The news and its impact on Portuguese children’s perspectives

The aim of this research is to understand children`s involvement with the news, and the impact of general issues on these audi- ences. In 2014, with the participation of 42 Portuguese children in six focus groups, the research concluded that the nature of chil- dren’s involvement with the news is contextualised within the following variables: gender; preferences; life experiences; skills to process issues; forms of exposure and media coverage of events; and family mediation. The data reveal that children frequently watch the news and get involved and excited about these topics. But, the results also reveal that children may feel disturbed when viewing certain problematic events to which they direct their attention mainly as a result of permanent media coverage of such events via shocking images. The latter phenomenon arises even more frequently during moments of crisis and terrorism, imposing the need to focus on media literacy.This work was supported by the FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology under Grant SFRH/ BD/80918/2011); and by the Communication and Society Research Centre (University of Minho, Portugal)