*CFP* "MINORS AND USER-CREATED CONTENT ON VIDEO PLATFORMS", SPECIAL ISSUE, MEDITERRANEAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION

The phenomenon of underage influencers on video platforms is experimenting an unrelenting growth in the consumption, activity and presence of brands in relation to audiovisual content and on the potential for influence and social transformation of some of this content. All of this contributes to increase the complexity and associated problems as it is a phenomenon that is only partially regulated in current legislation. There are new and emerging research challenges in relation to the audiences involved: minors who created content, parents or legal guardians, YouTube (YT) Professionals, followers, teachers, scholars and researchers and the society at large.

Being an influencer is one of the top 10 most desired professions by Spanish minors (Adecco, 2018). Immersed in a culture of participation (Jenkins, 2006; Aparici & Osuna, 2013), YT offers a space where audiovisual content can be hosted and that allows users to interact with it through searching, sharing and commenting on such contents around which they build online communities. Minor creators express their identities through videos that reflect their perspectives on life and in turn exert influence upon their community of followers (Tur-Viñes, Nuñez- Gómez and González-Río, 2018). This social system is based around audiovisual content with several implications for government regulation, self-regulation, advertising, communication and education.

This monograph aims to be an approximation to the normative framework and self-regulatory initiatives related to minors that create online content, from an audiovisual, advertising and educational communication perspective. This phenomenon has led to a need to amend EU norms such as the e-Commerce Directive, the Audio Visual Media Services Directive and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), change policies to align them with the requirements of COPPA -in the case of the United States- and in the ways self-regulation entities have created self-regulation codes, often inspired by the interaction with, or resulting from the actions of, governmental regulatory bodies such as the FTC, also in the US.

The most relevant topics are: advertising, personal data protection and privacy, the responsibilities of the different actors that partake in this reality, as well as the role of public administration and the parents of minors. Among the questions contributors should aim to answer are: What observable realities in the context of content created by minors has led to changes in legislation and self-regulation? In this same context, what are the blind spots in legislation and self-regulation? What should change in order to be better prepared to respond to the existing reality? Is it possible to conciliate a market of online content created by minors and at the same time guarantee privacy, personal data protection and other rights of minors? What are the responsibilities of the different actors involved? What should be the role of public authorities and how can their interventions foster the existence of this market and at the same time protect the privacy, personal data and other rights of minors? What should be the role of parents? What type of advertising messages do the minor protagonists of the channels broadcast? Through what resources, if any, are the commercial purpose of the content notified?

We invite submissions for the Special Issue: Minors and User-Created content on Video Platforms: Regulation and Self-Regulation coordinated by Dr. Esther Martínez Pastor (University King Juan Carlos, Spain), Dr. Rodrigo Cetina Presuel (Harvard University, USA) and Dr. Araceli Castelló Martínez (University of Alicante, Spain) will be published in January 2022 (V13N1). Deadline for submissions: September 1, 2021. Call for abstracts is right below. If you have any questions you can also contact rcetinapresuel@law.harvard.edu. Please note that no payment from the authors will be required.

Submission information.