Images of childhood in the television framing.

This paper’s aim is to enhance and increase the debate that’s related to the recognition of the rights of the child connected to the relationship with the media which, besides mere respect for confidentiality and privacy of minors involved in news items, is rarely translated in policies of effective participation. In the wake of previous studies (Crespi, 2002; Belotti, 2005; Riva, 2007), we’ll illustrate the outcomes of research, conducted in collaboration with the Regional Committee for Communications (Co.Re.Com.) of the Veneto Italian Region, about the forms of childhood representation disseminated by local TV channels in the Veneto Region, that examined a total number of 218 news programmes and 2548 news items, transmitted by seven local television channels during one week (from the 28th of February to the 6th of March 2011), from which we selected a total number of 260 news items containing some form of representation of childhood or adolescence, subsequently processed to content analysis.