The Role of News Media in Fostering Children's Democratic Citizenship

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Introduction
The news media are central to the advancement of children’s civic inclusion in democratic
societies. They have an informal responsibility to each new generation to help establish, from
a young age, a sense of public belonging as well as individual and collective political respon-
sibility. News organisations also have formal duties toward children such as those related to
specific Articles in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF 1989), ensuring, for
instance, that children have ‘freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all
kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through
any other media of the child’s choice and empowerment’ (Article 13). Additionally, Article 17
obliges that signatories ‘recognize the important function performed by the mass media and
shall ensure that the child has access to information and material from a diversity of national and
international sources […]’. To realise this latter aim, mass media need to ‘disseminate informa-
tion and material of social and cultural benefit to the child’ through international cooperation to
produce and disseminate a wide variety of cultural forms, take into account different linguistic
and minority group cultural needs, and development of guidelines to protect children from
information and material which might cause them harm.
Likewise, Article 24 (1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (European
Convention 2000) declares that children should be given the opportunity to ‘express their views
freely. Such views shall be taken into consideration on matters which concern them in accord-
ance with their age and maturity’. This point is reconfirmed in the An EU Agenda for the Rights
of the Child that states ‘Full recognition of the rights of the child means that children must be
given a chance to voice their opinions and participate in the making of decisions that affect
them’ (European Commission 2011, 13).
Children were rarely seen or heard in the news in the run up to the UK’s Referendum on
membership of the European Union held on 23 June 2016 (Stalford 2016). Although a bill was
tabled in the House of Commons in 2015 to extend the poll to 16 and 17 year olds, as had been
the case in the Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014, The House of Lords, succumbing
to pressure from the Commons, defeated it. Around 1.2 million young people thus had no say in
41
THE ROLE OF NEWS MEDIA
IN FOSTERING CHILDREN’S
INFORMATION AND
COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
Cynthia Carter
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a plebiscite that would fundamentally shape their future. Shadow Foreign Office minister, Lady
Morgan, reflected that ‘Today’s 16- to 17-year-olds are the most informed in history, having
undertaken citizenship classes at school and having information … at their thumb tips with
their constant tapping of their mobile phones’ (cited in Wintour 2015). When citizens are given
political franchise from the age of 16, she claimed, they are more likely to become and remain
politically active throughout their lives.
The news media have an unquestionable obligation to support children’s civic rights and
engagement to ensure their informed voices are included in public debates. Indeed, as David
Oswell (2013, 252) suggests, ‘an important aspect of the globalisation of children’s human rights
has not only been legal and state-governmental discourse, but also mass media discourses and
vehicles’. Although not specifically addressing the child citizen, Kate Nash reminds us that it is
the duty of journalism in democratic states not only to inform and educate but also to be the
‘voice of the people’ and act as ‘the peoples’ protectors and advocates’ (2009, 55). It is perhaps
surprising, then, that news research on children has had little to say about their access, opportu-
nity and voice, instead tending to focus on socialisation to political norms and values or upon
monitoring and exposing negative effects of news on children’s emotions. Whilst such studies
have yielded important results, they nevertheless tend to reinforce adult power around monitor-
ing and controlling children’s relationships to news. This chapter connects insights drawn from
these areas of research with a critical news research agenda centred on children’s information
and communication rights to explore how a rights centred approach might highlight ways to
enhance children’s civic inclusion. Before doing so, I will briefly outline the conceptual founda-
tions underpinning political socialisation and effects news research before considering a critical,
social constructionist perspective informed by sociology of childhood studies.
Dening childhood
Who is a ‘child’ and what does ‘childhood’ represent in democratic societies? Chris Jenks (1992),
a prominent sociology of childhood researcher, argues there is a belief that childhood represents a
time of both difference and particularity. Adults have accounted for children’s difference by inte-
grating them into a broad framework of social order, which adults define and shape for children.
For example, in the field of developmental psychology, childhood is marked by a series of
psychological and physical developments or ‘stages’, outlined in the pioneer ing work of devel-
opmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1969). As Lemish (2007) notes, ‘the key to stage theories is
the understanding of ‘stage’ as a unique period of development, with each stage typified by its
own special behavioural and cognitive characteristics’ (2007, 38). Each of us passes through simi-
lar stages of development from childhood to adulthood in roughly the same order. Moreover,
these stages are ‘also perceived to be both hierarchical, as well as, integrative’ (Lemish 2007,
38). As individual cognitive skills develop, children become more rational. Although the social
context through which individuals progress in each life stage is acknowledged, stages are per-
ceived to be universal (Walkerdine 2004). Developmental theories have been widely adopted
by media researchers, although primar ily used to examine entertainment genres. Childhood
is presumed to be a period of innocence and vulnerability where lack of worldly experience
makes children susceptible to corruption (by ‘bad’ adults and harmful media) so it becomes the
responsibility of adults (‘good’ ones and child friendly media) to protect and guide them. These
assumptions also underpin much of the limited research on children and news, assuming that
exposure to news must be carefully handled to inculcate normative social and political values
or to protect children from emotional harm. Over-emphasis on understanding childhood in
terms of cognitive and physical (brain) developments, they argue, has meant there has been little
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focus on the importance of the social, economic, cultural and political contexts of childhood.
Social constructionists maintain that dominant ideas about childhood tend to be ahistorical,
universalistic and unable to account for differences amongst children. Of central importance
is the ground breaking research of historian Philippe Ar iés, who examined western European
historical records related to childhood dating back to medieval times, when the idea of child-
hood as separate from adulthood did not exist. That is why, Ariés has suggested, ‘as soon as the
child could live without constant solicitude of his mother, his nanny or his cradle-rocker, he
[sic] belonged to adult society’ (1962, 125). News media habitually portray children as vulner-
able and in need of adult protection (Archard 2004, 61). I would not wish to argue the opposite,
but instead draw attention to the ideologies reinforcing such assumptions and how they have
shaped news research. Even though the work of Ariés and others has led to important advances
in thinking about childhood, they still largely lack the voices of children, and as long as this is so,
our historical understanding will remain incomplete (Henrick 1992).
Researching children and news
Children’s researchers have typically sought to understand how children might be incrementally
socialised into society, in line with their cognitive development, so that as adults they will have
reproduced its norms and values. This research forms a broad framework upon which scholars have
examined the role of the news in this process. Others have been more concerned with negative
emotional effects of news violence on children. Critical news scholarship has explored how the
news relates (or does not) to children as citizens. In the next section, each of these approaches is
briefly outlined and considered in relation to children’s citizenship and communication rights.
News and political socialisation
Early research on the relationship between children and news in the US sought to understand
how they best learn and internalise accepted political norms and values of the prevailing sys-
tem. Appropriate socialisation was regarded as important for the future health of democratic
political structures (Deth, Abendschön and Vollmar 2011). Families, schools and news media
were to be the ‘conduits in transmitting to the neophyte citizens [children] what mature citi-
zens knew and practiced’ (McLeod 2000, 46). In this process, children were largely perceived
to be passive recipients of information passed on by authoritative, adult sources. By the 1970s,
researchers began moving away from this conception to one where children were encouraged
to express their views as a way of becoming more politically active. Contemporary approaches
tend to assume children are citizens in the making and should be active participants in society
amid increasing concern over declining political participation and civic knowledge (Banaji and
Buckingham 2013; Pascal and Bertram 2009). Political socialisation theory now highlights the
importance of democratic deliberation – social stability is achieved not through reproducing
dominant views but instead through active discussion of diverse points of view. The notion of
politics has also expanded to include young people’s volunteer work and community involve-
ment as markers of civic engagement.
Tolley’s (1973) study of US children’s political socialisation to international conflict (Vietnam
war) is an engaging example of the earliest research focus. At the time, there was public concern
that children were getting distorted, anti-war messages from news or that it was desensitising
them to human suffering. His survey of 2,677 children between the ages of 7–15 refuted these
claims. Children acquired a broad knowledge and understanding of war from television news
and it was an important influence in their maturation as citizens. Surveying 760 10–12 year
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olds, Conway et al.’s (1981) study also gauged the impact of news media on children’s political
attitudes and opinions. Frequent news consumption establishes a greater knowledge of societal
norms – those of political processes, parties and support for the electoral system – than schools
or parents provide. ‘In short’, concluded the authors, ‘news media use, alone and in conjunc-
tion with knowledge of the American political process, is a significant determinant of children’s
political attitudes and patterns of political participation’ (1981, 175).
Active citizenship, argued McLeod, is ‘largely indirect result of contextualized knowledge
and cognitive skills learned from news media use, interpersonal communication and active par-
ticipation in school and community volunteer activities’ (2000, 45). Given that voter turnout in
the US has been steadily decreasing over several decades, urgent action was required to develop
‘intervention programs and strategies that would stimulate and depend the level of civic engage-
ment among youth’ (2000, 45). The need for a stable society came to be regarded as deficient
as it ‘failed to recognize both the diversity and conflict in our own society’ (2000, 46). Past
approaches downplayed the importance of deliberation to the health of democracy. In a similar
vein, a Canadian Newspaper Association online survey with 1,500 14–34 year olds (Cobb 2010)
concluded that young newspaper readers make good citizens. Regular readers are more likely
than occasional ones to vote, volunteer their time and help out in their communities. Since
such habits are formed in childhood, it is vitally important to expose them to news at home and
in schools.
Negative news media eects
In contrast to those who emphasise the importance of news in children’s political socialisation,
others caution care is needed when exposing children to news. Yet, as Valkenburg (2004) notes,
given the thousands of studies undertaken on children’s behavioural and emotional responses
to entertainment media, it is surprising how few scholars have investigated the effects of
news on children (2004, 68). Those who have undertaken such research have tended to focus
on news violence, concluding that exposure may lead to short and long term psychological
trauma and negative emotional effects (Cantor and Nathanson 1996; Hoffner and Haefner
1993; van der Molen 2004). Cantor and Nathanson’s (1996) study on the negative effects of
television news on children is widely regarded as significant in setting the terms of debate. In
an extensive survey with parents of US children aged 5–12, over one third claimed their chil-
dren were sometimes frightened by the news. The topics most frightening, parents claimed,
were violence between strangers, war and famine, and natural disasters (1996, 144). Because
of the potential for emotional harm, ‘parents would be well advised to be aware of their chil-
dren’s exposure to news and to avoid exposure to the most sensational programs while young
children are present’ (1996, 151). That doesn’t mean children shouldn’t follow the news; what
is required is limited exposure to ‘the diversity and variety of tragedies and disasters currently
presented to the public on a regular basis’ (1996, 151). Children’s developmental abilities
should inform decisions about exposure to difficult news content bearing in mind that ‘the
informed child must not necessarily be a traumatized child’ (1996, 152). Other researchers
have suggested that exposure to frightening news may also ‘strengthen the accessibility and
availability of cognitive structures that govern how children react to threats and dangers in
real life’ (Smith, Pieper and Moyer-Gusé 2011, 229). More news studies are needed, especially
in light of the growing number of online news sites, to understand the negative and positive
ways it is shaping children’s conceptions of the world. Var ious strategies for coping with news
have emerged from this field of study. These include not permitting young children to follow
news, minimising discussion of traumatic events (giving bare facts) and reassuring children
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they are ok. It is assumed negative news will almost always cause children harm as they tend
internalise frightening stories, leading to fears that bad things will happen to them (Moyer-
Gusé and Smith 2007). Without protection, children may perceive the world to be a ‘confus-
ing, threatening, or unfriendly place’. A recommended therapeutic response is to give ‘calm,
unequivocal, but limited information’ that tells children the facts ‘but only as much truth as a
child needs to know’ (Gavin 2011).
Critical news research
Critical researchers tend to regard children’s relationship to news as underpinned by the assump-
tion they are citizens with particular legal rights to information, communication and to have
their voices heard. Whilst it is often argued children are not really interested in news, there
is a growing body of research examining children’s civic engagement challenging this view,
regarding it as a self-fulfilling prophecy if children’s citizenship r ights remain restrained (Lister
2007). What should be done to engage children in the public sphere? Educators, according to
Buckingham (2000, 223), need to enable children to build connections between the personal
and political to prepare them for participatory forms of citizenship. The news media have a
critical role to play in providing children with opportunities to express themselves publicly, see
their interests reflected and to be taken seriously. In this way, politics may be understood in a
broader sense, including traditional party politics as well as issues and events that affect children
indirectly or directly as citizens of global and local communities (Banaji and Buckingham 2013).
In the next section, I examine the role of news media in supporting or undermining children’s
civic belonging, first turning to research examining children’s representation in news, followed
by studies of the child news audience, and, finally, those looking at children’s relationship to
news production.
Representing children
Historically, children have had little control over their representation and have largely been
constructed as news objects rather than subjects. ‘Their voices’, claims Holland, ‘have had only
limited access to the channels that produce public meanings, and even then the tools that are
available to them have been inevitably honed by adults. Like all groups without power, they suf-
fer the indignity of being unable to present themselves as they would want to be seen or, indeed,
of even considering how they might want to be seen’ (2006, 20).
Children are frequently used to symbolise the brutality of war, famine and genocide in adult
news to arouse sympathy and humanise events (Carter and Messenger Davies 2005, 229; McKee
2003; Messenger Davies 2004; Seu 2015). For example, a 2003 Guardian story reported on the
11-year-old Iraqi boy, Ali Ismaeel Abbas’s, loss of both arms and 14 family members in a bomb
attack on Baghdad. As Carter and Messenger Davies suggest, ‘Compounding this representa-
tion of Ali as a symbol of the suffering child was the absence of his voice telling us what had
happened to him. Like the majority of children used to illustrate news stories about war and
disaster, Ali was not interviewed or quoted in the article; he was not allowed to tell his own
“story”’ (2005, 230). On a related note, Aqtashi, Seif and Seif ’s (2004) comparative research on
the Intifada examining news in the US, UK, Israel and Qatar found few stories about children.
‘Palestinian children and their suffering and experiences’, argued the authors, ‘have a precarious
place on the periphery of the dominant news narrative’ (2004, 404). When children do show
up in the news, they tend to be framed within discourses of violence and conflict; in discursive
terms they do not exist outside these frames.
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In Jakens’s (2008) review of the UK charity Barnardo’s study into public perceptions of
childhood ‘over 50% of the respondents believed that children were ‘beginning to behave like
animals’ and that children were responsible for ‘up to half of all crime’ when, in fact, they are
responsible for only around 12%’ (Jakens 2008). The significance of these views is considerable,
for as Davis and Bourhill (1997, 29) note they are often used as the basis for public policies
restricting children’s lives. Adult news reinforces their power over children through the use of
‘simplistic generalizations with children represented as objects of concern or as threats to adult
order’ (1997, 31).
One of the strengths of children’s news is that it emphasises understanding and context in
the stories reported (Buckingham 2000, 45). However, often assumptions are made about chil-
dren’s news interests, knowledge and cognitive abilities, regarded as different and less developed
than adults’. In Israel, children’s news has developed because it is believed children need age-
appropriate news to cope with the ongoing conflict (Alon-Tirosh 2012). Nevertheless, they are
also discursively constructed as vulnerable citizens so content must be ‘presented in a gentle, bal-
anced manner that will not cause unbearable emotional load. Including soothing, reassuring (at
times even optimistic) aspects is viewed as vital’ (2012, v). In the US, Nick News tends to frame
children as active ‘consumer citizens’ rather than political citizens (Banet-Weiser 2007). The aim
is to encourage children to become discriminating actors in consumer culture. Children’s infor-
mation and communication needs are thus constructed as commercial, individual and apolitical
rather than social, structural and political.
The child news audience
Lemish’s (1998) research with kindergarten-aged children in the US and Israel found their
interest in adult news is related to sociopolitical context and parental mediation. In Israel, chil-
dren are encouraged to follow news since it provides important information about the ongoing
conflict needed to stay informed and safe. They also discuss news with family and have high
levels of news engagement (1998, 502). In the US, children tend to be protected from news
for fear it will cause emotional harm. They rarely discuss news with family and have low levels
of news engagement (1998, 501). In each country children are ‘socialized into very different
sets of expectations toward their news media and its role in a democratic society’. This point is
confirmed by Seiter’s (2007) study of US children’s responses to the 2003 Iraq War, where she
concluded that protection from news did not allay fears precisely because children had an insuf-
ficient grasp of facts needed to weigh up possible risks.
Nikken and Götz’s (2007) investigation of children’s postings about the Iraq war on children’s
news websites in the Netherlands and Germany regard them as important avenues through
which children are enabled to share opinions. Most opposed the war and were concer ned about
its impact on ordinary people, but were not more fearful as a result of viewing news. ‘Children’,
argued the authors, ‘should also be given the opportunity to participate in contemporary debates.
By writing to a children’s channel or program, children can become politically active and very
much involved in their own society’ (2007, 117). Similarly, Carter (2007) examined children’s
message board postings on the Newsround website during the Iraq war and after the London
bombings in 2005. On Iraq, some supported the war whilst others challenged its legality and
morality. Certain children were upset that adults viewed their participation in anti-war marches as
ill informed (various newspapers suggesting most were participating in order to bunk off school).
‘Young people repeatedly state that they want to be accepted as citizens who possess legitimate
points of views and rights’ (2007, 132). In July 2005, some posters talked about a possible link
between the London bombings and Britain’s support for the Iraq war. Such message boards are
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valuable for children’s development as citizens ‘where many must feel they are being listened to
and their views are valued’ (2007, 138). Similarly, Carter et al.’s Newsround study (2009) established
that whilst several expressed anger over exclusion from the news, others offered explanations. ‘I
think all children’s ideas are important, just as important as adults, they just don’t let us say any-
thing because they think that adults’ ideas are more sensible than children’s’ (Nat, Bournemouth,
aged 9) (2009, 26; Mendes, Carter and Messenger Davies 2011).
News production
Early news production research sought to understand how children are drawn to newspaper
reading so that they might develop the habit of reading a daily paper and become lifelong read-
ers (Fendrick 1941). Such habits, it was argued, are central to the health of democracy. Several
concerns shaped these studies: First, part of the responsibility of citizens is to ensure they keep
informed about what is happening in the world in order to make informed contributions to
public discussion and elect politicians who will represent their views. Thus, studies have typi-
cally focused on how news can be made to appeal to children (Clarke 1965). One idea was that
a weekly comics section might lure young readers to newspapers (Schramm, Lyle and Parker
1960). Others have concentrated on understanding how much children recall from news to
ensure the best medium is used to attract them and enhance civic knowledge (van der Molen
and van der Voort 2000). A related interest has been economic, where news organisations seek
to maximise existing audiences and build new ones to ensure long-term commercial viability
(Molnar 2004). Scholars have also examined the production of news for children. Most have
focused on television news, partly because it is regarded as the most child friendly (not requiring
reading skills). Historically, few commercial broadcasters have produced children’s news since it
rarely returns a profit. The dearth of these programmes is partly due to high costs of production
compared to dramas, cartoons and other entertainment genres that can be sold, resold and end-
lessly repeated worldwide. Additionally, advertisers prefer promotional slots next to ‘fun’ rather
than ‘ser ious’ content. This has meant that few children’s television news programmes have been
produced, particularly daily bulletins, anywhere in the world (Hirst 2002). In most countries it
is public service broadcasters who create children’s news because of formal commitments to
fostering children’s citizenship. What sorts of programming do they produce and to what extent
does it support children’s civic needs and rights? Matthews’s (2008) study of Newsround found
that to maintain audiences, producers typically choose to highlight ‘entertaining’ stories over
‘serious ones’, and emotional reactions over reasoned ones (2008, 269–72). Moreover, stories
tend to be simplified and events de-contextualised, making them more ‘palatable’ rather than
‘intelligible’ (2008, 274). Producers tend to view most children as too emotionally immature to
handle serious news and are therefore acting in children’s best interest by not routinely including
them. Children are rarely challenged by difficult or upsetting stories that might encourage them
to ask questions, think about the world differently, and mature as citizens. Newsround also tends
to exaggerate children’s participation in the world, creating a false impression of their contribu-
tion to civic life (Matthews 2008).
In their comparative study of the German children’s news programme logo! and its Dutch
counterpart Jeugdjournaal, Nikken and van der Molen (2007) found that in cover ing the 2003
Iraq war producers in the two countries took different presentational approaches. Reporters
for logo! openly expressed anti-war sentiments whilst at Jeugdjournaal they were broadly sup-
portive of the war. logo! was more cautious in its reports (using graphics, animations) than
Jeugdjournaal which incorporated images of American prisoners. Both used pictures of George
Bush to represent the ‘good guys’ and Saddam Hussein the ‘bad guys’ to simplify the war.
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That said, producers in both countries felt it was important to cover the war and spent a great
deal of time on the issues. Children’s news has a vital role to play, the authors argue, ‘in devel-
oping the political awareness and empowerment of children, and that broadcasters at all times
should budget enough air time for these informational programmes’ (2007, 196).
Conclusion
A focus on children’s information and communication rights offers a vital starting point for
future research on the importance of news to children’s citizenship. If children feel politically
alienated and disenfranchised, it is partly because their rights and responsibilities as citizens have
been undermined by a failure to live up to legally enshrined commitments to encourage, value
and take seriously their contributions to public discussion (Buckingham 2000; Carter et al. 2009).
As a result, their civic rights and obligations have been diminished, often by those who unwit-
tingly do so under a problematic assumption that children are in need of broad protection from
the harsh realities of contemporary life. When the desire to protect diminishes their knowledge,
understanding and empathy for the world around them, it diminishes everyone’s social respon-
sibility. As Seaton passionately contends,‘ We worry about the damage violent media may do to
them, but hardly show any concern for what might be valuable. We are very fearful for our chil-
dren when what we ought to worry about is how to help them to thrive’ (2005, 133).
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