| Type | Nonprofit organization |
|---|---|
| Genre | Advocacy group |
| Founded | 2003[1] |
| Founder(s) | James P. Steyer, CEO |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Employees | 11–50[1] |
| Website | commonsensemedia.org |
Common Sense Media (CSM) is a San Francisco based non-profit that advocates for children and families, and studies the effects that media and technology have on young users.[2][3]
Founded by Jim Steyer in 2003, Common Sense Media reviews books, movies, TV shows, video games, apps, music, and websites and rates them in terms of age-appropriate educational content, violence, sex, and profanity, and more to help parents make informed media choices for their children.
Donations from foundations and individuals and fees from media partners finance Common Sense Media. Today, the organization distributes its content to more than 100 million US homes via partnerships with a variety of traditional and online media companies. Common Sense Media is considered the nation’s largest membership organization dedicated to improving kids’ media lives.[2]
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After founding JP Kids, a successful educational media company for children, and Children Now, a national child advocacy and media group, Jim Steyer founded Common Sense Media in 2003. In an interview with the New York Times, Steyer said he intended to “create a huge constituency for parents and kids in the same way that Mothers Against Drunk Driving or the AARP has done. The group received $500,000 in seed money from a group of donors including Charles Schwab, George Roberts, and James Coulter.[2]
To assess parents’ concern about their children’s media habits, Common Sense Media commissioned a poll, which found that “64 percent [of parents with children 2-17] believed that media products in general were inappropriate for their families. It said that 81 percent expressed concern that the media in general were encouraging violent or antisocial behavior in children.” The polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, said that “only one out of five interviewed ‘fully trusted'’ the separate industry-controlled ratings systems for music, movies, video games and television.”[2]
Common Sense Media reviews thousands of movies, TV shows, music, video games, apps, web sites and books. Based on developmental criteria from some of the nation’s leading authorities, the reviews provide guidance regarding each title’s age appropriateness, as well as a “content grid” that rates particular aspects of the title including educational value, violence, sex, positive messages and role models, and more. For each title, Common Sense Media indicates the age for which a title is either appropriate or most relevant and assigns an ON (age appropriate), PAUSE (somewhat edgy for the age), or OFF (not age appropriate) rating. An overall five-star quality rating is also included, as are discussion questions to help families talk about the media they consume. Common Sense Media's system was the first of its kind to give families the tools they needed to assess whether a given media title was right for their kids, or to manage a decision that had already been made.[4]
Common Sense Media partners with a number of media companies that distribute the organization’s free content to more than 100 million homes in the United States. According to Common Sense Media’s website, the organization has content distribution contracts with Road Runner, TiVo, Yahoo!, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DIRECTV, NBC Universal, Netflix, Best Buy, Google, Yahoo!, AOL/Huffington Post, Fandango, Trend Micro, Verizon Foundation, Nickelodeon, and more.[5] The organization’s current rating system differs from the system used by the Motion Picture Association of America and the Entertainment Software Rating Board.[10] It has received positive support from parents, and it has received support from President Barack Obama, who stated that its rating system favored "sanity, not censorship."[6][7]
In 2009, CSM partnered with Harvard University and the organization Global Kids to organize the first ever three-way communication with parents, teenagers, and educators about issues faced in the online world.[6]
Common Sense has two free education programs for schools and other organizations to use with students and parents. The goal of these resources is to help young people learn how to think critically, behave safely, and participate responsibly in today’s ever-changing digital media world. More than 23,000 schools and 32,000 educators around the world are using these resources..[8] The first product is a Parent Media and Technology Education Program that was launched in late 2008. The program includes a comprehensive library of resources, like tip sheets, workshop slides and script, videos, and discussion guides that educators can use to engage and educate parents about technology issues ranging from media violence and commercialism to cyberbullying and cell phone etiquette.
The second product, launched in 2009, is a K-12 Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum consisting of more than 70 lesson plans, student handouts, videos and interactive components that span three topic areas: Safety and Security, Digital Citizenship, and Research and Information Literacy. The curriculum was informed by research done by Howard Gardner's GoodPlay Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The resources were developed with support from many foundations, including the MacArthur and Hewlett Foundations, which enables Common Sense to offer these products to educators for free.
CSM has also teamed with MTV's "A Thin Line" campaign, the Family Violence Prevention Fund, and Yahoo! Safely to conduct a series of town hall meetings for teenagers and parents to discuss online issues that they face; the first was held in Omaha, Nebraska on December 6, 2010, the second took place in Chicago on October 25, 2011.[6]
Common Sense Media supported the U.S. Department of Commerce's creation of an "online privacy policy", which would include a "Privacy Bill of Rights" and would make clear which types of personal information companies are allowed to keep on clients.[9] It has also called for updates to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) rules to ensure that they keep pace with changes in technology since the law was passed in 1998 – as documented by Common Sense Media in a report to the Federal Trade Commission as part of a review of the law.[10]
The organization also helped Massachusetts Representative Edward Markey and Texas Representative Joe Barton draft legislation that required websites aimed at children under 13 to obtain parental permission before collecting personal information. According to the Wall Street Journal, the group also wanted websites to feature an "eraser button" that would allow children and teens to delete information that they’ve posted online about themselves. The group also favored a ban on "behavioral marketing" to kids -- ads targeted at children based on their online activities.[11]
Common Sense Media played a major role in the bi-partisan passage of the 2005 California law restricting the sale of violent video games to minors. The organization submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court regarding the case Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association.[12] They published a survey, conducted by Zogby International, which asked 2100 parents whether or not they supported the "video game ban bill" – CA Law AB 1793; results showed that 72% of the respondents expressed support for the bill, and another 75% held negative views of the video game industry in general.[13]
On November 1, 2007, Common Sense Media protested to the Federal Trade Commission about the ESRB's rating downgrade of a revised version of Manhunt 2 from "Adults Only" to "Mature". It protested on the basis that the revised version of the game, which was censored to prevent the game from remaining banned in both countries, was still banned in the UK via the ratings given by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). They also noted that players could still play a "leaked uncensored version" of Manhunt 2 on modded PlayStation 3, as Take-Two Interactive mentioned. The organization asked the FTC to launch a federal investigation into the ESRB rating process, citing the wide availability of the leaked version and the damage to children that the censored version still had.[14]
The Los Angeles Times called Common Sense Media "one of the most zealous voices when it comes to encouraging state legislation limiting the sale of ultra-violent games to minors.[3]