[ecrea] CFP comparing children's media around the world, University of Westminster, London, 3-4 September 2015

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PANELS


Comparing Children’s Media Around the World:

Policies, Texts and Audiences



Conference organised by the

Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI)

University of Westminster, with support from the

· Arts & Humanities Research Council



Date: Friday 4 September, 2015

Venue: University of Westminster, Marylebone Campus,

35 Marylebone Road London NW1 5LS

Preceded on Thursday 3 September by:

· Half-day workshop in association with the European Communication 
Research and Education Association (ECREA) Temporary Working Group on 
Children, Youth and Media

· Evening event in association with the Children’s Media Foundation and 
Voice of the Listener & Viewer





Conference themes and questions



Where in the world are children best served by media available to them, 
and who judges the meaning of ‘best’? In March 2015 it will be 20 years 
since advocates from around the world agreed the first Children’s 
Television Charter calling for adequately funded, well produced content 
that both affirms children’s sense of self, community and place and 
promotes their appreciation of other cultures. In today’s multiplatform 
environment, where children’s use of individualised social media 
challenges the status of professional players, and the expansion of US 
and other transnational networks fuels concerns about the viability of 
domestic production, the same calls for quality, representation and 
diversity persist. That much was clear at the 7th World Summit on Media 
for Children in Malaysia in 2014.



Yet opinions divide over the levels of regulation and intervention 
required to improve media provision for children, and over the most 
urgently needed improvements, such as reducing access to harmful content 
or ensuring that public policy and discourse are informed by ample and 
rigorous research.



Meanwhile, researching children’s media use remains challenging and, 
like local media production for children, costs more than some industry 
players are ready to afford. Children often know how to navigate into 
unregulated transnational media arenas, accessing horror movies and 
graphic reporting of wars and catastrophes, with or without dubbing or 
subtitling. Can analysts hope to conduct a child-informed and 
child-centred analysis that grasps the multiplicity of children’s 
everyday media practices?



This one-day conference will seek to take a fully international approach 
to all forms of children’s media irrespective of delivery platform. The 
comparative dimension applies to the conference as a whole, as a prompt 
for discussion; individual papers are not required to be comparative, 
although comparative studies are encouraged.



We welcome papers and pre-constituted panels from scholars and media 
practitioners that engage critically with children’s media in different 
countries. Themes may include, but are not in any way limited to, the 
following:



· Definitions of childhood and media segmentation of child audiences

· Media implications of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child

· Content generated by children

· Development of child-friendly media policies

· Defining cultural value in children’s media

· Aspects of positive regulation: e.g. quotas, incentives, educational 
requirements

· Aspects of negative regulation: e.g. restrictions on advertising, 
scheduling, access

· Performance of public service media in generating children’s content

· Production issues and producing for multiple platforms

· Prizes, festivals and other systems for evaluating children’s media

· Genre issues in children’s media

· Gender issues in children’s media

· Methodological issues in research with child media users

· Media literacy among children





PROGRAMME AND REGISTRATION

This is a one-day conference, taking place on Friday, 4th September 
2015. It will include a keynote address, plenary sessions and parallel 
workshops. The fee for registration for all participants, including 
presenters, will be £50, to cover conference documentation, refreshments 
and administration costs. Registration will open in May 2015, at which 
point participants will be asked to indicate whether they wish to attend 
either or both the pre-conference events. Participants fund their own 
travel and accommodation expenses. Lower cost University Accommodation 
is available at our Baker Street Campus.



DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS

The deadline for abstracts is Monday, February 9th, 2015. Successful 
applicants will be notified early in mid-February 2015. Abstracts should 
be 300 words. They must be accompanied by the presenter’s name, 
affiliation, email and postal addresses, together with the title of the 
paper and a 100-word biographical note on the presenter. Please send all 
these items together in a single Word file, not as pdf, and give the 
file and message the title ‘Children & Media Conference’ followed by 
your surname. The file should be sent by email to the Events 
Administrator, Helen Cohen, at (journalism /at/ westminster.ac.uk)





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