journal of digital research & publishing - The Sydney eScholarship ...

1 P M J O U R N A L O F D I G I T A L R ESEARCH & P UBLISHING
The aim of this ethnographic study revealed through an analysis of online parental
blog posts, a general acceptance of their young children preparing for the future in these
hypertexted, consumer environments as an important skill.
Young children as consumers/producers
Children are becoming younger and younger users of this new hypertext freeway, which
is being explored as to the changes in literacy amongst these new audiences. A hypertext
environment, explained by Weinberger (2010) is a ‘type of punctuation which instead
of ending continues and encourages further exploration to a new ‘thing, page or world’.
The environment allows for a joint connection of ideas and creates a map or a bottom up
creation of a linked world’ as opposed to an expert who dictates the navigation.
These new media mixes have been examined in recent terms, as it is being suggested that
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(Livingston 2004; Buckingham 2007). The argument surrounding children as consumers
is whether they are becoming ‘passive victims of a consumer society’ or are actively making
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that children are not that easily led and basically hold the cards as to their interests and
consumer powers. Children in the consumer society are capable of constructing their own
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the argument that children on websites which use advertising is immoral (Buckingham
2007 p. 3).
Jenkins (2006a) has been calling into discussion the need to research this relatively
new participatory culture, where literacy’s are colliding in a new semantic space. Many
authors are now asking, (Jenkins, 2006; Livingston, 2003 and Buckingham 2007, where
are children positioned in this landscape between consumerism and production and how
do children interpret this media. The need to educate children to understand and interpret
new media is an important focus.
David Buckingham (2007) also draws on the notion of parents ‘emotional investments
in children’s consumption, as many parents now spend long hours away from the family
home. The guilt of a parent may also be to provide what they consider ‘edutainment’ where
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children, consumerism in childrens spaces is crowding creativity and media production.
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