, there is a perpetual inequality in Chilean education." So, all these communication possibilities available to the youths in this particular contingent situation were important for their actions, as they distributed their speeches and actions (Habermas, 1981) through communication across a whole range of channels – evidence of their communication strategies and discourses can be found on Web pages, national and international online traditional media Web records (radio, television, and newspapers), Web logs (blogs), Fotologs, Wikipedia, emails, chats, You Tube and mobile phones. As a platform containing these different communication possibilities, the Web constitutes a rich convergent space for keeping track of youths’ communication fingerprints and social experiences of civil participation. Discussion From a research point of view it is possible to describe that the youths displayed transversely a set of communication events in different media sources, with different purposes. At the beginning, they combined the use of massive peaceful street demonstrations with communication through media. Throughout the process, they progressively concentrated mainly on media communication events, using traditional and new media with a dual purpose: First, as resources for internal organization, and second as a discursive platform for social communication, that is, to address their educational discourse to the whole country and the government and to call journalists to press conferences. Communication Strategies Used on the Street In massive street demonstrations and in public places, students displayed image events, staged acts of protest designed for media dissemination. Youth were inspired particularly by the French documentary "The March of the Penguins", recently shown at Chilean cinemas, which was a box-office success. Penguins dressed as Chilean secondary pupils became the official symbol of the youth mobilizations and took on different forms. Students took advantage of the striking resemblance between a penguin’s plumage and an adolescent’s public image of wearing a school uniform, dressing official public educational symbols with this new hybrid wardrobe. Before long, both the public and the media had begun to identify the movement as the Penguin’s Revolution. Use of Media for Internal Organization Internal organization among the youths basically included deliberative assemblies and meetings mentored exclusively by adolescents. This means they agreed on their decisions through participation, dialogue and consensus. Coordination of actions was possible thanks to the use of mobile phones, e-mail and chat. After this process, when decisions had been made, announcements to the whole country and to the government were made in the name of the student movement body, by calling journalists to press conferences. When the teenagers used the media for their internal organization, they were simultaneously building a social communication network useful for coordinate actions. A good example of this is the journey when, one by one, lyceums started being overtaken by adolescents at the local and national level. Mobile phones and e-mails were also particularly important for supplying food to adolescents living in the lyceums during the educational lockout of the public school buildings. They were in permanent contact with their parents and friends, and took pictures and posted them in the media and on the Internet to show the public the activities inside the lyceums. Media Used as Discursive Platforms for Social Communication Wikipedia was an open and free space where the students became narrators of their own history. Regarding the use of traditional media communications, they used it to announce resolutions adopted in the assemblies, by scheduling press conferences just before national prime-time TV news programs. Through this communication strategy they were able to remain first in the news agenda during the entire movement, allowing their resolutions to be transmitted directly and first to the whole country. This practice was surprising, because addressing the country through national broadcast is a special prerogative of the president. Students also were invited to participate in TV programs in which they were interviewed or could talk with government authorities. Their actions caught the attention of foreign correspondents from international media, such as Le Monde, the Washington Post, CNN, and BBC World, which interviewed them extensively. Also, the Chilean student movement was accommodated on national and international non-governmental organization Web pages. Blogs, Fotologs and YouTube During the research, more than 200 blogs from students or Web pages were counted, where it seems that there is no frontier between their public and private spaces of communication. Web pages for each lyceum developed by youth regarding the student movement were also reported. Fotologs were widely used, especially for posting pictures of what was going on during the students’ occupation of public secondary schools. In the case of YouTube, it was used to broadcast alternative TV interviews with the leaders of the movement. Achievements from the Penguin Revolution The Chilean Penguin Revolution is a good example not only of how adolescents sharing social concerns are able to organize self-directed movements for participating in social change processes, but also of how they do it through media communication. The study also points out classical critical questions, such as those regarding the relevance of non-traditional social actors’ access to media, new media and mobile technologies. It would be also interesting to more deeply observe the extent to which these ensembles of communicative actions were relevant for their final achievement, the abolition and review of the education law. In fact, the movement had political consequences and brought about historical decisions. In the first place, the secondary public school students obtained a revision of the law on education. In the second place, the movement produced formal international concern. The United Nations Education Commissioner wrote to the Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs, asking for a written explanation of events such as the physical violence committed against students by the police, reminding authorities about the Chilean ratification of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international treaties related to education rights that were not being respected. In the third place, the creation of a Presidential advisory committee for the quality of education with teenagers’ participation was announced by President Michelle Bachelet. Finally, it triggered the first minister cabinet change in the government of Michelle Bachelet, changing out the Ministers of Internal Affairs, Education, and Economy. Note 1. This research was originally presented in September 2008 at the Digital Content Creation Second International DREAM Conference organized by the Danish Research Centre on Education and Advanced Media Materials, University of Southern Denmark. Sources Cortés, Pablo (2003), “Estratificación educacional y equidad social”, Bases para la Competencia en Chile, la Educación en una sociedad desigual, Alfonso Arrau, editor, PREDES-RIL Editores, Santiago, pp. 11-36. González, F. et al (2006), “El derecho ciudadano a participar en la educación pública”. Documento de trabajo N°2. Participación e Incidencia de la Sociedad Civil en la Política Educativa. Seminario Internacional Encrucijadas de la Educación en América Latina. El derecho ciudadano a participar en la educación pública. Observatorio Chileno de Políticas Educativas. Santiago, 17 p. Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol.1 Reason and the Rationalization of Society, trans. Thomas Mc McCarthy. 8-42. Boston: Beacon Press, 1981. Hirsch, Michael (2006). “The space of community: between culture and politics.” In Did Someone Say Participate? An Atlas of Spatial Practice, Edited by Markus Miessen and Shumon Basar Distributed by the MIT Press (2006):290-304. Matear, A. (2007), Equity in education in Chile: The tensions between policy and practice. International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2007), 101-113. Top When Youths Have a Voice: An Ethnographic Study of Media and Youth Cultures in Portugal [Children's and Young People's Participation] by Raquel Pacheco, MA CIMJ Universidade Nova de Lisboa Lisbon, Portugal Statistics show that the increase in violence in countries like Brazil and Portugal involves children and young people. This creates a stigma that in most cases involves situations of risk and abandonment, shifting the position of victims to social villains. The main motivation for this research was based on this perception. We use cinema as a means of reflection over violence, citizenship and youth. Contemporary cinema has repeatedly shown a part of society that in most cases is unknown. Films such as the Brazilian City of God, the Portuguese Zone J, the South African Wooden Camera and the Venezuelan Huelepega, ley de la Calle present, through fiction, the reality of children and young people who live in situations of similar risks, exclusion, violence and abandonment. Is this a coincidence (which we do not believe to be the case), or a reality as a result of this modern, globalized and industrial society we live in? Research Outline Our intention was to try to understand, through these films, the movement occurring in cinema whereby fiction portrays poverty-stricken, excluded young people and children as the reality and brings these images to our screens. By retrieving information and opinions in regard to these films and their accuracy in the portrayal of youth culture, we used cinema as a means by which they feel stimulated to exteriorize what they think, feel and see. In order to understand the young viewer, we developed an ethnographic study over six months, choosing for our investigation a secondary-level school situated in the urban zone of Lisbon. The goal of this investigation was to understand how the young people see themselves and how they think they are viewed by society (which includes the cinema, media, etc.) they belong to. A board diary was used as a tool for recording research, in order to portray everyday life at the school. It was deeply moving to see the process through which the students learned about each other and themselves. They were very aware of discrimination issues, not only based on cultural and racial issues, but also on their age. The Educational Process The philosophy of this work is based on the dialectal pedagogic of Paulo Freire. It is processed through problem-oriented dialogue, developed mainly after the exhibition of the films, in the classroom and in meetings. The final product of this project was a documentary in which the students were the protagonists, enabling them to accomplish complex tasks from pre-production to finalization through the education for, with and about the media, using concepts of communication, education, participation and working thematic related to the daily life of these young people. The work of media education with the students and its “entities” of representation constituted an educational process. Below are the two main concepts: A) The first concept is the understanding that the education is destined to “transmit” (or “spread”) knowledge, values and patterns of behaviour of past generations (or sources of knowledge, of the knowing or of the power) to the current generations, so that they are adapted to society. In this concept, the pedagogical theory of education guiding the methods and techniques is that of stimulation/reply/reward (behaviourism). B) The second concept considers a person to be the “subject” of his/her own actions, which exercise the person’s intelligence, reasoning and creativity. Through brainstorming and decision-making, one is capable of modifying or transforming one’s physical and social world, a goal for human development and consequently economic, social, cultural, technological and political development. This concept does not tolerate the educational notion of relationships such as the educator who “knows everything” and the student who “ignores reality”. The relationship between educator and educating is centred on the dialogue between “citizens” and not in the monologue of the professor (subject, active and agent) in front of the student (object, container, liabilities and listener). The ethnographic research presented here was based on the concept of education mentioned in Example B, above. As time passed, the meetings and the methodology process helped the students’ maturity grow and gave them the capability to be better prepared to discuss and develop ideas related to themselves and the youth they are part of. The researcher and those being investigated were now in an analytical phase, in which all the processes developed up to that point (dialogues, problems and questions) took form and the ideas started to come together as desired. The students were now prepared to produce the audiovisual document. Feelings of Empowerment in the Production Process It was evident that when we divided the group into teams for filming that the young people realized they were going to participate in a real video. It was then that they finally felt the sensation of empowerment, meaning they now felt that they were in possession of the project – free to choose the characters they wanted to play, the importance of each character, each choice…and later the choice of topics for the script. Also, deciding what to do with the video gave them a sense of belonging to a special team. With the guidance of the coordinator and suggestions from the investigator, the students decided, how the video would unravel – what it would be about, how it would be made and the reasons for making it – resulting in their increased confidence in their capacities to fulfil their goal and meet their objectives. During the whole process the students had acquired skills and knowledge, and the accomplishment of the video made it possible for them to go public and express this knowledge, allowing them freedom of execution and creativity. The Result The final product was a 13-minute documentary called “We Have a Voice”, in which several youngsters made statements and talked about themes such as school, media, neighbourhood, relationships, pregnancy, abortion, discrimination, racism, violence, drugs, police, consumption, leisure, sport and music. Although we did not have the illusion that the final result would be the same as that of a professional movie, we had the hope that the result would be positive, reaching each of these youngsters. We hope that the seed of freedom, the possibility of “making it happen”, has been planted and believe that the self-esteem of these youngsters will contribute to their becoming present citizens and directors of their own lives’ videos. Conclusion Through dialogue as the “main instrument” of this “communication”, we began with the specific and moved toward the general, the individual toward the collective, the known toward the unknown , the simple toward the complex – allowing the approach of the specific, individual, immediate situations, perceived in a more ample social, economic and political context. We observe the necessity that young people have to leave the places marked by the media with the sensationalist approach on the condition of youth. A middle-class youth is treated as a “good student”, “good boy” or an “example” as opposed to the poor young boy who is treated as “lesser”, “delinquent”, “offender”, “violent”. We also observe that young people in general (rich and poor) need auto affirmation to respond to the expectations placed on them (socially), to feel that they are part of the system, to follow fashion trends dictated by the market of consumption, and “well being”. When social acceptance is not obtained in “the socially acceptable” ways, young people will find other ways to obtain it. To feel the sensation of being accepted, being “somebody”, through practices far from approved of by society such as violence, the use of drugs and hedonism, they are marginalized to a life “on the edge”. Therefore, the existence and role of public politics, schools, organizations and institutions are of extreme importance and should be prepared and conscientious when receiving these youths who yearn to feel that they are visible participants and above all citizens with a voice. We have come to understand the existence of different youthful cultures. When we appraise the culture in this phase of life that we call youth in this manner, when we discard the idea of the existence of only one youthful culture, we realize that plurality also becomes possible for the reality of the young people. The concept of youthful cultures diminishes stereotypes and, consequently, preconceptions. We become conscious of the diversities between the different cultures. The films we worked on and the many media-related discussions we had led us to believe that when youthful cultures are observed, considered and shown in a singular concept, this causes serious problems, mistakes and constraints, mainly for the young people themselves. Note This project was carried out in the school “Escola Secundária Marquês de Pombal”, with a group of 17 students aged between 17 and 22 years old, and consists of an ethnographic study carried out over a period of five months, from October 2006 to March 2007. The project was the final product in my Masters Dissertation, which also includes a video produced, directed and starred in by the students. It has the approval of organizations such as “Children's Aid” (Instituto de Apoio à Criança – Portugal) and the support of the project “Children and Youth on the News”, financed by the Institute of Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia – Portugal). Top Objective News for Burmese Youth [Children's and Young People's Participation] by Ole Chavannes Program Manager, Kids News Network Thailand Burmese children responded enthusiastically to the first broadcasts of their new and uncensored youth news program. The TV and online program 'Youth Voice' was launched during the ‘DVB Launch Party’ in Thailand in October, 2008. The Burmese TV station in exile broadcasts the program once a week; beginning at the start of 2009 it will air twice a week. The editors work from Thailand, where an estimated 1.5 million Burmese refugees live. In Burma, underground camera journalists interview children. To ensure the safety of the children and the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) journalists, the children wear a mask in front of the camera. Thus, all children can truly say what they want. Media in Burma There is no freedom of speech or press in Burma. The single state channel broadcasts a daily 'good news show', in which the Burmese people are portrayed as being happy with all the good work the generals do. There are no specific children's programs, but the state channel broadcasts sports like 'child boxing'. Media in exile, broadcasting mostly from Thailand, are very popular among the suppressed Burmese: They constitute the only source of real information on what is going on in their country. Satellite dishes are not (yet) forbidden, and thus an estimated 10 million Burmese watch weekly news from broadcasters like the DVB. Satellite dishes are relatively cheap today, but are still too expensive for many Burmese. Often, the owners of satellite dishes copy the news on DVDs, which are then sold at the market. Last week (November 2008), the first copies of Youth Voice were seen at a market in Rangoon, Burma's capital. Kids’ News Program Launched Youth Voice is the seventh member of the Kids News Network (KNN), a project initiated by the Dutch media NGO Free Voice, which since 2004 has started up kids’ news programs in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Zambia, South Africa, Suriname and Peru. "We have a new quality program being developed thanks to Free Voice. This show is the new standard for our news programs", says Khin Mau Win in his opening speech. The deputy director of the DVB has come over from Norway (where the headquarters of the DVB is located) to congratulate his ‘Youth Voice’ news team on their launch party. The 30 children present at the launch party who have fled Burma are very satisfied with their new youth news program, after seeing several clips. The broadcast of the coming week includes a topic on child labour and Chinese milk products in Burma, but there are also fun topics such as a pig that nurses tiger cubs and news about Formula 1 races. The interviews with the children during the launch party can be seen in next week’s episode of Youth Voice, on TV in Burma via satellite and worldwide via the Internet. The launch party has been organized to congratulate the new team, but also to draw attention to the new program from the audience, other media and international donors. The 150 guests make for a mixed crowd: Burmese children (refugees in Thailand), several Burmese human rights and women's organizations, other Burmese media in exile and potential international donors, including the American consulate. "I am sure that Youth Voice is very popular among Burmese children", says Peter Keulers in his opening speech. Keulers has come from Bangkok on behalf of the Dutch embassy in Thailand (and Burma) to officially launch the program. "I hope that one day in the future Youth Voice will be broadcast on the public channel of Burma and children can give their free opinion, without a mask" he says. With a remote control he 'opens' the youth news program by starting a video clip of Youth Voice on a large screen. Keulers hands out ‘KNN certificates’ to the new journalists, together with DVB deputy director Khin Mau Win and Kids News Network (KNN) program manager Ole Chavannes. After two months of workshops conducted by experienced editors from the Indonesian, South African and Dutch youth news programs, the eight Burmese journalists can now officially call themselves Youth News Journalists. The ten-minute program can be watched via satellite in Burma and worldwide via the new website dvbyouth.com as well as their YouTube channel Note Youth Voice is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Eurodonation Fund and several international DVB donors. For more information, see www.freevoice.nl The KNN is initiator and general coordinator of the network, encompassing seven kids’ news programs and reaching about 20 million viewers in Burma, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Zambia, South Africa, Suriname and Peru. The KNN aims to establish new kids’ programs in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Top The Third International Youth Media Summit [Children's and Young People's Participation] by Evelyn Seubert Film Teacher Cleveland High School Los Angeles, USA and Miomir Rajcevic President Media Education Centre Belgrade, Serbia In August 2008 the third International Youth Media Summit, IYMS, was held in Belgrade, Serbia, hosted by Miomir Rajcevic and the Media Education Centre. The Summit focused on intercultural media education, media literacy and the development of film, television and Internet communication. Young people from 22 countries from around the globe, representing five continents, participated. Each country’s delegation was composed of an adult advisor, a student filmmaker and a student diplomat. At the Summit they talked about issues present in almost all countries: health, women's rights, violence, racism, poverty, environment and youth empowerment. Each delegate was assigned to an issue group. The main ambition of participants was to describe problems, find solutions, invent scenarios based on the text of declaration and produce seven public service announcements. This is why we call the movement Seven Voices in TIME. Summit History September 11, 2001. The first seeds of courage, cooperation and creativity that would become the International Youth Media Summit (IYMS) were planted that day in the ashes of terror and hatred. And many more seeds were planted that same week, when Aileen Marshall from Scotland and Evelyn Seubert from the US met for the first time. The horrible events of 9/11, fresh in their minds, brought special urgency to their mission: to create media collaborations across cultures, bringing young people together to have a voice in the future. Founded by Evelyn Seubert and Aileen Marshall and organized by the members of TIME (Teen International Media Exchange at Cleveland High School), the first IYMS was held in July 2006 in Los Angeles, California. It was funded by the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation and Health Net (a health care company), and was presented by the youth media network Listen Up! and the teaching program Learning for Life. Marshall and the Listen Up! staff helped to recruit the 86 student delegates and teachers from 26 countries who would attend this extraordinary event. When the delegates arrived in Los Angeles, they shared the public service announcements and research projects they had created in their home communities that highlighted their issue. Over the course of three days, the students and teachers in each issue group visited local organizations that were working on innovative solutions that inspired and encouraged the delegates. In the last days of the Summit, students in each issue group created two videos: a public service announcement (PSA) and a resolution for action. The delegates would use these back at home to motivate other young people to share their voice and become involved in solutions. Cross-Cultural Collaboration At the IYMS, the students and teachers work together across cultures, religions, ethnic backgrounds and political viewpoints. The seven public service announcements and seven resolutions for action created at the first Summit were seen around the world when the delegates returned home. They spoke out on television, in print articles and on the Internet about their experience of peaceful cooperation to achieve a peaceful future. After Los Angeles 2006, the Summit became an annual event. Miomir Rajcevic from the Media Education Centre (Serbia), Vahid Vahed from Cinewest (Australia), Birgitta Olsson from Film i Halland (Sweden), Aileen Marshall from the South Lanarkshire Council (Scotland), and James Gleason and Evelyn Seubert from TIME at Cleveland High School (USA) formed the Executive Committee. In 2007, eight young people were selected from past delegations to form the Youth Committee. The second IYMS was held in Sydney, Australia in July 2007 and was hosted by Vahid Vahed and Cinewest. Thirty-one young people and teachers from nine countries participated. The same collaborations across cultures took place, and a second set of public service announcements was made. Students explored artistic and technical concepts that gave their media pieces dramatic impact and thought-provoking content. Future Ambitions In Belgrade, for the first time in the Summit’s history, presentations were made. The idea is to give to our young participants a large scale of different media and films, productions and institutions who work with children and young people. Presenters at the third Summit were: CIFEJ (Centre International du Film pour l’Enfance et la Jeunesse), ‘5th World Summit on Media for Children’, ‘International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media’, Film Production for Youth in India, Film Production for Youth in Iran, ‘White Tara Production’ about Children-Warriors in Africa and Indian Minority in Canada, ‘Global KFK Festival’, and ‘Balkan KFK Festival’. Future plans include making it possible for young people with special needs to participate in the Summit activities. As they move forward to advanced education and careers in many disciplines, the Summit delegates bring with them a passion for creating a harmonious world community that will benefit from shared creativity, cultural understanding and informed insight. The IYMS delegates will inspire others of their generation to shape the future through media and action. Note Resolutions for action (in text and video clip format), PSAs and information about all three Summits can be found at www.iyms.eu, and all exhibitions from Seven Voices in TIME from Belgrade Gallery O3ONE and more other material can be found at www.iyms.collectivex.com Top COMPASITO – Manual on Human Rights Education for Children [Children's and Young People's Participation] Children become aware of questions related to justice at an early age and search for meaning in the world. The publication “Compasito – Manual on human rights education for children” deals with key concepts of human rights, children’s rights, democracy, citizenship, gender equality, environment, media, poverty and violence. It offers a starting point for educators, teachers and trainers in dealing with human rights education for children 7-13 years of age. The 42 suggested practical activities can help children develop critical thinking, responsibility and a sense of justice, and seek to engage and motivate children to recognize human rights issues in their own environment as well as suggest how to take action. The publication is available in English and French. Source COMPASITO – Manual on human rights education for children (2008), ISBN 978-92-871-6369-1, Council of Europe, http://books.coe.int Top Media Access and Media Use Children’s Media Encounters in Contemporary India: Exclusion, Leisure and Learning [Media Access and Media Use] by Shakuntala Banaji, Ph. D., Research Officer Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media, Institute of Education, University of London England The media environment surrounding children in a metropolis like Bombay, India, has altered almost unrecognizably in the last two decades, with the introduction of several hundred national and international cable and satellite channels and broadband internet, video and mobile phone cameras into middle-class homes (or the dispersal, via often illegal ‘cable-tapping’ in urban working-class areas and some rural ones, of English, vernacular or Hindi language television programmes). However, the media environment of millions of children growing up in many (but not all) small towns and villages across the country remains very similar to what it has been over the past three decades – some radio, occasional cassette music, little access to television, rare sightings of a computer in a village school or NGO centre, no access to the internet or to cinema, almost no leisure time and no chance to discuss or experiment with any form of media making. Two Paradigms on Children and Media In this context of highly uneven access to media resources, discourses about children and media have remained surprisingly monolithic and stagnant, tending to fall into one of two paradigms and generally based only on snapshots of media experiences in urban, middle-class settings. The first is a ‘hypodermic’ effects paradigm, which focuses on content in either a negative or occasionally a celebratory manner – for instance, the protectionist stance that sees most ‘western’ media products as dangerous and having negative effects on ‘Indian’ ethics and culture falls into this category, as does the argument that the liberalising of the Indian media economy has brought about changes in content which are challenging sexist and other negative attitudes. The second paradigm ignores content and views all developments in the Indian media and communications environment (be these ones of technology or convergence) as socially beneficial because they construct children-as-consumers or children-as-future-workforce, thus making India (apparently) more ‘modern’ and ‘competitive’. While a host of other positions do exist amongst both parents and especially young people, these are rarely articulated publicly. In fact, the voices that do get most coverage in the media are usually related to calls for censorship and/or technological skills development and the media industry’s response. Methods and sample Built around a small-scale interview-based study with twelve Bombay children (aged between 9 and 12) about their film and television viewing and their experiences with ICTs at school and in the home over a period of four years, a similar sized group of children (aged between 8 and 13) in a village (Barsu) in the Himalayan foothills (1) and a larger focus group study (with 10-14 year olds) in a small town (Palaghat) in Kerala (2), my research aims to disentangle some of the rhetoric about values, global skills and ethnic identity from the realities of young people’s media, family and social experiences. Using open-ended questions and unthreatening environments with researchers known to and trusted by the children, but where parents do not hear and inflect what is said, it asks questions about children’s film and television experiences from a young age, their encounters with and responses to sexuality, language and marketing on screen where these are evident, their understandings of parental and teacher concerns about media use and their own perceptions of ‘effects’ arising from their viewing (3). But it does so in a situated manner, taking account of the real diversity of life experiences of the children in question. Broad Findings The lower-middleclass children interviewed in the Bombay study have, unsurprisingly, the richest and most diverse experience of media of the three groups. Most of them have been on the internet especially in the past two years, looking up sporting websites, playing games on Disney and Fox Kids or looking up information for school, and some have occasional but unfettered access to broadband or dial-up connections and computers while their parents are at work during the daytime, and when they are alone at home looking after younger siblings. Computers, which are usually situated in communal spaces, are seen as necessary by their parents for skilling them for the modern economy, and hence, especially the boys but even the girls, are encouraged to do some work on the computer every day. Television remains, by and large and with the exception of trips with friends to the cinema, the favourite form of entertainment, with everyone in the sample agreeing that they love to watch television, especially unsupervised. The kinds of programmes watched here vary widely from Hindi films, chatshows, comedy programmes and serials (some with quite adult scenes and themes) to English films, and dubbed American, Canadian, Japanese and European programmes, Peppa Pig, Dora the Explorer and Indian version of Sesame Street appealing to younger siblings, while Hannah Montana, That’s So Raven and The Sweet Life of Zach and Cody are favourites with the older girls. The boys claim to prefer to watch sport, especially cricket, and films. While all the children in Bombay talked knowledgably about aspects of teenage culture (both western and Indian) that I (growing up without television) had never heard of at their age, and spoke in a sophisticated manner about issues as diverse as relationships, sex (which caused some shyness and much hilarity), potential careers, bullying, advertising, fashion, national identity and adolescent crushes, television was thought to be generally viewed by their parents as a complete waste of time or even dangerous. It was variously seen to compete with doing housework, looking after younger siblings and playing outdoors; but the most overwhelming complaint about it was that it made the children lazy about their studies. Media and Learning: The Adults’ View Given that many of the children were clearly being forced into hugely competitive – and sometime to these lower-middleclass parents, unaffordable – tuition outside school and subjected to dull, conformist school environments for much of the day, the colonisation of their erstwhile television-viewing time by further study was the single largest bone of contention between them and their parents, causing frequent and daily angst on both sides. The parents’ and teachers’ focus on rote learning of facts and skills for apparent future economic gain, completely negated any of the learning that their children do from television, and the concept of children having leisure time in which to relax was obviously understood as something ‘negative’ which they had picked up from despised Western programmes. Childhood Innocence and Adult Protection?: Rhetorics and Realities Meanwhile, in the village and small town environments, an absurd paradox with regard to sexuality and representation became apparent. Though it was clear that girls especially were being prepared for marriage from the age of ten by being made to do huge amounts of domestic and other labour and told they would be married, and while many were actually married and removed from school by the age of fourteen-fifteen, the overwhelming majority of them had no experience of sex education and little chance to experience even representations of relationships and sexuality on screen. When asked questions in this regard, understandably, they evinced a huge amount of embarrassment and some fear, some explaining that they were not yet married, as if that was the point at which they would learn (suddenly and painfully) about even mild physical contact with a partner. Given that many of them had never been to the cinema, that most in the Kerala sample had never even watched television, and that they lived in conditions of such poverty that the mid-day meal provided by the school was their only source of nourishment during the day, questions about the media environment frequently seemed grotesquely inappropriate. However, they enjoyed looking at pictures in the occasional vernacular magazine, liked hearing songs on the radio, and would clearly have enjoyed watching television had this been an option, especially as some of them were aware of its potential for teaching them different languages. Speculative Conclusions – future directions for research and action Clearly this very brief description of environments and findings leaves room for much wider debates about gender reform, education, family-life, pedagogy and media in India, and suggests that media education, for most adults, is probably a low priority, while media censorship, which for many campaigners and academics is such a high priority, might do with far less attention in comparison to other issues. This snap-shot also points to painful gaps and absences in the lives (and in writing about the lives) of children in India – who are frequently homogenised into the figure of the urban, media-savvy or media-endangered child-consumer or treated as victim-statistics – and to the need for including the detailed views and concerns of children in any debates about the spread of mass media and media literacy across the country. Contrary to those who are worried that the spread of cable and satellite will make India ‘immoral’ (sic), what is at stake, I suggest, is not the Indianness of the Indian child, in most cases, but their opportunity or right to have even the most basic say over how they spend their time, how they learn or what they do with their lives as they grow older. For me this is a highly political issue. Notes 1. The data in Barsu was gathered by Dr. K. Leena, a trained teacher and researcher. 2. The data in Palaghat was gathered by K. Chitra, a trained teacher and local resident popular with the local children. 3. More detailed and theorised discussions of these findings, and further evidence from the data will be appearing in a chapter in a collection from Anthem Press, South Asian Media Cultures edited by the author in 2009. Top New Zealand Children's Film Viewing Practices with a Favourite Feature Film [Media Access and Media Use] by Brian Finch Senior Lecturer School of Educational Studies Massey University College of Education New Zealand Many children repeatedly view films in domestic settings, using videotapes or DVDs. Affordable consumer-technologies have enabled repeated viewing through the recording from broadcast, the rental or the purchase of copies of feature films. This constitutes, for children, a new level of access to feature-length narratives. A recent New Zealand doctoral research project investigated the ways that children engage with a favourite film and the understandings they build up through successive viewings. The viewing practices of a small group of 9 and 10 year old children were observed as they viewed the same film, which they had each nominated as a favourite. The research questions focused on the children's multimodal behaviours while viewing and the understandings they formed about a film. The study aimed to provide insights for educators by demonstrating the range and nature of the educationally significant understandings, about a film, that children can construct. Collection of Rich Data An initial school-based survey of favourite films produced 17 children who nominated Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Columbus, 2002) as a favourite film that they had already viewed at least 10 times. A video illustrating the research procedures that would be used was shown to inform the children and to stimulate discussion with them, to ensure that they had enough knowledge of the procedures to be able to give educated consent. Observations of pairs of children viewing the film in their homes, followed by a series of activities to elicit discussion, created a set of rich data on the children's engagement practices and understandings of the film. A viewing practices engagement framework which drew on existing frameworks in literacy education, media education and literature education was used to analyse viewing behaviours, responses and understandings. The engagement practice categories (literal, connotative, personalised, structural and critical) enabled multimodal and transcribed verbal data to be meaningfully linked. Several analytic approaches (including multimodal analysis, content analysis and discourse analysis) were used to provide a full description of viewing engagement. Children’s Viewing Behaviour The pairs of children were videoed while re-watching the film in the home of one of them. Their overt viewing practices varied, with some pairs talking and gesturing to the screen and each other, and other pairs moving and saying little throughout the 90 minute viewing. Gestures were not only at the literal level of mimicking characters’ onscreen actions but also at the personalised engagement level where they physically elaborated on characters’ emotional states which were not being overtly expressed onscreen. Children who engaged at this level sometimes created new dialogue for characters and at other times gestured their elaboration. Other verbal expressions of personalised engagement were evident through comments that made links to the children's own experiences and through imaginative speculation about the future of characters. However, analysis of the talk during the activities used in later sessions showed that the levels of understanding about the film were not associated with the amount of overt behaviour during viewing. This evidence provides a further challenge to the notion that silent, still child-viewers are ‘passive’ viewers. Children’s Understandings of the Film Participants with a favourite repeatedly-viewed film were selected for this research because it was assumed that they would have accumulated understandings through successive viewings. The range of understandings that were shown during the observed viewing as well as ‘think aloud’ viewings of short clips and activities which used film image cards, included aspects of characters, narrative, causation in the film and special effects. Structural level discussions about characters included symbolism and understandings that unsympathetic characters helped generate dramatic tension. A number of the children showed an awareness of the narrative arc (the genre ‘formula’) common to each of the first three Harry Potter films. Critical engagement, apart from comments on continuity lapses, was infrequent and nascent. Comments about the film’s constructedness in terms of camera work, editing, mis-en-scene and special effects showed understandings which were fragmented rather than comprehensive. For example, the same pair might talk about camera work and editing in relation to one scene, but then employ ideas about the action as if it were uninterruptible stage drama, elsewhere. The understandings that these 9 and 10 year olds displayed, suggest that they might benefit from some more formal learning which acknowledge their existing understandings. Comments on the Findings Discourse analysis revealed that a range of viewing positions were taken and a range of social languages were used. There were also gender differences in the balance of language used to acknowledge the film’s emotional effects. The girls in the study used an even balance of first-person (eg ‘I am scared by this’) and third-person (eg ‘This is scary’) attributions, while the boys overwhelmingly used third-person language. Although structural and critical engagement was not well developed in this group, the findings provide evidence that children construct a range of educationally relevant understandings through their repeated home viewing of favourites. The findings of this study contribute to knowledge of children's understandings and could inform film education for children in this age range. The study has implications for parents, for primary school teachers, for teacher educators and for education policy. Top Popularity and Usability of Educational Television among German Youths [Media Access and Media Use] by Dr. Pradeep Kumar Misra Reader, Faculty of Education & Allied Sciences, M.J.P. Rohilkhand University, Bareilly, India Among several uses for television, education is a prominent one. As MacGregor (2007) points out, “Television is a powerful medium with key roles to play in education – in providing news and information, including about education issues, policies and developments; in the form of dramas, soap operas and other programmes with educational messages; and in the delivery of educational support programmes to the public and to schools”. A different but equally powerful role of television (and radio) is comprised of the ‘entertainment-education’ programmes that have reached tens of millions of people around the world since the 1970s, writes Deborah Smith in the Monitor on Psychology (2002). But there is always a concern among the academic fraternity and policymakers regarding the usability and popularity of educational television. Research Questions and Methodology Germany's television market is the largest in Europe, with some 34 million TV households. Around 90% of German households have cable or satellite TV, and viewers can choose from a variety of free-to-view public and commercial channels. In 2007, some 54% of all German households received television via cable, 4.1% by means of terrestrial transmission and 41.8% via satellite (1). Thus far, more than 60% of all Germans use online services (2). Surveys indicate that television is the most important source of political information: 51% of Germans rank television first, ahead of newspapers and magazines (22%), conversation (16%), and radio (6%) (3). In Germany, television is available to almost all higher education students, although one must bear in mind that availability does not guarantee access or usability. The relevance of educational television depends on how many higher education students watch it, how they perceive it and how they use it. If students approve of it, educational television will flourish. Otherwise, policymakers and television programme producers would be required to chalk out new strategies for it. Keeping this background in view, the present study deals with the popularity and usability of educational television among German youths. There is another popular belief among the academic fraternity that youths prefer the Internet to television for achieving their educational objectives. The Internet offers a number of educational programmes on different topics for different levels of learners. Its popularity in higher education lies in its interactivity and user convenience. In this context, the study also attempts to determine whether German youths still prefer and use educational television in this Internet age. A questionnaire was designed and developed by a researcher for the study, and was answered by 300 students from the University of Kassel in Germany (4). Results The main results that emerged from this study are as follows: (i) In Germany, both private and public channels (national) have good presence among youths. In comparison to national channels, channels from other countries are less popular. This is clearly evident in the responses given by the students. (ii) A majority of youths in Germany (45%) like to watch television, and watch it for about 1-2 hours daily. Watching television for entertainment is the number one choice of youths, followed by music, news and sports. Those watching television for educational purposes are in the minority (25%). Regarding types of programmes, 48% like to watch information-based programmes, followed by talk shows (48%) and documentaries (46%). (iii) Only 26% of the youths stated that they are familiar with educational television programmes. Educational TV programmes did not have a long-lasting impact on the youths, as is evident in the fact that only 26% of them were able to recall five educational programmes they had seen. (iv) Education-oriented programmes on television do not suit the taste of youths in Germany. This is confirmed by the fact that six of ten of the students in the survey stated that they get bored watching educational programmes. (v) Almost six of ten of the respondents were of the opinion that they have not learnt much about their subject from television programmes. Almost seven of ten respondents stated that they did not share their experiences and concerns about educational television with their friends. (vi) Among the respondents, 46% perceived educational television as an old-fashioned way of learning. However, a large number of youths were undecided on this issue (20%). On the other hand, 57% of the youths were of the opinion that compared to television, the Internet is a far better medium for education. (vii) Six of ten respondents rejected the notion that educational programmes are of no use in their subjects. A large number of them (54%) were also of the view that the availability of subject-based educational programmes on German TV is less than desired. (viii) The educational television programmes are receiving tough competition from E-learning packages, as 51% of the youths pronounced their verdict in favour of these packages. Six of ten respondents favoured the idea of making educational television programmes available on internet so that they may watch and download the programmes at their convenience. Conclusion The results clearly indicate that there is a strong need to devise creative ideas and implement them to make educational television popular among youths in Germany. Fortunately, German youths have their own ideas on how to make educational television more popular and usable. The prominent suggestions they gave include: offering more interactive and interesting programmes; adapting new formats (Docudrama, Biographical); downloading educational programmes from the Internet; making separate websites for subject-specific programmes; devising different ways to inform students of the availability and broadcast of subject-specific television programmes; and providing information on educational television programmes on mobile phones. The need of the hour is to welcome and embrace these suggestions to act on and look for other such efforts to make television a better educational tool in German society. (This article is based on the report Educational Television in Germany: Present Trend and Future Perspectives by Dr. Pradeep Kumar Misra, M.J.P. Rohilkhand University, Bareilly, India. E-mail: pradeepmsr@yahoo.co.in The research project was supported by the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) in Germany.) Note 1. Numbers from 2007, Medien Basisdaten: technische_20reichweiten/-/id=54848/1hwge2l/index.html>. Retrieved on April 08, 2008. 2. Numbers from 2007, Medien Basisdaten soziodemografie_20der_20onlinenutzer/-/id=55174/oc4awv/index.html> Retrieved on April 08, 2008. 3. www.germanculture.com.ua/library/facts/bl_radio_tv.htm Retrieved on April 08,2008. 4. The questionnaire contains 22 statements (closed and open-ended) related to behaviours, attitudes, and preferences of youths (studying at universities or higher education institutions) regarding educational television. The language of the questionnaire was English. The researcher collected data at the University of Kassel, Germany. The University of Kassel has 14 faculties and about 17,000 students per semester. Among these, 400 students were contacted using a purposive random sampling method. Purposive sampling was adopted to obtain representation from students from different faculties. Among these 400 (contacted) students, a total of 300 responded to the survey (Some were unable to complete the questionnaire while some opted out due to its language). Of the students who completed the questionnaire, 138 were male and 162 female. The composition of the students was 97 from Diploma Studies, 117 from Bachelor Studies and 86 from Masters Studies. References MacGregor, K. (2007). Review of global-regional media trends and developments since 1990 and how they are affecting “Education for All”. Paper commissioned for the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008, Education for All by 2015: will we make it .Available at: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001555/155558e.pdf retrieved on April 28, 2008. Top New Reports from the EUKidsOnline project [Media Access and Media Use] The EUKidsOnline project has published two new reports. The project – led by Sonia Livingstone and Leslie Haddon, U.K., and mainly financed by the European Commission Safer Internet Plus Programme – is based on existing research on children and the internet in 21 European countries. One of the new reports is comparing Children's Online Opportunities and Risks. A few findings are the following: • It is teenagers, rather than children in general, who are the digital pioneers in Europe. While children aged 12-17 are more likely to use the internet than are parents (87% vs. 65%) this is not the case for those under 11 years old. Hence, for younger children, it is reasonable to expect that their parents will understand the internet sufficiently to guide their use, but this may not hold for teenagers. • In several countries, a degree of distress or feeling uncomfortable or threatened was reported by 15%-20% of online teens, suggesting, perhaps, the proportion for whom risk poses a degree of harm. Complicating policy interventions regarding online risk, it was suggested that increasing opportunities online tends to increase risks, while decreasing risks tends to decrease opportunities. • There are gender differences in risk: boys appear more likely to seek out offensive or violent content, to access pornographic content or be sent links to pornographic websites, to meet somebody offline that they have met online and to give out personal information; girls appear more likely to be upset by offensive, violent and pornographic material, to chat online with strangers, to receive unwanted sexual comments and to be asked for personal information but to be wary of providing it to strangers; both boys and girls are at risk of online harassment and bullying. • There is a tendency for parents of higher socio-economic status (SES) to mediate their children’s internet use more than parents of lower SES, and for girls to be more subject to such mediation than boys. With regard to age, the consistent finding is that of a U-curve: that parental mediation increases with age until the age of around 10-11 years and then decreases again. For more findings, see the full report: Uwe Hasebrink, Sonia Livingstone and Leslie Haddon (eds) Comparing Children's Online Opportunities and Risks across Europe: Cross-national Comparisons for EU Kids Online, a report for the EC Safer Internet Plus Programme, 2008. The other report deals with how to research children online: Bojana Lobe, Sonia Livingstone, Kjartan Olafsson and José Alberto Simões (eds) Best Practice Research: How to Research Children and Online Technologies in Comparative Perspective, a report for the EC Safer Internet Plus Programme, 2008. Source The 5th Alert from EU Kids Online, www.eukidsonline.net, where the reports are available as well. Top New Publication: Mediated Crossroads [Media Access and Media Use] This book focuses on family, young people, ethnicity and the media in the context of increasing migration in contemporary Western societies. The book includes studies covering both media use and reception. It reflects on the growing interest in ethnic minorities – both on the macro and micro level – within media and cultural studies. The contributing authors present empirical work on the media and cultural practices of migrants in a wide range of countries such as Belgium, Finland, Greece, Israel, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.K., and the empirical data are framed by theoretical discussions on a more general level. For more information and orders, please click here Ingegerd Rydin and Ulrika Sjöberg (Eds.), Mediated Crossroads. Identity, Youth Culture and Ethnicity. Theoretical and Methodological Challenges. Nordicom, University of Gothenburg, ISBN 978-91-89471-65-8 Top Media Education/Media Literacy/Awareness “Txting”: A Valid Pedagogical Strategy for Teaching/Learning especially Content Related to Languages [Media Education/Media Literacy/Awareness] by José Ignacio Aguaded Gómez PhD in Educational Communication UHU-Huelva, Andalucia, Spain and Sandra Cortes Moreira MA in Educational Communication UALG-Faro, Algarve, Portugal These days, young people use "txting" (the abbreviated writing form used for communicating through mobile phones and Instant Messaging [IM] services) constantly. Txting is a code – not a completely original one, since it has both characteristics common to the dominant codes used by its writers (their maternal languages) and characteristics of iconic and signifying codes. It is possible to identify some basic rules and understand, as Noam Chomsky has said (Szabó, 2004), that users have to develop competences, leading to an acceptable performance. Txting is a hybrid code, blending characteristics of maternal languages with others specific to computer mediated communication (CMC), and there is a clear possibility to classify it as a new textual genre with specific lexical or other linguistic features, just as Marcuschi (2002) and Santos (2003) defend, rather than merely considering it a dialect (geographical variation of a language). Even Pierre Lévy (1997, 2002) defends this, mentioning that txting already integrates certain visual/iconical elements, such as emoticons and smileys (graphic symbols or combinations of symbols used to convey emotional content). More than a “fashion item”, txting has a tendency to establish itself as a characteristic CMC form of expression, even though many accuse it of being the cause of both dramatic changes in languages, and bad learning/poor use of maternal idioms. Some radicalize and say that txting is destroying languages. Nevertheless, even though we can find signs of it in the textual production of young people, such as abbreviations, shorter sentences, acronyms, etc., it will not affect languages structurally. This is natural in living organisms, which constantly progress and modify themselves (Lavoisier and Darwin demonstrated this clearly), without being destroyed in the process. This possibility is even more evident in living languages, which are products of conventions, accepted/transformed at the same rhythm as societies and mentalities change themselves. Case Study in Algarve A case study being held in Portugal, at the Secondary School of Silves (a small city in the southern region of the country, called Algarve), to understand how new technologies/channels/media – SMS/Chatting/IM – might affect the use/correct learning of maternal languages by young users, shows that students between the ages of 15 and 21 understand this plastic faculty and relate it to examples from the Portuguese; for example, in the 19th century the word now spelled "Farmácia" (pharmacy/chemistry) was written "Pharmácia". The study also shows that students with difficulties learning maternal languages had a more significant tendency to integrate these marks of txting in their production, especially in contexts revealing inappropriate timing (situations of formal communication: exams, reports, etc.). They also demonstrated a poor mastery of aesthetic and grammatical features of Portuguese, as well as a meaningful lack of creativity, equally present in the use of txting. This poor use of both codes potentiates the confusion/mislearning of codes as well as all kinds of communicational problems. Txting plays an important social role, too, being an integrating element for young people among their peer group. Doing the Opposite Being able to establish this, why not take advantage of this reality to do exactly the opposite: improve the knowledge of one’s maternal idiom and motivate the problematic students to learn it? The use of one’s experience in the teaching/learning process is an idea common to many researchers, mainly amongst those connected to the constructivist theories of education. The idea of using/valuing students’ self experiences, of bringing to the classroom their daily practices and personal “libraries of knowledge”, could gather an extra capital of motivation/interest and promote a better adaptation of teaching methodologies in each student’s profile and rhythm of learning. Engaging in these principles, a programme of exercises was developed and tested at the school in Algarve and is still being improved for use at other schools. It had a clear goal: using the students’ experience as txting users and referring to examples of this code to teach them some of the basic Portuguese grammar concepts. The application of such a programme improved the relationship between teachers and students, as they shared a non-conventional knowledge, somehow seen as “softer” (by engaging in this experience, teachers became closer to the students and the transmission of “harder” subjects became much easier). But it also improved the critical judgement and analysis competences of the students, potentiating the building of individual tools/strategies for coping with different situations, whether or not they were related to the use of txting. Implications for Media Literacy In terms of Literacy, two major benefits are already visible from this experience: first – knowing how to use the language, students can better understand the meaning of words/texts, which ensures a better comprehension of messages, the necessary basis for being media literate; second – analysing the specific characteristics of txting and thinking about the CMC provides them with the tools to make better use of these new technologies and promotes in students and teachers better abilities of identifying, accessing and analysing, as well as interpreting, evaluating and communicating/selecting competently the media (OFCOM, 2006: 1). Therefore, they will become media literate; so to say, people “able to exercise informed choices; understand the nature of content and services; […] able to take advantage of the full range of opportunities offered by new communications technologies; and […] better able to protect themselves and their families from harmful or offensive materials”. They will be engaged and competent citizens in a society already demanding that they be media literate “as a result of the media convergence” – that is, the merging of electronic media (mass communication) and digital media (multimedia communication), which occurs in the advanced stages of development of an information society. This media literacy includes a command of previous forms of literacy: reading and writing (from understanding to creative skills), as well as audiovisual, digital and new skills required in a climate of media convergence (Pérez-Tornero/Barcelona University, 2007: 8). And they all – teachers and students – now and in the future, will be able to carry on the message of media education proposed by UNESCO (1982, 1999; 2002), the Council of Europe and the European Commission. References Lévy, Pierre (s.d.). Cibercultura: Relatório para o Conselho da Europa no Quadro do Projecto “Novas Tecnologias: Cooperação Cultural e Comunicação”. Lisboa: Instituto Piaget [(1997). Cyberculture. Éditions Odile Jacob/ Éditions du Conseil de l’Europe]. ------------- (2002). As Inteligências Colectivas/Internet e Desenvolvimento Humano, August 28th. São Paulo: SESC, www.sescsp.com.br/sesc/hotsites/pierre_levy/interna.asp (15/07/05). MarcuschI, Luiz António (2002). Gêneros Textuais Emergentes no Contexto da Tecnologia Digital (Modified version of the text introduced in the 50th reunion of the GEL – Grupo de Estudos Linguísticos do Estado de São Paulo, USP. São Paulo, 23-25 de May 2002), Pernambuco: NELFE (Núcleo de Estudas Linguísticos da Fala e Escrita)/Depto. Letras/UFPE/ CNPq. ------------- and Xavier, Antônio Carlos. (2005). Hipertexto e Gêneros Digitais: Novas Formas de Construção de Sentido. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Lucerna, www.lucerna.com.br/downloads/8586930369.pdf (29/03/08). OFCOM (2006). OFCOM response to European Commission consultation on media literacy. OFCOM: London. www.ofcom.org.uk/advice/media_literacy/of_med_lit/OfcomPromotion/ecconsult/ecresponse.pdf (25/01/08). Pérez-Tornero, José Manuel (2007). Current Trends and Approaches to Media Literacy in Europe. http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/media_literacy/studies/index_en.htm (20/01/08). Reia-Baptista, Vitor (2005/2006). “New Environments of Media Exposure - Internet and Narrative Structures: From Media Education to Media Pedagogy and Media Literacy”, 293-304. In Carlsson, Ulla and von Feilitzen, Cecilia. In The Service of Young People? Studies and Reflections on Media in the Digital Age. Sweden: The International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media/Nordicom - Göteborg University. Santos, Else Martins (2003). O Chat e a sua Influência na Escrita do Adolescente – Dissertação para Obtenção do Grau de Mestre. Orientadora: Carla Viana Coscarelli. Belo Horizonte: Fac. de Letras da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Szabó, Zoltán Gendler (2004). “Noam Chomsky”. In Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers –1860-1960. Bristol: Ernest LePore (ed.). http://www.chomsky.info/bios/2004----.htm (18/02/08). UNESCO (1982). Challenge of Media Education (The Grunwald Document). International Symposium on Media Education. Grunwald, Federal Republic of Germany. www.medialit.org/reading_room/article133.html (12/02/08). UNESCO (1999). Recommendations. The Vienna Conference “Educating for the Media and the Digital Age”. http://mediamanual.at/en/pdf/recommendations.pdf (12/02/08). UNESCO (2002). Recommendations. Seville Conference “Youth Media Education”. Top Media Education’s First Steps in Nigeria [Media Education/Media Literacy/Awareness] by Dr. Lee Rother President of the Association for Media Education in Quebec Canada and Chido Onumah Coordinator of the Youth Media and Communication Initiative Abuja Nigeria New technologies are becoming more portable, less expensive and less complicated. Youth worldwide are not only listening and viewing media, they are also producing it. Youth worldwide are looking to new technologies as mediums of communication, information and leisure. It is through these new technologies and the growing interest in Media Education that educators are looking at ways to develop traditional and non-traditional print and non-print literacies for youth. And while new media and the infrastructures are lacking, developing and third world countries are increasingly taking notice of the potential of new media technologies and Media Education. A case in point is Nigeria. In March 2006, at the invitation of the Njideka Harry, founder of Youth for Technology Organization, and the Teens Resource Centre, a community cable program titled TEENSWORLD produced by Martins Akpan, Dr. Rother, president of the Association for Media Education in Quebec, spent three ground breaking weeks in Western Nigeria introducing Media Education to hundreds of primary and secondary students and their educators in numerous schools in Lagos and Owerri. Dr. Rother’s work would prove to be a precursor of things to come in Nigeria in the area of Media Education. The 1st Media Literacy Conference The Youth Media & Communication Initiative (YMCI) in Nigeria, British Council Nigeria and the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) – three organisations whose activities focus mainly on empowering children and youth and advancing the benefits of information and communication technologies – recently came together to hold the 1st Africa Media Literacy Conference with the theme “Media Literacy: A Tool for Youth Empowerment, Democratic Engagement & National Development”. The conference, designed to create an enabling environment for media literacy to flourish in Africa, was held at Ladi Kwali Hall, Abuja Sheraton Hotel and Towers in Abuja, Nigeria, from July 30 to 31, 2008. The occasion witnessed a great turnout of participants and was graced by top government officials. In a welcome address, Chido Onumah, Coordinator, Youth Media and Communication Initiative, stated that the goal of the conference was to help create the conditions that would promote sustainable media education in Africa, and promote democratic engagement for young people by providing them with tools and confidence that would enable them to be active citizens in a progressive and open society. He also assured that participants would learn practical ways to incorporate media literacy concepts, methods and materials into school, health, and community programmes, explore publications and other media literacy-related materials with key stakeholders. The conference, which drew facilitators from the United States, South Africa, United Kingdom and Nigeria, was declared open by Senator Ayaogu Eze, who expressed optimism that the conference will reshape the ethical map of our national life and pledged to develop a law that will focus on the youth through the National Assembly. Participants at the conference called for the sustenance of the event by organizing it annually. This was part of the main thrust of the communiqué released at the end of the event. The conference also called on African governments to integrate media literacy education into the school curriculum across the continent. It is through initiatives such as those described that new technologies and Media Education will find a foothold in Africa. As a follow up to the success of the 1st Africa Media Literacy Conference, the Youth Media & Communication Initiative plans to organise the 2nd Africa Media Literacy Conference by mid 2009. The emphasis will be on media literacy and new media technologies. Top Pilot Teacher Training Curricula for Media and Information Literacy [Media Education/Media Literacy/Awareness] The effectiveness of media as a tool for people’s participation in democratic societies depends on the receiver’s ability to process the information and use it in a critical manner. To be able to provide media and information literacy education in school programmes, teacher training in this education becomes a key element. The International Expert Group Meeting on Teacher Training Curricula for Media and Information Literacy was hosted by UNESCO in Paris in June 2008. The group is composed of experts representing regions across the globe, specializing in teacher training, curriculum development, media education and information literacy. The aim of the meeting was to catalyze processes to introduce media and information literacy into secondary school teacher training. In consulting the Expert Group, UNESCO aims to create a flexible, universal model syllabus for use in teacher training institutions that can be adapted to the needs and capacities of each country. The project’s objective is to develop curriculum enrichment material to introduce media and information literacy as an integral part of national teacher training in eight pilot countries. An assessment and synthesis of the curriculum enrichment experience will also be conducted within the frame of the project. A report referring to the discussions held at this first meeting is now available. The Expert Group identified core competencies teachers would need, and discussed relevant subject areas, syllabi and curriculum enrichment material necessary for teacher training as well as appropriate processes for the development, trial and introduction of such materials. A finalized document on teacher training curriculum enrichment will be elaborated on and scrutinized by the Expert Group in 2009. Source Teacher Training Curricula for Media and Information Literacy. Report of the International Expert Group Meeting, UNESCO House, Paris, 16-18 June, 2008. Read more Top New Digital Media Literacy Resource in Australia [Media Education/Media Literacy/Awareness] A new online resource presenting information, research and activities in the field of digital media literacy has been released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA. The ACMA’s new resource is particularly interested in the increasing role of digital media literacy as a broadened concept from the traditional focus in media literacy on print and audiovisual media. The importance of digital media literacy accompanies the developments in digital technology that have had a significant effect on the way individuals interact with communications and media services, on doing business, and in access services as well as entertainment. Basic digital skills are also required for effective participation in the digital economy and Australian society. Confidence, knowledge and understanding will be needed in all age groups to participate in a safe, secure and informed manner, according to the ACMA. The resource is a complement to the ACMA’s consumer protection and awareness and education programs, and informs about their activities in promoting media literacy. Organizations working to enhance the understanding of, or in other ways promoting, media literacy in Australia are invited to share their information through this online resource. Source www.acma.gov.au/medialiteracy Top Safety Tips to Parents Regarding Virtual Worlds [Media Education/Media Literacy/Awareness] The EU Agency ENISA, the European Network and Information Security Network Agency, launched a report in September 2008 on virtual worlds. The report offers 25 safety tips for parents on how to guide their child in behaving safely in online virtual worlds. Virtual world sites (e.g. Club Penguin, Barbie Girl, Webkinz, Neopets) are very popular among young children (7 years old and younger) and tweens (8-12 years old) for playing online games and making new friends. For many children, virtual worlds are their earliest online experiences and they are often more comfortable in this environment than their parents are. Many parents are concerned about how their children use and behave in virtual worlds and how they can be protected from online predators. Parental involvement, engagement and awareness concerning their children’s online use are of great importance. The report aims at empowering parents of young children by providing clear and comprehensive tools showing how to behave safely and responsibly as well as giving tips regarding computer security. The report, available online, explains what virtual worlds are and how they appeal to the user, and shows several examples. Note ENISA is a centre of excellence for the European Member States and European institutions in network and information security, giving advice and recommendations and acting as a switchboard of information for good practices. Also, the agency facilitates contacts between the European institutions, Member States and private business and industry actors. Source www.enisa.europa.eu Top Measures and Regulations Instituto Alana’s Child and Commercialism Project: A Brazilian Experience [Measures and Regulations] by Isabella Henriques General Manager Criança e Consumo (The Child and Commercialism Project) Instituto Alana São Paulo, Brazil Instituto Alana’s Child and Commercialism Project (www.criancaeconsumo.org.br) was created in 2006. The Project acts to raise critical awareness among Brazilians of consumption practices of products and services by children and adolescents. The Project comprises approximately ten professionals from various areas such as advertising agents, educators, psychologists, lawyers, and news people. The Project’s pioneer actions in the pursuit of one of our goals – i.e., the expressed legal banning of any and all marketing communication directed at children in Brazil – include sparking off the debate on issues such as consumerism, premature eroticism, the escalating incidence of child obesity, violence among the young, immoderate materialism, disruptive social behaviour, and other pinpointing ways to curtail negative impact derived from massive investment in child and youth marketing. To this end, we work in three areas through an interdisciplinary approach: (i) Legal and Institutional Relations; (ii) Education and Research, and (iii) Communication and Events. Legal and Institutional Relations We receive and analyze complaints of abuse by companies from different industries in their marketing communication practices directed at children and adolescents. We issue indictments and notifications and provide legal representation in cases against announcers, advertising agencies, media and regulatory agencies within the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary powers. We support bills that debate the urgency of regulating advertising in this country, and keep close institutional relationships with opinion-makers and other entities through our presence at lectures, conferences and other events. Education and Research This area is responsible for assembling and managing a science and culture reference centre on commercialism, as well as producing and distributing pedagogical material to support parents, educators, and researchers. Dissertations, theses, and scientific articles on the Project focus on issues that are catalogued and made available. Scholarships are granted to graduate students, who are followed up while producing their end of course papers. The area organizes and presents lectures, forums, and conferences to promote debate on the topic. Communication and Events This area coordinates the production of audiovisual awareness campaigns and documentaries on issues related to the binomial childhood and commercialism. Events are then created and produced. This nucleus keeps daily news clippings, suggests agendas to the press, and broadcasts the Project’s activities. It also centralizes all media communication actions, producing newsletters and the Project’s website content. Opposing Marketing to Children In order to work on the commercialism issues, we come very close to the debate on advertising directed at children and the young. We oppose each and every child marketing communication. Our interpretation of Brazilian Law, though far from being unanimous, pleads that by now all advertising directed at children should have been banned. Unfortunately, after all our efforts, children, who in Brazil comprise individuals up to 12 years of age, are still massively bombarded with commercial messages. In 2008 we worked with the Legislative branch and made quite an achievement. We passed a Bill that includes an expressed statement that, regardless of interpretation, supports the idea of a ban on any advertising or child marketing communication. We are aware that this is only a partial victory but, nevertheless, this first approval sparked off considerable national debate, which from our perspective is an achievement, as it succeeded in bringing society to discuss issues they had never paid due attention to before. Today, we are the only Brazilian organization working on these particular issues. In spite its infancy, the Child and Commercialism Project bears high representativeness and leads all the discussions on the boundaries of advertising in the country. Our work is acknowledged, and we are considered a reference in the study of child and adolescent consumerism. The Second International Child and Commercialism Forum In September 2008, Instituto Alana held The Second International Child and Commercialism Forum, which is intended to take place every two years (www.forumcec.org.br). The forum saw three days of vigorous debate. On the first day, the documentary ‘Criança, a alma do negócio’ (Children, the Core of Business) – in which child marketing bombardment and harassment are denounced – was viewed and followed by a debate with the film’s director and producer. On the second day, the panel debate was on ‘Educação, Consumo e Infância’ (Education, Consumerism and Childhood), in which awareness of the values of a consumerist society and the invasion of marketing into educational spaces was raised. On the forum’s last day, the panel debate was on ‘Sociedade de Consumo’ (Consumerist Society), revealing the experts’ concern with the ruling of market interests regarding relevance of public issues in the country. We were also informed about the US and Swedish experiences with advertising. Excessive marketing to children in combination with the exploding media technology, as is the case in the US, hampers children’s basic and extremely important own play and creativity. In Sweden, the marketing law and especially its ban on TV advertising directed at children have been democratically agreed upon. Even if the TV situation in Sweden also means foreign channels broadcasting in Swedish (and complying with foreign laws), children in Sweden still prefer their own public TV programs. Top Internet Governance Forum 2008 [Measures and Regulations] The third meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was held in Hyderabad, India, 3-6 December 2008. The event assembled close to 1300 participants from 94 countries and had the overarching theme “Internet for All”. Each day of the Forum had its own theme: “Reaching the Next Billion” stressed that the Internet is not only about business but also about empowerment, which is dependent on access; “Promoting Cyber-Security and Trust”, during which the need for multi-stakeholder collaboration, cooperation and coordination were discussed and the need to intensify efforts was emphasized. The UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child was added to the list of important agreements related to the topic of security, privacy and openness. When dealing with the protection of children on the Internet, five categories of risk were mentioned: content, contact, addiction, commerce and privacy. The theme of the third day was “Managing Critical Internet Resources”, and the theme of the fourth day was “Emerging Issues”. The themes were dealt with through panel discussions followed by open dialogue sessions in the afternoon. Child and youth issues were also covered at several workshops and best practice forums. Among these issues were “Youth and Internet Governance: Challenges for the Future” and how to apply international law to protect children’s interests. Transcripts of the main sessions as well as video and audio records of all workshops and other meetings will be available on the IGF web site. The purpose of the Internet Governance Forum is to support the United Nations Secretary-General in carrying out the mandate from the World Summit on the Information Society (Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005) with regard to convening a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue. The Forum and the site provide an interactive, collaborative space where all stakeholders can air their views and exchange ideas. The 2009 IGF meeting will be held 15-18 November in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Source www.intgovforum.org/cms/, see Chairman’s summary Top Regulation on Advertising Aimed at Children in Europe in New Publication [Measures and Regulations] Advertising potentially viewed by children in Europe is principally governed by the European Convention on Transfrontier Television (a Council of Europe legal instrument) and by the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). Other international legal texts, most of them guidelines or codes of conduct, complement the overarching European rules. In a recent publication by the European Audiovisual Observatory (1), the legal instruments regarding advertising aimed at children provided for by European institutions as well as the laws of 26 European countries are presented. Prior to this publication, a similar compilation had been done in 2000; since then the audiovisual landscape has changed significantly. New audiovisual media services, characterized by tailor-made, on-demand and interactive content, have also led to new advertising techniques and fiercer competition. This development is also behind the AVMS directive, which is poised to replace the “Television without Frontiers” directive of 1997. The publication is written in English, French and German, and provides an in-depth overview of rules aimed at protecting children from negative effects of commercial communications, i.e. advertising and marketing, through audiovisual media services in 26 European countries. Note 1. The mission of the European public service organization European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) is to foster transparency in the European audiovisual sector and provide information services to policymakers and audiovisual professionals. Source Regulation on Advertising Aimed at Children in Europe. Edited and published by the European Audiovisual Observatory, www.obs.coe.int Top Parents Misled by Food Marketing [Measures and Regulations] A British report released in December 2008 presents ways that food companies are playing on parents’ concerns to actively market children’s food that is high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS). Parents are being overloaded with messages about what is best for their children’s diet and hindered from making informed choices, the report says. The research, which was conducted by the Food Commission, U.K., on behalf of the British Heart Foundation, assesses marketing of HFSS foods to parents across a range of broadcast and non-broadcast media, such as company websites and product packaging during the period 14 August – 27 September 2008, focusing particularly on breakfast and lunchtime foods. During 2007-2008, U.K. introduced stricter rules for advertising HFSS products (among other things that such advertisements must not be shown during or in conjunction with TV programmes produced for children). The report finds that food companies therefore are increasingly targeting parents in their efforts to retain and increase their share of the food market. By using subtle marketing techniques and health claims that play on parents’ fears and aspirations, they are reducing parents’ ability to make the choices they need to safeguard the health and well-being of their children. Health, nutrition and quality claims were found in all the media examined. The most common nutrition claims included ‘free from artificial colours and flavours’ and ‘good source of calcium’. Health claims included ‘good for teeth and bones’ and references to ‘energy’. And quality claims included ‘good,’ ‘goodness’ and ‘natural.’ While some of these statements may be factually correct, the important point is that they deliberately present a partial picture. For example, a product may indeed be free from artificial flavours but this does not mean it is healthy or would not be subject to regulation in line with the nutrient profiling model. According to the report, the current regulation on junk food marketing does not go far enough in protecting children from unhealthy foods. “Action is urgently needed to meet the twin aims of empowering parents to make genuinely healthy choices for their children and creating a consistent regulatory environment that offers appropriate safeguards for children.” (p. 31) A ban on all junk food advertising on television before 9 pm would mean that parents could be confident that any products they see advertised before 9 pm are suitable for a child’s healthy diet, is one of several recommendations in the report. Source How Parents Are Being Misled. A campaign report on children’s food marketing. London, The British Heart Foundation, 2008. Available on www.bhf.org.uk Top Media Influences Female Image on Chilean Television Seen by Eight to Ten-Year-Old Girls [Media Influences] Media, particularly the vastly popular medium of television, act as a means of socialization through which individuals assimilate values and stereotypes, and influence how viewers perceive themselves or their ideal. On behalf of the Chilean National Television Council, Psychologists Maria Dolores Souza and Claudia Alarcón conducted a qualitative study through five focus groups of eight to ten-year-old girls on the female image on Chilean television. Their report has now been published on the Clearinghouse web site: “The gender order is learned through daily experience during childhood. This undoubtedly determines children’s expectations, projections and images with regard to the role they will play in society in their adult life. Therefore, investigating the possible causes and effects of these biases, which will be transmitted in different cultural contexts, is paramount to advancing towards a culture of equality and equity.” Read more Perceptions of Female Image on TV: 8-10 year old girls, by Maria Dolores Souza and Claudia Alarcón. Consejo Nacional de Television, Chile, 2008 Top Study on Violent Video Game Play and Aggression in the US and Japan [Media Influences] Violent video game play increases physically aggressive behaviour, according to a recent study presented in Pediatrics (Vol. 122, No. 5, November 2008). Researchers from both the US and Japan, where three independent samples of youths (9-18 years old) have been studied, found that habitual violent video game play early in the school year predicted aggression later in the school year. These results were seen even after controlling for gender and previous aggressiveness. The researchers also found the same effect in two very different cultures (the US is considered a more violent and individualistic culture compared to the more non-violent, collectivistic culture of Japan). This result contradicts a popular alternative hypothesis that only highly aggressive children (by nature, culture or other socialization factors) will become more aggressive if repeatedly exposed to violent video games. The longitudinal effect was more evident in younger children, and the researchers suggest reducing all youth’s exposure to this risk factor. Note Participants’ video game habits and tendencies toward physically aggressive behaviour were assessed at two points in time, separated by three to six months. In Japan, one sample consisted of 181 junior high students (12-15 years old) and a second sample of 1050 students (13-18 years old). The US sample consisted of 364 third to fifth graders (9-12 years old). Source "Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and in the United States" by Craig A. Anderson, Akira Sakamoto, Douglas A. Gentile, Nobuko Ihori, Akiko Shibuya, Shintaro Yukawa, Mayumi Naito and Kumiko Kobayashi, Pediatrics (Vol. 122, No. 5, November 2008). Top No Baby Television in France [Media Influences] On the 14th of August, 2008, the French regulatory body Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA; Superior Audiovisual Council) announced on its website the decision – made in cooperation with the Health Minister and based on a law from 1986, as well as on scientific evidence – that French channels must not transmit TV programmes to children under three years of age. The Council and Health Minister say, among other things, that television viewing hurts the development of children under 3 years of age and poses a certain number of risks, such as encouraging passivity, slow language acquisition, over-excitedness, troubles with sleep and concentration, as well as dependence on screens. Cable and satellite operators who air foreign channels with programming for babies, including channels aimed specifically at toddlers, must broadcast warnings, saying that watching television can slow the development of children under 3. The decision was also published in Journal officiel de la République française and came into force on the 1st of November 2008. For further information: Please click Top Early Television Viewing Is Related to Delayed Language Development – A Thailand Study [Media Influences] Two researchers in Bangkok, Thailand, conducted a study, showing that television viewing is related to language development. The researchers studied 56 small children with language delay (mean age 2.11 years) and compared them to 110 children with ‘normal’ language development (mean age 2.23 years). Besides language delay, television viewing and child/parental characteristics were studied. The study shows that children who had language delay usually started watching television earlier, on average at 7.22 months of age compared to 11.92 months among children with ‘normal’ language development. The younger children also spent more time watching television than children with no language delay (3.05 h/day vs. 1.85 h/day). Children who started watching television at <12 months of age and watched television >2 h/day were approximately six times more likely to have language delays. The conclusion of the study is that there is a relationship between early onset and high frequency of TV viewing and language delay. Source Chonchaiya Weerasak & Pruksananonda Chandhita, at Division of Growth and Development, Department of Pediatrics, King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand (2008) “Television Viewing Associates with Delayed Language Development”, Acta Paediatrica, Vol. 97 (2008), pp. 977-982 Top Media and Child and Adolescent Health [Media Influences] On December 2, 2008, Common Sense Media, U.S.A., published a study performed by researchers from the Yale University School of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, and California Pacific Medical Center, all in the U.S., about the impact of media on children’s health. Common Sense Media is a U.S. nonpartisan, non-profit organization dedicated to improving the impact of media and entertainment on kids and families. The study systematically reviewed 173 quantitative cross-sectional and longitudinal studies on the relationship between media and seven health outcomes: (1) obesity, (2) tobacco use, (3) drug use, (4) alcohol use, (5) low academic achievement, (6) sexual behavior, and (7) attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADHD). The result was that 80 percent of the studies found greater media (or media content) exposure associated with negative health outcomes for children and adolescents. The evidence was strongest for links between media exposure and both tobacco use and obesity; it was moderate for sexual behaviour, poor educational performance, alcohol use, and drug use; and weakest for ADHD. Although there is substantial variability in methodological rigor across studies, there was no health outcome, according to the study, for which increased media exposure is associated with a positive health outcome. For more information on Common Sense Media, please go to: www.commonsensemedia.org To access the full report, please click Top