ERIC Number: EJ1236942
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Dec
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1463-9491
EISSN: N/A
Constructions of Knowledge and Childhood: Addressing Current Affairs with Children with a Focus on Parents' Practices and Children's News Media
Robinson, Kerry H.; Díaz, Criss Jones; Townley, Cris
Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, v20 n4 p324-336 Dec 2019
This paper examines the ways in which current affairs related to diversity and difference, nationally and globally, are represented to Australian children in children's digital news media and through family discussions. The discussion is based on qualitative research that explores parents' views and practices in addressing news media and diversity and difference issues with their children. In addition, this project includes a discursive analysis of stories found in "Behind The News" ("BTN"), the primary digital news media source for Australian children, aged 8-13 years, from 2015-2018. The news stories are related to three significant topics: the marriage equality debate, refugees and terrorism. Within feminist post-structuralist, post-developmentalist and critical theorist frameworks, a focus is given to examining the dominant discourses that prevail in the stories, which provide insight into how childhood and children's access to certain types of knowledge is viewed and regulated through media and family practices. Drawing on thematic and Foucaultian discursive analyses, the pilot study findings demonstrate that children's news media is closely scrutinised and regulated, with major news stories framed within dominant discourses of childhood innocence, as well as the agenda and particular interests of the producers of children's new media. These topics, which have dominated news in recent years, are frequently considered by some adults as inappropriate or difficult topics to discuss with children.
Descriptors: News Media, Current Events, Discourse Analysis, Parent Child Relationship, Foreign Countries, Parent Attitudes, Family Relationship, LGBTQ People, Marriage, Refugees, Terrorism, Feminism, Critical Theory, Children, Islam, Programming (Broadcast)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A