On "Empowering Parents and Protecting Children in an Evolving Media Landscape"

 
The Berkman Center is pleased to share the Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative's response to the FCC's Notice of Inquiry (09-94) on "Empowering Parents and Protecting Children in an Evolving Media Landscape":
http://cyber.harvard.edu/publications/2010/Re_Empowering_Parents_Protecting_Children

The response synthesizes current research and data on the media practices of youth, focusing on three main areas -- 1) Risky Behaviors and Online Safety, 2) Privacy, Publicity and Reputation, and 3) Information Dissemination, Youth-Created Content and Quality of Information -- in order to highlight issues of genuine concern, such as growing participation and literacy gaps, and, crucially, in order to discuss the positive and creative opportunities that electronic media provide for young people. In each area, potential policy responses are discussed.

Today's filing was co-authored by John Palfrey, Urs Gasser, and danah boyd, with help from a terrific group of research assistants and colleagues. It was developed from the ongoing activities of the Berkman Center's Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative, which aims to bring the best research on youth and media into policy-making debates and to propose practical, relevant, situated solutions based upon that research. The Working Group Initiative itself builds in part on research carried out by the Berkman Center's Digital Natives project in support of Palfrey and Gasser's Born Digital (Basic Books, 2008). The response also benefited from the substantial literature review led by boyd as part of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, as well as from Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out (MIT Press, 2009), the notable set of essays collaboratively written by members of the Digital Youth Project, including boyd.

For more information, see:

• FCC NOI 09-94: Empowering Parents and Protecting Children in an Evolving Media Landscape
• Palfrey, Gasser, boyd, Response to FCC Notice of Inquiry 09-94...
• Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative
• Digital Natives project
• Internet Safety Technical Task Force
• Digital Youth Project

As always, we welcome your feedback. And we look forward to sharing more from the Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative as its work becomes publicly available.