Media use, particularly for younger children, occurs to a large extent within the home, in a family context. It is so familiar that it is one of those areas of our life that we take āfor granted,ā as part of everyday routine. Consequently, it is impossible to separate the study of children and media from the context within which it occurs (be it the physical conditions ā the kind of media available at home and their location) or the social conditions within which media are used in the midst of engagement in other activities and in the presence of other family members. Further, media use is not necessarily an individual act of choice, but often a result of adjustment, negotiation, collaborations, compromises, and/or imitation of others in the childās environment. What does viewing a particular program or playing a particular video game mean in such a rich context? Is it an active choice on the part of the child to watch television, surf the net, or read a magazine from among all the other activities available at a particular moment? Even mobile media used outside of the home can often be regarded as an extension of the larger context of family and home, as a symbolic āumbilical cordā by which parental control and/or child dependency are negotiated. 1
Clearly, the growing centrality of home-based media use is culturally dependent. Indeed, many socioācultural differences may interact to create varied forms and amounts of media use, such as longer or shorter numbers of school hours, warm versus cold weather, safe or dangerous neighborhoods, active social life, child labor, daily chores, availability of media infrastructure, income, and education, which all play a significant role in shaping the centrality media have for children. The larger context of modern family life, too, should be understood. By-products of the transition to a more modernized lifestyle have been, on one hand, the creation of family leisure time and, on the other hand, the growing emphasis on the home as a center of indoor life. The home can be a fertile ground for the gradual growth of the central role media have in family life, given growing urbanization and concern for personal safety in the streets together with exponential technological developments.
The Role of Context
Understanding childrenās use of media in their everyday life is best analyzed as an interaction not only of individual, contextual, and social characteristics, but also of more general understanding of media as culturally situated.
Let us take, for example, a girl growing up in a society torn by a deep social conflict (such as between ethnic or religious groups) in which there is only one television station, which is owned and managed by the dominant social group. News programs in this country are a central solidifying mechanism that serves to convey a sense of nationality that is highly revered by most viewers of the dominant group. Family members, perhaps some neighbors and relatives as well, may gather around the television set on a regular basis to watch the news programs and argue over the content broadcast. In this particular social context, the girl internalizes an understanding that television has both essential and ideological values, more far reaching than the understanding she gets from watching her favorite cartoon or comedy as a leisure activity.
In comparison, a boy who grows up in a relatively homogenized society that has not experienced overt conflicts, with a multi-channel commercial television and computer in his room, in a culture in which viewing and surfing is regarded as a pass-the-time activity accompanied by a reward system (āNo TV until you have done your homework and cleaned your room!ā; āyouāll get that new video game if your grades improveā), may develop a very different attitude to media use, most likely as a leisure activity. Such cultural differences can be found not only between nations throughout major regions of the world, for example, Latin America in comparison with South Asia, but even within smaller geographical areas that seemingly have a lot in common. For example, a study of European children conducted in the late 1990s found that children growing up in countries that, historically, have been relatively more permissive in parenting style, such as Italy and Sweden, had higher private ownership of televisions in childrenās rooms, higher individual viewing and less parental mediation. In contrast, in France and Belgium, where parenting styles have been less permissive, television has been found to be a more integral part of the entire familyās leisure activities and viewing typically takes place in the presence of other family members. Thus, the contexts of television use and parental educational approaches seem to be part of a more complex and general pattern of cross-cultural differences including general attitudes toward the media, perceptions of the degree of privacy that should be granted children, division of space at home, and availability of additional media. 2
Another social dimension of interest regarding media use has to do with diversities within each society itself, such as class or sexual differences. Unfortunately, much of the available research has been performed by ā and on ā middle-class populations, as these are the ones most familiar and accessible to most researchers operating within academic institutions worldwide. Therefore, studies conducted on other populations are of particular interest. For example, several studies of working-class families in Anglo-European countries found that beyond income, education, and occupational differences typical of such comparisons there were also significant class differences in many aspects of family lives, including their experiences in and approaches to child rearing, different roles parents assume in socialization of their children, and the like. Thus, while blue-collar families in the USA were found to emphasize conformity, obedience, and adoption of conservative values in their childrenās education, middle-class families emphasized motivation, affect, creativity, and self-control. Such differences can have significant consequences for the role media occupy in the family, for example, in parental supervision, time schedules, ideologies regarding uses of time, and desire to limit or advance media use. 3
Earlier research on television viewing and communication patterns in the family has distinguished between two central orientations ā social and conceptual, with each family located on a continuum between low to high in orientation. Accordingly, families with high social orientation are characterized by encouraging their children to get along with other family members, to withhold as much as possible from engaging in confrontations, to depress anger, and to stay āout of trouble.ā The importance of preserving peace and quiet at home and avoiding hurting othersā feelings are central values in the socialization processes of children growing up in these families.
In contrast, families with a high concept orientation encourage an atmosphere of open communication, free expression of ideas and conceptual debates. Children in these families are exposed to different sides and perspectives on controversial issues and their parents encourage them to voice their opinions and to argue about them. The central emphasis in such families is on ideas, rather than on feelings. 4
Interestingly, a familyās orientation was found, in the USA, to influence childrenās viewing habits. As a general rule, socially oriented families viewed television more, but were lighter consumers of news and current affairs programs. They perceived television to be primarily an entertainment medium and means of producing family solidarity. In contrast, children from high concept-oriented families used television more as a source of keeping up-to-date with the news and much less for entertainment purposes. They were lighter television viewers, used it less for social purposes, and their parents were more involved in regulating their viewing behaviors.
Obviously, children who grow up in a variety of combinations of the two family orientations create varying types of communication patterns, including in the use of media. Thus media use habits and preferences are clearly not only an individual choice or personality trait, but are greatly affected by family characteristics.
In turn, the fact that families are also formed within a particular cultural setting must be taken into account. For example, in collectivist-oriented cultures, or those deeply divided by a conflict, where cooperation and conformity to the collective is more highly regarded and children are discouraged from expressing individuality and encouraged to fit in, we may expect social orientation families to be more of the norm and, as a result, stronger emphasis to be placed on the social roles of media. In contrast, valorization of academic achievement in children in several Asian countries, such as Korea and China, complicates mediation of media use, particularly computer and internet use. Hence, while these technologies are perceived as key to academic success, they are also deemed by parents to be time-consuming and frivolous forms of engagement. 5
Another example that illustrates this argument comes from a comparative analysis of children and media in China and Australia. Differences in levels of modernization, social development, regulatory systems, and nationalism, among others, all make for variation in media flows and availabilities in both local content generation and familiesā everyday media practices.
Thus, we cannot apply theoretical frameworks and empirical results from one region to another uncritically and non-reflexively. 6 This is true not only across regions and countries, but also within them, as illustrated by comparisons between rural and urban children or along class, wealth, and gender divides. 7
The analysis of another study, based on in-depth interviews with members of diverse families, 8 found two typical patterns of media use in the USA: Middle- and upper-class families demonstrated an ethic of expressive empowerment according to which parents encourage media use that promote their childrenās education and personal accomplishments. They respect their childrenās need for independence and privacy, and trust their media-use related judgments. Interestingly, many of these children continue to use media (such as mobile phones) and maintain a strong tie to their parents as they physically expand their activities away from home, while their parents are afforded the possibility of surveillance over...
