Towards a better children’s internet

In this presentation, Michael Dezuanni will outline work being undertaken in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child that challenges ‘screen time’ and ‘wellness’ discourses as the dominant frameworks for thinking about the relationship between children and technology. The Children’s Internet project takes a political economy approach to describe the elements of the ‘children’s internet’ and to consider how the associated digital products and experiences may be improved to make a better children’s internet. The project takes ‘children’s television’ as its inspiration and asks if similar approaches to content, production, regulation and policy can be applied to children’s digital experiences. Michael will share key elements of the reports created for the project, including ‘Principles for a better children’s internet’.

Professor Michael Dezuanni undertakes research about digital media, literacies and learning in home, school and community contexts. He is the Program Leader for ‘Crating Better Digital Futures’ for Queensland University of Technology’s Digital Media Research Centre which produces world-leading research for a creative, inclusive and fair digital media environment. He is also a chief investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. Michael has been a chief investigator on seven ARC Linkage projects with a focus on digital literacy and learning at school, the use of digital games in the classroom, digital inclusion in regional and rural Australia and in low income families, and the use of screen content in formal and informal learning. He is the author of 'Peer Pedagogies on Digital Platforms - Learning with Minecraft Let's Play videos' (MIT Press 2020), and co-author of ‘Social Reading Cultures on BookTube, Bookstagram and Booktube’ (Routledge Focus, 2024).