safe social media project (paper presented april 14th, vienna)

Best practice. Safe social media. Daphne III Project by InterMedia Consulting (Reynaldo Rivera and Manuel Villalobos)

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Safe Social Media ( www.safesocialmedia.eu): The Safe Social Media project promotes an innovative – evidence based strategy to protect and empower European Children in social media.

A) To highlight the complexity and urgency of the problems linked to children, teenagers and social media, a recent report commissioned by the Home Office Violent Crime Unit (UK) as part of the Together We Can End Violence against Women (February 2010) reports: Over 80 per cent of young people use the internet daily or weekly and around a third of 8–11-year-old and 60 per cent of 12–15-year-olds say that they mostly use the internet on their own. Almost half of children aged 8–17 and a quarter of those aged between eight and 11 have a profile on a social networking site, such as Bebo, MySpace or Facebook. While sites set age limits (typically 13 or 14), these are not generally enforced. Girls, for instance, report being under increasing pressures to display themselves in their ‘bra and knickers’ or bikinis online, whereas boys seek to display their bodies in a hyper-masculine way showing off muscles, and posturing as powerful and dominant. Sexualised self-presentation could also mean that young people are exposing themselves to danger: recently, public attention has focused on the use of social networking sites to sexually solicit underage children and young people. A recent YouGov survey found that 27 per cent of boys are accessing pornography every week, with 5 per cent viewing it every day. The survey also found that 58 per cent had viewed pornography online, on mobile phones, in magazines, in films or on TV. Another study showed that a quarter of young people had received unsolicited pornographic junk mail or instant messages while almost one in eight had visited pornographic websites showing violent images. Lara Dutta, Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Population Fun and Miss Universe in 2000, believes that “parents and children often clash over using the Internet, watching TV or movies and listening to music. Parents want to protect their children from negative influences (Violence, sex, social prejudice and offensive Language) and may feel they know what is best for them, while adolescents struggle for independence. Family decisions and open lines of communication between parents, teachers and children can ensure that young people are given the proper guidance as they engage in this vast network of information and experience. Such support and protection can moderate children’s exposure to inappropriate content and prevent them from being taken advantage of by opportunistic adults. The power of the media over adolescents can be neither ignored nor denied. It has given the stars of films, music and sports a disproportionate influence on the lives of adolescents, who admire these figures and often emulate them”. With advances in technology , video games are becoming increasingly graphic and realistic. At the same time, children are more and more likely to play games without adult supervision: three-quarters of 12–15-year-old have a games console in their bedroom. Many games feature highly sexualised content and there is a notable lack of strong female characters. The link between violent content and aggression has been cited in several studies and it is widely accepted that exposure to content that children are either emotionally or cognitively not mature enough for can have a negative impact. Whereas parents are not likely to allow their children to watch an 18 film, they are much more lenient when it comes to allowing their children to play age inappropriate games. This may be because they do not fully understand either the realism or the themes that these games contain. Schools can help children develop the capacity to interpret and filter information and to recognise and value diversity. As such perhaps we need to consider the value of media literacy and gender studies and begin to see them as core to the curriculum we teach our children. Sex education, too, must focus on preparing young people to form healthy, respectful, emotionally fulfilling relationships.


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Recently, in the report “The State of the World´s Children 2011” by Unicef published an article about Digital Safety for Young People. In this article Colin Maclay, Urs Gasser and John Palfrey1 say “effective problem solving begins with the definition and exploration of the problem in question. While it may seem straightforward, a comprehensive and uniform concept of what safety means in the online context is lacking. In addition, the interpretation and relative prevalence of risks varies. In developing nations, for instance, while some forms of aggressive behaviour may be less common, certain sexual risks – whether sex tourism, trafficking of children or production of child pornography – are likely to be more pressing. Coming to terms with a uniform concept of safety and arriving at ways to discuss and track the varying risks and behaviours are essential. Refining these risks to children’s rights to protection from violence, abuse and exploitation from online sources is essential”.

B) We think that the use of Social Media is a great to ol to educate, they are offering a good service to society if the society do a positive and responsibl e use of social Media. We have exposed before some fact involve in the ris k. Now, in order to defend the right, we carried out a research about the abuse of Social Media. Som e problems addressed were: 1) Absence of uniform and concrete assessment or impact indicators on the educational/awareness strategies on media violence implemented up to now in Europe. 2) Very few educational actions addressing jointly parents, teachers and teenagers together have been organised. Most of the projects were specifically targeted to one of these categories or they were involving these categories separately. These approaches may have been creating huge limitations in the communication process and behavior change policies (some have proven to be inefficient to solve media-related violence problems), as it has been recognised by experts and stakeholders, because they do not consider: the two-step model (Lazarsfeld and Katz) and the integrated theory of informal social control (Sampson and LaubI). Such a comprehensive approach is highly recommended in the Daphne booklet "Violence and technology" (2008), page 23. 3) Poor awareness, among children and teenagers on how to use new media avoiding the risks of getting in touch with violence contact on the social media (social networks, online videogames, etc.), probably because of a lack of effective educational methodologies and commitment in schools and families. 4) Poor knowledge on the risks of Internet among parents and educators. According to a survey of Eurobarometer (2008) it is evident, for example, how parents do not often take measures to control their children in Internet: 50% of them, for example, do not use any filter; and 60% of these do not use it because they think it is not necessary. Evidence of this problem is also given by the Recommendation on the protection of minors and human dignity and on the right of reply in relation to the competitiveness of the European audiovisual and on-line information services industry (20 December 2006, OJ L 378/72), which recommends Member States to promote "actions to enable minors to make responsible use of audiovisual and on-line services, notably by improving the level of awareness among parents, teachers and trainers (…) through media literacy programmes and by continuous training within school education" (point 2.a) 5) Absence of Integrated Educational System in the safe use of Social Media. The quick development of social media (social networking sites, online videogames, video and image sharing, blogs, etc.) has facilitated the access to information (video, images, etc.) on the web and given a different approach to interpersonal relations. This easier access to any kind of products on the web and with no or very low costs, not only improved the opportunities of communicating but unfortunately it has also increased the risks of getting in touch with violent contents, especially towards the categories most at risk, such as children and adolescents. We want to propose a European model of awareness allowing to avoid teenagers of getting into risky

1 Colin Maclay, Urs Gasser and John Palfrey work at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University, while Gerrit Beger heads the Division of Communications Youth Section at UNICEF.


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situations and virtual behaviors by helping them (through a youth and participative approach) how to use the social media in a pro-active, creative and responsible way.

C) In order to solve some of these problems we have cr eated Safe Social Media an educational project “to navigate without drowning”. Our efforts will be oriented to create an online network of youth organizations, educational institutions, parents associations, media companies and other stakeholders, in order to establish a multidirectional and intergenerational dialogue on these issues. The Overall Goal of Safe Social Media is: Reduce exposure to violence for children and adolescents through Social Media. The specific objectives of the project are: a) Improved awareness of children, parents and teachers towards the use of Internet and the social media (social networks, online videogames, etc.). This objective will be reached through the implementation of the education campaign in schools, as described in workstream 3. Indicators of results: 5.000 teenagers; 120 teachers; about 2.000 parents b) Reduced impact of the violence on teenagers when they access social media, thanks to a more responsible and creative usage of social media positive opportunities; c) Empowering parents and teachers as major resources for the education of the adolescents to the use of Social media; d) Identification of common indicators for the assessment of European educational programmes and awareness raising campaigns against media violence to be implemented in schools and families; e) Reinforced cooperation between the schools of the two countries in the fight against violence on Social media, by adopting a common educational programme and a system of exchange of best practices. The main ambition is the appointment, in each region, of one school as "regional awareness node" with the scope of coordinating the cooperation of the other regional schools within the educational strategy on the sector. f) Improved scientific and technical knowledge on the education on violence on Social media And the Beneficiaries of the project are addressed to the following target groups: - Direct beneficiaries: teenagers (age: 10-16) , who represent the category most at risk of getting in touch with violent content through the Internet and social media. The chosen range of age is strategic because: a) it concerns an age in which adolescents do not have yet a fully developed knowledge and perception of the risks of social media; and b) there is a “parental gap” (Livingstone). “I welcome the government’s desire to boost young people’s media literacy skills. Any media literacy programme should equip young people with the cognitive filters to critically examine and challenge the media portrayal of both men and women. It should address concepts such as air-brushing of images and the cult of celebrity, and be linked to education on safe internet use. There’s a great deal of positive work that can be done with young people, not because they are seen as deficient, or victims, or needing to be ‘fixed’ but as part of more general antisexist and gender equalities-based work with boys and girls” (Papadopoulos). Adolescents naturally look for a larger social interaction, and social media are seen as the easiest means how to get it, sometimes involving a degree of "experimentation" and "curiosity" that may bring risks. Although social networking sites regulations do not allow children to register and/or open a profile, a preliminary awareness action addressed to younger children 10 – 13 years old is necessary to explain them - before becoming users of the Net - the opportunities that they may have in using social networks, but also how to tackle dangerous situations.


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The direct beneficiaries will be reached through the involvement of 25 selected pilot schools in each country, both public and private. About 10.000 adolescents should be involved (5.000 per country). - Indirect beneficiaries: we have identified parent s and teachers as key participants to the project because they are responsible for the education of the adolescents. The weaknesses coming out from recent surveys (ie: minimum perception of the risks of social media; absence of controls when the children use Internet - Eurobarometer 2008), which affect a relevant part of parents and teachers calls for more efficient instruments of communication and awareness. Awareness raising of those two categories on the risks and opportunities of the social media is therefore strategic because of their role as educators of the children: only self-aware parents and teachers can transmit to the children the information on a correct behaviour on the Internet and new media. This perception is backed by important researches carried out, which highlighted the key role of parents and teachers as mediators in the media education and control of children (ie: EU kids online; Byron Review 2008; Daphne booklet "Violence and technology" - 2008). 150 teachers (60 in Italy and 60 in Spain) will be trained after one-day seminar in each school. The number of parents involved in the activities should be of 2.000.

D) The project will be develop in the following steps: (only we will explain the main workstream) Workstream 1 "Analysis of the context and best practices" The final objective of this workstream will be the analysis of the scientific background and of the contexts, starting from the existing best practices and studies at EU level, in order to identify common weak points and/or opportunities in the involved countries in order to create the most appropriate methodology for the educational campaign, and the Creation of a common knowledge database. Workstream 2 "Elaboration of the awareness campaign" Second milestone: educational strategy designed Workstream 3 "Implementation of the campaign" This workstream will test the education programme developed in the workstream 2. The pilot action will be implemented inside a group of 25 schools per country, with an estimated number of 10.000 adolescents involved. The schools will ensure the coverage of at least half of the national territories. Half of the schools will be located in big towns and half of these in rural or provincial areas and they will be both public and private. Workstream 4 "Impact assessment" In order to measure the impact of the programmes and make a contribution with the analysis of the variables and causes that intervene in risky situations and behaviors, a causal-comparative research method will be applied in randomized groups (2 by each Country). Causal-comparative research involves comparing two similar groups in order to explain existing differences between them on some variable or variables of interest (risk exposure and media literacy). In brief, in the casual-comparative model the partners will compare two groups by country, one experimental group exposed to the programme and a control group (which will not be exposed to that variable). Afterwards, an examination of the differences is done, in order to determine if the programme cause a clear improvement in children and youth abilities and competencies. Workstream 5 "Communication and dissemination" Fourth milestone: launch of the website Workstream 6 "Exploitation and sustainability" Fifth milestone: exploitation strategy The sustainability strategy will reach different objectives:


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- Promote the adoption of the educational curriculum at EU level (Focus groups, seminars and other exchanges between products and potential new users). - Develop ways of embedding the results into policy, by defining mechanisms to link projects, programmes and policies.

- Enlargement of the network of users

- Activation of permanent information points for the target groups inside the schools

- Secure funding for the future continuation of the activities in an enlarged context

E) And at the end, we want to highlight some innovatio ns of Safe Social Media project. The project has an important added value, under different points of view: - involved groups: very few initiatives of joint awareness activities at European level involving children, parents and teachers have been experimented until now. And even fewer initiatives have achieved concrete and measurable results on their effectiveness because they were mainly one shot events without foreseen systems of assessment. By bringing together, inside the same activities, the three categories we want to create a multi-level approach and specific moments of interaction and confrontation between the three categories in the main environment of socialisation of children: the school. - field of action: the social media are new online communication/socialisation tools that are further developing year after year. In spite of the arising risks of getting in touch with dangerous and violent content, very few actions have been undertaken up to now in Europe, both in terms of legislation and wide education/awareness campaign to the use. From the analysis of the Daphne toolkit it results, for example, that only 9 funded projects were focused on on-line violence (the last of which dates back to 2003) and none of them has treated the subject of social media. - developed tools: the educational tool developed by the project wants to fill the gap of the present strategies, which don't address jointly parents, teachers and adolescents. This tool wants to ameliorate the state of the art, based mainly on partial instruments of action that do not allow having an effective and multilevel result. The positive educational experience already developed in Spain and Italy by the partners was also focused on specific elements of the media education, respectively online videogames (Spain) and social networks (Italy). Starting from these two independent strategies we wish to create a common programme including the two sectors and developing a common approach to the awareness raising on the correct use of social media and on prevention of accessing violent contents. A single joint action can bring a more efficient use of resources and time and allow analysing the phenomenon of violence on social media inside a coherent framework and with common indicators of assessment. We are sure that with Safe Social Media we will promote a responsible use of Social Media and as a result we will be creating social capital in the family and in the school.

Thank you very much for your attention, sincerely

Reynaldo Rivera, CEO of InterMedia Consulting Manuel Villalobos, Executive Manager

[email protected]