Latest News

(30/06/09)

Digital Manifesto for Child Safety Online

The Children‟s Charities Coalition on Internet Safety (CHIS) has published a new Digital manifesto featuring 42 recommendations to the UK Government, industry and others to provide better protection to children online.

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BBC To Implement New Guide to Taste and Standards

The BBC has said that "malicious intrusion, intimidation and humiliation" in its programmes are completely unacceptable. Swearing between 9pm and 10pm would also be targeted.

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(17/06/09)

New Guidelines for Videogames

The Guardian reports that "Selling a videogame rated 12 or over to an underage buyer will become illegal under new rules to be introduced in the wake of the Digital Britain report, while the classification of games is to be taken away from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) as the UK adopts a Pan-European standard to protect young gamers.

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(30/04/09)

Children to learn internet literacy skills

The Daily Telegraph reports that Children will be taught to read using internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo in the first few years of school.

They will be encouraged to put "keywords" into websites to navigate online articles and blogs as digital media is given similar prominence to textbooks and novels.

Pupils in English primary schools will learn to write with keyboards, use spell-checkers and insert internet "hyperlinks" into text before their 11th birthday under the most significant reform of timetables since the National
Curriculum was introduced in 1988.

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(30/03/09)

Pupil TV habits concern teachers

According to the BBC, ninety per cent of teachers say some pupils are imitating the language and behaviour of reality television stars, a survey for the Association of Teachers and Lecturers suggests.

Three quarters also think pupils are behaving more aggressively as a consequence.

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(25/03/09)

The BBC is to appoint a new "media literacy champion".

The new position will be responsible for collecting together all of the BBC's media literacy content into what it dubs a "supertopic", making it easier for the public to access and understand.

 The BBC says it will raise the profile of media literacy and "establish its place in the portfolio of BBC knowledge content alongside subjects such as History and Science”.

Primary school children to learn about blogging

The Guardian reports that as part of proposals to reform the primary school curriculum  children  would have to leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication.

They must gain "fluency" in handwriting and keyboard skills, and learn how to use a spellchecker alongside how to spell.

(05/03/09)

(09/02/09)

A More Accountable Press, published by the Media Standards Trust finds that the existing system of press self-regulation, as currently constituted, including the Press Complaints Commission, is unable to deal with the serious and growing threats to press standards and press freedom.

The report, published in consultation with an independent group of 12 leading figures from the press and civil society, found that the current system is insufficiently effective, largely unaccountable, opaque, and failing to reflect the radically changed media environment.

Research conducted by YouGov found that 75% of the public think newspapers publish stories they know to be inaccurate. 70% of people believe there are far too many instances in which newspapers invade people’s privacy. 7% of people trusted newspapers to behave responsibly, a figure lower than that for banks. It also found increased public support for government intervention in the press as a result of falling levels of trust.


(02/02/09)

The Children’s Society has published a wide-ranging report, The Good Childhood Inquiry on the position of children in Britain today. 

One section of the report deals with children’s lifestyles and has a section on the role and influence of the media.

Among the inquiry’s recommendations: government should ban firms from advertising to British children under 12; ban adverts for alcohol or unhealthy food on television before 9 pm.

The media should: rethink the amount of violence they put out, the unbalanced impression they give of the risks that children face from strangers and the exaggerated picture they portray of young people threatening our social stability.

Advertisers should stop encouraging premature sexualisation, heavy drinking and overeating.

(20/01/09)

Women, not Men, Watch TV While Surfing the Net Most

According to a recent US study women 30-39 surf the internet while watching TV an average 23.3 minutes per day, more than double that of men in the same age group.

Simultaneous usage by men starts strong but decreases as they approach their 40s.

Women, in contrast, exhibit the opposite behavior, multi-tasking most during the heavy-duty child rearing years and chocking up the most average time of simultaneous media consumption.

Source: Integrated Media Measurement Inc

(19/01/09)

Television is now less than half of children's viewing time, in competition with the internet and computer games, reports the BBC.

 

 

(26/06/09)

BBFC Announce Stricter Guidelines

According to the Times, Rachel from Friends, as seemingly inoffensive as any sitcom character can be, has cost the latest box set of the series a PG rating under new, tighter age guidelines announced on June 23rd.

The new ratings follow its latest review of its guidelines for films, DVDs and video games Discriminatory language, crude sexual references and scenes that do not show actual gore but are frightening are now much more likely to attract a higher certificate than before.

See the full BBFC press release here

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London hosted the fourth WIML media workshop event on March 10th, 2008.

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St Ethelburga's:

The Tent

 

The venue was St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace in the City of London. 

For more photos from the event click here