Children and Media - A Global Concern

In June 2003 in Bangkok, Thailand, "Child Rights and the Media: Asia Regional Workshop" was held as part of the Campaign against Sexual Exploitation of Children in Tourism (SECT), supported by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Commission. This paper was presented by Mike Jempson, Director of the PressWise Trust and IFJ media and child rights consultant, as a contribution to that workshop. (Click here to access event details).

Jempson begins by describing stereotypes related to the representation of children in all forms of media. People tend to assume that children are either portrayed as powerless victims of abuse, conflict, crime and poverty; or that children seen as "charming and entertaining accessories to the adult world". The overriding fear seems to be that the innocence and imagination of children are being undermined by television, especially by violence, commercialism and material with sexual content. However, he points out that when children themselves - anywhere around the world - have been asked about their views on the way they are portrayed in mass media, they invariably object to this stereotyping, and want to know why the media "so rarely treats them seriously as intelligent individuals who are quite capable of contributing to debate". Jempson then argues that Western media actually does take kids seriously and is interested in building their media literacy - after all, they attract advertisers who are interested in inspiring kids to demand that their parents spend money on new products.

To support that point, Jempson describes several initiatives that signify to him that the media is working to incorporate children in programme planning. For example, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has produced a pack with 30 ideas for attracting new young readers, based on experiments conducted throughout the world. WAN's Newspapers in Education (NIE) project will focus on the Balkans and Asia with the production of training kits for teachers in local languages. The idea is to use publications as a way of improving literacy, general knowledge, analytical skills, and an appreciation the value of freedom of expression, tolerance, and democratic values. To cite another example, in 2002 MTV Networks Asia teamed up with UNICEF and a leading jeans manufacturer to run the Speak Your Mind Campaign, which was designed to encourage children from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Korea, Taiwan, China and Japan to talk about what was on their mind in honour of Youth Day. Jempson asserts that "Young people themselves do not regard these opportunities to share their views as patronizing, perhaps because there are so few openings for them to speak and be listened to in more conventional mainstream media." In contrast, Jempson says that journalists (like some in the UK) "are sceptical about the value of paying so much attention to the needs (and rights) of children."

Some media initiatives, like ANDI's The Children's News Agency indicate real concern, in Jempson's eyes, for the portrayal of children's issue in the media. This project was launched by journalists concerned about the plight of street children. At first they concentrated on establishing school facilities; then they began to monitor the media and noticed that the vast majority of coverage about children was negative. They published 'league tables' to show which publishers were the worst offenders, and encouraged a more positive approach. Gradually the pattern of coverage changed. In this context, Jempson provides several examples of publications and declarations that are designed to establish best practices for media coverage of children's issues.

Click here to access the full report online (as a Word document).