A Comparative Analysis of European Media Coverage of Children and the Internet

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A Comparative Analysis of European Media Coverage
of Children and the Internet

• Leslie Haddon
• Department of Media and Communication
• LSE
• Email LesHaddon_at_aol.com

• Gitte Stald
• Innovative Communication Group
• IT University of Copenhagen
• Email stald_at_itu.dk

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Agenda for presentation
Media(ted) perspective?

• Research context and media analysis
• Aim of study
• Hows and whys
• Methodological challenges
• Four stories
• 1) Amount of coverage
• 2) Common negative articles
• 3) International stories
• 4) Risk coverage varies by country
• Summary

opportunities
or
risks
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Research contexts media analysis

• Media analysis as part of WP2 research
  contexts
• Which cultural factors and political, economic,
  and research strategies shape research in
  childrens and young peoples acces to and uses
  of online media?
• 14 participating countries
• Four newspapers national, regional, popular
• Two months november and December 2007

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Aim of study

• General patterns of media coverage, which applied
  in many countries if not necessarily in all.
• Do certain aspects of the internet receive more
  media attention?
• Do negative stories tend to be more newsworthy?
• Are the voices and views of some groups more
  likely to be reported in the press than others?

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Aim of study

• Questions relating to cross-national variation
• Might differences in media coverage help to
  explain some of the different perceptions across
  countries of the Internet as a place where
  children can spend time, of the opportunities
  open to them and of the risks that they might
  encounter?
• Are the experiences of children online simply
  less visible in some national media compared to
  others?
• Do some national press provide a more optimistic
  picture of childrens life online?
• Are any problems portrayed as something that
  happens in other countries? Or is the media
  message, could it happen here?

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how is easy why is a challenge

• Answers to why we find differences and
  similarities and what they mean are difficult
• Patterns of press coverage regarding extent,
  attitudes and impact depend on a complex
  combination of factors such as culture,
  traditions of public discourses and debate,
  communication and market strategies, reader
  interests, etc. These all make an uncertain
  foundation upon which to build a comparative
  analysis of causes and consequences.

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how is easy why is a challenge

• Methodological challenges to conducting this type
  of study
• Attempts to be representative through balancing
  choice quality and popular/tabloid press, as well
  as regional press proved difficult.
• Data gathering through paper or online versions
  may provide different results
• Issues of inter-coder reliability across
  national teams

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Story 1 Amount of coverage

• Few countries with very similar levels of low
  coverage Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece and Portugal,
  8-9 articles per newspaper over 2 months.
• The majority of countries had about 20.
• Outliers Italy (30) Spain (over 40).

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Common levels of coverage

• Bulgaria, Greece and Portugal had lower internet
  penetration rates.
• Denmark is an anomaly
• Apart from the outliers, where the internet is
  more established there appears to be a similar
  level of reporting

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Story 2 Common negative articles

• A few countries were the cumulative coverage was
  positive
• Some where it was balanced or mixed
• There were many countries where coverage was
  negative, quite extreme in some cases

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Why?

• Different awareness raising campaigns?
• National media find it newsworthy to show how the
  virtual world can be a dangerous place?
• Bad news generally more newsworthy?

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Importance of legal reporting

• Overall and in most countries coverage was mostly
  dominated by court cases/police actions/ crime
• Crime, court cases or police operations were
  clearly the most significant source and basis of
  the story
• It is the police and legal representatives who
  are most often cited.

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Risks vs opportunities

• Far more on risks than opportunities
• 2/3 risks
• 1/5 opportunities
• Content risks 50
• Conduct 30
• Contact 20

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Cross-cultural variation

• Denmark is the most outstanding case only 14
  crime, etc reporting
• Is this because
• (a) there is less crime/reported crime
• (b) there is less media coverage of the crime
  that exists
• To what extent do these two factors more
  generally explain cross-cultural variation?

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Story 3 International stories

• 2 major international stories in this time period
• a) the hunt of and capture of a paedophile
  posting online images
• b) a massacre in a Finnish school posted on
  YouTube

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National coverage of these events

• Coverage of both stories varied substantially
• This would to an extent affect the overall
  statistics
• To what extent do particular stories affect the
  cross-national pattern?
• In some countries the proportion of international
  news is high that such stories have a large
  influence on the figures

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Story 4 Risk coverage varies by country

• Although content risks predominate in many
  countries, there is some variation
• This may in part be accounted for by particular
  stories e.g. conduct risks were high in Norway
  because of the Finnish massacre

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Variation in risk coverage

• BUT it may also reflect media or wider values in
  different countries e.g. content coverage is low
  in Norway, including sexual content.
• In Norway there is a notion of natural
  childhood where sexuality is less of a risk
  (but where childrens rights are emphasised)

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Consequences of variation

• Apart from reflecting values, different media
  coverage in different countries helps to
  sensitise the different populations to different
  risks

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Summary

• There is more in the paper on other results,
  methodological challenges, how to proceed.
• The 3 main stories covered here were
• - Common levels of coverage
• - The significance of crime etc reporting
• - Reporting of international events
• - National variation in coverage of risks

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A Comparative Analysis of European Media Coverage
of Children and the Internet

• Leslie Haddon
• Department of Media and Communication
• LSE
• Email LesHaddon_at_aol.com

• Gitte Stald
• Innovative Communication Group
• IT University of Copenhagen
• Email stald_at_itu.dk