How NetAlert accentuated the negative

Research obtained under freedom of information laws raises questions about the accuracy of the Howard government’s pre-election advertising campaign on internet safety, writes PETER MARES on our partner website, Creative Economy IN THE MONTHS prior to the federal election, the NetAlert campaign used TV spots, newspaper advertisements and billboards to warn of the risks to children and teenagers online. One advertisement said that a survey had shown that over half of 11-15 year olds who chat on line are contacted by strangers. Another claimed that a survey had shown that almost half of 11-14 year old children had viewed websites their parents would find alarming. Similar statistics were quoted in the NetAlert information booklet that was sent to every household in Australia. The communications minister at the time, Senator Helen Coonan, said the statistics were drawn from an independent study commissioned by the federal government. But she refused to make the research public, saying that it contained “some quite personal information.” ABC Radio National’s The National Interest has obtained the July 2007 research report, A Snapshot of the Online Behaviour and Attitudes of Children prepared by the Wallis Consulting Group, under freedom of information laws. It does not contain any personal information. A confidential analysis prepared for The National Interest by a leading interactive media organisation identifies a fundamental error in the research, which analysed the results of a random telephone survey of 1000 young people aged between 8 and 17. The analysis criticises the survey for failing to distinguish between unsupervised chat rooms and more popular forms of online communication like instant messaging and social networking... MORE >> Photo: Miodrag Gajic/iStockphoto.co