Researching children’s rights in a global, digital age
Workshop 56, Internet Governance Forum, Istanbul, November 2014
Organizer: Professor Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and EU Kids Online, s.livingstone@Lse.ac.uk
Theme: The panel will primarily address conference theme 6. Internet and human rights. It is also relevant to theme 2: Content creation, dissemination and use, and to theme 5: Enhancing digital trust.
Description: Policy makers rely on high quality research to underpin evidence-based governance decisions. Although many researchers and research users attend the IGF each year, research is rarely a focus of IGF activities. Thus the research agenda, key concepts, robust yet practical methods, and challenges of evaluation and application are yet to be discussed in this crucial international forum. An ever-growing diversity of evidence on children’s rights in a global digital age exists and more is needed, making this a timely moment for stakeholders to debate the design, conduct and uses of research.
Detailed overview: The round table will ask, primarily, what are the research priorities and key research questions regarding children’s rights in a global, digital age? What is good research practice in a complex domain where the Internet is fast-changing and children’s particular needs and perspectives vary hugely by culture and context? Can the methods for conducting and evaluating research that have been established in the global North be extended to the global South, now that children are going online across the globe, or do new considerations apply? To what extent can the evidence usefully guide governance decisions, whether internationally, regionally or nationally? How to strengthen and promote dialogue between researchers and policy makers at all levels? Secondarily, it will ask, how can the research community achieve greater clarity and visibility regarding research priorities, good practice research methods and reliable statistics about children and digital media on a cross-national basis? How might we collaborate through research and stakeholder networks to sustain knowledge sharing?
The session brings together researchers and research users from different stakeholder groups ((academia, industry, regulator, UN organisation, NGO, activist) and from diverse continents around the world to identify the priority research questions, reputable research methods, and key research challenges to be faced when generating a truly global evidence base to underpin Internet governance that advances children’s rights in a digital age.
Agenda
90 minutes in total
Welcome, introductions and aims
10 minutes
Professor Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science, and the 33-country research network, EU Kids Online
Panel: Formulating the global research agenda for children’s rights in the digital age
Short presentations of 5-8 minutes each, 25 minutes in total
Patrick Burton, Executive Director, Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention, South Africa, “Facilitating children’s voices in the development of policy relating to online safety and rights”
Kürşat Çağıltay, Professor, Faculty of Education, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey: “Conducting research at a time of political change”
Bu Wei, Professor and activist, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China “Critical perspective: mapping the studies on youth and digital media and their methodology in China”
Conversation: Research users’ priorities and challenges regarding children’s rights in the digital age
A 25 minute conversation (no presentations) moderated by Sonia Livingstone
Ankhi Das, Facebook, India
Fabio Senne, Cetic.br, Brazil
Jasmina Byrne, UNICEF Office of Research (with a global mandate)
Nevine Tewfik, Egypt, governmental research user and regulator
Open discussion
30 minutes
Gitte Stald, Professor, ITU University, Denmark, will act as the Remote Moderator
Youth participants
All session attendees