Seminars: Children's identity: privacy and protectionFORMAT 60/90 minute Seminar TOPIC / SUBJECT / THEME Respecting and protecting children’s identities PURPOSE (Journalistic and children’s rights messages you hope to communicate)
OUTCOME / RESULT (What you expect the students to have learned) · That because they constantly make judgements which may have a (positive or negative) impact on the lives of people they are reporting about, journalists (and editors) have a responsibility to avoid putting children at risk for the sake of a ‘good story’ · That when constructing or publishing problematic images of children, journalists must be honestly satisfied in their own minds about their motives, and what messages they are seeking to impart to audiences. ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION (Measuring success, for you and for the students) Tutors should observe students level of involvement in the seminar, and the extent to which they are relating journalistic practice to what they have learned about children’s rights. If any do not appear to have ‘got the message’ it may be useful to set them a simple ‘media monitoring’ exercise through which they can demonstrate their awareness of the issues. RESOURCES (Equipment and materials needed for implementation) Powerpoints:
HANDOUTS
IMPLEMENTATION (How the session will be delivered) 1. The tutor should begin by outlining the purpose of the seminar and reminding students that today’s media are global because, once published, most significant news and features items are accessible on the world wide web. Even before this was the general rule, in the mid 1990s when the image and identity of a child soldier in Africa were published in an American newspaper, the child was assassinated in Africa. (UNICEF had released the child’s details with the best of intentions – to highlight the, then poorly understood, phenomenon of child soldiers – with tragically unexpected consequences). The UNCRC asserts the child’s right to protection and privacy, but the media want to communicate powerful messages about the risks that children face – street and working children, children in institutions, children caught up in crime, commercial and sexual exploitation. 2. ASK STUDENTS: How do you think this can be done without compromising their identity and safety? 3. Show Powerpoint - Children’s identity: Privacy & protection. Encourage students to comment about the effectiveness or otherwise of the methods illustrated BEFORE using the notes to each image 4. If there is time, take then through Powerpoint - Children’s identity: Art or abuse? 5. Ask the questions shown on the slide notes. Ask student to note down their answers, then select a few to read out their answers, then give them the correct answers. 6. Encourage discussion about how we RESPOND to emotive images, and how easily both (the use of) images and our responses can be manipulated (for political/propaganda purposes for example. 7. Encourage discussion about how easily (the use of) images can be misinterpreted, and how equivocal/ambiguous (the use of) images can generate quite different debates to the ones originally intended. 8. As students to find other examples of problematic usage of children’s imagery in Georgian media (in advertising, for example, or magazines or NGO marketing materials) and discuss the implications amongst themselves. ALTERNATIVELY ask them to write brief critiques of (inappropriate use of) children’s images uses (in advertising, or magazines or NGO marketing materials. © The MediaWise Trust
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