Families

This chapter considers the home and family as an important structuring context for informal media engagement2 and, in turn, explores how parents and other adults negotiate the incorporation of media in young people’s lives. Drawing research materials from a wide range of studies—primarily Christo Sims (Rural and Urban Youth), Heather A. Horst (Silcon Valley Families), Katynka Z. Martínez (Pico Union Families), Lisa Tripp and Becky Herr-Stephenson (Teaching and Learning with Multimedia), C. J. Pascoe (Living Digital), danah boyd (Teen Sociality in Networked Publics), Patricia G. Lange (YouTube and Video Bloggers) and Dan Perkel and Sarita Yardi (Digital Photo-Elicitation with Kids)—we examine parenting strategies surrounding new media, with particular attention to the structuring and regulation of family life in the home and through new media. The three numbered boxes in this chapter illustrate the ways in which the use of new media in homes and families differ regionally. We begin by concentrating on the spatial and domestic arrangements that shape new media use in the home, such as the placement of computers. We then turn to the creation of routines and other forms of temporality, including the amount of time and the textures of kids’ media use. In the final section, our analysis centers on parents’ and kids’ rules, and the creation, bending, and breaking of rules. We conclude by considering how parents and young people transform, negotiate, and create a sense of family identity through new media.