The EU Kids Online Project
Leslie Haddon
Leshaddon@aol.com
10th Forum for Social Trends: Youth and Social Exclusion,
Madrid, 12th-14th March, 2008
The Project
• 21 countries
• 3 years
• Funded by the EC’s Safer Internet Plus
Programme
• Evaluating European research on children’s
experiences of the Internet
The Project
• Number of sub-projects/work packages
• Overall aim of improving ability
systematically to manage cross-national
comparisons
• Work in-progress
• Emphasis on children/youth, risks and
opportunities
Sub-projects
1. Charting empirical studies - what exists,
what are the patterns of research across
countries?
2. Comparative evaluation of the actual data
on children’s experience of the Internet
3. Social shaping of research - why these
patterns of research?
Charting a field of study
• Step 1: a repository, a searchable
database, containing the details of projects
• Decisions about what studies to collect e.g.
date, publicly available, latest if repeat
studies, Masters theses, etc.
• 235 projects in January 2007 (18 countries)
• The repository is still being updated
Charting a field of study
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Disciplines involved
Quantitative, qualitative, combined
Research on younger children vs. youth
National vs. International research
Who funds research?
Topics researched
Topics
• Topics change over time e.g. the decline of
research on chatrooms
• Least researched: civic and political
participation, interpreting online content,
creating online content, online learning,
seeking advice online and search strategies
Topics
• Little on media literacy
• Little on why children lack access
• There is a lot of variation by country – in
some only basic questions about use and
access are on the research agenda
Risk topics
• Least researched area: commercialism
• Little on why children take risks
• Little on social consequences of risk-taking
Comparative analysis
• Where, and to what extent, are there European
commonalities or differences regarding children’s
online experiences?
(Kohn framework)
• a) Countries as units of analysis: How do we
explain country differences and similarities?
• b) Counties as case studies: What hypotheses
hold true across countries?
Process
• We set up a template with questions e.g.
does this data exist, provide this information
about media coverage, education system,
Government initiatives, etc.
• National teams write reports
• Different project members look across
reports at specific themes
Typology of risks
Commercial
Content
Child as recipient
Aggressive
Sexual
Values
Adverts, spam, Violent/ hateful Pornographic or Bias, racist,
sponsorship,
content
unwelcome
misleading info/
personal info
sexual content ‘advice’
Contact
Tracking/
Child as participant harvesting
personal info
Being bullied,
harassed or
stalked
Meeting
Self-harm,
strangers, being unwelcome
groomed
persuasion
Conduct
Bullying or
harassing
another
Creating and
Providing
uploading porn misleading
material
info/advice
Child as actor
Illegal
downloading,
hacking
Example first stage analysis: risk data
Order to which ‘risks’ are common:
1. giving out private information,
2. porn,
3. violent/hate-sites,
4. being bullied/harassed/stalked,
5. Receiving unwanted sexual comments,
6. Meeting an online contact offline
Risk data
• No systematic cross-national patterns (e.g.
north-south, east west)
• More national variation, the more common
the risk
• There are outliers (exceptional countries)
e.g. Poland, high risk in many areas
Next challenges
• These are only building blocks
• Why should this be interesting theoretically
and for policy?
• Why do these and other patterns exist?
• How do we answer that question?
Social shaping of research
• Why do different amounts of research exist
in different countries and why are some
research questions followed up in some
countries more than others?
Factors to consider
• The histories of (social science and related)
research in general,
• The methodologies favoured in different
institutions or even countries,
• The nature and wider interests of the
disciplines involved in research,
• Sources of research funding, etc.
Factors to consider
• The national histories of interest in and
concern about the Internet in general as well
as about children, youth and the Internet in
particular.
• Whether specific events where important for
publicly raising issues in this field,
• National lobbying by certain groups, etc
Process
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Same as for comparative research
Template of questions
National reports
Division of labour – different people look
across countries
• Iterative further reflections
Examples: ‘Tasters’
• Little research in Bulgaria, Czech republic –
relatively slower diffusion of the Internet,
little media coverage of the Internet in
general
• In some countries, there is research, but
‘risk’ has only just come onto the research
agenda
Examples: ‘Tasters’
• UK: most research
• Tradition of empirical research in social
issues
• History of commercial research
• Very active NGOs
Reports
• Charting report and a methodological review
are already available
• www.eukidsonline.net
• Comparative analysis due in the autumn
2008
• Social shaping research due in autumn 2009