1GyAp2x

Families 151variety of influences, such as commercialization, sex, and violence (Altersand Clark 2004b; Cassell and Cramer 2007; Clark 2004; Lusted 1991). 1 Eventhe most media-immersed parents in our study described a deep ambivalenceabout the prominence of new media in their children’s lives and theirrole as parents in influencing their children’s participation in the mediaecologies that structure their sons’ and daughters’ lives.This chapter considers the home and family as an important structuringcontext for informal media engagement 2 and, in turn, explores how parentsand other adults negotiate the incorporation of media in young people’slives. Drawing research materials from a wide range of studies—primarilyChristo Sims (Rural and Urban Youth), Heather A. Horst (Silcon ValleyFamilies), Katynka Z. Martínez (Pico Union Families), Lisa Tripp and BeckyHerr-Stephenson (Teaching and Learning with Multimedia), C. J. Pascoe(Living Digital), danah boyd (Teen Sociality in Networked Publics), PatriciaG. Lange (YouTube and Video Bloggers) and Dan Perkel and Sarita Yardi(Digital Photo-Elicitation with Kids)—we examine parenting strategiessurrounding new media, with particular attention to the structuring andregulation of family life in the home and through new media. The threenumbered boxes in this chapter illustrate the ways in which the use of newmedia in homes and families differ regionally. We begin by concentratingon the spatial and domestic arrangements that shape new media use inthe home, such as the placement of computers. We then turn to the creationof routines and other forms of temporality, including the amount oftime and the textures of kids’ media use. In the final section, our analysiscenters on parents’ and kids’ rules, and the creation, bending, and breakingof rules. We conclude by considering how parents and young people transform,negotiate, and create a sense of family identity through new media.Parenting in the New Media EcologyHome and family environments reflect the values, morals, and aspirationsof families as well as beliefs about the importance and effects of new mediafor learning and communication. Writing in the moment of the first homecomputers, Silverstone, Hirsch, and Morley (1992) observe:Media pose a whole host of control problems for the household, problems of regulationand boundary maintenance. These are expressed generally in the regular cycleof moral panics around new media or new media content, but on an everyday level,