MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA

MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA
Table 2
Control of time and content of children´s media activities from the
viewpoint of each participant
TIME
from viewpoint
CONTENT
from viewpoint
mothers fathers children mothers fathers children
TV 62.7 58.4 56.3 76.4 69.7 58.7
Computer 70.3 65.6 65.4 70.2 66.4 50.8
Electronic 62.0 60.3 56.3 56.4 53.1 32.7
games
Source: own processing
Parents also often said that they know what games their children play
and control their choice than the children really reported. Therefore, we
got the impression that parents perceive the proper media monitoring as
an important part of the concept of “good parenting”. Mothers probably
felt a stronger urge to present themselves as good mothers putting
emphasis on the media education. However, it is highly probable that
neither one of the parents know what kind of information their children
get through the media devices. The second option for explaining the
differences in responses is that children are not aware of their parents´
monitoring as much as they think. Especially younger children might not
have understood efforts of their parents.
The reasons for the differences in children´s and parents´ responses are
usually explained either by differences in the views of respondents, or by
certain family characteristics (e.g. families communicating less, families
with boys) that cause parents to understate their monitoring. Some
authors argue that the statements of parents and children do not differ 16
and that they can be considered as a good indicator of parental behaviour.
It is obvious that the older the children, the more their responses mirror
those of their parents. Results of the Gentile et al. study, 17 comparing
the differences in responses of parents and their children in early
16 NATHANSON, A. I.: Parent and child perspectives on the presence
and meaning of parental television mediation. In Journal of
Broadcasting&Electronic Media, 2001, Vol. 45, No. 2, p. 201–220.
17 GENTILE, D. A. et al.: Do you see what I see? Parent and Child Reports of
Parental Monitoring of Media. In Family Relations, 2012, Vol. 61, p. 470 –
487.
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