Public Concern and the Policy “Solution”

Abstract

The media representation of the use of digital technology by children can be a skewed one, with an emphasis on negative “human interest” stories, perhaps as a result of positive stories doing little to sell news products. However, the author argues that such a media focus has resulted in both public interest and policy direction converging upon the narrow media discourse around access to pornography. Evidence is provided through an analysis of the policy approaches from the last UK coalition government over the previous five years, albeit using the earlier Byron Review as a starting point. The author suggests that the policy focus has been in an extremely narrow aspect of online safety—access to inappropriate content, more specifically pornography—with the sole solution being to address the need for technology such as blocking and filtering. He proposes that prohibitive approaches will do little to address the concerns raised and suggests that, rather than empowering young people, such approaches can have a serious impact upon children’s rights.