Libro

MEDIA LITERACY AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE
Strategies, Debates and Good Practices
This document promotes the division of children's rights in provision rights,
protection rights and participation rights. The last "implies consideration of an
identity of children as active beings, who are guaranteed civil and political
rights" (Marôpo, 2009). In this area, we highlight the articles 12, 13, 14, 15 and
17, which legitimate the opportunity for children to be heard, to be informed and
have access to information, freedom of expression and opinion, as well as to
decide for themselves (Fernandes, 2005:35).
This is a set of elements that emphasizes a range of participation opportunities
for young people, against the discourses that emphasize their lack of capacity.
Article 12 is very important, since it insists on the visibility of the child,
recognizing his own status in society. On the one hand, is regarded as a
substantive right, as it recognizes that children are authors on their own lives
and participate in decisions that affect them. On the other hand, it is a
procedural right, because it allows children to be active in the promotion,
protection and reivindication of their rights (Lansdown, 2001).
Despite this recognition, in the opinion of Gerison Lansdown (2001), adults are
not fully prepared to hear the children, which means that opportunities are being
denied because of protectionist speeches. In addition, it seems to persist, in
some countries, an exercise of excessive power, and there are many who
consider that enable children to participate can put them at risk.
However, this is not the nature of the Convention. Assign participation rights of
children, is to allow them to express their views, according to their maturity, in
all decisions that affect their lives. And that includes talking about their media
experiences, putting them in place of critical audiences.
3. Children “voices” in news reception - research trends
While in Portugal has been evidenced in recent years a greater interest in
studying the relationship between children and news, we can conclude that
there is no work on children's engagement with current affairs, with concern on
give them visibility, facilitating their participation about issues of daily life.
We found, however, some investigations about the relationship between
children and news, with the purpose to understand what the views of children
and young people about stories involving issues that directly affect them. These
works are part of the research project Children and Young People in the News,
which was coordinated by Cristina Ponte, professor and researcher at the New
University of Lisbon.
One of these studies, conducted by Malho, Pato e Tomé (2007), is the result of
a quantitative investigation with 246 children from basic education. The main
objective was to understand how children relate to the news media and
television. For this, the authors took the children themselves, their perceptions
and understandings in the relationship with the media and the news discourse.
Although this study was about the uses of media and knowledge about the
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