Advocating for Children Rights in the Digital Age: Why is the Figure of the Child Controversial?

• In Event: Normative Foundations and Principles for Communication Policy

Abstract

Rights-based approaches to children’s digital media practices are gaining attention as a framework for research, policy and initiatives that can balance children’s need for protection online with their capacity to maximize the opportunities and benefits of connectivity. But what does it mean to bring the concepts of the digital, rights and the child into dialogue? Arguing that the child represents a limit case of adult normative discourses about both rights and digital media practices, this paper harnesses the radical potential of the figure of the child to rethink (human and children’s) rights and the digital. In doing so, we critique the implicitly adult, seemingly invulnerable subject of rights in research and advocacy about digital environments. We thereby draw out the key tensions and dilemmas relating to the emerging agenda on children’s rights in the digital age.

Authors

• Sonia Livingstone, LSE

• Amanda Third