The socio-materiality of parental style

Abstract

Purpose; This study aims to offer understanding of the parent-child relationship by examining, through a socio-material lens, parental descriptions of how one aspect of the new child surveillance technology market, child GPS trackers (CGT), are rejected or adopted by families, highlighting implications for child welfare, privacy and children's rights policy. Design;The authors gathered netnographic data from a range of online sources (parenting forums, online product reviews, discussion boards) that captured parental views towards the use of CGT, and stories of the technology in use, and theorize the data through application of a novel combination of neutralization and affordance theory. Findings;The research reveals how critics of CGT highlight the negative affordances of such product use (highlighting the negative agency of the technology). Parental adopters of CGT, in turn, attempt to rationalize their use of the technology as a mediator in the parent-child relation through utilization of a range of neutralization mechanisms which re-afford positive product agency. Implications for child welfare and policy are discussed in the light of those findings.Practical and social implications; The paper presents an empirical, qualitative understanding of parents negotiating the emergence of a controversial new child-related technology, CGT, and its impact upon debates in the field of parenting and childhood; develops the theory of parental style towards parental affordances, using a socio-material theoretical lens to augment existing sociological approaches; and contributes to the debates surrounding child welfare, ethics, privacy, and human rights in the context of child surveillance GPS technologies.

Insurmountable enemies or easy targets? Military-themed videogame ‘translations’ of weaponized artificial intelligence

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Technology affordances and social withdrawal: The rise of hikikomori

“…In the healthcare context, Gurrieri and Drenten (2019) showcased how visual storytelling on social media normalizes hidden aspects of healthcare consumption experiences through healthcare disclosures, as well as normalizing practices and leveraging digital affordances, ultimately fostering social support among vulnerable healthcare consumers. Drawing implications for child welfare and policy, Bettany and Kerrane (2016) highlighted the negative affordances of child GPS trackers and the techniques used by parents to neutralize the negative agency of this technology. Building upon these research threads, our study employs a netnography approach to explore the potential of technology affordances in promoting the social wellbeing of individuals experiencing social withdrawal.…”

Sensing privacy: Extending consumer privacy research through a consumer culture theory approach

“…This notion of economic rationality proposes that all actions taken by individuals directly represent their preferences and, more importantly, that these preferences have been formed autonomously. In reality, technology companies are constantly trying to normalize surveillance by connecting it with notions of convenience and well-being (Bettany and Kerrane, 2016) and directing behaviours through nudging (Puntoni et al, 2020). This way, marketers are constructing the information environment for their own purposes, and individuals do not come to it fully informed; instead, they are constituted by the very environment (Cohen, 2012; Hull, 2015).…”