Media studies, Vol. 9 No. 18, 2018.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.20901/ms.9.18.1
Media Representation of Children’s Privacy in the Context of the Use of “Smart” Toys and Commercial Data Collection
Tijana Milosevic
; University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Patricia Dias
; Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal
Charles Mifsud
orcid.org/0000-0003-4922-5780
; University of Malta, Malta
Christine W. Trueltzsch-Wijnen
; Stefan Zweig University of Education, Salzburg, Austria
Abstract
The growing use of “smart” toys has made it increasingly important to understand the various privacy implications of their use by children and families. The article is a case study of how the risks to young children’s privacy, posed by the commercial data collection of producers of “smart” toys, were represented in the media. Relying on a content analysis of media coverage in twelve European countries and Australia collected during the Christmas season of 2016/2017, and reporting on a follow-up study in selected countries during the Christmas season of 2017/2018, our article illustrates how the issue of children’s privacy risks was dealt with in a superficial manner, leaving relevant stakeholders without substantive information about the issue; and with minimum representation of children’s voices in the coverage itself.
Keywords
internet of things; privacy; commercial data collection; children’s rights
Hrčak ID:
218206
URI
Publication date:
28.12.2018.
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