Sonia Livingstone (return to blog) Blog

During Spring 2010, over 230 stakeholders in the field of child online safety, from over 20 countries, took part in the EU Kids Online Stakeholder Consultation process. The purpose was to identify the research interests, needs and hypotheses among stakeholders in this field.

Many stakeholders noted children’s limited internet literacy, both in terms of what they could achieve functionally and in terms of their ability to manage online privacy, assess the reliability of information, identify contents suitable for their age, sand deal with inappropriate contents. Similar concerns apply to parents and teachers, pointing to a consensus around the need for media education, both for children and parents, at homes and schools, around the social aspects of safety online. However, these efforts should not dramatise the risks and should promote the benefits of the internet as well.

The discussion of programmes to promote media literacy is taking place in many countries, but is at different stages of development. In Belgium it is led by the government in relation to the school curriculum, addressed to children, educators, and supporting organizations. In Finland the discussion is of the need for media education in homes, schools and day care. In Germany there has been a clear identification of the need for improvement in this field, involving delegation and the organisation of responsibilities for furthering media literacy. In Poland media education has been made obligatory in school (also true in Estonia and the Netherlands). But media literacy programmes appear to be absent in some other countries (e.g. Portugal, Hungary). Several countries see the need to educate children and parents, as well as teachers (e.g. Ireland, the UK).

Asked what stakeholders expect the forthcoming pan European survey of children will find, most thought that the most common risk would be cyberbullying (e.g. Ireland), believing it extends the scope of bullying offline (Estonia). Sexual risks are probably overestimated, but are also the most dangerous ones. Pornographic contents, unwanted contacts/ grooming (as noted in Italy, Poland) will probably prove to be common, and hate contents, more rare (noted in Estonia). They expect to encounter evidence of commercial risks, identity theft and the misuse of personal information. They are anxious to really know about the risks related to SNS, in relation to content, contact and conduct.

You can read the full report here: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/EUKidsOnline/EUKidsII/StakeholderForumReport.doc

To be sure to hear about the forthcoming survey results from EU Kids Online, sign up to our mailing list at www.eukidsonline.net.

Sonia Livingstone, Director, EU Kids Online project.