(searching for lost innocence, or my take on the un convention on the rights of the child and the media)
This is the text of a talk I gave a long time ago, in the closing years of the 20th Century. Re-reading it as I sorted through a lifetime of papers, I thought it might be worth sharing, so here it is. It was written in a time before ‘media’ expanded to include online content accessed through mobile phones, digital media in general and the whole media world in which today’s children are comfortable. See whether you think that what follows is still relevant or whether we have moved into an era where children are no longer at risk of media manipulation but where, indeed, they are in control of content. In places, the arguments I set out some 25 years ago might seem naïve now, and you may feel that the media landscape today is such that we have lost all hope of achieving the ‘healthy relationship’ I talk about here. Today children often create their own content using their smartphones; they access media through digital devices outside traditional protective environments; regulation is neutralised by the fact that so much media content originates in a third country or sometimes even in a place that cannot be identified. There’s no doubt that we are living in more complex times in relation to the media, but it is interesting to consider the arguments set out 25 years ago and ask whether they can still be applied. After all, children are still children.
I remember the day my father brought home our first television set. He put it on a table in the corner and we sat and admired it. Then we turned it on. The picture was small and – unlike the world outside – black and white. I could not keep my eyes from it. It brought to me elegant people with wonderful singing voices, shows and concerts, debates and many other pleasures I had never before experienced in a poor part of a big industrial city. When, some weeks later, I fell ill and spent several months in bed, the little box in the corner kept me company through the day, entertained me with puppet shows and sing-along songs, gave me things to do and stories to act out with the programme presenters whose names I came to know. In short, television became my friend and, in those difficult days when I felt alone and sometimes abandoned because my parents both had to work, I grew to love it.
I have never stopped loving television. As an adult, I find it still enthrals me, entertains, keeps me company, cheers me up when I am down and brings to me images and experiences I could never hope to see without it.
But I often stop and wonder whether, as television grew up with me, it didn’t abandon the children who also needed a friend in the corner. So often now, as I watch TV and think, too, about the many other forms of media which are part of our lives, I think they have all the characteristics of adults and few of the attributes of children. Today the media – television and radio, newspapers, advertising, films, online content, posters, theatre – all those wonderful sources of images, ideas and facts – are increasingly sophisticated, hi-tech and, sadly, manipulative. Their motivation is undoubtedly commercial above all else. Television and the media in general have lost their innocence.
The commercial motive and the grown-up nature of the media are evident both in programming for children and in the way children in general are represented. In many ways, the relationship between the media and children, from the media point of view rather than the children’s, is not unlike the relationship between most grown-ups and children. We are a little frightened of them, because we can see that they are different to how we were in the long-ago days when we were children. We remember being children ourselves but in truth we don’t really remember what being a child is like because our memories are coloured by the years in between, when we grew, developed and changed. As a result, we have to find some way of behaving towards children, including them in our lives, knowing how to react to them. Inevitably, we have chosen the easy way out and told ourselves that, since one day children become adults, we can cope with our ignorance of them by treating them as “young adults” and ascribing to them the characteristics of adults but in an embryonic stage, as if they are only partly formed.
In many ways, I would argue, the typical adult reaction to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child follows this same line of reasoning. The Convention says that children have rights which must be respected, that they have views which they have a right to express and that should be given due weight (Article 12), that they have a right to freedom of expression (Article 13), freedom of thought (Article 14), association (Article 15), privacy (Article 16), information (Article 17) and, I would argue, as host of other rights which once upon a time society believed belonged exclusively to adults. Many adults have reacted to the Convention’s promotion of these rights, from the first days in 1989 when they heard about it, by believing that the Convention in some way hands to children the rights of adults and consequently absolves adults from their responsibilities towards children. In other words, children are no longer children but adults who haven’t yet grown up.
This is extremely important when we consider the relationship between the media and children. The media are owned, controlled, managed and largely produced by adults. From initial planning stages to end product, it is grown-ups who are in charge, and the end product suggests that by and large these grown-ups cater to the needs of children by doing exactly what adults do: they presume that, since they were once children themselves, they have some left-over knowledge of what children want and that, in any case, since children are only embryonic adults, a “real” adult is fully equipped to decide what children think. It’s as if adults look at children and think to themselves, “I was a child once and you are going to be an adult, so we must be near enough the same”. The “near enough” allows the adult to add, “however, this is my television station, my radio programme, my advertising campaign, my social media site, not yours, because I’m a real adult. So I get to decide.”
I think that, before we consider how the media can compensate for their lost innocence and once again become children’s best friend, we need to agree some ground rules:
- Children are children, not young adults;
- Adults cannot think like children, any more than children can think like adults;
- Both children and adults have relevant opinions and experiences, and we have everything to gain by taking both into account.
There are some other essential considerations: It is in the media’s interest to be friendly to children. Although the commercial imperative might mean that they target advertising and consequently much programming at adults, the influence children and especially “young adults” exert on adults in the choice of purchases of goods and services should not be underestimated. Children themselves are also increasingly significant consumers. A 1991 report on advertising markets in Germany, for example, estimated that the pocket money of children aged 7 to 15 was 11 billion Deutsche Marks (approximately US$6.5 billion) that year. The media need to be much more competitive in a growing multi-billion dollar market, so it is a good move to be building loyalty among future consumers.
Moreover, the media have some catching up to do in the good name stakes. It is a sad fact that journalists, whenever they meet to discuss their profession with outsiders, are invariably on the defensive and complain about the “bad name” they have, the “poor reputation” the media have, the irresponsible attitudes of other media professionals (it’s always someone else) that tarnish the industry. Extending a hand of compromise in the debate about the relationship between the media and children would be good public relations move, a suggestion offered not in a cynical vein but in light of the pressing commercial realities facing all media and the imperative to survive.
Programmes made for children
Children love the media. They are potentially more comfortable with it than adults – just ask any adults who programmes recordings on their television, who spends most time in front of the computer screen playing games. And who is most often captivated by someone on the smart phone. Children more than anyone else seem to truly appreciate the potential of the media to build fantasy worlds, push the limits of visual imagery, integrate words, music, animation, colour. To exclude them as a source of ideas, comment and feedback is to miss out on an enormous font of creative energy.
That’s not to say that adult media professionals need to hand over decision-making, far from it. A consultation process, though, that gives children the chance to have their say in product aimed at them, the content of such product and the approach taken in its production, would enable adults and children to learn together not only what is desirable from the children’s point of view but also what is highly saleable for the media professional. There is always concern that involving children in the planning and making of media product aimed at them might become “token”, that half a dozen children might be summarily asked for their opinion and that adult media makers might then go off and smugly do what they were going to do anyway, satisfied that “children have participated”. The secret is not so much child participation – the phrase usually coined when this issue is being discussed – but integration of children into the production process in such a way that both adults and children feel they have collaborated. In my experience, there is nothing more shameful than involving children, raising their expectations and then moving ahead taking no account of their contribution. Such integration needs to happen at all stages of the production process. Children’s views could be sought both formally and informally when product ideas are first being put together, and older children could be brought formally into the planning process through educational establishments, clubs, young people’s magazines and the like. They can be part of the production process at all stages and, importantly, can give feedback on the product and contribute to its refinement, reproduction or trashing.
I once took part in such a process when I was about 15 years old. A local theatre organized a young person’s theatre club and we met every Saturday to watch a performance of the play that was currently on the bill at the theatre, discuss with the actors and production staff our reactions to the play, give our feedback on what we would like to see in coming seasons (much more Shakespeare than you would expect of teenagers!) and then write, act and produce plays of our own with the help of the professional staff. Two important things happened as a result of my membership of that young people’s theatre club. The first is that I became a lifelong theatre-goer, finding pleasure in the theatre that I have carried into adult life. The second is that the local theatre thrived. In fact, in a city that has gone through several economic downturns and has seen the closing of theatres, cinemas and other entertainment centres, this local theatre is still open and, indeed, its reputation has grown, partly on the back of the innovations it has risked and the fact that it combines so successfully the classic and the different. It still runs a young people’s theatre club on Saturdays.
While children are being integrated into the process of producing the media materials aimed at them, it is important to bear in mind too that they should figure in the product. Children need role models not only among adults they come into contact with but among their peers. The message that media producers who work with young children give to their young consumers is that children matter. This is a vital message and is no better conveyed than in the example of a young person fronting the TV programme, appearing in print, or narrating online content. This secondary level of media message is important not only in children’s programmes but also in programmes made about children and intended both for children and for adults.
Programmes about children
Think of a television programme you have seen in which children are depicted. Now describe the children. Precocious, obnoxious, rebellious, criminal… there is no doubt that most of the children who appear on our screens, in print advertising and online content, in songs and films, are often despicable and mean or at least damaged. If they are not positively evil, they are unbearably perfect. Innocent, naive, cuddly… how many real children do you know, in fact, who have anything in common at all with the children you see featured in the media? It is true that many of the people featured in the media, adult and children alike, are as much caricatures as they are characters. It is also probably true that older children at least are as able as adults to differentiate between the fantasy world of the media and real life. This task, though, is growing ever more difficult not only because the media are becoming more pervasive in our lives but also because children are increasingly growing up without the guidance they need as they learn to differentiate fact and fiction.
In a world where more children live in single parent homes or where both parents work, children increasingly watch television, read, sit at the computer or phone alone or with friends of their own age. Research shows that few parents now share media with their children and even fewer discuss the media with the child afterwards when they have not shared the experience. As a result, it has been argued, children – especially young children – are finding it more difficult to draw the line between fantasy and reality. In a debate held at the United Nations in Geneva in October 1996, a group of young people explained that they believed they were quite able to distinguish between fantasy and reality in, for example, a programme shown on television and the commercials which pepper it, but that they observed that their younger siblings were not able to do this and they consequently felt a responsibility towards their brothers and sisters either to stop them watching a movie in the absence of parents or to explain to them that “real life is not like that”. This group of young people was from an international school in Switzerland and might be considered to come from a fairly privileged home environment. How many less advantaged children watch movies on television, YouTube or their digital devices without an older brother or sister to look out for them? This issue has become even more concerning since so much content has moved onto smartphones and tablets. Although the mobile phone is supposed to keep people connected, in reality it is exceedingly isolating. A child watching a movie on her/his phone may be alone in the bedroom or on a crowded street – the reality is that they are part of a one-on-one relationship with their device.
There is consequently much debate to be entered into on the whole question of the image of children in the media, both fantasy children and real children. The average news broadcast, for example, rarely includes stories about children unless they are victims of crime, war, displacement or natural disaster (or perpetrators of crime). There are few positive messages about children for children in the adult media. An ongoing debate on this very topic was at the heart of discussions between journalists and child rights workers at the first World Congress against Sexual Exploitation of Children held in Stockholm in August 1996. The most quoted example is the character of Lolita, brought to life by Vladimir Nabokov in his 1955 book but perhaps best known from a film of the same name starring James Mason as the middle-aged college professor sexually attracted to a pubescent girl. When it was first released, the film caused great controversy, partly because the character of the paedophile, Humbert, was sympathetic and in a strange way both pathetic and tragic, but largely because the young 15 year-old actress Sue Lyons created a screen Lolita who was steamily sexy, manipulative, evil. The messages concerning a child’s nascent sexuality are no less complex today, and perhaps even more apt to encourage or at least “justify” exploitation of children in the eyes of those who seek such justification.
The questions raised about the messages such people might read into particular interpretations of the Lolita story – that children are “asking for it”, that it is the adult exploiters who are the victims, that children are ready for sex – have surfaced too in concerns about the use of 12 year-old models in sexy poses in fashion magazines, and in the now almost exclusive use of adults models with child-like bodies in child-like poses. It is of concern to me, as a frequent traveller in Asia and lover of Japan, that this is frequent in Manga cartoons, where the female characters are often big-busted caricatures but dressed as schoolgirls.
Much concern has been expressed, too, about treatment in the media of issues that affect children. Such issues range from discussion of family, divorce and relationships through attitudes to sex, pornography and consumerism, to violence, criminality and death. The messages in the media are highly sophisticated, often couched in irony or cynicism, often presuming related knowledge that children might not have. According to the American Psychological Association, by the end of elementary school, the average American child has watched 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on television. The Council of Europe quotes research that suggests that the average European child between 10 and 14 watches two hours and 55 minutes of television every day (or more likely now digital screen time). In such a mediatised world, it is vital that the messages that children might receive from the media take their formative needs in to account. Some people may argue that adults have a right to adult-appropriate media too, and once upon a time this was reflected in the widespread acceptance of a ‘watershed’ time for television and radio broadcasts. Typically this was around 6 pm or 7 pm, after which time parents and guardians knew that programming was not necessarily child-friendly. Today, of course, with 24-hour content streaming on digital sources, it is almost impossible to regulate consumption times to protect children from inappropriate content.
It is vital, also, that we make an effort to fully understand exactly how the mechanisms of media messages and their impact on children work. In recent years there has been much debate, many opinions, but little concrete fact. Psychologists say it is likely that children exposed to violence in the media, for example, are affected by it. The popular press quotes examples of young children who have killed after watching a violent film or programme. But the truth is that we do not know the exact relationship between media messages and children’s reaction to them. For every child who kills after watching media violence, there are thousands who do not. What is it that made that one child react differently? Was it something in the message itself, in the way the message was received, in the accumulation of messages, or was it some other factor or factors? We need to know.
Ways forward
Understanding the relationship between media messages and adults, and media messages and children, is the responsibility not only of parents and guardians, children’s organizations and academic institutions, but also of the media themselves. In fact, responsibility for all the issues discussed here – integration of children into the media process, media consumption habits, learning to use the media, producing media output, formulating messages aimed at children or about children – is the shared responsibility of media makers, carers, communities and children themselves. The key to developing a positive relationship between children and the media also lies in collaboration and cooperation, not confrontation and accusation.
We talk at length about “the media” but the truth is that professionals who work in the media are human beings, just like you and me. They are often parents who feel a deep responsibility to children. They almost always care deeply about the work they do and the impact it has. The potential for collaboration and cooperation between media professionals and people who work in the area of children’s rights, or between media outlets and carers and, particularly, between the media and children, is enormous. This needs to happen, though, in a context of shared responsibility.
At the level of the media professionals, there could be more debate within professional associations, training institutions and workplaces about issues affecting children and the integration of children into media production. Not only would this make creative and commercial sense, it would satisfy Article 17 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, an instrument firmly embedded in most national laws. It might also help media professionals to avoid the kind of horrendous images of children, both visual and verbal, that we sometimes see in today’s media. It is common, for example, to see photographs of children enslaved in the sex trade with the caption ‘child prostitute’ and the child’s face clearly shown, often in an image in which the identity of the client, the abuser, is hidden. In such a photo, what are we saying, what do we think, of the dignity, privacy and rights of that child?
At the level of the lawmaker, the role and depiction of children in the media can be embedded in regulatory frameworks governing media content, and should be monitored by press councils, broadcasting tribunals, media ombudsmen and other mechanisms that help the media to self-regulate. It is generally accepted that imposed regulation is counter-productive to the freedom of expression so vital to the media in a democratic society, but self-regulation by media professionals through codes of ethics, practical guidelines, an educative editing environment and monitoring and feedback can only be positive. Consumers too – you and me – have a role to play. Do you know, for example, the monitoring mechanisms that exist to help you to comment on things you see and wish to comment on in the press, on television, or other media? Learn about them and exercise your right to express your opinion by contacting newspapers, press tribunals or digital media producers. Importantly, encourage your children to discuss their views with you and to learn to consume the media in an informed way.
All of this, of course, has been made more difficult by the onslaught of media content that is produced outside the borders of media law – produced in a third country, or by individuals on channels such as YouTube, or just shared through social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. Although these platforms claim to have a filtering system in place, in reality it is not stringent and is, in any case, developed and imposed by adults.
Positive media consumption can be reinforced in schools or other places where children receive help and guidance. At all these levels, children themselves should be part of the debate. By accepting the media as a major part of our lives and welcoming them for the significant advantages they offer, we can help both the media and children to approach the “connectedness” that is so necessary to any healthy relationship. It was this feeling of sharing the world that was so comforting to me when I first discovered television. It is the great joy of the media, and the greatest opportunity to ensure that the best interests of the child, at the heart of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, are protected.