Engl. transl.: Children and Electronic Media in Socially Disadvantaged Territories: A Look At (Other) Childhood Worlds (translated by the coder)

This text sheds light on i) how does social origin and the territory where children live affect their access to electronic media, and on ii) how the territorial concentration of social disadvantages is reflected in children’s uses of media.As part of a broader study aiming to achieve a better understanding of children’s socialization processes considering multi-problematic spaces, a case study was carried out in six public housing neighbourhoods in Portugal from 2005 to 2009 involving a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The neighbourhoods covered in this study were chosen because they experience relatively high levels of social deprivation, violence and crime, although being located in one of the richest counties in the country, and the first one in Portugal to have eradicated slums in 2003, by promoting public housing policies.

The neighbourhoods covered in this study were chosen because they experience relatively high levels of social deprivation, violence and crime, in spite of being located in one of the richest counties in the country. This research highlights the value of children's personal accounts of their lives. Their awareness of the impact of social inequalities in their lives was high and their willingness to be heard and to intervene was strongly expressed. Children were eloquent when stating their views of social relations; they mostly complained about living in these neighbourhoods, describing how social and spatial segregation affect their opportunities to access to/uses of electronic media as most of their families have low social resources and high levels of illiteracy. In many cases, parents depend on children to write and text a message on a mobile phone. It was possible to account diverse levels in the use of electronic media by children, including some that have rarely been discussed. The lack of opportunities drawing on low social resources is at the basis of the involvement of some children, mainly boys, in illegal practices in which mobile phones, videogames and PlayStations are the main target. Children’s high exposure to violence also reveals how the electronic media could be used by some as a mean of avoidance of becoming victim when direct confrontation among the parents occurs. Main findings confirm the increasing digital and electronic involvement in the lives of children and how this evolution reflects social inequalities, that are already structuring how children interact with peers and adults and that will be reflected in children’s future roles in society.