Roadblocks and resistance: Digital mediation as a process of calibration among U.S. parents of adolescents

ABSTRACT

Research in parental mediation often focuses on how parents’ practices for managing digital media are aligned with normative expectations. However, there is less research that explores parental mediation as a process, with practices changing over time in response to barriers and challenges. To address this gap, the goal of the current study is to examine parents’ decisions around not monitoring or limiting adolescents’ media use. Based on focus group discussions and interviews with predominantly female (77%) and White (92%) parents living in five communities in the Midwestern United States, we explore parental mediation as a process in which decisions about children’s media use reflect competing individual, ideological, and structural factors. In eight focus groups (n = 48) and 13 follow-up interviews, we ask parents to narrate barriers to commonly suggested mediation strategies to examine how parents’ navigate factors such as efficacy, conflict, or adolescent autonomy in managing digital media use. Based on the findings, we propose that looking at barriers illustrates mediation as a process of calibration, a decision that is made and re-made as parents navigate complex and sometimes contradictory situations and expectations.

IMPACT SUMMARY

Prior State of Knowledge: Past studies on parental mediation of digital technology define a range of strategies like restriction or monitoring and explore factors predicting whether parents use these strategies. Less research examines how parents arrive at the decision to implement normative mediation strategies.

Novel Contributions: We propose the term calibration to explain how barriers and challenges prompt shifts in parental mediation over time. Calibration captures how parents balance competing internal and external factors, like efficacy or norms, in engaging with adolescents about digital media use.

Practical Implications: Conceptualizing mediation as calibration may help parents develop a toolbox of strategies that can shift as needed. In addition, focusing on values like autonomy helps parents choose which mediation strategies work for their family context and which may not.

KEYWORDS:

• Parental mediation
• adolescents
• digital media
• social media
• barriers
• interviews
• focus groups

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2023.2202869.

Notes

1. The proportion of female to male participants in our study is in line with other focus group research in parental mediation. In recently published qualitative research on parents and media globally, the percentage of mothers ranges from 61% to 100% (Lwin et al., 2021; Jeffrey, 2021; Mascheroni, 2014; Midamba & Moreno, 2019; Symons et al., 2017; Zaman et al., 2016; Zurcher, 2017). While parent race/ethnicity is not reported as frequently in qualitative research as parent gender, the mediation research seems to focus on parents from majority racial/ethnic groups from middle- to upper-income strata, with notable exceptions (e.g., Clark, 2013; Domoff et al., 2017).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center [R49 CE002108-05].

Notes on contributors

Rachel Young

Rachel Young is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa. Her mixed-methods research explores the complex effects of media on health and risk, with a particular focus on digital media and adolescents. Dr. Young’s teaching and research also involve partnerships with community organizations in Iowa.

Melissa Tully

Melissa Tully is Associate Professor and Director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa. She is also the Co-Director of the Global Media Studies Working Group in the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and a Senior Research Fellow in the Public Policy Center at the University of Iowa. Her research interests include news literacy, audience studies, misinformation, civic engagement, and African media studies.