Content, conduct and contact risks and opportunities of Flemish kids online with an emphasis on the digitally vulnerable.

This project aims to investigate socio-demographic, psychological and contextual factors that may have an impact on the digital literacy of young people, and assess how their level of digital literacy influences childrens online and offline activities and skills. More specifically, we want to identify which children are more vulnerable than others to the internet and how exactly digital literacy plays a role in children's exposure to online risks and opportunities. Furthermore, the situation in Belgium will be compared to other European countries. In a first phase, the results of 25,000 European children aged 9 to 16, on the basis of face-to-face surveys, will be analyzed. The Flemish respondents (n=600) will be contacted a second time (2011) and a third time (2012) to fill in a written survey with the same questions. This longitudinal repeated measures design allows us to develop a conceptual model and to search for causal relations between the variables that significantly influence children's online activities. In a subsequent qualitative phase we will conduct focus group interviews among a number of 'risk groups' in order to more profoundly investigate their attitudes and motives, and to learn more about the reasons why these young people experience more online risks and less online opportunities than others.

Keywords:Digitally vulnerable kids, Online opportunities, Conduct and contact risks, Content, European children, Digital literacy, Flemish children

Disciplines:Communication sciences, Journalism and professional writing, Media studies, Other media and communications