‘Public service broadcasting, global media and the rights of children’
Including a special illustrated supplement on the 5th World Summit on
Children and Media, Johannesburg, March 2007
http://cmr.ulster.ac.uk/policy.php
No 5, in the Media Policy Briefing Papers series,
from the Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster,
Autumn 2007, ISSN 1748-0175, is launched.
Coinciding with the publication (October 3rd 2007) of the British
regulator Ofcom’s major review of children’s television, ‘The Future of
Children’s Television Programming’,
(http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/kidstv/kidstvresearch.pdf), the
Centre for Media Research launches its latest Policy Document: ‘Public
service broadcasting, global media and the rights of children.’ Reflecting
a worldwide concern about the decline of the kind of home-grown
programming which enables children to relate to and understand their own
cultures, this Policy Document (no 5 in the series), also includes a
special supplement on issues raised at the 5th World Summit on Children
and Media, held in Johannesburg in March 2007.
UK children’s programming has been widely praised as a model in other
parts of the world, but it could face what one producer called
a ‘cataclysmic’ collapse, if steps are not taken to protect indigenous
production. Ofcom’s review pointed out that, although British children
have never had so much children’s programming available to them,
increasing six-fold from 20,000 hours in 1998 to 113,000 hours in 2006,
only 17% of programmes broadcast in 2006 were from the UK. Programming
made in the UK and broadcast for the first time on a UK channel, only
accounted for around 1% of total hours. Ofcom want to initiate a public
debate on these issues, responses required by December 20th. Please
contact M. M . Davies, if you are interested in contributing to a joint
academic response.
The Ofcom report also includes a review of the academic literature on
children’s television, by Professor Máire Messenger Davies, Director of
the Centre for Media Research, downloadable from
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/kidstv/litreview.pdf, which gives
further information about the international academic debate surrounding
these issues.
If you would like a hard copy of the Policy Document or if you want more
information about the CMR and their activities and publications, please
contact Sally Quinn at [log in to unmask]
Professor Máire Messenger Davies
Director, Centre for Media Research
http://www.arts.ulster.ac.uk/media/cmr.html
Director, Media Studies Research Institute
School of Media, Film & Journalism
University of Ulster at Coleraine
Cromore Rd
Coleraine BT52 1SA
Northern Ireland
Telephone: + 44(0)28 70324069
Fax: +44(0)28 70324964
email: [log in to unmask]
|