Rethinking teens' rights to information

The rapidly changing media environment experienced by American teenagers is having positive and negative effects on their development, maintains Roger Levesque, a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Indiana University, Bloomington, and author of Adolescents, Media and the Law: What Developmental Science Reveals and Free Speech Requires.

"We have long known, for example, that images of violence can contribute to antisocial behavior, but now we know that the greater effects of these images actually are on nonviolent and nonaggressive activities," says Levesque, editor of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. "Violent media has its most negative effect on family discussions, socializing, materialism, and passivity. Yet, we also now know that access to media is critical to healthy development, and that the media can be harnessed to reduce a wide variety of risky activities, increase civic participation, and foster social, emotional, and intellectual development."

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Levesque's research focuses on the legal regulation of adolescents, using developmental science to explore the nature of their rights. He has found few regulations of teenagers' media environments. Instead, there is a general rule that bestows considerable control of adolescents' rights to media on parents and those acting as parents. The result has been an emphasis on adult experience in determining what media content is appropriate for teens, but this approach ignores much of what is known about adolescent development, he claims.

Levesque's goal is to develop legal rules that remain faithful to the Constitution's dictate that everyone deserves its protections. "Most notable, protecting their rights to information facilitates adolescents' search for truth and place in society," he indicates. "That protection also allows adolescents to self-regulate and govern themselves, which, in turn, fosters their self-fulfillment and ability to act responsibly. All of these goals are central psychological tasks of adolescence and the foundation of good citizenship. They also are the foundational principles of First Amendment free speech law."

Levesque then concludes, "Our important commitments to protecting free speech for adults and protecting adolescents from harmful media must not detract from reform efforts that would prepare both adolescents and their social environment for an increasingly changing and challenging world."

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