alt.cyberkids
Childhood is persistently universalised and used as a political recourse towards commercialisation, legislation and regulation of most, if not all, media technology. Our cultural entry online has only relocated this contingency. Through the course of its evolvement in technologically advanced cultures, the net has become axiomatic with the decentralisation of discourse, unregulated communication, infinite reproduction of information and transgressive sexualities. This axiom appears to reterritorialize (Deleuze and Guattari 1994, 1987, 1983) accepted spaces of childhood and childhood sexuality in specific. The urgency of a critical engagement with political, pedagogical and commercial discourses that have mediated (and been mediated by) the net spurs my Phd thesis, alt.cyberkids: contingencies of childhood in the digital age.
The child oscillates between the celebration of h(er/is) technosophistication (Buckingham 2000; Downes 1998; Griffith 1998; Katz 1996; Turkle 1996; Wilkinson 1995) and lamentation over h(er/is) lost ‘innocence’ (Buckingham 2000; Johnson 1998, 1997; Postman 1992, 1983). In their deconstruction of the ‘cyberkid myth’, Facer and Furlong (2003) suggest that, ‘[y]oung people, like technologies, are constructed within current popular discourse as the natural inheritors of future societies, and young people’s mastery of technologies is read off as inevitable through a process of conflation of these two ‘future trajectories’…The cyberkid myth, then, derives both from future visions of technology–human relations and from long-standing discursive constructions of the role of children in society, generating a ‘shorthand’ for the relationship between children and technology’ (452). In this climate it is ‘adults who are believed to have most to lose, as children’s expertise with technology gives them access to new forms of culture and communication that escape parental control’ (Buckingham 2000: 5).
Playing on Foucault's genealogical understanding of the 'orders of discourse' (1991a) structuring socialisation, accentuates the connection between the material and discursive function of language on the contingent biopolitical bodies of childhood and the net (Foucault 1980; 2004 [1975]). Sefton-Green has highlighted that the net redefines conventional definitions of childhood and adulthood through social usage rather than in terms of biological age (1998: 4). Whilst reformulating this understanding somewhat, I am interested in the ontological impasses arising from these reterritorializations of adulthood and childhood: If neither occupy their traditional normative spaces, what are the implications and for whom? Holland (2004) goes as far as contending that over recent years notions of childhood within variant matrices have mutated to the degree that (what she constitutes as) the traditional image of childhood innocence survives only as a form of kitsch. Ten years on from the current relocation of this debate online, I aim to explore the forms by which discourses of specific subjective matrices begin to function intertextually with those of related matrices: diffusing, mutating and eventually parodying discourses on which they build.
The thesis began in 1998 with a critical exploration of Anglo-American print media discourses surrounding childhood, the net and sexuality between 1995 and 1999. This was followed by alt.cyberkids: rituals of resistance?, a multimodal analysis of under twelves' reconfigurations of these discourses through concessive/resistant online interactions. This website has since developed in conjunction with the wider PhD research, initially to fulfill a need to aggregate the research data produced by this group of children. It has since become a platform for evolving reflexive explorations of the ways multi-authorship, logo(de)centrism and multimodal hypertext mutate genealogical paradigms.
The choice of alt.cyberkids as title for the thesis is an ironic play on the alt. prefix Usenet originally gave to, and long shorthand for, an entire ecosystem of online newsgroups. In this context, it has an intentional connotation with The Cyberkids website, an epitome of the commercialisation of children’s net culture. In retrospect, it renders transparent the thesis’ attempt to evoke an alternative discourse to the ‘cyberkid myth’ (Facer and Furlong 2003). Children's views on the medium’s possibilities and restrictions are the counterpoint to remediated discourses that (by in large) exclude any but 'legitimised' adult voices. Overall, this thesis engages with my own subjective constitution by (and reconstitution of) the modernist frameworks I seek to critique (Haraway 1998: 3). It struggles with its own reiteration of the subjective positioning of children.Finally, alt.cyberkids international is a project currently under development beyond the thesis; an unmoderated space where under twelves from around the world can convene and share ideas about what the net is and could be; a space through which they can published their own e-creations; a space where they may find a voice online.
Buckingham D. (2000) After the Death of Childhood: Growing Up in the Age of Electronic Media, Cambridge: Polity.
Foucault M. (1991a) 'Orders of discourse' in Lash S. Post-structuralist and post-modernist sociology: 134-157. W Housley.
Holloway S.L. & Valentine G. (2003) Cyberkids: Children in the Information Age . London: Routledge Falmer.
Marshall P. D. (1997) ‘Technophobia: Video games, computer hackers and cybernetics’, in Media International Australia, No.85, November: 70-78.
Wilkinson H. ‘Take care in cyberspace, children: Despite this week's debates about taste and decency, our power to protect childhood innocence is on the wane’,The Independent, 1 Dec 1995: 16.
The people that over the years have helped shape this thesis into its current form, through encouragement, inspiration, orientating discussion, escapism, have been many. They’re too many to name here in full, but not forgotten.
Particularly, Professor Roberta Pearson, for convincing me to follow the doctoral path in the first place. Though at times I have wished she hadn’t, I’m here now. Professor John Hartley, for believing in me and securing the studentship that enabled me to begin this PhD at Cardiff University.
Professor Maire Messenger Davies, my initial supervisor, for her support, patience and guidance.
Caroline Bassett for demystifying academia and helping me understand Foucault a little deeper. Fiona Cownie for being the kind of manager and friend one hopes for.
The cyberkids, Alex, Hannah, Hirwain, Jo, Josh, Lizzie, Peter, Sam, Sophie and their parents for allowing me a glimpse into their imaginations. Frankie, Shian and Diana, the three technical assistants from Cardiff University's School of Computer Science, for helping the cyberkids achieve their desires. Jon Adams, for his faultless knowledge and support in video and web design, in the days when I was but a novice practitioner.
More personally, I thank the politicisation and multiculturalism the Marques nurtured in me from an early age, listening to family narratives of life under Salazar in Portugal, Mozambique and Angola. Galit Ferguson, my friend since I began my doctoral studentship at Cardiff. Her incisive wit, unique ontologies and unwavering belief in me over the years have led me here.
Finally, Daniel Cox, my most exacting critic, my closest friend. My Kaia and my Lucas, for never letting me forget what it’s like to be a child.
CLÁUDIA GABRIELA MARQUES VIEIRA | THE MEDIA SCHOOL | BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY
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