CONTEXTS

I can’t hardly think of a single case where just one study on its own should be allowed to change anything (HE researcher and Director of a research organisation, quoted in Taylor 2002: 43).

Whilst the response above is part of a survey by the ESRC's Educational Research Capacity Building Network (Taylor 2002), the emphasis on thinking beyond the individual research project, on tapping into and building on previous knowledge (HE researcher and TLRP Team Leader, quoted in ibid.), is relevant to wider contexts than pedagogical research alone. The discursive realization of the ‘information revolution’ during the 1990s (discussed extensively in REMEDIATIONS: PT I and CONTINUITIES AND DISCONTINUITIES) elicited an international research focus on children’s technoculture (Smith et al. 1995; Martinez 1994; Green and Bigum 1993; Bigum & Green 1992; Braun and Giroux 1989; Smith et al. l988, to name but a few). Some way after the beginning, naming and publishing of my thesis-in-progress online in 2000, on this website, Holloway and Valentine published Cyberkids: Children in the Information Age (2003). One is never sure whether to discard the hard graft of research, or be enthused about being tuned into the zeitgeist. Having already chosen the title for the reasons outlined in the WEBSITE CONCEPT and thesis' ABSTRACT, I feel a compulsion to maintain it intact. At the same time, I am acutely aware that (inadvertently) the ALT. in its title risks construing the current thesis as a counter-response to Holloway and Valentine (2003). To construe that would be to miss the nuances of both pieces of work. Many of the angles Cyberkids (2003) assumes do share an affinity with the current thesis and have informed its latter stages. Analogous to the motivations at the outset of the present study in 1998, Holloway and Valentine (2003) aim to counter contemporary moral panics about the risks to children from online dangers, their corruption by adult-oriented material on the net and their addiction to screen-based worlds. In retrospect, however, this case study marks a double point of rapture from Holloway and Valentine (2003) and other key research undertaken in the UK within this field. Firstly, whilst claiming to address 'children', many such studies are actually concerned with adolescents' use of intermedia technology (Davies et al. 2005; Kent & Facer 2004; Chandler-Olcott & Mahar 2003; Holloway and Valentine 2003; Merchant 2003, 2001; Livingstone 2002; Luke & Luke 2001; Livingstone 2002; Livingstone & Bovill 1999; Howard ed. 1998; Sefton-Green ed. 1998; Snyder ed. 1992, being the most consequential examples). The continual reiteration of this confusion in the wider Anglo-American mediascape was the source of critique earlier in the thesis. Secondly, as the chapter LOGO(DE)CENTRISM already pinpoints in depth, though such studies are invaluable sources of empirical data on children's own ideas about their online usership, there is a need for qualitative, as well as quantitative, perspectives of the ways children's access to the net is being addressed within the British culturescape and by under twelves themselves. As Furlong et al. (2000) contend, ‘there [are] many unacknowledged complexities surrounding the impact of new technologies [the] young...and...these complexities [necessitate] a multi-disciplinary approach to research’ (2).

Indeed, Furlong et al. (2000) and the follow-up research their case study elicited (Sutherland R. et al. 2000a, 2000b; Facer & Furlong 2001; Facer et al. 2001a, 2001b, 2001c, 2003; Green et al. 2005) circumvent the contentions above. Whilst twelve to fifteen year-olds do form part of their research sample, Furlong et al. also shed specific insight into the computer use at home and at school by nine to eleven year-olds (2000: 3). In addition, their study includes both quantitative and qualitative research components . Their findings are invaluable to the current study. They suggest that the project ‘has provided evidence that young people, at present, could not be categorised as a generation of ‘cyberkids’, [r]ather…that ICT is socialised into already existing social contexts, some of which reproduce long-standing issues of concern related to questions of social equity and exclusion’ (2000: 9). In context with Taylor (2002) emphasis on the collaborative nature of research, Furlong et al. (2000) study of children’s domestic and pedagogical computer use complements a study such as the current one, that seeks to circumvent familial and domestic orders of discourse. In unison, the two studies aid a rounder perspective of under twelves experiences of, and attitudes towards, networked information.

In the same way as the majority of other research taking under twelves’ specific use of networked technologies as a starting point (for instance, Kress 2003, 1998; Facer & Furlong 2001; Facer et al. 2001a, 2001b, 2001c, 2003; Luke 2000, 1999; Marsh & Millard 2000; Sutherland R. et al. 2000a, 2000b; Leu et al. 1997) Furlong et al. (2000) focus on literacy and use of the net as pedagogical tool. Other case studies exploring under twelves’ technospaces have focused on video and computer games and literacy (for instance, Gee 2003; Luke 1999; Sanger et al. 1997). Some have sought to teach children how to be sophisticated users of the technology (Safford 1996). Others have investigated the information retrieval performances of children (Schacter et al. 1998; Bilal & Watson 1998). Others have concentrated on issues arising from gendered technospaces (Martin 1998; Castell & Bryson 1998; Marshall 1997). Here, FutureLab (for instance, Morgan et al., forthcoming; Williamson, undated; Green et al. 2005; Williamson 2003; Williamson et al. 2003; Innovations Workshop Series, 21 June 2005, 7 June 2005 & 14 December 2004) and the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy (Dyson 2001; Luke & Luke 2001; Roskos & Christie 2001, for instance) have become key platforms of late. Again, all of these complement the present case study, which critically engages with levels of net and computer literacy in under twelves as a platform for further research, not as the focus in itself. For instance, Furlong et al. conclude that, ‘the availability of computers in some young people’s homes, is supporting new ways of learning with technologies which may have long term implications for the development of educational strategy at a time of increasing demands to link home and school cultures’ (2000: 9). Alternatively, I am concerned with the degree to which these ‘new ways of learning with technology’ (ibid.) effect deterritorializations of childhood spaces accepted both by under twelves and the wider culture in which they live.

The group of six to twelve year-olds who built an annotated directory of websites for other children of the same age group in Kafai et al. (1999), are equally valuable to the current study. According to Kafai et al., ‘[t]he project's general goal was to build children's information literacy skills and to develop children's understanding of the value and relevancy of the information they gathered from various sites’ (1999: para. 2). In a similar vain to this present study, the researchers focus on children's own opinions. Nevertheless, they offer the hindsight of avoiding a context as highly controlled as theirs, which included researchers accessing pre-determined sites for children to evaluate and index. In addition, the research found that this group of children placed particular emphasis on visual literacy (para. 49). They suggest that this factor determines many sites found through surfing as inappropriate for this age group; they emphasise that children's growing familiarity with intermedia gives them a predisposition for audio or visual material, regardless of the suitability of written information (ibid.). By extension, I would problematise the defining line between what constitutes suitable and unsuitable audio, visual and written content for under twelves.

Williams (1999) shares deeper affinity with the current thesis. He sought to track the online experiences, attitudes and behaviour of ten and eleven year olds. Williams affirms that no widespread incidences were found of ‘children [being exposed] to material they would rather not see’ (1999: 321). He nevertheless concedes that,

It may be that the problem only occurs when children are a little older than the ten and eleven year olds studied here; that the researcher simply did not probe deep enough, or that the users were, despite their tender ages, already sophisticated 'surfers' who could judge unpleasant material early enough to avoid it having an affect on them. Clearly, future research will benefit from a pragmatic and objective exploration of this important issue (ibid.).

Yet, though the study aimed to be a sounding board for a more expansive analysis of children online interactions, neither Williams nor the Internet Studies Group at City University (of which Williams' pilot study formed part) have published follow up case studies (ISRG research page). Whilst the current study lays little claim to objectivity, it seeks to address the importance of furthering research of this kind.