Protection of minors in the European digital audiovisual context: a necessary dialogue between parents, academy, regulators and industry

Abstract

This paper represents the initial phase of a larger project being developed by the “Media, communication policy and democracy in the European Union” research group, which is currently working on the study “Communication policies, SVOD platforms and values education for minors in the single digital market (2020-2022)”. We wish to pursue in this study that, beyond technological considerations, it is necessary to expand the scope of child protection by establishing mutual collaboration between regulators, distributors and video on demand services, as well as consumers and parents’ organisations, in an effort to further enhance cooperation and mutual understanding (European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services, 2017b, p. 75). It is for this reason that we believe that the academic sphere can also be invited into this wide-ranging discussion on child protection to contribute reflections on a key aspect: audiovisual and media education, an essential pillar of protection in addition to filters, external limits, and electronic labelling. We thus uphold a vision that not only considers the “digital stuff” but also highlights the need for “ethos stuff” (Goggin, 2008, p.89). In this respect, we have considered it essential a literature review on the concept of media literacy. Secondly, our qualitative methodology involves an analysis of the instructions issued by the European Union and their implementation in Spain. In this stage, we have conducted desk research based on a narrative analysis of the documents and programs of different institutions in order to chart the evolution of the question in recent years, at a time when the digital environment has changed more quickly than ever before. This same type of analysis is also conducted on the initiatives of European and Spanish companies to determine whether they are implementing child protection strategies.