Some forty years ago after the debut of Sesame Street, it is time to once again rethink the way we expose kids to media. Joan Ganz Cooney, the non-profit research organization Ganz Cooney founded is pushing for a complete overhaul of children’s media legislation that may prove no less far reaching.
In their report, it stated that “Federal regulatory bodies, such as the Federal Communications Commission, and voluntary industry, public interest advocacy and philanthropic organizations, should advance policies that protect children from commercialism. A revitalization of the Children’s Television Act needs to be undertaken to modernize the child protections now called for in a digital age.”
Truly, it is worth to second the recommendation. Meanwhile, the Psychological Association task force has also recommended limits, citing research that shows that kids under the age of 8 cannot critically relate to advertising messages.
So how do we exactly redefine the Children’s Television Act for the Digital Age?
It Must Reach out to Industry. There are a lot of groups that are concerned about the impact of digital media on children. Among of these include Common Sense Media’s Digital Kids Intitative, the MacArthur Foundation and of course Joan Ganz Cooney Center. They must reach out to entrepreneurs and potential investor so a dialogue can be made on creating these shows that would conform to their research’s results.
Create Research-Based Universal Standards for what Constitutes Educational Content. In essence, this means all educational content must be standardized. There must be no double standards. This applies to television, online, and other digital content. One way to accomplish this is to categorize it by ages and development stages. In the digital space, where there are no regulations in place yet, a good idea is to certify them through a seal of approval. Such way, we are sure that they are truly educational.
Build new, Ad-Free Business Models for Sites Targeting Children. Subscriptions make high quality children content inaccessible to lower income families. As such, companies must continually seek ways on developing alternatives. Alternatives that require less monetary outlay but could create a long term impact to children.