Orig. title: Kinder, Medien und COVID-19: WIE KINDER IN 42 LÄNDERN MIT DEM LOCKDOWN IN DER CORONAKRISE 2020 UMGEHEN
Engl. transl.: Children, COVID-19 and the media: A STUDY IN 42 COUNTRIES ALL OVER THE WORLD - HOW ARE CHILDREN DEALING WITH THE LOCKDOWN AND THE CORONA CRISIS
Keywords
Children
Covid-19
media
Corona
Publication details
| Year: | 2020 |
| Issued: | 2020 |
| Language: | German |
| Volume: | 33 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Start Page: | 4 |
| End Page: | 10 |
| Editors: | |
| Authors: | Götz M.; Mendel C. |
| Type: | Journal article |
| Journal: | TelevIZIon |
| Topics: | Learning; Social mediation; Internet usage, practices and engagement; Wellbeing; Digital and socio-cultural environment; Other |
| Sample: | In total, 9,563 children started and 4,267 children finished the online questionnaire plus 55 children in Cuba who wrote their answers into a PDF document. The data collection time was March 31th to April 26th 2020, i.e. the high peak of the shutdown in most countries. Only countries with at least n=50 children were included in the analysis. The final sample includes 42 countries on all continents and 4,322 children, with a relatively balanced age distribution (between 18% and 21% per age cohort). The number of children per country varied between n=50 and n=698. |
| Implications For Policy Makers About: | High-quality content online for children and young people |
| Implications For Stakeholders About: | Industry |
Abstract
"In an international study, children in 42 countries were asked how they experience the corona crisis, how they currently use media and what knowledge they have about the coronavirus." (Götz/ Mendel, 2020, 4)
Outcome
"Crises happen, and as this pandemic shows, they can put children around the world in a situation they have never been in before. Media play an important role, especially during this time, because they enable children to get to school material, communicate with friends and, last but not least, relieve their boredom. Media are also used specifically during this period to control emotions. It is therefore all the more important that children, especially under these special conditions, have access to age-appropriate media that deal attentively with their worries and needs, their concerns and identity issues. The results of the study show that many children seek information about the situation in the media. The internet is one source for them, but they also hope for understandable and non-scary explanations from television. If they were then able to acquire adequate factual knowledge and have sufficient media competence to identify fake news, they are less "strongly worried". In a global comparison, the children surveyed in Germany prove to be well informed and have fewer unreasonable fears. One of the backgrounds here is that age-appropriate information such as the news programme logo! is available to them. In countries like Malaysia or Tanzania, where this is not the case, children are under much higher emotional pressure. In countries with a high proportion of fake news in the public discourse, children have to process threatening rumours and thus suffer from particularly strong emotional stress. The international comparison in particular once again shows the importance of media that adapt to the special situation, focus on the best interests of the child and offer targeted support so that adolescents can cope with this time. " (Götz/Mendel, 2020, 9; translated by the coder).
Austria belongs to those countries, where the lowest rate of children reported that they perceived their parents as "strongly concerned" about the situation (9%). Also for themselves, only 35% were concerned to get infected by Covid-19, this is the lowest rate following New Zealand (31%) and before Germany (38%).