3 results
ten - Young Europeans’ online environments: a typology of user practices
- Edited by Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science, Leslie Haddon, London School of Economics and Political Science, Anke Görzig, London School of Economics and Political Science
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- Book:
- Children, Risk and Safety on the Internet
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 07 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 18 July 2012, pp 127-140
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Summary
Introduction
The internet is sometimes discussed as something external, with a given set of characteristics that have positive or negative effects on children. However, ‘the internet’ cannot be a meaningful indicator of young people's everyday experiences. Online services are so heterogeneous that we can expect substantial inter-individual differences in how young people use the internet and the kinds of online environments they experience.
The EU Kids Online network tried to avoid the simple construction of ‘the’ internet in conceptualising opportunities and risks resulting from a transactional process between the set of available online services and their young potential users, within a given social and cultural context (see Chapter 1). Young people's online environments, or ‘media ecologies’ (see Chapter 5), are – at least partly – constructed by their own behaviours and practices. To satisfy the overall objective of the EU Kids Online network we need to analyse children's activities and practices, asking the question: what do children do with the internet?
We present some conceptual considerations and empirical evidence from existing studies followed by an operationalisation of the main indicators used in the analysis and their interrelations. Types of online usage are identified by means of cluster centre analyses and we investigate individual and country-related determinants of patterns of usage.
Conceptual and methodological considerations
The analyses follow the so-called repertoire-oriented approach to research on media use (see Hasebrink and Popp, 2006). The concept of media repertoires refers to how users combine different media to create comprehensive patterns of media use. Media repertoires are the result of multiple single situations of selective – particularly habitualised – behaviours, which represent the typical structure of an individual’s everyday life. Media repertoires are composites of many media contacts, including a variety of different media and content.
The concept of media repertoires is related to the arguments in Chapter 5, which refer to a holistic approach to media use (Haddon, 2003), and develop the notion of media ecologies (Horst et al, 2009). A European study of children's changing media environments attempts to identify patterns of media use ( Johnsson-Smaragdi, 2001), and Endestad et al (2011) study media user types and their relationship to social displacement.
twenty-five - Towards a general model of determinants of risk and safety
- Edited by Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science, Leslie Haddon, London School of Economics and Political Science, Anke Görzig, London School of Economics and Political Science
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- Book:
- Children, Risk and Safety on the Internet
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 07 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 18 July 2012, pp 323-338
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
Rapid adoption of the internet and other online technologies is presenting policy makers, governments and industry with a significant task of ensuring that online opportunities are maximised and the risks associated with internet use are minimised and managed. Online opportunities are the focus of considerable public and private sector activity, and diverse ambitious efforts are underway in many countries to promote digital learning technologies in schools, e-governance initiatives, digital participation and digital literacy. The risks associated with the technologies are receiving similar attention through national and international initiatives that address child protection, cybersecurity and privacy, and through discussions explaining the potential for state and/or self-regulation.
Policy initiatives assume particular circumstances, understandings and practices applying to children, their parents and teachers. These assumptions may be more or less accurate and well judged, and at worst, they may be unnecessarily anxious or already out of date. Herein lies the value of direct research on children's contemporary experiences across diverse contexts. But although technological and regulatory change since the early 2000s has been accompanied by research seeking to understand the social shaping and consequences of internet use, early research tended to be more descriptive than theoretical (Wellman, 2004). However, since researchers seek to understand and predict children's online experiences, mere descriptions of survey findings are insufficient.
Consequently, a central feature of the EU Kids Online project has been to develop a theoretical framework within which its findings can be interpreted because, in the absence of theory, three problems occur. First, it is difficult to say what ‘findings’ mean since they are open to multiple interpretations – for example, is a certain percentage large or small, surprising or banal? Second, findings tend to be mere lists of percentages that cannot be connected to the findings of other studies, either in the domain of children's internet use or in relation to other studies of risk in childhood, the nature of parenting, or the role of the internet in adolescent development. Third, theory is needed to generate predictions and, so, to go beyond the particularity of any one data set in order to anticipate the consequences of different combinations of factors in future situations.
four - Opportunities and pitfalls of cross-national research
- Edited by Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science, Leslie Haddon, London School of Economics and Political Science
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- Book:
- Kids Online
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 15 July 2022
- Print publication:
- 30 September 2009, pp 41-54
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Summary
Looking beyond national borders for comparative purposes has a long tradition in the history of social science research, and can be traced back to early social scientists such as Max Weber and Émile Durkheim. And a discussion of the methodology of cross-national comparison is not an entirely new phenomenon (Rokkan, 1968). However, it has only been in the last couple of decades that cross-national (or cross-cultural) comparative research has really gained in popularity in the social sciences (Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik and Harkness, 2005). Among processes that have contributed to this trend, we can certainly name the gradual internationalisation of the academic community and the removal of political barriers as well as the digitalisation of communication. Hence, crossing traditional boundaries – geographical as well as social and cultural – has become easier. Funding bodies and policy makers have also been increasingly calling for comparative research, and this call seems to be readily accepted by researchers who find themselves initiating or invited to collaborate in multinational comparative projects (Livingstone, 2003).
The topic of children's use of online media demonstrates perhaps better than most other research topics the potential and pitfalls of cross-national comparative research. This chapter addresses some of the key theoretical and methodological questions related to crossnational comparative research, focusing in particular on the research field of (new) media and communication technologies. Following their presentation and some critical reflections in the first part of the chapter, these methodological considerations will then be applied to the topic of children's online behaviour and online risks and opportunities, taking the research conducted within the European Union (EU) Kids Online project as a concrete empirical example.
Existing research on children and new media: single countries dominate
As noted in Chapter Two of this volume, one of the steps taken in the EU Kids Online project involved mapping the available research on children's access to and use of the internet and related online and mobile technologies in the 21 countries participating in the project (for a description of the collection policy and key findings see Staksrud et al, 2009). Based on the sample of almost 400 studies collected and conducted in the years 2000-08, cross-national research does not seem to be the most common type of research.