| Bekkers, Wim | |||||
| Spouse: Cora Rooker | Laurens, Alexander | ||||
| Office |
October 14th, 2011
Dear Friends,
I
That’s our core business, the protection of
minors.
Typical aspects of our approach are:
-in the form of an online available questionnaire,
created and built by independent academic experts
(communication
science and
psychology);
-the classification process – resulting in uniform
ratings for TV, film and DVD – is the work and
responsibility of the
suppliers
of audio-visual products: self-classification;
-the name of this system is ‘Kijkwijzer’ (‘watch
wiser’ or ‘viewing guide’) and Kijkwijzer is a uniform
classification
and
information system. The main target group is parents
with growing
children;
-it is an information system, not censorship, meant to
help parents to make ‘informed decisions’: a tool for
parents (and as
we now
know also used by adults and children themselves when
making choices in
terms
of television programmes, cinema films and DVD’s);
-the Kijkwijzer information consists of an age rating
(all ages, 6, 9, 12 and 16 years) and one or more
content
descriptors,
indicating the reason for an age rating (there are
pictograms for
violence,
fear, sex, drugs, coarse language and discrimination):
see www.nicam.cc
for the descriptors and all further details of the
system: click the
English
flag button for the English language section;
-this is or rather was a new approach in the field of
classification and protection of minors: this year we
celebrate 10
years of
Kijkwijzer in the Netherlands. We have learned in the
course of the
years that
it is an efficient and viable system. When we started in
2000 creating
and
building the system and NICAM, it was new and unknown
territory;
-the government is still involved; the half of the
Kijkwijzer costs are paid by the national government
(the other 50% by
the
audio-visual media) and the government is monitoring and
evaluating the
system
regularly;
-Kijkwijzer in the meantime is well-known and
established over here: it is a very ‘visible’ system,
because the
ratings and
pictograms are shown on TV-screen, in TV-guides,
Teletext, on DVD
inlays,
advertising for cinema films, EPG’s etc;
-9 out of 10 parents do appreciate the system and
reporting
to use the age ratings and pictograms when making
choices for their
children;
-it is a form of co-regulation; a study commissioned
by the European Commission concluded that Kijkwijzer is
role model for
Europe;
-there is substantial international interest: the
European game industry’s classification system PEGI (Pan-European Game
Information) was derived from the Kijkwijzer
system;
NICAM is the Administrator
of PEGI;
-Germany, the Czech Republic, Iceland and Belgium are
interested in Kijkwijzer and in Turkey a Turkish version
of Kijkwijzer
was
introduced in cooperation with NICAM (interesting to
work there it
was!).
In addition there are two projects. On request by the
government a small team is working to create a ‘positive
recommendation’ system
for audio-visual products, with the aim to provide
parents with real
‘positive’
recommendations for television programmes, films, games,
websites etc.
Target group: parents with children under 12 years of
age. The name of this is Mediasmarties,
it is meant to be a pendant of
Kijkwijzer and PEGI.
Mediasmarties is a pilot project and a feasibility
study. The Dutch language website is www.mediasmarties.nl.
It might be interesting to notice that our institute
is located in the building where earlier I worked for
NOS Audience
Research. So
if you come to the Netherlands, come to Hilversum
(again!) and visit us
at the
Mediapark!
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