Across the world, children’s lives are being reshaped by the internet and mobile technologies. Whether they are learning, playing or socialising, many of their experiences have an online dimension. While this brings great opportunities and enormous benefits, increased internet use can also exclude those without the access or the digital literacy to participate, and poses additional risks and exposure to harmful materials.
Professor Sonia Livingstone of LSE’s Department of Media and Communications has been working with UNICEF to research how children’s rights to provision, protection and participation are being enhanced or undermined in the digital age. Along with Jasmina Byrne, Monica Bulger and Alexandra Chernyavskaya, she recently convened a meeting with international experts in child rights, child protection, internet and mobile technologies and governance, cross-national survey and ethnographic methods, applied and policy-relevant research, and area specialists from the global North and the global South.
Introducing the meeting, Professor Livingstone said: ‘We want to build on our current understanding of risks, opportunities, policies, practice and regulation, but a lot of those are developed in the global north. As children go online everywhere, we have to shake things up and reimagine the agenda.’
The group went on to:
- identify the key opportunities and barriers to children’s rights in a digital age, as viewed from diverse perspectives and continents;
- debate the merits and challenges of standardised versus contextual approaches to cross-cultural research;
- address the challenges of such research, including policy priorities, research training needs and research impact;
- consider multistakeholder engagement and funding prospects;
- recognise the practical, political and ethical challenges of conducting research;
- scope key elements that could be developed for a flexible, modular research toolkit likely to be of wide benefit;
- and consider how to share the knowledge in practice.
The project was commissioned by UNICEF and supported by LSE Enterprise.
Slides and video from the meeting
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