Children in Newspapers: A World Study - Global

Media participants hail from 30 countries worldwide, and range from large papers such as The New York Times (USA), O Globo (Brazil), and The Hindu (India) to small community weeklies.

Students ages 11 and 12 at two partner schools in each paper's circulation area will study the content about children in that newspaper from Monday to Friday, March 31 to April 4, 2003. Newspapers are asked to provide children with newspapers for free this week, and to give teachers copies of a manual describing how to organise the students' study of the content about children. Students cut out all stories about children and place the cuttings into the following seven categories):

1. Children are great/brilliant (achievers)
2. Children in politics
3. Children as victims
4. Children helping others
5. Children as wrongdoers/offenders
6. Children and school
7. (Teacher's choice of a topic category)

Second, students count the number of articles in each category, measure the amount of coverage in each category in centimetres, and count the number of articles that are about boys and the number about girls. Third, students respond to a survey, which asks them to formulate in one sentence what made them happy and in one sentence what made them sad about what they saw in the paper. The survey also involves describing the three most important general news articles of that week (not just those about children).

The students then discuss their findings, determining what they will report and in what format (say, using graphs and statistics). They prepare one piece of advice for their partner newspaper. This information is gathered in a three-page report (which may be in any language) to be submitted (preferably via email) by April 23, 2003. A class may either invite a newspaper representative to school, or visit the newspaper, to discuss the findings in more detail. Results will be combined into a worldwide report to be presented at the 5th World Young Reader Conference, which will take place from September 7 to 10, 2003 in Helsinki, Finland. These results will also appear on the Internet.

A Norwegian team made up of a child psychologist and the manager of Newspaper in Education (NIE) are conducting the survey with the support of UNICEF Norway. The researchers will provide a step-by-step guide for participating schools and newspapers. Newspapers do not need to be members of WAN to participate. (Note: the deadline for entry was February 15, 2003; organisers urge newspapers to contact them to inquire about the possibility of participating even after that date).

Children, media.

The Paris-based WAN represents 18,000 newspapers. Its membership includes 73 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 100 countries, 13 news agencies, and 8 regional and worldwide press groups. It established a global Young Reader Committee in 1991 and the World Young Reader Network in 1999.