A children’s rights approach to risk and opportunities in a digital world

Abstract

The field of children’s media engagement has repeatedly sought to rebut or transcend the moral and media panics which accompany each technological innovation. One strategy has been to identify historical continuities in children’s experiences as well as the changes over past decades. Another has been to conduct cross-national comparative research to situate media engagement within specific cultural contexts. Taking a more critical stance, a third has been to bring our theory and evidence to policymakers and public fora to challenge popular assumptions and demand change in the interests of children. In this article I reflect on these strategies and show how they have set the scene for the emergence of a children’s rights framework for research, policy and practice concerned with the digital environment.