News media and child well-being

Abstract

The news media should be regarded as central in the advancement of children’s well-being in democratic societies, with the ability to cultivate curiosity about the world and to establish with children a sense of self-worth and belonging. Within news and journalism studies, where well-being has been addressed but rarely by direct use of this term, scholars have tended to focus on either children’s socialisation to the political norms and values of society or on monitoring and exposing negative effects of news media on children’s health and well-being. Whilst the concept of child well-being has become essential to the development of institutional policies and practices nationally and internationally across a range of fields and issues, little has been mentioned about the importance of information and communication rights (access, opportunity, and voice). News media have much potential to deepen children’s understanding of a wide range of contemporary issues, including social justice, human rights, community cohesion and global interdependence, providing spaces to develop children’s public voices in deliberative democracy. In this chapter, I make connections between news studies which have obliquely addressed child well-being with an information and communication rights approach established by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). Political socialisation and news effects studies have been rightly concerned about guiding children safely toward adulthood. Nevertheless, they have also tended to privilege adult power by insisting upon the need to scrutinize and control children’s relationships to the news over exploring how it might be used to enhance their civic inclusion and empowerment.