Orig. title: Estrategias de mediación parental en España: factores predictores para los diversos tipos de estrategias
Engl. transl.: Parental mediation strategies in Spain: predicting factors for different strategies
Keywords
Mediation
internet
children
parents
Publication details
| Year: | 2015 |
| DOI: | 10.1387/zer.15513 |
| Issued: | 2015 |
| Language: | Spanish |
| Volume: | 20 |
| Issue: | 39 |
| Start Page: | 13 |
| End Page: | 27 |
| Editors: | |
| Authors: | Garmendia Larrañaga M.; Casado del Río M.Á.; Martínez Fernández G. |
| Type: | Journal article |
| Journal: | Zer - Revista de Estudios de Comunicación |
| Publisher: | UPV/EHU Press |
| Topics: | Social mediation; Other |
| Sample: | This article shows how Spanish parents mediate their children’s internet use. The data have been drawn from the EU Kids Online survey which was funded by the European Commission’s Safer Internet Programme. This pan-European survey was based on a random stratified sample of 25,142 children aged between 9 and 16, all of them internet users, and one of their parents (the one who was more involved in the online activities of the child), during Spring/Summer 2010, in 25 European countries. The Spanish sample studied over one thousand children and one of their parents. The children and their mother or father were interviewed in their own ho- mes, face-to-face, with a self-completion section for questions which were consi- dered to be of a sensitive nature for the children. Samples were stratified by region and level of urbanisation: all the Autonomous Communities in Spain were sampled and urban and semi-urban locations were considered. Sampling points were selec- ted randomly from official and complete registers of geographical/administrative units, altogether 140 sampling points were used in the fieldwork. Addresses were selected randomly by using Random Walk procedures. At each address that agreed to interview one child was randomly selected from all eligible children in the household (i.e. all those aged 9-16 who use the internet) on the basis of whichever eligible child had the most recent birthday. If a household contained more than one parent/carer, the one who knew most about the child and his/her internet use was selected for the interview. |
| Implications For Parents About: | Parental digital literacy ; Other |
| Other Parent Implication: | The need of empowering parents to apply mediation strategies avoiding restrictive approaches |
| Implications For Policy Makers About: | Stepping up awareness and empowerment; Other |
| Other PolicyMaker Implication: | To develop and implement parental media literacy empowering parents' confindence in using the Internet, to develop specific digital literacy programms for families with lower levels of education and SES |
Abstract
Children’s online behavior is influenced by several different factors. Among these factors parental mediation is extremely important. Several researches have tried to give evidence over the influence of different parental mediation strategies on children’s online behavior. Analyzing the EU Kids Online survey results for Spain, this article gives evidence over the implementation of different parental mediation strategies and tries to explore the influence of three factors –such as use of the internet, educational level and socio economic status– on the number and type of mediation parents apply on their child.
Outcome
This research, based on results of the EU Kids Online Spanish survey (2010) shows that Spanish parents have a preference for active mediation and restrictive strategies whereas monitoring and technical mediation strategies are less common among Spanish parents. Compared with the EU Kids Online 2010 European results, Spain shows one of the lowest levels of technical mediation in Europe. Results also show the association between parents’ characteristics which might affect their mediation strategies. Garmendia et al. (2015: 25) remark that “as a general rule parents who use more the internet, have higher levels of education or higher SES tend to mediate more their children’s use of the internet, except for restrictive strategies”.
On the other hand, parental confidence in using the internet does not influence at all the number of mediation strategies implemented on their children which Garmendia et al. (2015: 25) remark this findings as particularly striking and “suggesting that this lack of confidence makes them to undervalue their own skills”.
As a recommendation for future research, the authors suggest the need to find out which types of mediation strategies are associated with an increase of opportunities for the child and which might help them to cope or minimize online risks and harms. Garmendia et al. (2015: 25) encourage parents to use strategies “oriented to empowering their children in their use of the internet in order to increase children’s resilience and enable them to cope with potential risks”.