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Summary Week 7 (Adults)
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Developing Media Entertainment course at UvA
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Week 7 (Adults) – DevMedEnt – Max BiglinoReading summary
Van den Bulck (2016)
Socialization theory generally describes how children internalize the rules and norms from their
parents, teachers, siblings, media, and others. Socialization is, however, a bidirectional process
in which children socialize their parents as well. In this paper, we aim (1) to give a brief
theoretical overview of the “child-effect hypothesis” and (2) to discuss its challenges and
opportunities for future research.
Very often, adults are seen as active agents that are already socialized, while children are seen
as passive recipients that are unsocialized and need to internalize the rules of the social world
(through parents, environment, media, etc.). This perspective is too narrow and we should also
consider the influence that children have on parents—i.e. “the child-effect”
It is important to note that the concept “child” in this article refers to the position of a person in
a family’s constellation, not to a developmental stage (i.e. toddlers and tens alike)
Communication technologies are a good example of the child as a socializing agent, because
children frequently know more about technology than their parents do. Children have been
shown to be agents of change regarding the introduction of hardware innovations such as
tablets, social media, or smartphones. However, this child influence should not be overstated,
because a lot of different factors influence these processes.
This can happen both because the family becomes aware of a new media because the children
discover it first, or because the child enters a stage in which a type of media use becomes
common.
Research on the child-effect is particularly relevant for questions regarding (1) the introduction of
media and content in the family, (2) the introduction of new media rules, (3) child guidance of
parental media use, and (4) media effects.
(1) Introduction and use of media and content
Both passive and active child-effects can occur:
Passive child-effects occur when a child influences the behavior of its parent without intending
to (e.g. when parents, spending time with their children, end up co-viewing popular television
shows aimed at their children’s developmental group, or are exposed to music their children are
listening to)
, Week 7 (Adults) – DevMedEnt – Max Biglino
Children can also influence their parents actively. Children actively affect parents’ media
adoption when they intentionally try to persuade a parent to do or buy something. They may
affect the preferences of their parents, for instance, by persuading their parents that what they
like to listen to, read or watch is “old fashioned.”. Active child-effects also occur when children
explain to their parents how to interact with the new medium—e.g. tablets, smartphones, and
social media. For example, a child may explain to a parent how facebook works or what
appropriate behaviors are on social media.
(2) Media rules
Each family develops its own rules, based on existing power processes and habits that guide family
members’ behaviors. Three types of rules children may introduce into family media use:
The first are habitual rules. If a child has been allowed to engage in a particular type of media
use (for example, watching a particular TV show at a particular hour), it may invoke such
precedents to argue that the habit has created a right.
The second are parametric rules. These define the boundaries of behaviors. Typically, parents
may limit the amount of exposure to certain media or types of content, but children may do the
same. Passive parametric rules could develop when a child expresses fear or boredom when it
is exposed to a particular type of media (for example, the news) and the parents therefore stop
exposing themselves to such media to avoid the child’s reaction.
Active parametric rules would result from the child’s successful negotiation behavior (“mama
can’t watch TV when I am doing my homework”)
(3) Media guidance
Most studies identify three ways in which parents guide their children’s media use:
restrictive mediation, instructive mediation, and social co-viewing:
Restrictive mediation occurs when children attempt to stop or reduce the consumption of certain
types of content by their parents. Children might try to convince their parents to stop watching a
particular type of television program to stop posting messages on facebook, or stop reading e-
mails during breakfast, and so on.
Instructive mediation occurs when children influence their parents’ media use by commenting
on the contents of those media. for example, by labeling a certain television show as “for old
people” children might try to discourage their parents from watching it.
Social co-viewing: examples are watching television together or playing video games together.
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