EU Kids Online Comparative Analysis of European Press Coverage of Children and the Internet

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EU Kids Online Comparative Analysis of European
Press Coverage of Children and the Internet

• Leslie Haddon
• London School of Economics and Political Sciences
• COST298 workshop East meets West Dialogue
  between Broadband Societies, 27th October, 2009,
  The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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Media analysis goal

• In Media Studies, there is some comparison of
  media systems, less of specific media coverage
• To what extent are there shared media logics
  producing similar types of news across (European)
  countries and to what extent is there variation?

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Internet goal

• To what extent is there similar or different
  reporting of children and the internet in terms
  of amount of reporting, but also the types of
  coverage (e.g. positive/negative
  opportunities/risks)?
• To what extent are different risks reported in
  different countries?

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Method

• 14 country study Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,
  Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Ireland,
  Italy, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and the
  UK
• Focus on the press
• Quantitative content analysis

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Method and framework

• 2 months of data collected (October-November
  2007)
• Cultivation analysis focus on routine media
  coverage

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Amount of coverage

• For most countries there was similar rate of
  coverage per newspaper, an average of 20 articles
  per month, per paper
• Implies similar media logics/quotas/newsworthiness
  

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Amount of coverage

• Some with lower coverage (Bulgaria, Greece,
  Portugal and Denmark with 8-9 articles).
• Two countries with above average coverage - Italy
  (30 articles) and especially Spain (40 articles)

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Amount of coverage

• Mixed picture
• Some similarities, some differences
• At best partially accounted for by internet
  diffusion, but not entirely

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Type of coverage

• A few countries where the cumulative coverage was
  actually positive
• Some where it was balanced or mixed
• Many countries where coverage was primarily
  negative, and this was quite extreme in some
  cases.

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Type of coverage Detailed

• Nearly two-thirds of all stories (64) referred
  to risks
• Nearer a fifth (18) referred to opportunities.

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Types of story

• Generally there was a high degree of reporting
  across most countries of crime, court cases and
  police actions.
• When examining the coded data for the areas of
  life related to the story, this is the category
  that dominated in all but one country

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Types of story

• This correlates with origins of stories and whose
  voices are heard in the press
• The exception was Denmark
• - Less crime? Less reported crime? Less police
  actions?
• - Or less media space routinely devoted to this
  category?

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Other media processes Foreign news

• In some countries there was a minority of
  national stories two-thirds of stories in
  Slovenia were about foreign events and over half
  were so in Austria and Portugal.
• BUT foreign stories were more often negative
• 8 of foreign news was positive compared to 27
  of national news.

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The role of particular stories

• Interpol search for paedophile who put child sex
  abuse pictures on the internet the search,
  clues, the arrest
• Finnish case of a school student who shot people
  at school after broadcasting his attentions of
  YouTube copy cat attempts in other countries

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The role of particular stories

• The coverage varied a lot by country
• Sometimes this was because it was a neighbouring
  country, but not always
• These two events influenced the overall
  statistics the presence of crime stories would
  be less exaggerated without them

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The robustness of the figures

• Q Would the figures be different if we had a
  time period when there were no such stories?
• Or would these simply be replaced by other
  stories, so that overall the level of crime
  stories remained the same?

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The variation in risk reported

• That in many countries content risks count for
  over half of all risks cited in the press in
  Greece and Spain, then Portugal, Belgium,
  Ireland, Estonia, the UK.
• In contrast, the reporting of conduct risks is
  noticeably higher in Norway, Austria (then Italy
  and Germany).
• Only in Denmark and to an extent Slovenia do
  contact risks form a substantial minority of all
  risks discussed in the press.

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The variation in risk reported

• Do media values and reporting reflect wider
  social values?
• But like overall coverage, the pattern of which
  risks were reported were exaggerated by the two
  international stories
• Even so, do the differences influence perceptions
  of risk in different countries?

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Summary Cross-National Media Reporting

• There is some degree of commonality across the
  European countries in terms of amount of coverage
  of children and the internet, and the degree to
  which it was negative
• But, there were exceptions, e.g. foreign news
  reporting

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Summary Cross-National Media Reporting

• This raises the question of whether there are
  certain shared media logics, quotas and criteria
  of newsworthiness.
• The exceptions may in part reflect slightly
  different media values at work

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Summary Cross-National Media Reporting

• The mechanism that produces negative/risk news
  appears to be the routines coverage of crime,
  etc.
• More coverage of foreign news exaggerates this
• Particular stories can affect the figures

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Summary Cross-National Media Reporting

• Although affected by particular stories, which
  risks are covered more can vary be country
• This may reflect values/dominant frameworks in
  those countries
• It may also sensitise readers to different risks
  (cultivation theory)

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Media Report

• Haddon, L., and Stald, G. (2009). A
  cross-national European analysis of press
  coverage of children and the internet, a report
  from EU Kids Online. LSE, London EU Kids Online.
  Available at http//www.lse.ac.uk/collections/EUKi
  dsOnline/Reports/MediaReport.pdf

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Articles and chapters

• Haddon, L. and Stald, G. (2009) A Comparative
  Analysis of European Press Coverage of Children
  and the Internet, Journal of Children and Media,
  volume 3 issue 4, Fall.
• Ponte,C. Bauwens, J. and Mascheroni, G. (2009)
  Children and the Intenret in the News Agencies,
  Voices and Agendas, in Livingstone, S. and
  Haddon, L. (eds) Kids Online Opportunities and
  Risks for Children, Policy Press, Bristol

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Articles and chapters

• Mascheroni, G., Ponte, C., Garmendia, M.,
  Garitaonandia, C., Marru, M. F. (forthcoming),
  Comparing Online Risks for Children in South
  Western European Countries Italy, Portugal and
  Spain, International Journal of Media and
  Cultural Politics.