Genachowski: new media better suited to educating kids than a broadcast model

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski on Wednesday spoke about the dangers to youth of proliferating media and increased screen time in front of them, but he also said there was potential to educate and engage future world citizens in that media mix by combining regulation, technology, and new business models.

He also suggested that new media might be better suited to educating kids than a broadcast model based on aggregating eyeballs. Chairman Genachowski was the opening speaker at a Kaiser Family Foundation event in Washington announcing the release of a third in a series of studies on media usage by young people. The study found that usage had gone up dramatically among 8-18-year-olds, with TV still the dominant screen time. The chairman, who worked to implement the Children's Television Act as a top FCC staffer in the 1990s, said the release of the study underscores the FCC's effort to update that act for the digital age--it launched an inquiry in October. "When I think about the challenges, I think about more screens, more time in front of screens, and more dangers from [both]."