New Generation, New Media and Communication Rights: A View from Turkey

Abstract

The UN Convention on Rights of the Child (1989) is one of the international legal documents dealing with the relationship between media and children, as well as children’s communication rights.Article 13/1 of the Convention declares the “right to freedom of expression” through any kind of “media of the child’s choice”, while article 17 emphasizes that “States Parties recognize the important function performed by the mass media and shall ensure that the child has access to information and material from a diversity of national and international sources”.Turkey as one of the state parties to the UNCRC, has an obligation to protect and promote children’s communication rights as set forth in the UN Convention on Rights of the Child.In recent years, new media technologies and the internet have moved into the centre of attention, as special UN reports promote the protection of the right to freedom of expression and facilitate its execution amongst children. This article tries to analyse the ways in which children in Turkey are able to exercise their communication rights in new media environment, and furthermore, to make certain recommendations about the issue.

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