Sharenting = Good Parenting? Four Parental Approaches to Sharenting on Facebook
Publication details
| Year: | 2018 |
| Issued: | 2018 |
| Language: | English |
| Start Page: | 209 |
| End Page: | 218 |
| Editors: | Mascheroni G.; Ponte C.; Jorge A. |
| Authors: | Damkjaer M.S. |
| Type: | Book chapter |
| Book title: | Digital Parenting : The Challenges for Families in the Digital Age |
| Publisher: | Nordicom |
| Place: | Göteborg, Sweden |
| Topics: | Internet usage, practices and engagement |
| Sample: | "eight cases were selected consecutively from an online questionnaire survey in a municipality in Western Jutland, a rural area, and in the fast-growing region of Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city with a population of approx. 320,000 (Aarhus Kommune, 2016). Survey invitations were distributed by local health visitors. Case selection used a combined maximum variation and intensity sampling approach (Patton, 1990) to yield information-rich cases. Criteria for case selection were variation in media use patterns, education level and proximity of social network." (p. 211) |
| Implications For Parents About: | Parental practices / parental mediation |
Abstract
This chapter discusses the contested practice of sharing pictures and information of one’s children on social media, newly coined as “sharenting”. Based on a multi-case study of eight Danish first-time parent couples’ uses and experiences of digital media in relation to their new role as parents, the chapter identifies four types of communicative orientation that characterise parents’ approach to Facebook as a social network site (SNS). The four types are expressed through differences in aesthetics, values and attitudes toward sharenting and consist of 1) family-oriented, 2) peer-oriented, 3) oppositional and 4) non-use. On this basis, the chapter discusses the ways in which sharenting poses new challenges and demands for “good parenting”.
Outcome
"The case study shows that sharenting has become tightly interwoven with parenting practices and plays a key role on Facebook for the (re)production of parental self-identity and social approval, but also for building and maintaining social ties." (p. 216)
"The case study documents that sharenting – and family communication in general – has become integral to our shared so-called “onlives”, i.e. lives online, not least on Facebook." (p. 217)