Screen Media for Arab and European Children: Production and Policy Encounters in the Multiplatform Era

TY - BOOK

T1 - Screen Media for Arab and European Children

T2 - Production and Policy Encounters in the Multiplatform Era

AU - Sakr, Naomi

AU - Steemers, Jeanette

PY - 2019/12

Y1 - 2019/12

N2 - Turmoil, conflict and authoritarianism across the Arab region have left Arab children’s needs ignored and unmet. From starvation, malnutrition and crippling injury in Yemen and Syria, large-scale destruction experienced by Palestinian children and lack of schooling for refugees, to arbitrary detention and torture of minors in Egypt and the conscription of child combatants by extremist groups like ISIS: glimpses of the plight of so many Arab children revealed by global media have prompted talk of a ‘lost generation’. These are future citizens whose worldview is being shaped by trauma, loss and violence, witnessed directly or relayed by countless sources across the region’s media. Against that background, however, we begin to see some initiatives that pay attention to the information and entertainment needs of Arabic-speaking children – initiatives that recognize how young children are struggling to make sense of the troubling and often chaotic environment around them, whether in the Arab region itself or in European countries whose Arab populations have grown significantly in the wake of 21st century forced migration flows. In seeking to fill gaps in knowledge about media policy and production affecting Arabic-speaking children, this book also takes account of significant recent shifts in geopolitics and large-scale population movements that call for new thinking about how children’s screen media policy and production proceed in European and Arab countries after the forced migration of recent years. To what extent are children in both regions now engaging with the same or similar content? Who is funding new child-centred content and who is making it, according to whose criteria? Whose voices are loudest when it comes to pressures for regulation of children’s screen content, and what do they want: a vaguely-worded catch-all protection from ill-defined ‘harmful’ content, more generous provision of beneficial material, or opportunities for children themselves to take part in media-making? The answers to these questions matter as much as others that are more regularly rehearsed about education, culture and society. They matter for anyone – scholar, social scientist, politician, diplomat, consultant, media creative, parent, aid worker, interested individual – seeking insights into the diverse cross-cultural collaborations and content innovations that are shaping new investment and production relationships. This short study, by two political economists who led a three-year research project into Arab children’s screen media and a one-year Follow-On project for Impact and Engagement, both funded by the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), makes a unique contribution to the sparse literature in the field. It critically highlights spaces where dialogue occurs between Arab and European cultural gatekeepers who regulate, commission, fund, produce or comment on children's content. As such it complements another volume in the Palgrave Pivot series (Sabry & Mansour) analysing children’s media use in the Arab world and Arab diaspora.

AB - Turmoil, conflict and authoritarianism across the Arab region have left Arab children’s needs ignored and unmet. From starvation, malnutrition and crippling injury in Yemen and Syria, large-scale destruction experienced by Palestinian children and lack of schooling for refugees, to arbitrary detention and torture of minors in Egypt and the conscription of child combatants by extremist groups like ISIS: glimpses of the plight of so many Arab children revealed by global media have prompted talk of a ‘lost generation’. These are future citizens whose worldview is being shaped by trauma, loss and violence, witnessed directly or relayed by countless sources across the region’s media. Against that background, however, we begin to see some initiatives that pay attention to the information and entertainment needs of Arabic-speaking children – initiatives that recognize how young children are struggling to make sense of the troubling and often chaotic environment around them, whether in the Arab region itself or in European countries whose Arab populations have grown significantly in the wake of 21st century forced migration flows. In seeking to fill gaps in knowledge about media policy and production affecting Arabic-speaking children, this book also takes account of significant recent shifts in geopolitics and large-scale population movements that call for new thinking about how children’s screen media policy and production proceed in European and Arab countries after the forced migration of recent years. To what extent are children in both regions now engaging with the same or similar content? Who is funding new child-centred content and who is making it, according to whose criteria? Whose voices are loudest when it comes to pressures for regulation of children’s screen content, and what do they want: a vaguely-worded catch-all protection from ill-defined ‘harmful’ content, more generous provision of beneficial material, or opportunities for children themselves to take part in media-making? The answers to these questions matter as much as others that are more regularly rehearsed about education, culture and society. They matter for anyone – scholar, social scientist, politician, diplomat, consultant, media creative, parent, aid worker, interested individual – seeking insights into the diverse cross-cultural collaborations and content innovations that are shaping new investment and production relationships. This short study, by two political economists who led a three-year research project into Arab children’s screen media and a one-year Follow-On project for Impact and Engagement, both funded by the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), makes a unique contribution to the sparse literature in the field. It critically highlights spaces where dialogue occurs between Arab and European cultural gatekeepers who regulate, commission, fund, produce or comment on children's content. As such it complements another volume in the Palgrave Pivot series (Sabry & Mansour) analysing children’s media use in the Arab world and Arab diaspora.

KW - Chlldren

KW - Media

KW - Television

KW - Arab

KW - European

KW - Production

KW - Policy

KW - Encounters

KW - Engagement

KW - Collaboration

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-25658-6

DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-25658-6

M3 - Book

SN - 9783030256579

BT - Screen Media for Arab and European Children

PB - Palgrave Macmillan

ER -