Parental Mediation of Children’s Audiovisual Content Exposure in the Digital Age

This qualitative research investigates parental attitudes regarding their children’s media usage. Through semi-structured interviews, the aim of this research was to explore which tools and/or services are still lacking in the Netherlands that could help Dutch parents in educating and navigating their children in the new media landscape. Twelve interviews were conducted with Dutch parents who have children between nine and twelve years old. In recent years it has become increasingly difficult for parents to have sight on what their children are watching. This is mainly owing to the growth of the Internet, which caused that children are exposed to content on a variety of devices, on which any desired program, movie or video can be watched at any time of the day. A thematic analysis of interview data revealed that parents need more and specific help regarding new forms of media, of which YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp were the ones most frequently mentioned. This implies that the ongoing concern of exposure towards harmful content is still not resolved. Media education, nowadays, goes way further than just traditional media, such as the television, or online streaming services, such as Netflix. Platforms on where user-generated content can be watched, cause more concerns among parents and more problems between parents and their children. Parents state as well that more specific help should be provided, as well as for their children, in order to solve problems more effectively.