In their own words: what bothers children online?

In an open-ended survey question to European 9- to 16-year-olds, some 10,000 children reported a range of risks that concern them on the internet. Pornography (named by 22% of children who mentioned risks), conduct risk such as cyber-bullying (19%) and violent content (18%) were at the top of children’s concerns. The priority given to violent content is noteworthy insofar as this receives less attention than sexual content or bullying in awareness-raising initiatives. Many children express shock and disgust on witnessing violent, aggressive or gory online content, especially that which graphically depicts realistic violence against vulnerable victims, including from the news. Video-sharing websites such as YouTube were primary sources of violent and pornographic content. The findings discussed in relation to children’s fear responses to screen media and the implications for the public policy agenda on internet safety are identified

Children’s rights online: challenges, dilemmas and emerging directions

In debates over internet governance, the interests of children figure unevenly, and only partial progress has been made in supporting children’s rights online globally. This chapter examines how the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is helpful in mapping children’s rights to provision, protection and participation as they apply online as well as offline. However, challenges remain. First, opportunities and risks are positively linked, policy approaches are needed to resolve the potential conflict between protection on the one hand, and provision and participation on the other. Second, while parents may be relied on to some degree to balance their child’s rights and needs, the evidence suggests that a minority of parents are ill-equipped to manage this. Third, resolution is needed regarding the responsibility for implementing digital rights, since many governments prefer self-regulation in relation to internet governance. The chapter concludes by calling for a global governance body charged with ensuring the delivery of children’s rights

Does TV advertising make children fat? : what the evidence tells us

There is growing public concern over rising levels of obesity among children, in the UK and many other countries in the developed world, as World Health Organisation reports have warned (as illustrated by 2003). The Royal College of Physicians reports that obesity has doubled among two to four year olds between 1989 and 1998, and trebled among six to fifteen year olds between 1990 and 2002. Similarly, in the USA, obesity among six to nineteen year olds has trebled over the past four decades, to 16 per cent in 1999-2002, while the incidence of type 2 diabetes has doubled in the past decade, with notable increases also in the risk of heart disease, stroke, circulatory problems, some cancers, osteoporosis and blindness. The evidence of rising obesity, it seems, is beyond question. The explanation is less clear. The USA’s Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Committee on Food Marketing and the Diets of Children and Youth observed in their major report to Congress (2005), children’s diets “result from the interplay of many factors… all of which, apart from genetic predispositions, have undergone significant transformations over the past three decades”. In other words, researchers are generally agreed that multiple factors account for childhood obesity, including individual, social, environmental and cultural factors (Story, Neumark-Sztainer, & French, 2002). These factors are, for the most part, subject to change, and many of them interact with each other in complex ways not yet well understood. One consequence is that policy decisions regarding intervention are highly contested, for multiple stakeholders, with competing interests, are involved. It is in this context that this essay focuses on just one putative explanation for childhood obesity, namely food promotion, particularly television advertising of foods high in fact, salt or sugar. It asks one key question: is the evidence base linking advertising to children’s health sufficient to guide policy decisions