Mediation As Self-Optimization: A Foucauldian Approach to Understanding Parents’ Narratives and Practices Around Children’s Digital Media Use
Parental decisions regarding children's access to digital screen are influenced by a myriad of factors, including educational involvement, parenting style, identity and social position, and the perceived risks and benefits of digital media. Research indicates that parents often view screens as both educational tools and sources of entertainment, leading to complex dynamics in managing screen time. Based on multi-method in-depth qualitative research with five families of children aged six to 14, and interviews with13 parents, this paper unpacks the paradoxes and complexities emerging in the ways in which parents negotiate their children’s access to smartphones. Focusing on what parents perceive as opportunities and risks around digital media, the paper highlights the process of rule-setting, implementation and enforcement, and it foregrounds the discrepancies between the parents’ discourses around digital media and impact on their children and family life and the rules that they establish, reflecting on the role that self-optimization (Bröckling, 2019) plays. Parental media management is inherently tied to the question “am I being a good-enough parent” (Clark, 2011), whereby the discordances between their discourses and the rules they set can be explained with parents’ attempt to pursue the optimal, yet unreachable, imaginable version of their family. Furthermore, the children’s own agentic abilities have an impact in the development of parenting strategies (Honig, 2017): through a reflection on children’s perspective on these rules related to smartphones and tablets, the paper highlight the constant fluidity and the co-produced nature of rules around media consumption.