A doubly articulated cartography of children and media as affective networks-at-play

Abstract

With increasing concerns surrounding children's agency and questions of the impacts of globalizing media, it is imperative to critically explore how interactions with media objects become part of children's social lives. Working through Deleuzian-Guattarian ideas of what bodies are and do, we approach child–media interactions as horizontal components of becoming. Through this, we argue that media objects can be important social elements of the emergent nature of ‘affective networks-at-play’ and illustrate this by creatively working through two narratives of media object relations: one, drawn from the actions of Tomohiro Kato on 8 June 2008 in Tokyo, Japan; the other, of a child named Juana and her interactions with the Latin American version of the Disney educational show Manny a la Obra (Handy Manny). In engaging child–media relationships as mutual and affirmative elements in becoming, we challenge strict dichotomous understandings of children and adults while addressing debates surrounding children's agency.

Keywords:

• media
• affect
• agency
• networks
• becoming
• Deleuze and Guattari

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Jenny Uechi (2008) wrote in JTO approximately a month following the attack:

In his postings between June 3–8 … Kato makes it clear that relationships – or the dysfunction and lack thereof – are his main concern. He uses the word ‘hitori’ (alone) 39 times, ‘kanojo’ (girlfriend) 42 times, and ‘tomodachi’ (friend) 26 times. More than poverty or troubles at work, Kato sees his lack of a partner or friends as being at the root of his sense of worthlessness.

2. The term ‘double articulation' expresses diverse ordering or defining processes at work simultaneously in the same being at different levels (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 41–44). Aitken (2009, 129–142) provides an example of how double articulations show up in the lines of flight taken by fathers becoming-other.

3. Though one may choose to refer to these as ‘structures’, ‘it is an illusion to believe that structure is the earth's last word' (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 41).

4. Not surprisingly, several cultural group or tribe names translate to ‘Humans’ or ‘People.’

5. Particularly as it relates to capitalistic production and consumption (see Ito 2008, 309).

6. Our account of Juana, her family, and their media interactions is based on observations that one of us (Bosco) experienced during three months of fieldwork in Argentina in 2010. The account we provide is not the result of a single participatory observation, but rather a summary and an amalgamation of shared mo(ve)ments – all part of a family ethnography that developed opportunistically as another research project in Argentina was underway.

7. This is not the case in all countries. For example, in Israel all original dialogue is translated into Hebrew and in Portugal, Portuguese.