Ana Jorge

Media representations and children’s discourses on online risks: Findings from qualitative research in nine European countries

Prior research has pointed to cross-national variations in media attention for online risks, which are then mirrored in parental concerns regarding the internet. However, little is known so far about how the discursive environment around opportunities and risks of the internet for children shapes the very context in which children’s own perceptions are developed and their online experiences are situated. The aim of this contribution is threefold: (1) to understand how and to what extent children’s perceptions of online risks incorporate media representations, parental worries and discourses circulating among peers; (2) to identify any age- or gender-specific patterns in the appropriation and conversion of media, parents’ and peers’ discourses; and (3) to identify whether there are cross-cultural variations in risk perceptions.

Do questions matter on children’s answers about internet risk and safety?

This article aims at understanding the construction of online risk and safety among children addressing the lack of research on children’s discourses on their internet experiences. The analysis compares the perceptions of Portuguese children (9-16) based on an open-ended question about online risk from the EU Kids Online survey and two open-ended questions about online safety from a survey of disadvantaged children. Theoretically, the article combines constructionist perspectives on risk with the framework and matrix used in EU Kids Online project. Methodological tools from cognitive sciences and from critical discourse analysis were used to explore children’s answers. These theories and methods contributed to capture children’s own discourses on online risk and safety, which are complex, often ambivalent and affected by hegemonic public discourses expressing media panics and fears. The analysis made visible how different wordings of questions may lead to different answers and to distinctive children’s positions, from apparently excluded of the risk situations to keen advisors of their peers on online safety.

At the heart of celebrity: celebrities’ children and their rights in the media

Based on a comparative analysis of celebrity magazines in Portugal and Brazil, this article analyses the representation of children of celebrities. Those magazines privilege an extreme personalisation of the stories and a strong valuation of the photographic image, representing children as a source of happiness and affection within the family. Nonetheless, drawing on celebrity studies and on children’s rights and their implications for journalism, we concluded that this positive representation frequently collides with the children’s rights to privacy, to be protected from public embarrassment and to be heard in the issues that affect them.

Online experiences of sociallydisadvantaged children and young peoplein Portugal

Abstract This article examines the conditions of internet access and uses by children and young people from socially disadvantaged environments in Portugal. Adapting the EU Kids Online questionnaire, a sample of 279 participants (9 to 16 years old) in an intervention program on digital inclusion was interviewed in order to analyze their online experiences, bearing in mind the EU Kids Online results and the wider debate on digital inclusion. This issue was examined at two levels: access, and practices and uses. Although economic deprivation, parents’ low educational attainment (affecting also family support) and children’s age and gender seem to matter in terms of access, reported uses were analogous to the average Portuguese and EU Kids Online data. However, with these children apparently being more oriented towards entertainment and having less informational skills, it is questionable if policies that merely assure access are entirely sufficient. Nevertheless, one cannot say straightforwardly that ‘social exclusion’ equates ‘digital exclusion’.

Algorithms and Intrusions: Emergent Stakeholder Discourses on the Co-option of Audiences’ Creativity and Data

In the age of ubiquitous technologies, algorithmic agents pervade all aspects of our (online) lives. A growing number of connected digital devices track our activities and store our data on digital platforms or in the Cloud (Van Dijck 2014; Porcaro 2016). They give us recommendations for songs and movies, filter news or rank search results based on our past experiences (Bodo et al. 2017). This chapter focuses on the co-option of audiences’ digital production and data, as seen through the lens of stakeholders. Based on 15 interviews conducted with stakeholders from eight European countries, we show how this heterogenous community, consisting of players with different stakes, sees and evaluates the processes of co-option of audiences by digital platform owners, for their own purposes. The results highlight the dialectical nature of co-option and the sometimes conflicted relationship between commercial players and creative audiences, and show how this relationship is managed from both sides.

Ferramentas jornalísticas na educação. Uma rádio online para jovens

The relationship between journalism and education remains in a yet weakly explored camp, although journalism can embody a pedagogical tool, oriented to the practice of journalistic concepts and techniques. In this article, we explore a case-study of an online radio developed with youth communities, using participant observation, interviews and focus groups conducted in the scope of the project RadioActive Europe (2013-14). We argue that these young participants take similar roles in daily life and particularly in school to those used in contexts of radio participation. Learning through action, however, implies long lasting intervention processes so that the transposal of roles taken up in the project may be more perennial, dynamic and fluid in the personal life processes.

‘Cristiano Ronaldo is cheap chic, Twilight actors are special’: young audiences of celebrities, class and locality

Taking a broad perspective on the audiences of celebrity culture, this article investigates the ways in which Portuguese young people participate in the social construction of celebrity, their own identities and ultimately their country’s place in global culture. Looking at the negotiation processes that occur among young people aged 12–17 around local and global celebrities, mostly from entertainment and sports, the respondents held different perceptions depending largely on the celebrities’ cultural origins. The relationships that young people establish with celebrities also help them to project a social position and negotiate their ambitions. While perceptions of class are more accentuated among general audiences and enthusiasts regarding local celebrities, there is a more dramatised view of the life narratives of teen stars and global celebrities, which is even stronger among fans. The discussion surrounding Cristiano Ronaldo, a local celebrity turned global, showed that the meanings they attribute to celebrities link class and the semi-peripheral position that Portugal occupies in the global circuits of culture.