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Children’s rights under pressure in a digital world

The anthology, Children's rights under pressure in a digital world, summarises the work presented at our ICA 2026 pre-conference, with contributions from a wide range of institutional and professional contexts around the world.

This collection offers conceptual and empirical support for children's rights in digital environments. In this way, this work helps bridge the gap between the child rights principles embedded in General comment No. 25, and practice.

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The anthology is split into five sections: participation, regulation, family, commercial interests and new technology. We invite readers to engage with the papers - to use the short biographical notes for all contributors at the end of this volume, and seek ongoing conversation and collaboration.

Studies featured in the anthology

  • Digital protagonism and children’s protagonism in digital environments in Latin America Authors: Rocío López Ordosgoitia, Luis E. Santana, Néstor David Polo, María Fernanda Moncayo-Racines, Jazmín Mazó Torrico, & Manuela Rivera
  • Transnational teen perspectives on child rights in digital ecosystems: A youth-centred approach Authors: Katrine Krogh Pedersen, Rotem Landesman, & Katie Davis
  • Children’s participation in digital environments: Forming digital publics through media-based activism Authors: Louise Xie, Kyooeun Jang, Elaine Jeon, Lauren Jade Arnold, & Robin Stevens
  • Digital justice from the margins: Child-led governance, AI accountability and digital inequality in South Africa. Author: Anzio Jacobs
  • Towards meaningful child participation: Indonesian children’s navigation of rights, protection and participation in digital environments Authors: Aisyah Novanarima, & Sylvana Maria Apituley
  • Navigating digital dangers: A youth-led study on technology-facilitated gender-based violence among adolescents in Johannesburg Author: Zanele Sokatsha
  • Children’s Rights, SEL, and Everyday Digital Life in Lebanon: Aligning Digital Play with Policy and Practice. Authors: Garene Kaloustian & Joe F. Khalil

  • Age-based social media banning: Discrimination based on childhood? Authors: Timisha Dadhich, & Therese Boje Mortensen
  • Harm blindness in digital child protection policy: A systematic stakeholder, sentinel and legal analysis of Australia’s under-16 social media ban Authors: Travis Gilly, & Rene Mattheus
  • Children’s information environments and digital agency under Australia’s social media age ban Authors: Daniel Angus, Kateryna Kasianenko, Ashwin Nagappa, Shir Weinbrand, Mario Haim, & Axel Bruns
  • ‘It just feels a bit unfair for this to happen, and for us to have no control over it’: Young people’s responses to Australia’s social media minimum age legislation Authors: Kim Osman, Michael Dezuanni, Lynrose Jane Genon, & Daniel Angus
  • Protected into silence: How digital safety discourses undermine children’s rights Author: Lilla Garayová
  • Evaluating the role of the Cybercrimes Act No. 19 of 2020 in protecting children’s exposure to online hate crime in South Africa Author: Tloane Athele

  • Sharenting or shielding? New Arab mothers’ perspectives on children’s rights in the digital age (a quasi-experimental study) Authors: Yasmeen Alyeldeen Mohammed el Mahdy Hanafy, Marwa Mahmoud Gamal El-Din, & Aya Sherif Ismail
  • Negotiating commercial interests and child welfare: How German mothers present their children on social media Authors: Claudia Wegener, Julia Lück-Benz, & Matthias Hufgard
  • From mediated to mediators: Children’s agency in the formation of family media practices Authors: Nele Janssens, & Kathleen Beullens
  • Beyond blocking: A collaborative model for tackling longitudinal harm in children’s social media feeds Authors: Daniela Fernandez Gonzalez, & Mike Bennett
  • To govern and to care: A mixed-method study of urban Chinese adolescents’ online opportunities and risks in the context of Guan parenting Author: Cecilia Yuxi Zhou

  • Children’s creative labour in the digital age: Rights, risks and regulation Author: Emily Coleman
  • An ethnographic exploration of children’s reception of the kidfluencer phenomenon from a consumer socialisation perspective Authors: Yana Degroote, Liselot Hudders, Marloes de Brabandere, & Tom De Leyn
  • Opportunities and risks in the digital gaming ecosystem: Insights from Brazil and the UK Author: Ivelise Fortim
  • Between school and the internet: An intersectoral analysis of policies for the prevention of school and digital violence against children and adolescents in Brazil Author: Taiza Ramos de Souza Costa Ferreira
  • Ensuring safe, private and age-appropriate GenAI tools: Whose responsibilities? Author: Giovanna Mascheroni

  • Recommendations from US adolescents for trustworthy chatbot designs Authors: Celeste Campos-Castillo, Yevgenia Minchuk, & Linnea I. Laestadius
  • Digital creation, consumption and generative AI: Children’s rights under pressure in Latin America Authors: Ana Laura Martinez, Luisa Adib, & Fabio Senne
  • Relational integrity as a child’s right: Truthful relational signals, relational depth and governance boundaries in child–AI interaction Author: Matthew Agustin
  • Algorithmic childhoods: Moving beyond protectionist framings toward children’s rights in the digital era Authors: Marie Griffiths, & Rachel McLean
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