EU Kids Online seeks to enhance knowledge of European children’s use, risk and safety online
New report
Developing a framework for researching children’s online isks and opportunities in Europe.
EU Kids Online report by Sonia Livingstone, Giovanna Mascheroni and Elisabeth Staksrud, November 2015. Available at http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/64470/
In this report, we discuss how the original EU Kids Online analytical model was constructed. We review key findings produced from qualitative and quantitative research by EU Kids Online before discussing the rationale for a revised model that reflects the findings better and raises new questions for research.
We conclude that future research should examine the following 12 research priorities:
- Factors relating to children’s identity and resources, beyond demographic variables.
- New modes of access to the internet, as this becomes more mobile, personalised, pervasive.
- A multidimensional analysis of digital skills and literacies and their significance for well-being.
- A rethinking of the ‘ladder of opportunities’ to identify whether and when children undertake more ambitious creative or civic online activities.
- New kinds of online risks including risks to their personal data, privacy issues and online reputation management.
- The interplay between children’s digital practices and proprietary policies and mechanisms.
- Children’s desire to experiment and transgress boundaries, to grasp children’s agency online.
- Extending the analysis of how parents mediate their children’s internet use to the potential importance of other socialising agents.
- Extending research on 9-to 16-year olds to much younger children’s use of digital media.
- Research on sociotechnological innovations in smart/wearable/ubiquitous everyday devices.
- The implications of digital engagement as it may reconfigure (undermine or enhance, alter or diversify) children’s wellbeing in the long term.
- Relate the research agenda on children’s online access, risks and opportunities to the broader agenda of children’s rights – to provision, participation and protection – in the digital age.
New project
Global Kids Online aims to advance understanding of whether and how the internet amplifies the risks of harm to children and how to optimize digital opportunities that contribute to children’s well-being. It will do this by stimulating and guiding rigorous multi-method investigations of how children around the globe use new digital, networked and mobile technologies. Global Kids Online is an international research project by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UNICEF Office of Research and the EU Kids Online network.
>>www.globalkidsonline.net
Multi-stakeholder Conference
Several members of the EU Kids Online network have organised and contributed to the conference “ Net Children 2020 – Growing up with Media” in Berlin on April 16/17, 2015. The conference was funded by the German Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and held in cooperation with the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research. The results of this highly interactive conference have been summarised in a “ Roadmap Net Children 2020” that draws attention to new challenges in the field of media education and the protection of minors against negative media experiences and provides an agenda for policies, research, and NGOs in Europe in order to support children‘s development in these different roles. Several upcoming events within the next months will refer to this roadmap, develop it further and assess the progress that has been made in improving children‘s conditions for growing up with media.
Recently released
One in Three: Internet Governance and Children’s Rights: GCIG Paper No. 22, Global Commission on Internet Governance Paper Series, Sonia Livingstone, John Carr and Jasmina Byrne, November 2015. Available at https://www.cigionline.org/publications/one-three-internet-governance-and-childrens-rights
>> Blog post here
Sexual rights and sexual risks among youth online: A review of existing knowledge regarding children and young people’s developing sexuality in relation to new media environments. A report commissioned by eNACSO, the European NGO Alliance for Child Safety Online, by Sonia Livingstone and Jessica Mason, September 2015.
Available at http://www.enacso.eu/images/eNACSO_Review_on_Sexual_rights_and_sexual_risks_among_online_youth_DEF.pdf
>> Blog post here
EU Kids Online: findings, methods, recommendations
Our overarching report is interactive – do explore it at www.eukidsonline.net
With links to all our updated findings and reports from 2011-2014 – it is a comprehensive resource for all our work. This includes our YouTube playlist (where you can hear from our researchers in multiple languages).
For researchers and research users, there’s also our European Evidence Database of 1500+ studies, and our quantitative and qualitative research toolkit (with everything needed for those planning new research).
Stay in touch
EU Kids Online is now coordinated by Uwe Hasebrink and Claudia Lampert at the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research, Hamburg.
Please stay in touch for updates.
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