‘Please turn it off ’: Negotiations and morality around children’s media use at home

Abstract

This article examines the discourse of negotiation surrounding children’s media time use as it emerges from naturally occurring video-recorded interactions between parents and children. Specifically, it explores how children are socialized into thinking about prioritizing activities when one of them involves media. Also, this study examines how (un)availability of time with media is morally constructed in face-to-face interactions, paying special attention to processes of negotiation, authority and power through directive trajectories. Three trends of discourses around media emerge. First, when media use is framed as problematic, prioritizing certain activities almost systematically entails postponing media use. Second, when parents ratify their children’s use of media, it becomes a prize or a privilege to be earned by children. Third, even when children are rightfully engaged in media, parents often seem to be wary of their children’s ability to turn the technology off by themselves, and reinforce moral accountability.