The dominant discourse of this regulatory approach is framed both within an economic logic which argues that impediments placed in the way of an emerging new media ecology will have negative consequences for competitiveness and economic development as well as within a libertarian framework that gives primacy to adult rights to freedom of speech over and above ancillary issues of public interest. In this context, promotion of the interests of children online has met with significant challenges, and child protection measures are frequently viewed as a threat to privacy and freedom of expression rights.

However, as we argue in this paper, regulation of the internet in some form is increasingly accepted on an international legislative basis and is supported and necessitated by a growing evidence base of the risks of exposure to harmful content and practices. The EU Kids Online project, supported by the European Commission’s Safer Internet Programme is designed to enhance knowledge regarding European children’s use, risk and safety online. A key objective of the project is to inform policy on regulating for a safer internet environment based on the principle of promoting opportunities and minimizing risk. The project is conducting original empirical research across member states with nationally representative samples of children aged 9-16 years old and their parents on prominent online risks including exposure to inappropriate content (e.g. pornographic, self-harm and violent content, racist/hate material), unwelcome contact (e.g. grooming, sexual harassment, bullying, abuse of personal information and privacy) and inappropriate conduct by children themselves (e.g. bullying, abuse of privacy). Reviewing existing regulatory and child protection measures in these areas, we argue that the emerging evidence of risks encountered by children will provide a base for reconceptualising online safety as not just a matter of individual responsibility on the part of social actors (children, parents and families) but as a balance between educational initiatives and structurally defined public (and children’s) interests inscribed in internet legislation and regulation.

Commentators have noted that the new emphasis on media literacy in public policy represents a significant shift of responsibility from collective forms of regulation and control, represented by legislation and regulatory control at member state level, to the individual who is now deemed responsible and assumed to be capable of making informed choices in matters of communication and social interaction in today’s mediated environment (Livingstone, Lunt et al. 2007; Penman and Turnbull 2007). The ideal subject of digital literacy appears to represent a form of ethical individualism in which the source of moral values and principles, and the basis of ethical evaluation is the individual (Lukes 1973). The collective norms and standards that operated in the ‘old’ media world, whether involving filtering of content or requirements for transparency and fairness, it might be argued, no longer apply or can no longer be imposed. This policy turn raises a number of pressing questions. As the internet and online technologies become embedded in everyday life, vulnerable subjects such as children, young people and their families who tend to be in the vanguard of new media adoption, are exposed to a range of good and bad experiences, risks and opportunities, for which they may be unprepared. The traditional institutional supports of education, regulation and trusted information sources such as public broadcasting have less influence in a more fragmented public sphere and individuals may be required to rely on more tacit forms of knowledge to inform ethical conduct.

This paper will examine what ethical individualism in the context of digital literacy might mean. Through a discourse analysis of policy formulations in European Commission, UNESCO and Council of Europe documents, the paper presents a typology of subject positions and asks whether the apparent ethical individualism is in fact what is intended. It examines the practical ethical situations which citizens and consumers now face and contributes to an ongoing policy discussion on the future of regulation in a converged media environment.

References

Commission of the European Communities (2007). Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). Brussels, European Commission

Livingstone, S., P. Lunt, et al. (2007). "Citizens, consumers and the citizen-consumer: articulating the citizen interest in media and communications regulation." Discourse & Communication 1(1): 63-89.

Lukes, S. (1973). Individualism. Oxford, Blackwell.

Penman, R. and S. Turnbull (2007). Media literacy - concepts, research and regulatory issues. Canberra, Australian Communications and Media Authority.

This paper addresses the case of digital radio in Ireland and the prospects for a successful launch of DAB in 2008. Following previously stalled efforts, digital radio in Ireland is clearly entering a new phase of development: a trial digital service has been established as of 2007, a new licensing policy is in development, and a partnership of public and private broadcasters, Digital Radio Ireland, has brought together RTE and a range of leading commercial, independent radio stations, to raise the public profile of digital radio as a new service. Public awareness campaigns, buoyant sales in the consumer electronics retail sector for digital receivers, and the shutdown of the national Medium Wave broadcasting service have all served to call attention to the fact that radio is changing.

But is Ireland’s digital radio initiative a case of ‘too little, too late’? The paper argues that the context for launching digital radio is very different to that of earlier attempted deployments. A diversity of digital services is now well established and is likely to have a strong bearing on adoption of DAB technologies. Unlike the early 1990s when DAB as a platform was first developed, public expectations for new digital audio services have already been extensively formed through the use of interactive websites, online radio and personalised audio services, podcasting, file sharing and portable mp3 player use. Consequently, the paper will ask if public service media provision for digital radio broadcasting can meet audience expectations and if strategies can be evolved to avoid some of the pitfalls of previous failed implementations.

These questions are framed against the background of proposed legislation for public media literacy promotion in Ireland. Internationally, Ofcom has provided the principal model for a public regulatory approach. This paper assesses this and other models and considers implications for the Irish situation in which the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) will be charged with a similar responsibility. In anticipation of this new policy, this paper will examine three main areas:

• The international state of the art with regard to public regulatory commitments to media literacy;

• Current trends in media literacy thinking as articulated by key stakeholders in the field;

• Public attitudes towards media literacy in Ireland as revealed in focus groups.

Drawing on research commissioned by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland, findings are intended to inform decision-making within a regulatory perspective and make recommendations for effective and socially responsive communications policy.

Paying close attention to the discourses of technology inherent in these approaches and drawing on relevant contemporary engineering and technical descriptions, this analysis seeks to complement social shaping of technology studies (Mackay and Gillespie 1992) by focussing on the promotional efforts designed to support a particular technology‘s adoption.

Drawing on policy analysis, interviews and expert group perspectives, this paper traces the background to the legislative provision for digital radio development in Canada. While Canada was an early adopter of the Eureka-147 or Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), the policy of DAB as a replacement technology approach proved to be mistaken. Subsequent extensive regulatory intervention to protect Canadian interests similarly proved ineffective against the dominant influence of US interests on Canadian broadcasting, evidenced most recently by the entry of satellite- delivered subscription radio services of XM Radio and Sirius.

It is argued that the approach adopted in Canada’s new digital radio policy needs to be set against the background in which the future of radio is now much less obvious and clear than it was ten years ago. Instead of a relatively straightforward transition from analog to digital audio broadcasting (DAB), there is now a wide selection of both competing alternative and complementary technological options for digital audio delivery. As such, radio can be seen to be either facing the danger of fragmentation or in fact surviving by infiltrating into new platforms and becoming more polymorphic. The paper offers a critical appraisal of whether, given previous experience and lessons learned, Canada’s regulatory approach is the appropriate one and potentially a model for other sectors and other markets.