Kids concerned over media’s ‘lack of vision’

Developing comprehensive and suitable children media’s programmes has proved to be a tricky and challenging exercise for many media houses all over the world, especially if those kids have been exposed to traumatising experiences such as war, domestic violence and HIV/Aids.

Getting children involved in this process and providing them with a platform where they can voice their needs, inputs and concerns is perhaps one of the better ways to do it successfully and properly.

Rethink and review

This has emerged at the 5th World Summit on Media for Children in Johannesburg, where media practitioners have been called to order to rethink and review their strategies and policies in the area of producing children’s programmes.

“I firmly believe that this is one of the areas where we are not getting it right and failing our children,” Avinoam Damari, of IETV-Israel, said.

“We are not doing enough to produce programmes that are really likeable and suitable to the children. Instead we, as adults, are conceiving children’s media programmes without involving them.

“Please, let’s ask them ‘what do you think about this?’ Let’s not discriminate against them and assume that they will like whatever we conceive, but get them involved by giving them the platform and the stage where they can bring their inputs,” Damari pleaded.

It has been established that many children are more likely to complain to their fellow kids than to the adults about a certain media programme, for fear of being victimised.

Adult delegates astonished

Yet at the 5th World Summit on Media for Children, one by one, fearlessly and bravely, kids delegates stood up and spoke their mind about the issue, criticising the media for letting them down, to the astonishment of adults delegates present at the plenary session.

“Why do not they let us conceive and present our own TV or radio shows about HIV/Aids or teenage pregnancy for example where we can teach other kids about the dangers facing them on these issues?” asked Sonia Antonio from Angola, who is a TV presenter for TPA (Angolan public broadcaster).

Louis Moly Venson (14), from Haiti, said: “At least three kids in Haiti are contracting HIV every day. It is mostly due to the lack of information. Parents and the media do not want to talk about sexual education to children, saying that it is taboo. As result, those kids turn to their friends who give them wrong information, which endanger their lives.

“I appeal to the media not to hide information about sexual education, but say it loud to protect the children from unpredictable social ills such as HIV and teenage pregnancy.”

Kids from many countries, including Libya and South Africa, also appealed to the media to do more to talk about peace and to create awareness about issues facing children.

However, experts said many media outlets do provide quite a lot of space on reporting issues affecting children, but they do not do it ‘the way it is supposed to be done’.

Advice

In their book Children Watching War, Dr Maya Gotz and Dr Peter Lemish (from Germany) provide the following advice for producers of children’s programmes that content ‘bad news’:

“Simplify and be obvious, recognise children’s fears and try not to be over emotional, be fair, get the tone right and avoid speculation, include accounts of attempts to find ‘solutions/resolutions’ to the conflict and offer your audience opportunities to be involved.”

For more information about these guidelines, go to www.izi.de.