Our future

There are a great number of challenges and opportunities for the protection of children in the current media landscape. The way media is consumed changes constantly, as does the way people are educated and raised. Digital technologies and online communication tools offer an increasing number of possibilities as well as threats. It's not odd, then, that there is an increasing need for parents and children to have access to information and tools in order to make choices in their use of media.

It is vital that NICAM stays in touch with society and keeps developing the Kijkwijzer system. The explosive growth of audiovisual material that is offered online, as well as the current media behaviour of children is crucial for this development. Video sharing platforms such as YouTube play an important role here. NICAM thinks it goes without saying that children should be protected on these platforms as well. NICAM already developed a solution for this in 2011 by creating the classification system You Rate It, which is based on Kijkwijzer and can be applied internationally.

Visit the 'You Rate It' website

Road map
NICAM wants to raise awareness about the risks of media-use by offering the latest technological tools and active communication. The principles are:

- More active, more informative and more participatory
- More connection and dialogue with focus groups
- More visibility for its information

From the start, Kijkwijzer aimed most of its communication at parents. To increase our impact, communication will have to be aimed more significantly at children and adolescents in the future. To achieve this, NICAM will intensify its cooperation with partners in the media literacy network. The knowledge and expertise that this network has to offer will be used to improve our educational aspect and to come even closer to our focus groups, allowing us to reach them even more.

Moreover, the impact of our educational activities will be improved through more visibility of Kijkwijzer in the places where the focus group can be found.

Increasing number of media parties
The audiovisual sector has grown in the past few years, due to the arrival of new, online media parties who often reach a large number of children. It is crucial that the classification systems are used by these new parties, as well, and to have them become a part of the NICAM network. With this in mind, NICAM will prioritize the expansion of its network in the next few years.

Innovation of classification system
The classification systems should be as user-friendly and trustworthy as possible, so that media companies are able to classify their content easily and unambiguously. To ensure this, NICAM will focus on innovation and automation of its classification systems.