MAGIC - Archive November 2003

ARCHIVE NOVEMBER 2003

EVENTS:
Children's Film Festival in Cologne, Germany
Little revolutions - Children strike back. That's the motto of Cinepaenz - the 14th Children's Film Festival in Cologne that takes place here from Nov. 22-29 this year.
How can children fight for their rights? How can they make their points clear towards adults? How can they claim their place in this world? These are the topics of this year's films which are shown in participating cinemas and children's & youth centers throughout Cologne. As in the past, some of
the films will be shown for the very first time in Cologne. There are also workshops and events on media education with a highlight on young people with disabilities.
MORE INFO (in German)

AWARDS:
Colombia's Television 13 wins award from TV Academy
NEW YORK, November 24, 2003 - Television 13 of Colombia has been named the winner of the International Children's Day of Broadcasting Award, conferred jointly by the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and UNICEF.
MORE INFO

NEWS:
UNICEF appoints Sesame Street muppet Kami as global "Champion for Children"

© UNICEF/HQ03-0411/Sesame Workshop/John E Barrett
NEW YORK/ GENEVA, 24 November 2003 - UNICEF today formally appointed Kami, the HIV-positive Muppet who appears regularly on the South African co-production of Sesame Street called Takalani Sesame, as a global "Champion for Children."
FULL ARTICLE

AWARDS:
AUT students dominate Media Peace Awards
AUCKLAND (AUT/Pacific Media Watch): A Fiji Islander is among Auckland University of Technology students who dominated two categories of New Zealand's annual Media Peace Awards held earlier this month.
FULL ARTICLE

TRAINING:
UNICEF Upgrades Radio Journalists
Luanda, 01/11 - At least 16 radio journalists from seven of the country`s 18 provinces have concluded on Friday at Viana district, in Luanda, a seminar on journalism`s basic techniques. Promoted by the United Nations Children`s Fund (UNICEF), the seven-day seminar dealt with theoretical and practical works, based on new concepts of journalism.
The seminar, which was conducted by the coordinator of Brazil`s Baia Community Radio, Vilma Alcantara, enabled the exchange of experience among journalists from Luanda, Cabinda, Huambo, Bie, Uije, Huila and Moxico provinces.
This is the second seminar that UNICEF promotes in Angola with the local journalists. The first was carried out in 2002 with radio, television and printing journalists. Speaking to Angop, the head of UNICEF`s Information Office, Mrs Patricia Cervantes, said that the UN agency intends also to promote the participation of children in the social communication organs, radio, in particular.
On the other hand, the official announced the holding of a seminar, next week, at the Children National Institute (INAC), which will be attended by 28 children under 17 years, adolescents and journalists who coordinate children programmes. This action aims to transmit the need of children and family`s rights, within their community. Mrs Patricia Cervantes considered radio as one of the most favourable means for the divulgation of the UNICEF objectives.

ARTICLES:
Cyber-bullying
Parents, teachers, and the school administration at large have been able to stop bullies in the schoolyard. However, there is a new breed of bullies and these folks can't do all that much to stop them. As a result, there's a new term out there called "cyber- bullying." It involves computers and digital devices. News stories keep popping up worldwide on the subject. Bullies identify a victim and send abusive emails, Instant messages (IMs), text messages, spread rumors in chat rooms, online bulletins, make annoying cell phones calls, and now blog.
FULL ARTICLE from MediaPost

AWARDS:
Iberoamerican Communication Children's Rights Awards
Journalists from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, México, Nicaragua and the United States are the winners of the 2003 Iberoamerican Communication Awards for the Rights of Children and Adolescents, an international jury announced in San Salvador on November 7th.
The awards are given every two years by UNICEF, the Spanish news agency EFE and the Santillana Foundation for Iberoamerica. The prizes are given to broadcast and print journalists for outstanding work that raises awareness about the plight of children facing poverty, discrimination and violence in Latin America, Spain and Portugal.
FULL ARTICLE

AWARDS:
Winners of OneMinutesJr 2003 announced in Amsterdam
Amsterdam, November 16th, 2003 - George Baramidze (14) from Georgia and Hendrik Krinal (18) from Estonia are the winners of the 2003 OneMinutesJr Awards. Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica, announcing the results at the awards ceremony in the Paradiso in Amsterdam on Sunday night, praised the creativity and uniqueness of all the entries and said that the standard of the OneMinutesJr in general was extremely high.

© UNICEF/Young People's Media Network/OneMinutesJr 2003/Chris Schuepp
He added: “It was a very tough decision for me, because in a way they are all winners. The fact that they come from so many different cultures and backgrounds makes every film special. But I finally nominated those who have best managed to tell a big story within the discipline of the OneMinute format.”
The OneMinutesJr is a project supported by UNICEF, the European Cultural Foundation and the Sandberg Institute to promote youth participation, youth expression and cultural exchange among young people from Europe & Central Asia. In 2003, more than 100 boys and girls participated in workshops in Budapest (Hungary), Tbilisi (Georgia), Derry (Northern Ireland), Casablanca (Morocco) and Berlin (Germany) and contributed the majority of this year’s entries to the competition.
The jury comprised Serbian filmmaker and UNICEF National Ambassador for Serbia and Montenegro, Emir Kusturica, and two of the young nominees from the 2002 competition. They nominated 12 films for the 2003 Awards – from the UK, the Netherlands, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia and Moldova.
Hendrik Krinal from Estonia won the open category – “Best of the world” – with his film “Hans” that presents a woodlouse as an average human leading an average white-collar life.
George Baramidze from Georgia won the “Inside – Out” category about social inclusion. His film “Don’t leave child out” shows one of the problems young people face - neglect. The film is a tragicomic presentation of a mother too busy with her social life to even notice her son cannot get into their apartment.
Six of the 12 nominees were present at the event in Amsterdam, among them Hendrik Krinal, the winner of the “Best of the world” category, who received the award from Emir Kusturica.

Hendrik Krinal (18) & George Baramidze (14)

AWARDS:
AIBD Television Programme Awards for the Year 2003

" A baby's world - the first step", an educational television rogramme of the Korea Broadcasting Association (KBA) and the Korea Educational Broadcasting System (EBS) and "AIDS Song", a TV spot against HIV/AIDS of the Young Asia Television (YATV), Sri Lanka, were awarded the UNESCO sponsored $2,000 Television Programme Awards of the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD).
The award, recognizing the achievements of television producers in the Asia-Pacific region is given in the two categories: the best television spot in a campaign against HIV/AIDS and the best educational television programme.
The prize for each of the awards was a cash prize of US$2,000, presented by UNESCO along with a trophy and certificate from the AIBD.

EXHIBITIONS:
5 years of the OneMinutes in Amsterdam, NL

Exhibition open from November 15-29, 2003
(Tuesdays - Saturdays from 1:00 - 6:00 p.m.)
Free entrance - For more info, please click here.

AWARDS:
ACPC documentary wins UNICEF prize

School of the Highlands, a video documentary produced by the Asian Council for People s Culture (ACPC) was awarded the UNICEF Prize at the 30th Japan Prize International Educational Program Contest.
MORE INFO

NEWS:
Brazilian seminar examines children - media relationship

Journalists, media producers, and "opinion-makers" are invited to attend a seminar that will examine the different ideas concerning the relationship between children and the media. "TVQ (Quality Television), Infancy, Adolescence and the Media" will take place December 9 to 11 in Sao Paolo. The Brazilian Center on Media for Children and Adolescents (MIDIATIVA) is organizing the event with the Investigative Laboratory on Infancy and Communication (LAPIC) of the University of Sao Paolo, and the Social Service of Brazilian Business (SESC).
The program will include roundtable discussions with Brazilian and international specialists who will analyze how children and adolescents can act as subjects, producers, actors, and consumers of mass media.
The conference will open with a presentation by Cecilia von Felitzen, coordinator of UNESCO's Clearinghouse on Children and Violence on the Screen, which studies the relationship between media and young people. There will also be screenings of films, videos, TV programs, and public awareness campaigns that relate to the themes of the seminar.
For more info, e-mail sirlene@midiativa.tv or click here.

AWARDS:
Nominees for 2003 OneMinutesJr Award announced

The following 12 videos & their makers have been nominated for the 2003 OneMinutesJr Awards.

In the category "Inside - Out":
Love your neighbours like yourself - Maris Lagzdins (Latvia)
Fog - Corina Butnaru (Moldova)
Origin - Oleg Frolov (Uzbekistan)
Government must protect children from the exploitation - Lela Ninoshvili & Tamar Khubashvili (Georgia)
A minute - Zdenka Zvarova (Slovak Republic)
Don't leave child out - George Baramidze (Georgia)

In the category "Best of the World":
Punk's not dead - Dieder Enters (Netherlands)
Hans - Hendrik Krinal (Estonia)
Faith - Arivind Abraham (Malaysia, currently UK)
The ball - Victoria Coroban (Moldova)
A little car accident - Vitalie Stasii (Moldavia)
Collage - Ellada Kiryakulova (Azerbaidjan)

The Award ceremony will be held in Amsterdam on November 16th, 2003. The winners and a number of nominees will attend the OneMinutes Festival in the Netherlands, together with the jury member Emir Kusturica (filmmaker and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Serbia & Montenegro).
More information on the OneMinutesJr and many of the videos are available at www.theoneminutesjr.org.

WORKSHOPS / OPPORTUNITIES:
Arab Women's Media Center plans workshop for Arab youth

The Arab Women's Media Center (AWMC) and Pax Christi Netherlands are organizing a workshop for Arab youth on issues related to modern media in the Middle East and abroad.
The groups have scheduled the "Media for non-Media" training course for January 10 to 15, 2004, in Amman, Jordan. University students from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories are invited to attend.
The AWMC said that more than half the population in the Middle East is under 30 years-old, and many are eager to learn more about modern media systems in the region and abroad. The event will feature lectures on topics, such as the media's role in spreading human rights, the portrayal of Arab media in Western culture, the media's role in combating drugs, and positive and negative aspects of media law legislation in the region.
" The problems young people in these countries meet are similar and by bringing students from these different countries together, they can learn from each other's situation and from the different levels of press freedom in each other's countries," the AWMC said.
Workshop details in Arabic

PRESS RELEASE / RESEARCH:
Media and mothers are the most useful source of learning about love, sex and relationships

66% of young people say that the media are a useful or very useful ‘way to find out about, love, sex and relationships’ in a study published today by the Advertising Standards Authority, British Board of Film Classification, BBC, Broadcasting Standards Commission and Independent Television Commission. This put the media on par with mothers - 66% of young people say they learn about relationships from their mothers.
The report is based on the research project Young People, Media and Personal Relationships, by Professor David Buckingham and Dr Sara Bragg of the Institute of Education, London University. It is the first study to focus on how young people (aged 10-14) interpret and respond to the sexual content they encounter on mainstream television, while considering other media exposure. It confirms that children prefer to learn about sex and relationships from media such as teenage magazines and soap operas. This was primarily because these media are a less embarrassing way to learn about relationships, more informative, more attuned to their needs and concerns. Sex education in school is criticised by children for being too didactic and too narrowly focused compared with the media in its approach.
FULL TEXT of the Press Release
FULL REPORT (as pdf-file - 577 KB)

NEWS:
International Children's Day of Broadcasting theme 2003

The theme for this year's ICDB (December 14th, 2003) is heroes and role models. Under the banner 'We can be heroes,' UNICEF is urging broadcasters to throw the spotlight onthose inspirational people - young and old - who help to make a world fitfor children.
More info on the ICDB homepage

COMPETITIONS:
WHO Media Award 2004 - "Future for our Children"

WHO/Europe is inviting entries for the WHO Media Award 2004, the "Future for our Children" and they would like to spread the word to reach as many film-makers as possible.
The Fourth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health will bring together the 52 countries of the WHO European Region in Budapest in June 2004. The focus will be on how to reduce children's exposure to environmental hazards. To mark the occasion,the WHO Media Award 2004 will be presented.
This is an award for films, programmes and public service announcements which touch on the subject of children and environmental hazards. They might be on for example, topics such as children and asthma, traffic, allergies, floods, chemicals, radiation,injuries, poverty, the afermath of war, unsafe water or bad housing. There are three categories (short films and public service announcements, documentaries, programmes made for or by young people (fiction or documentary)). The closing date is March 2004.
For more info, click here or email Viv Taylor Gee at the WHO

PRESS RELEASE:
New Study Finds Children Age Zero to Six Spend As Much Time With TV, Computers and Video Games As Playing Outside
Washington, D.C. – Even the very youngest children in America are growing up immersed in media, spendinghours a day watching TV and videos, using computers and playing video games, according to a new study released on October 28th, 2003 by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Children six and under spend an average of two hours a day using screen media (1:58), about the same amount of time they spend playing outside (2:01), and well over the amount they spend reading or being read to (39 minutes).
FULL TEXT OF THE PRESS RELEASE (PDF)
FULL REPORT (PDF - 1MB)

NEWS:
Commonwealth Broadcasting Association Awards 2003
The CBA Unicef Award for Outstanding Local Children's Broadcasting has beenawarded to BBC World Service Trust/Doordarshan and Naco, the Indian AIDS organisation, for a vigorous and pioneering TV campaign on AIDS aimed at young people, which challenged minds and changed behaviour. The eight-member team led by series producer Sonia Chowdhry was honoured.
More info on the CBA Awards 2003 website

PRESS RELEASE:
Kids account for one out of five Internet surfers in the US - More than 27 million American kids connect online
Nielsen//NetRatings, the global standard for Internet audiencemeasurement and analysis, reports that more than 27 million Internet users between the ages of 2 and 17logged online from home in September 2003. Twelve million children aged 2-11 in the U.S. accessed theInternet from home while 14.9 million teens aged 12-17 connected online. In September, kids betweenthe ages of 2-17 represented 21 percent of active at home Internet users or one out of five Web surfers.
FULL TEXT OF THE PRESS RELEASE (PDF)

NEWS:
Sesame Street Stories for children in the Middle East
Episodes of the popular Sesame Street TV series for children are being produced in Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Territories with the support of the European Commission within its EU Partnership for Peace Programme. Building on the well-established Sesame Street model, these Sesame Stories aim to promote long-term respect and understanding in the Middle East among Palestinian, Israeli, and Jordanian children, in the belief that ignorance of others fuels the ongoing conflict in the region.
FULL ARTICLE

NEWS:
Children fuel internet explosion
Children are leading the way when it comes to venturing into cyberspace, surfing the net for music and games. The number of children online in Europe has jumped by a third in a year, analysts Nielsen/NetRatings have found.
FULL ARTICLE

NEWS:
MP champions fast food ad ban
A Labour MP is to introduce a bill that would ban fast food companies from advertising to pre-school children amid mounting pressure for the government to act to stem the rising tide of obesity among children in the UK.
Debra Shipley, the MP for Stourbridge, wants parliament to vote for a ban on the "advertising of high fat, high sugar and high salt content food and drink during pre-school children's television".
FULL ARTICLE

NEWS:
Unicef art contest winners awarded in Oman
Images of peace, friendship and a beautiful environment were among the winning entries of the children's art competition entitled 'The World We Want', organised by Unicef under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Development in collaboration with the Omani Society for Fine Arts and private sector sponsors.
FULL ARTICLE

NEWS:
Out of the circle - Campaign on Exclusion of Children Begins
The Macedonian network of NGOs working on child rights promotion and Step by Step launched the campaign focused on exclusion of children under the motto "Out of the circle". UNICEF supports the campaign together with the Foundation Open Society Institute - Macedonia and the King Baudouin foundation. Over 200 children from rural and marginalized areas were involved in development of messages, drawings and stories about their life and how it feels to be excluded. Their messages will be used for the one-year campaign and will be displayed on billboards, city lights, posters and TV spot. The National Coordinator of the
Macedonian network Antoni Novotnii presented an open letter to the Minister of Labour and Social Policy Jovan Manasievski calling for finalization of the National Plan of Action for Children. The Head of UNICEF Office Debora Comini called for new partnerships and cooperation with the media, civil society, governmental and non-governmental institutions - to promote society where diversity is respected, where the rights of every child are upheld, where no child is excluded. Across the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltics the NGO Networks for Children with UNICEF support run similar region-wide public awareness campaign with a generic name Leave No Child Out.
For more info, please see the UNICEF Macedonia website and Watch the OneMinute on Social Inclusion from Macedonia (1.92 MB, RealPlayer format)

NEWS:
www.theoneminutesjr.org featuring the Berlin workshop videos

The OneMinutesJr website has been updated and now shows the 21 films produced by young filmmakers at the Berlin workshop (October 10-14).
Go to www.theoneminutesjr.org for more

NEWS:
Disney Mag Caught 'Tween' A Kids Market And A Hard Place
Disney Adventures publisher Kathy Gordon doesn't mince words when talking about challenges facing the handful of "tween" magazines battling for market supremacy. "It's an incredibly tough place to be," she says plainly. "There's only about five ad categories we can get. Beyond that, it really drops off."
Indeed, certain categories - pharma, luxury goods - obviously have no place in a publication targeting children between the ages of six and 12. Other advertisers, like video game companies, tend to spend most of their dollars in Maxim and FHM before parceling out the scraps to younger-leaning titles. This leaves the tween mags - and there aren't many of them, perhaps owing to this precarious market position - to fight over a narrow range of confections, toys and packaged goods companies.
FULL ARTICLE from MediaPost

ARTICLES:
Soap ratings war 'exposes children to TV violence'
Children are being exposed to scenes of increasingly explicit sex andviolence in television soap operas amid an intense ratings war, according toa study published on October 6th.
Of almost 1,000 parents interviewed about their attitudes to the 9pmwatershed, 47 per cent said they were concerned that soap operas containedmaterial that was not suitable for children. They expressed particularconcern about the "moral" effect on their children of a ratings war between Coronation Street on ITV and EastEnders on BBC.
Around one third were also worried about content in crime series such as The Bill on ITV and police and hospital dramas, according to the joint study by the BBC, the Broadcasting Standards Commission and the Independent Television Commission. A total of 4,000 adults and 1,500 children were questioned about pre-watershed viewing, either in focus groups or surveys. The research forms part of a series of studies by broadcast watchdogs into children's reaction to television. Last month a study into television violence accused Hollyoaks and Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which are aimed at teenagers, of "overstepping the mark".
The report found that 95 per cent of adults and 72 per cent of children support the watershed, which is policed by the ITC and the Broadcasting Standards Commission, both of which will be replaced by Ofcom in December. Under watershed rules programmes deemed unsuitable for children
watching alone cannot be shown before 9pm. After that scenes equivalent to a 15-certificate film are permissible, and 18-certificate content can only be shown after 10pm.
Publication of the report, The watershed: Providing a safe viewing zone, coincides with a series of soap storylines testing viewers' tastes. Parents were concerned at a plot in Coronation Street in which a serial killer drives into a canal in his car containing his estranged wife and her children. A significant minority of parents, particularly those with younger children, believed the underwater shots showing the family struggling to escape should not have been shown until later in the evening.
FULL ARTICLE from The Independent

NEWS:
Campaign for Listening to Young People in the UK
The Big Listen is a week dedicated to listening. It will feature activities designed to encourage more adults and organisations to listen to young people. It will also help to raise a lot more money for ChildLine, the UK's free, 24-hour helpline for children and young people.
The Big Listen is part of the BT 'Am I Listening?' campaign which was launched in October 2002. It kicked off with the unveiling of a new partnership between BT and ChildLine, and the launch of BT's biggest ever social campaign.
Although the initial focus is on helping ChildLine, this is only the beginning of a long term campaign which aims to ensure that every young voice is heard. The motivation comes from some original research that was conducted by BT in consultation with ChildLine in 2002. It revealed that the majority of children and young people in the UK believe that 'their voices are not being heard and acted upon'.
During the Big Listen, BT will be working in partnership with ChildLine to publish guides to listening, both for adults and children and young people. In addition, the British Youth Council will pubish a new lobbying guide for young people. These new publications will feed in to an online debate.
For more information, contact:
The Big Listen
Claire McDonald, Project Manager
Tel: 00 44 20 7428 4946;
Email: listening@biglisten.co.uk
Website: www.biglisten.co.uk

NEWS:
MPs Want New Child Rights in UK Law
An influential group of MPs and peers will call on the government to incorporate the UN convention on the rights of the child into British law, the Guardian has learnt.
Such a move would allow children to challenge in the courts any legislation or policy as being against their best interests.
FULL STORY from The Guardian

NEWS:
Internews and UNICEF Pave the Way For Future Youth Media Centers
51 young people from various schools, orphanages and boarding schools, half of which belong to Youth Volunteer Groups that have been formed in the UNICEF supported Youth Resource Centers in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, took part in a series of journalism seminars in Baku and Ganja jointly organized by Internews-Azerbaijan Public Association and UNICEF.
FULL ARTICLE from the Internews Azerbaijan website

WEBSITES:
www.theoneminutesjr.org voted "World Site of the Month"

The OneMinutesJr website was voted "World Site of the Month - October 2003" by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The link on their website is in Dutch only, but you can find more info on www.theoneminutesjr.org itself or in the MAGIC Bank.
Two of the OneMinutesJr from the Tbilisi workshop will be shown on BBC 2 on October 18th and 20th as part of the BBC Blast TV program. For more info, please go to the BLAST TV schedule.

RESEARCH:
Children in Newspapers - A Global Content Study
The "Children in Newspapers" global project asked students aged 10-12 to read their local newspaper for one week, cutting out, discussing and categorising articles that portrayed children.
This work builds on earlier studies from the United Kingdom (1998) and the United States (1996), where newspapers were not partners in the effort, as well upon a Nordic NIE Survey of 2002 and four previous studies of young people in the press carried out in Norway/Sweden between 1994-2000.
MORE INFO on the WAN website

For older news items, please go to the ARCHIVE