Children’s Public Service Media: What if No One is Watching?

Conference: The International Child and Family Conference

Dates: 17-19 June 2025

Abstract:

Children’s public service media (PSM) in the UK is at a critical junction. As new ways of reaching child audiences are rapidly emerging and evolving, children are not engaging with ‘traditional’ broadcast media in ways they once did. They are migrating to new platforms and adopting new consumption practices, with online/social media platforms now significantly more popular with children than television (Ofcom, 2024). There are however significant issues to address in terms of digital inclusion and even children whose families can afford to pay for quality wi-fi and subscription-based services are in the main, not engaging with content has been made explicitly for them. That is to say, not produced in the UK, for British children.

There is no shortage of children’s content, but little of it that children engage with reflects the everyday realities of children’s lives; with much of it presenting a globalised, mainly US-led and produced, vision of childhood. Of the children’s content that is UK produced, much is ‘universalised’ to be sold to global audiences and therefore also fails to talk to and reflect UK children’s actual experiences.

Drawing on current fieldwork on children’s understandings and engagement with UK children’s PSM, this contribution will consider what it might mean for children, for their families and for society if children no longer engage with PSM media that talks to their own experience.

Keywords: Public Service Media; Children’s Media; Childhood

Source: Manual