This special issue on child-centred perspectives of digital practices is the result of discussions that started in 2007 at the Nordic Child Cultural Research Network conference in Iceland. The idea was to initiate publications based on Nordic research on children and digital media. We were interested in empirical and methodological, as well as theoretical, work on the topic. This issue of the Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy consists of five articles that focus on children’s digital practices in Norway and Sweden.

Digital media - including the Internet, computers in general and game consoles - have to an increasing degree become part of children’s everyday lives in recent years, particularly in the Western world. In Norway and Sweden, for instance, nearly everyone has access to some kind of digital media. Furthermore, statistics show that families with children and adolescents have access to more digital media than those without (Medierådet, 2008; Medietilsynet, 2010; Vaage, 2009). To be young in modern and wealthy societies means to have access - often in the bedroom - to a range of digital media with quite different possibilities to those available just 10 or 15 years ago.

Children’s use of digital media is ubiquitous and multifaceted whereas, by contrast, debates about how digital media influence children and childhood are more polarised, both in the press and among researchers (Cuban, 1986; Drotner, 1999; Säljö, 2000). An emphasis on children as being naturally competent and the vanguards of new technologies constitutes one half of a dichotomy, while the other presents children as essentially innocent: vulnerable to the different kinds of media influences and in need of protection (Buckingham, 2000; Postman, 1983; Tapscott, 1998). Interestingly, these kinds of dichotomies rarely feature in other debates - about adults as digital media users, for example - and both positions adopt an essentialist view of children and childhood as well as a determinist perspective on the relationship between technology and the human mind. To regard children purely as either passive victims of the digital media or as active consumers, argues Buckingham, is effectively to view them in isolation from broader processes of cultural and social change: “Both perspectives reflect essentialist views, both of childhood and of communications media; and they are based on a deterministic analysis of the relationships between them. To call for a return to traditional notions of childhood, or alternatively to place all of our faith in the power of technology, is ultimately to ignore the complexity of the changes that are taking place” (2000, p.191).

Digital media and education

Educational institutions, such as school, have the potential to play a vital role in children’s digital practices: to develop and support children’s ability to use different kinds of digital media, to understand the technologies children are provided with and to protect children when necessary. The polarisation in approaches to children’s digital practices is particularly evident within the educational context in which a traditional view of learning, which does not include digital media, often has a hegemonic position, in contrast to an alternative perspective that sees digital practices as having potential for learning (Erstad et al 2005; Kryger, 2001).

The proliferation of Internet use in the last ten years has contributed to a change both in the level of exposure to and the way children are dealing with new phenomena such as digital advertising and marketing. Based on the Norwegian context, a recent study shows how curricula, text books and teachers’ approaches to such phenomena generally fail to acknowledge the new marketing strategies that are now targeting children on the Internet (Skaar et al., forthcoming). Skaar et al. argue that digital media have redefined the boundaries between children’s consumption and production, and also between their social lives in and out of school. It is further argued that the emergence of this new media landscape outside the classroom prompts us to consider how much it is actually reasonable to expect in terms of teachers’ and students’ critical assessment of advertising and marketing. This is the educational imperative in the Norwegian primary school curriculum, which in essence makes reference to a media situation which is now outdated.

Children’s perspective

The increasing integration of digital media into children’s everyday lives has led to the argument that we are on the edge of what has been called a “participatory culture” (Jenkins, 2006). The idea of participatory culture presents children as active producers of cultural expression and practices, while at the same time acknowledging their status as objects in relation to both commercial interests and criminal activities. Seeing children as both vulnerable and competent - and with a right to have a say in matters that affect them (James, Jenks & Prout, 1998) - avoids “placing children in dichotomous constructions of subjectivity as either dependent or independent, either mature or immature, either vulnerable or competent, either equal or unequal to adults” (Clark, Kjørholt & Moss, 2005: 176). In order to understand digital practices in children’s lives, children should be seen as neither entirely immature nor totally competent. Rather, knowledge of children’s actions and interactions may broaden our theoretical understanding of children’s agency in relation to media practices.

In this special issue the various authors adopt a participatory perspective of children’s digital media practices, not solely by making children’s voices heard, but also through the critical study of children’s use of different technologies and the contexts in which these practices appear. This means that by investigating children’s digital practices from their point of view, researchers may understand how children experience possibilities as well as restrictions in digital media practices (Halldén, 2007). Children’s digital practices do not take place in a social and cultural vacuum. Thereby, to understand children’s digital practices, we argue in this special issue that one has to investigate children across digital practices and institutional settings. And, it is considered important to examine not only particularities and discontinuities in children’s digital practices, but also connectedness and relationships in practices as well as in the research field (Sparrman & Aarsand, 2009).

Based on these reflections, this special issue argues for a child-centred perspective, incorporating a critical approach that goes beyond the dichotomies described above. Positioning children as both beings and becomings makes it possible to view children’s digital media use and their competences in a more nuanced way. Such a perspective is essential in order to understand and explore the dynamic nature of children’s digital practices.

Contributions

In her article, Understanding children’s and young adolescents’ media practices: reflections on methodology, Ulrika Sjöberg discusses tricks of the trade in applying children’s perspectives in research. She shows how different methods, such as drawing, diary writing and taking photos, are valuable techniques when combined with interviews. Sjöberg also shows that these kinds of data may work as a resource when accomplishing interviews with children. Sjöberg also points to the important subject of transcription of data, which should be seen not as a neutral and transparent activity, but rather as reflecting the analyst’s interests and theoretical perspective.

Elza Dunkels presents two studies in her article Online safety for children: a study based on interviews with more than one hundred 12-year-old Swedes in 2004 and 2005, and also a study of European safe-use guides conducted in 2008. Dunkels problematizes the concepts of risk and safety, arguing that these have both been used rather “freely and without actual definitions”. A main argument in this article is that all kinds of regulations are underpinned by a set of implicit norms and values which need to be examined.

Ola Erstad contributes with an important discussion on the concept of the digital generation and media literacy. Moving from a critical investigation of “generational studies” and a discussion of some contemporary trends within “new literacy studies”, Erstad then reflects upon the various possibilities that exist for studying 21st century competencies and their different aspects. Erstad uses his own research and that of colleagues to further the discussion, ending with the important issues of inclusion and exclusion.

Vebjørg Tingstad takes us back to the period about 10 years ago, using not only empirical data from the late 1990s, but also theoretical assumptions from that time. By contrasting arguments from the early days of children’s online communication with contemporary theories and discussions, Tingstad helps us see the pace of change. Central to her concluding remarks is the argument that children communicating online are - now as well as then - co-producers of networked publics: that their online communication is a way of constructing themselves.

In his article on young boys playing digital games, Pål Aarsand discusses the use of digital games in everyday life situations, such as during after-school activities and in the home environment. Based on video-recordings, Aarsand’s research puts special emphasis on how the boys that he studied engaged in, organized and used digital games in their face-to-face interactions. Here it becomes obvious that digital games are an important influence on the boys’ play and that their meaning is a matter for negotiation

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