Sara Pereira participated in a workshop on protection of children in the audiovisual context

The CECS researcher, Sara Pereira, participated in the Workshop “Protecting Children in Audiovisual Media Services – Current and Future Measures”, which was promoted by the ERGA subgroup on Protection of Minors, within the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services.
Sara Pereira, who is part of the Media and Journalism Research Group at CECS and is a specialist in Media Education, made her presentation in session 4 (between 2.30 p.m. and 4.15 p.m.), where the debate was based on the theme “Creating the Protective Web – Weaving the Elements Together”. The main purpose of this theme is to find some common ground among the attendees on how to enhance the protection of minors in the area of audiovisual services. What, for example, is the potential of current industry-based initiatives (ICT Coalition, EC Alliance, etc.) and what role there is for various stakeholders active in this field.

The workshop aimed to bring together stakeholders from academics, producers, operators and parental organizations to review current measures on the protection of children in audiovisual services and to identify good practices implemented by industry. According to Sara Pereira, “it was a rich session, due to the diversity of cases presented, from global operators such as Netflix and YouTube, to other more local ones, such as Telefónica España to NICAM Netherlands, among others”. The researcher stressed, however, that the discussion could have gone further leaving aside some aspects “that the industry could and will develop, in addition to technical regulation, based on information campaigns and awareness on this matter”. The qualification and training of the younger audience, as well as the parents, “also had an approach that was more marginalized but was emphasized by the representative member of the European Parent’s Association.”

Complete promgramme, here