The complex process of children's identity in new landscapes of media and culture

Abstract

Media's effects on children's behaviour and emotional status, as well as their vulnerability as Internet users and exposers are with no doubt two important areas within children and media studies. Nevertheless, research including children in the assumptions of media's role in everyday life needs to be emphasized. How children navigate in complex life worlds is of importance to many different research fields. Studies of media's role in children's lives will gain from including aspects of everyday life and notions of culture and identity processes. In order to understand the complexity of the modern landscapes of media and culture, the theoretical perspectives in this article are based on media and space, and how media influence cultures locally and globally. The aim is to discuss how children and adolescents reflect on culture and identity in their relationship to media. This discussion is based on two studies involving children in three disparate places, but with the similarities of having an extraordinary complex cultural and national structure: The Faroe Islands, Aland and Canada. The studies are based on different research methods, like interviews and text analysis. The findings suggest broader paths for the research of children and media for a deeper understanding of young media users' awareness of media's role in shaping and maintaining cultural identities.