PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH TO DEVELOP REPORTING GUIDELINES OF THE CHILD'S RIGHTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Abstract

The objective of this research project are 1) to collect knowledge of the protection of children rights on social media for press; 2) to encourage participation’s by children, parents, personnel of organizations in civil society networks that work on children rights, scholars and press, in the development of reporting guidelines for children rights-related news report on social media; and 3) to present the knowledge of the protection of children rights on social media, which can be developed to be the reporting guidelines for children rights-related news report on social media, and direction for improving social media as the safe and creative domain for children. This research project is conducted through the collection of information with the method of documentary research on 5 laws of Thailand and guidelines for the reporting of news relating to children rights by Thai and foreign press organizations, for 6 organizations in total. In addition, concerning the participation, samples or 22 organizations that work on child’s rights are studied on in the focus group discussion and in-depth interviews. The attained information is applied to the drafting of the guidelines, and is discussed in the forums to give back the knowledge to 31 organizations that work on child’s rights, academics and press, in order to learn about ideas, to assess the appropriateness and to develop the actual manner. The findings from the research point out that the essences of the process of the manuals development are as follows: 1) Initial knowledge: laws, request for permission, application of knowledge from children’s use of social Media and to present the image to demonstrate the incidents; 2) Guidelines for reporting child-related news: effects on the children in the news, the guidelines (Do’s and Don’ts) for reporting child-related news that divided children into the group of normal children and the group of special children (abused children, juvenile delinquents, children who face with difficulties, children with disabilities and children with HIV); and 3) suggestions in the policy level. The developed guidelines are evaluated in a forum to return information and has the score of 4.17. Afterwards, the completely developed guidelines are evaluated by experts, with the average score being 4.77.