Promising Practices to Protect Children from Media Violence

This document presents strategies to help protect children from the negative effects of media violence. It is written in response to the North American Regional Consultation report of the United Nations (UN) Study on Violence against Children. The author responds to the UN document's "four promising practices" for media violence prevention. These practices are:

• television programme ratings;
• the V-chip viewing control technology;
• the Children’s Television Act requiring educational programming from broadcasters; and
• possible additional legislation to enforce implementation of controls and ratings.

Author Brodeur cites numerous Canadian practices and some similar efforts made in the United States (US) for reducing the effect of media violence, which were not included in the UN document:

• Legislation against advertising to children under 13, which made this advertising illegal in the province of Québec beginning in 1976.
• War Toys Campaign in Canada beginning in 1986, which organised the war toys collection of 25,000 war toys and helped raise questions in the civil society about the culture of violence in North America.

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• Pedagogical tools for teachers such as
  "Cessez-le-feu" (Cease Fire), which raise awareness about violence and sexism carried by toys and entertainment.
• Monuments for Peace effort of 1999, which built two Canadian monuments from recycled war toys.
• Student Virginie Larivière’s petition in 1993 asking the government of Canada to legislate to make violence illegal in children’s television programmes.
• Positive Entertainment Alternatives for Children Everywhere (PEACE, 1999, Canada), which launched an innovative programme called the Youth Vote, created to help youth develop their critical viewing skills, express their own opinion and channel their parents’ opinion to the federal government.
• Campaign to Counter TV violence (2003, Canada), civil society partners, including two school boards, which requested two measures to protect children, a ban of violence in programmes for children and the airing of ultraviolent movies after 10 PM.
• The "10Day Challenge - TV and Videogame Free" (2003, Canada) which mobilises families to stop watching TV, followed by similar United States efforts like TV Turn-off Week and the Student Media Awareness to Reduce Television (SMART) challenge; and
• Nine media organisations and several state legislative initiatives based in the US.

This commentary concludes with an analysis of the four practices from the UN document and recommends legislative solutions that:

1. Forbid the use of violence as a normal way to solve conflicts in TV programmes for children;
2. Forbid airing of violent movies before 10 PM;
3. Forbid the marketing to children of products that their own ratings deem inappropriate for them;
4. Forbid the sale to children of tickets for movies, music recordings and video games that are labelled A (suitable only for adults); and
5. Forbid the sale of violent video games to children.

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Click here to download the full text version of this document in French.