It is our view that all children and young people have the right to our guidance and supervision. The five principal rights of children (upbringing, education, safety, respect and youth itself) are, after all, the basic values that have formed the cornerstone of our attitude to living and working for many years.  If we as adults do not open our eyes to the developments of the media, or if we fail to anticipate the future, then these rights are liable to fall by the wayside.

We are tasked with the responsibility of supporting and guiding our children and young people so that they may develop into active, responsible and critical producers and consumers of media.  But how do we achieve this in the context of an entire generation that is able to determine for themselves what they see, hear and read – essentially their entire approach to the media as a whole – if they can do this without our knowledge?  The time has come to acknowledge the rapid increase in the media’s influence over our children and take swift action.  We must dedicate ourselves, both at home and at school, to producing a generation of future adults who are ‘media literate’, as they are entitled to be.

This means providing them with the knowledge, skills and mentality to stay afloat in a world swimming with media.  Indeed, in the context of the next generations, the media is their world!  They are literally connected, day and night, to the media and to each other; there is no opportunity to pause and consider in this whirlwind of sounds and pictures.