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FCC Opens Inquiry To Explore Digital Media's Impact On Youth

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday opened a public inquiry to explore how to protect children from the rapid expansion and growth of digital media.

The request comes after FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski told a Senate panel in July that regulators should tighten laws governing children's television programming in light of new technologies that have emerged over the last two decades.

Genachowski has said videogames, Internet content and mobile television services all deserve a careful look by policymakers to ensure that children are protected from inappropriate content and excessive ads.

On Friday, the agency said the inquiry comes almost 20 years after enactment of the Children's Television Act. The FCC said access to television, mobile and Internet media can pose risks to children, including inappropriate content and cyberbullying.

The inquiry is seeking to find how technologies are used today, as well as the benefits and risks of its usage, and the ways in which parents, teachers and children can learn to minimize those risks.

The inquiry comes after a handful of headlines over the past year involving digital media and its impact on teens. Those events include a video recording of beating in Chicago that resulted in a teen's death, a video posted online that showed an alleged attack by a group of girls in Florida and an alleged cyber- bullying case that resulted in a teen's suicide in St. Louis in 2006.

-By John Kell, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2480; john.kell@dowjones.com

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires
  10-23-091609ET
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