More Fun, More Risk? Digital Games as a Challenge for the Protection of Minors

An Interdisciplinary European Symposium on october 16th & 17th, 2008 in Berlin; more information available here.

Background

How the public is viewing current data on usage and developments in it, results from the research into effects and regulatory as well as media-pedagogical concepts for the protection of minors in the area of video and computer games is not something restricted to individual states. Various EU member states are discussing what they call "violent games" through debates conducted politically and publicly. In January and again in June 2007, the EU Council of Ministers took up the question of possible measures for restricting violent games and videos.

Such is the background for this symposium. It aims to bring together scholars, practitioners and regulators from all over Europe so that they can exchange views on the current research agenda as regards the use and effects of the media, on innovative media-pedagogical concepts and on regulatory frameworks. By looking beyond the particular national and thematic "backyards", we can all profit from the variety of modern approaches and research results distinctly different countries have to offer. Accordingly, the symposium looks to lay down a wide avenue for scholars, specialists, politicians and the general public to engage with its themes in future. In addition, this event aims to bring researchers and others involved in the protection of minors into contact with their European colleagues and to get participants talking constructively with each other on collaborative, international projects and exchanging knowledge and experience more consistently.

To this end, the conference brings together not only various people active in scholarship and practice, but also various scholarly disciplines. Alongside experts from the social and communications sciences, the invitation includes researchers from the areas of jurisprudence, political science, media pedagogy and cultural studies. Practitioners taking part come from state agencies for the protection of minors and from institutions for self-regulation as well as from business associations and non-governmental organisations.

More information is availabe at http://www.morefunmorerisk.eu.