What is Children's Content in the Streaming Era? Issues, Tensions, Controversies

In the era of on-demand entertainment content, the boundaries between children’s and adult’s media have been fluctuating and moving. For instance, the move away from scheduled television viewing and towards streaming video on demand has brought with it platform-specific children’s media ecologies driven by interface designs, content tags, and catalogue organisation which prioritise “the solicitation of a specific viewing practice and audience over more traditional genre labels” (Baker, Balanzategui and Sandars 2023, 8). Video sharing platforms like YouTube and TikTok as well as participatory videogame platforms like Roblox and Fortnite also provide opportunities for child interactions with entertainment brands like Squid Game that would not typically be considered child appropriate.

This symposium brings together scholarly and industry experts to address these “problematics” of children’s content in the era of participatory and on-demand entertainment from scholarly, industry, and policy perspectives.

Full symposium program.

The symposium will open with a keynote presentation from A/Professor Catherine Lester (University of Birmingham) - "Children's TV Horror in the Streaming Era: The Case of Netflix's Dead End: Paranormal Park." (Please note: symposium attendees do not need to register separately for this keynote, it is included in your symposium registration).

"What is Children's Content in the Streaming Era" is an initiative of the RMIT-based Streaming Industries & Genre Network, supported by the Social Change Enabling Impact Platform, and in conjunction with RMIT's Social Change Symposium.  

The symposium is convened by Dr Jessica Balanzategui (jessica.balanzategui@rmit.edu.au) and Dr Djoymi Baker (djoymi.baker@rmit.edu.au).