ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the online risk as a concept and an area of research, linking it back to the historical fear of new media'. It also discusses the general level of risk as experienced by children in Europe. The complexity in the field, along with the recognition that all European children are online and digital skill is seen as a vital tool for children, makes it interesting to also look at the public perception of online risk. Like traditional discourses on children and risk and media and risk the public discussions on what constitutes online risk is complex and culturally framed and has been so since the formative years of the public Internet. Cultural differences in general and opinion regarding media and the Internet and the question of risk in particular have been well documented in existing studies. Risk research in general has suffered from a lack of broad contextualization, concentrating more on specific, risky decisions or specific attitudes.
