Let's Rewrite the Rules for Kids' Media

LET'S REWRITE THE RULES FOR KIDS' MEDIA
[SOURCE: BusinessWeek, AUTHOR: Anastasia Goodstein, Ypulse.com]
[Commentary] The Joan Ganz Cooney Center is pushing for an overhaul of children's media legislation. The center's recent report, D is for Digital, analyzes the impact of digital media on kids and reaches some striking conclusions. "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," the center writes. "A revitalization of the Children's Television Act needs to be undertaken to modernize the child protections now called for in a digital age." We clearly need to develop standards when it comes to kids' digital media. One of the major goals of the Children's Television Act was to increase the quantity of educational broadcast TV programming for children. But it was enacted in 1990 and predates much of the digital era. And other than subsequent FCC rules on digital TV and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which prevents personal data collection from children under 13 without parental consent, there's a dearth of rules and guidelines for kids' digital media. What's more, the standards for what constitutes "educational" content are weak at best. So how do we redefine the Children's Television Act for the Digital Age? 1) Reach out to industry. 2) Create research-based universal standards for what constitutes educational content. 3) Build new, ad-free business models for sites targeting children. 4) Build new, ad-free business models for sites targeting children. 5) Increase transparency and labeling of sponsored digital content.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2008/tc20080227_269559.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech