Contact! Children and new media
Chapter 11: parental mediation
What is parental mediation?
= the part of the parental upbringing aimed at enabling children to consciously and
selectively manage the
media on offer and seeing to it that they can take a critical look at the content on
offer and are able to
assess its value.
Disobedience dialogues
Children acquire autonomy, particularly through disobedience dialogues.
- By constantly trying how far they can go, children push back boundaries.
Five essential acts of the upbringing process
1. Keep an eye on the child,
2. Offer security,
3. Offer physical and psychological care,
4. Guide children by expressing expectations,
5. Set boundaries.
All parents do these things during the period in which they are responsible for the
upbringing, although content wise this changes somewhat as the children grow older.
Three styles of parental mediation
Restrictive mediation: regulating what children do with media, e.g., forbidding certain
programs or games, making agreements on time spent and when children are allowed
to do something. Parents also set boundaries for media.
Active mediation: exchanging opinions, comments, and information about what
children stumble across in the media, e.g., giving reasons why certain games are
‘good’ or ‘bad’, explaining subject in the media that children cannot yet understand
properly or applauding nice and suitable media expressions.
Social coviewing or coplaying: consciously watching or gaming together, parents and
children enjoy themselves, get the creeps or sympathize together. The important
thing is exchanging emotions during the use of media together, although a discussion
also takes place on what is fun or interesting.
Supervision on the internet
Besides these three types of mediation, parents
of children up to the age of 12 also use a fourth
type of supervision: parents give their children
freedom on the computer but make sure that
they know what their child is doing on the
computer, from a distance. This type of
supervision, keeping an eye on things, is most
used by parents.
Guidance with offline gaming
For stand-alone games on a game console or PC,
parents often use restrictive mediation.
Chapter 11: parental mediation
What is parental mediation?
= the part of the parental upbringing aimed at enabling children to consciously and
selectively manage the
media on offer and seeing to it that they can take a critical look at the content on
offer and are able to
assess its value.
Disobedience dialogues
Children acquire autonomy, particularly through disobedience dialogues.
- By constantly trying how far they can go, children push back boundaries.
Five essential acts of the upbringing process
1. Keep an eye on the child,
2. Offer security,
3. Offer physical and psychological care,
4. Guide children by expressing expectations,
5. Set boundaries.
All parents do these things during the period in which they are responsible for the
upbringing, although content wise this changes somewhat as the children grow older.
Three styles of parental mediation
Restrictive mediation: regulating what children do with media, e.g., forbidding certain
programs or games, making agreements on time spent and when children are allowed
to do something. Parents also set boundaries for media.
Active mediation: exchanging opinions, comments, and information about what
children stumble across in the media, e.g., giving reasons why certain games are
‘good’ or ‘bad’, explaining subject in the media that children cannot yet understand
properly or applauding nice and suitable media expressions.
Social coviewing or coplaying: consciously watching or gaming together, parents and
children enjoy themselves, get the creeps or sympathize together. The important
thing is exchanging emotions during the use of media together, although a discussion
also takes place on what is fun or interesting.
Supervision on the internet
Besides these three types of mediation, parents
of children up to the age of 12 also use a fourth
type of supervision: parents give their children
freedom on the computer but make sure that
they know what their child is doing on the
computer, from a distance. This type of
supervision, keeping an eye on things, is most
used by parents.
Guidance with offline gaming
For stand-alone games on a game console or PC,
parents often use restrictive mediation.
