Global Kids Online:

Childrens rights in the digital age

Inception report

Professor Sonia Livingstone and Dr Mariya Stoilova

Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and
Political Science (LSE)

7 September 2015
Table of Contents

1. Introduction ............................................................................................. 3

2. Project outline and objectives .................................................................. 4

3. Four national contexts .............................................................................. 6

4. Project activities and outputs ................................................................... 6

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 1. Introduction
Global Kids Online is an international research project that has been launched by the London
School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UNICEF Office of Research Innocenti (OoR) and
EU Kids Online to develop a global research toolkit, building on the one developed by EU Kids
Online, as a flexible new resource for researchers around the world in gathering evidence on
childrens online risks, opportunities and rights. This inception report contains a short description
of the background, purpose and scope of the project, as well as information about the planned
activities, outputs, participating members and delivery dates.

Across truly diverse domestic, cultural and geographic contexts, many children now use
information and communication technologies (ICT)1 as part of their everyday lives. Indeed, in
high- and middle-income countries, and increasingly also in low-income countries, many
childrens activities are underpinned by internet and mobile phone access in one way or another
to the point where drawing the line between offline and online is becoming close to impossible.

While digital engagement is rapidly spreading throughout the world, this fast-paced, widespread
growth often occurs far ahead of any understanding of what constitutes safe and positive use in
digital contexts, and technology use is consistently outpacing legislation and regulation. This
environment presents challenges for safeguarding children as their use of digital devices often
precedes an effective rights framework or challenges existing laws when applied to the digital
environment.

An important issue highlighted by those who argue for better provision for childrens rights on
the internet is that the internet is blind to the age of its users, which results in children being
treated in the same manner as adult users. The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of
the Child recognises both that children have some rights over and above those of adults, and
that even when child and adult rights are the same, ensuring children enjoy their rights may take
additional efforts. Consequently, more and more stakeholders are charged with implementing
childrens rights in the digital environment.

The relevance of the internet to both the risks of harm that children face and the opportunities
to benefit them has been documented in recent international evidence reviews. 2 As this
evidence shows, use of the internet on a mass scale by individuals and institutions is
reconfiguring the routes or pathways by and through which children engage with their worlds.
The risks and opportunities of internet use are impacting on childrens wellbeing, and therefore
on their rights. How this occurs, as the evidence further documents, depends on the child, their
life circumstances and the wider context, and these factors interact with the specific features of
the internet transnational, networked, interactive, ubiquitous, persistent, mobile, heavily
commercial, and so forth.

1
Defined as any communication device or application, encompassing radio, television, cellular phones, satellite systems and
computer and network hardware and software, as well as associated services, contents and applications (UNICEF Innocenti
Research Centre, 2012). Within this broad definition, we focus on childrens experiences of the internet and mobile technology,
although it is also important to consider the ways in which childrens lives are affected by others uses of online databases and
services even if children themselves lack personal access to the internet.
2
For recent international reports, see UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre (2012), International Telecommunications Union (2013)
and Family Online Safety Institute (2011).

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For states, internet industry and governance organisations, child welfare organisations and other
stakeholders, it is imperative that the conditions under which child users actually live are
recognised when designing and distributing online technologies, networks and services.

However, thus far, most of the available research has been conducted in the global North rather
than the global South, although nearly all future growth in the young population of internet
users will occur in the global South. Moreover, most studies are conducted independently of the
others and thus use different samples, methods and measures. As a result it is difficult to
compare findings across countries or contexts, or to extend lessons learned in one context to
another.

The pressing challenge is to understand, on a national and cross-nationally comparable basis:

When and how the internet is problematic in childrens lives amplifying the risk of harm
that undermines their wellbeing if they are unprotected.

When and how the internet could contribute positively to childrens lives providing
opportunities to benefit in diverse ways that contribute to their wellbeing.

It is therefore imperative to generate and sustain a rigorous cross-national evidence base in

order to understand whether and how childrens rights are being enhanced or undermined in
the digital age, and to inform policy-makers and stakeholders nationally and internationally. The
scale of such a task is beyond the capacity of any single research institution, and nor would it be
appropriate for one institution to conduct research across such diverse contexts. For this reason,
what is needed is the construction of a research toolkit that encompasses both common
elements and allows for local and participatory adaptation or development.

2. Project outline and objectives

Global Kids Online is an international research project that aims to contribute to gathering
rigorous cross-national evidence on childrens online risks, opportunities and rights. With
principal investigators Professor Sonia Livingstone (LSE) and Jasmina Byrne (UNICEF), the project
involves research in four pilot countries (Argentina, the Philippines, Serbia and South Africa), and
aims to advance understanding of whether and how the internet amplifies the risks of harm to
children and how to optimise digital opportunities that contribute to childrens wellbeing. The
project will do this by stimulating and guiding rigorous multi-method investigations of how
children around the globe use new digital, networked and mobile technologies.

Work on this project seeks to critically evaluate the nature and degree of risk associated with
childrens internet use, maintaining a critical awareness that risk is both an objective reality and
a social construct (Livingstone and Haddon, 2009). We seek to identify groups of children more
exposed to risk or less able to respond to hazardous situations, but rather than an over-simplified
labelling of certain groups as at risk, the aim is to distinguish the factors that may put children in
vulnerable circumstances and assess the risk situation. We also aim for a balanced approach that
focuses not only on the hazards, but also on the new opportunities for childrens social
connectedness, entertainment, learning, participation, creativity and the expression of identity
(Livingstone and Haddon, 2009). To do so, we adopt a bottom-up research approach that focuses
on childrens experiences.

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Global Kids Online draws on and expands the achievements of the EU Kids Online network an
innovative cross-national initiative funded by the European Commissions Better Internet for Kids
(originally, the Safer Internet) Programme. The EU Kids Online network pioneered a cross-
national research strategy encompassing: (1) a comprehensive conceptual model; (2) a modular
survey questionnaire; (3) accompanying qualitative research tools and instruments; and (4) a
sustained dialogue with stakeholders that has ensured the successful exploitation of project
results. Most of this work has been conducted within Europe, although already extending beyond
the EU28 to include Russia, Turkey and several other countries. Additionally, the research
strategy and tools have been applied in Australia and Brazil, and are currently under
consideration in Chile, Argentina, Japan and other countries.

However, simply extending a model developed in Europe to understanding the burgeoning

access and use of the internet among children in the global South is methodologically insufficient
and problematic in ethical and political terms. It is therefore the aim of Global Kids Online to
implement a partnership approach in which the benefits of central coordination of resources,
expertise and tools can be united with a distributed approach to evidence-gathering,
contributing to the development of evidence-based policy and practice locally and globally.

Following from our recent report for the UNICEF OoR on A global agenda for childrens rights in
the digital age: Recommendations for developing UNICEFs research strategy, a multi-
stakeholder, multi-national research seminar was held with the UNICEF OoR and the EU Kids
Online network at the LSE in February 2015. This identified several key challenges for such an
ambitious research agenda:

Identifying the opportunities and barriers to childrens rights in a digital, global age.

Developing standards for rigorous methods of cross-national comparison.

Recognising the priorities, characteristics and demands of particular research contexts.

Managing the relation between research, policy-makers and other stakeholders so as to

embed evidence in policy and practice.

One valuable outcome of the meeting was to identify the core features of the research toolkit
required to support such an agenda. Equally important are the best practices by which it could
be employed practical knowledge-sharing strategies, platforms, dissemination,
ownership/authorship (for example, Creative Commons licensing), quality control, maximum and
minimum scenarios for research implementation, necessary expertise and training.

Following from this initial work, the specific objectives of Global Kids Online are to:

a) Develop a global research toolkit consisting of a modular survey, qualitative research

protocols and a survey administration toolkit that would include methodological guides
and expert reports.

b) Pilot the research toolkit in four countries in diverse national contexts and produce
national reports.

b) Produce a research synthesis of the national reports from the four pilot countries.

c) Develop a website (portal) for hosting the toolkit, national reports and a synthesis report.

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 3. Four national contexts
Global Kids Online aims to generate a rigorous cross-national evidence base on how childrens
rights are being enhanced or undermined in the digital age that looks beyond the context of the
global North. Hence, the project involves primary research in four different national contexts
Argentina, the Philippines, Serbia and South Africa. These are all middle-income countries from
diverse continents, keen on generating a new evidence base on childrens experiences of digital
risks and opportunities.3 It is expected that through the research process these national
institutions will strengthen their research capacities and technical know-how on this specific
topic so that they can act as knowledge hubs in their regions or sub-regions.

Where sufficient cross-country comparative data is missing, classifications tend to be based on

the percentage of individuals (children, if data available) in different countries who use the
internet daily, and who have encountered one or more risks, as well as on the ways in which
parents mediate or regulate their childrens internet use (Helsper et al, 2013). Internet use in the
selected pilot countries is as follows:

Internet Mobile Households Households Fixed Mobile Use of

Users Phones with a PC with Internet Internet internet Social
Networks
Argentina 59.9 162.5 59.2 53.9 14.4 19.8 5.8
Philippines 37.0 104.5 18.7 22.9 9.1 27.2 6.0
Serbia 51.5 119.4 62.7 48.0 14.2 55.7 4.2
South Africa 48.9 145.6 23.6 39.4 3.1 28.7 5.3
1
1) Percentage of individuals using the Internet, 2013 ;
2) Mobile telephone subscriptions per 100 population, 20132;
3) Percentage of households equipped with a personal computer, 20131;
4) Percentage of households with internet access at home, 20131;
5) Fixed broadband Internet subscriptions per 100 population, 20132;
6) Wireless broadband Internet subscriptions per 100 population, 20131;
7) Average use of virtual social networks in personal or professional life 3;

Sources:
1
ITU (2013); 2ITU (2014); 3Livingstone and Bulger (2013: pp 65-66)

As a result of the gathering of new data in the four national contexts, we aim to get a deeper
understanding of cross-national differences among the countries surveyed in Global Kids Online
and the relative differences within countries in comparison to differences between countries. For
example, previous European Union-based research demonstrated that clusters of countries are
most clearly distinguished in terms of sexual content risks, but differences within countries are
often greater than those between countries (Helsper et al, 2013).

4. Project activities and outputs

Global Kids Online has the following planned activities:

3
Argentina has recently been classified as a high-income country by the World Bank (2015)

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 Developing a detailed research plan represented in this inception report with concrete
dates and deliverables.

Setting up an International Advisory Group and methods of consultation with its members
and UNICEF country offices of the pilot countries.

Supporting the development and modification of research tools (both quantitative and
qualitative) to be piloted in four countries.4

Producing expert reports and methodological guides on the administration of the survey to
feed into the research toolkit.

Providing technical support to the national researchers regarding design, sampling and
ethics, as well as guidance on the drafts of national reports.

Based on the results from the national reports, developing a synthesis report on the results
of the pilot study.

Organising an inception workshop in September 2015 in Florence with national researchers

to agree on the modalities of joint working: (1) to present an outline of the toolkit and
discuss with advisers and pilot countries the best approach in terms of scope, content,
form, accessibility and development of the toolkit; and (2) positioning emerging research
findings within the wider context of national, regional and international policy and the
ongoing UNICEF research on child sexual exploitation.

Organising a meeting in London with national partners and UNICEF (approximately March
2016) in order to share the preliminary results of national pilot research5 and to finalise the
toolkit.

Developing an open access web platform to house a number of project outputs, including
the research toolkit, the national research reports, the synthesis report and other material
produced during the research period (videos, meeting reports and presentations).

Broadly sharing and disseminating the research toolkit and reports.

The principal investigator, Professor Sonia Livingstone and UNICEF will finalise the list of
specialist topics to be covered by the expert reports after a discussion with the Advisory Board
members. A list of topics agreed at this stage is included in Appendix 4. The expert reports are
expected to be globally and culturally sensitive, but also accessible, clear and practical, yet
remaining flexible and adaptable. They need not contain basic methodological information that
is readily accessible elsewhere. Instead, they should focus on the specific challenges of
researching childrens online experiences and risk of harm especially (although not only) in the
global South. It is expected that they will reflect the ongoing dialogue between the experts and

4
Both the qualitative and quantitative (modular) survey will be based on the EU Kids Online methodology; see the
Research Toolkit. This includes reaching a consensus with the pilot counties on (1) which modules of the current EU
Kids Online survey are compulsory, (2) which of the optional modules countries have chosen to include, and (3) the
rules any new modules the design should follow.
5
National datasets will stay with UNICEF country offices. Country reports will be produced and hosted on the project
website.

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other participants of the project, and will include relevant insights from the pilot countries.
Instructions on structure, format (section headings), address (readership) and use of resources
(open access/online where feasible) will be provided accordingly.

The research teams in each pilot study country will produce the national reports. They will be
focused on findings, with sufficient methodological information and contextualisation, which will
feed into the synthesis report produced at the end of the project.

The website will include blogging functionality and a digital-first publishing platform (designed
to optimise the onscreen reading of long-form, complex and content-rich documents on a range
of digital devices) to present the toolkit. This optimisation is achieved using a variety of features
that enhance the onscreen reading experience, including:

1. A clickable structured list of contents that the reader can use to navigate easily within
and between sections of the document.

2. Two-way, anchor-linked references.

3. Collapsible and expandable content (e.g., for figures, case studies or comments).

4. Embedded video and other media (including dynamic or interactive maps, data
visualisations and other infographics).

5. Social media sharing for content selected by the user.

The front end of the platform will have a customised design to achieve equal co-branding from
LSE, UNICEF and EU Kids Online, the lead stakeholders for the project, along with the display of
other partners logos as appropriate. All toolkit elements (online and downloadable) will have a
design consistent with the website, to create a common look-and-feel.

A formal request to host this microsite has now been made to LSE and we expect to
commission a company to design and develop the site during October 2015.

The toolkit will be a series of documents that can be downloaded separately or as one file. Its
content and format will be finalised after consultations with members of the International
Advisory Group and teams from the pilot countries. The toolkit will include the following
elements, as a minimum:

(1) An integrative research framework setting out the aims, research agenda and
approach.

(2) Research design and research administration toolkit comprising:

methodological guides developed by the experts on specific methodological

challenges;

modular survey questionnaire comprising: (a) compulsory modules; (b) optional

modules; (c) guidance for construction of additional modules;

a short version of the questionnaire (essential indicators) that can be

incorporated into other surveys;

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 qualitative research guides and tools.

(3) Related research resources and useful links.

(4) The national pilot reports and synthesis report.

(5) An open access website to serve as a knowledge-sharing platform to host all of the
above.

Significant parts of the above will draw on the EU Kids Online research, adapted and extended
as appropriate. Further elements will be developed as required, and the above may be added to
in response to suggestions from the advisory panel and/or lessons learned from the pilot
studies.

Kick Off meeting

A project Kick Off meeting was held at LSE on 3 and 4 August 2015 with Sonia Livingstone,
Jasmina Byrne, Ellen Helsper, Lucinda Platt (3 August only), Kjartan lafsson and Alexandra
Chernyavskaya. The meeting addressed the following topics: review of the project objectives;
review of the project deliverables; requirements for the inception report and synthesis report;
mapping and knowledge management; discussion of relation with participating pilot countries;
requirements for the communication platform (within the project); Steering Group (members
and role); International Advisory Group (members and role); Expert Group (members and role);
website specification; elements of the toolkit; research ethics; and external dissemination.
Minutes from the meeting were produced and circulated to the Steering Group.

Staffing

The project involves three members of staff based at LSE a principal investigator (Professor
Sonia Livingstone), a post-doctoral research officer (Dr Mariya Stoilova) and a research assistant
(currently Alexandra Chernyavskaya).6

Professor Sonia Livingstone, who is working 0.5 FTE on the project, is a full professor in the
Department of Media and Communications at LSE and a visiting professor at the University of
Oslo and the University of Pennsylvania. She has previously been a visiting professor at the
Universities of Bergen, Copenhagen, Harvard, Illinois, Milan, Oslo, Paris II and Stockholm.
Professor Livingstone has a track record of innovative research on the opportunities and risks
afforded by digital and online technologies including for children and young people, for which
she was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2014 for services
to children and child internet safety. Among the most recent projects that Professor Livingstone
has been leading and directing are Preparing for a Digital Future and the 33-country network EU
Kids Online. Sonia Livingstone has published widely on a number of topics including children and
new media; internet use; media audiences; media literacy; mediated participation; online risks
and safety; and public engagement with communication regulation.

Dr Mariya Stoilova was appointed as the post-doctoral research officer on the project after this
full-time position was publicly advertised by the LSE and there was a formal recruitment process.
Dr Stoilova has a strong interest in multi-method analyses, psychosocial research methods, and

6
Contact details: [email protected] (Professor Sonia Livingstone); [email protected] (Mariya Stoilova);
[email protected] (Alexandra Chernyavskaya).

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policy and practice development. She has considerable experience of sustained, high-quality
research activity and publications in the areas of digital technologies, wellbeing and family
support; social change and transformations of intimate life; and citizenship and social
inequalities.

Alexandra Chernyavskaya currently works 0.4 FTE on the project as an interim appointment. The
research assistant position is going to be advertised at some point in the autumn.

Office space for the project at LSE is arranged but pending building development works.

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