ECREA16-Abstract

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PP 585

Locating ‘the Digital’ in Teen Television Fandoms

Y. Gerrard

University of Leeds, School of Media and Communication, Leeds, United Kingdom

This paper draws on empirical research frommy PhD thesis, to explore fans’participation in three young women’s popular cultures: teen drama series Pretty

Little Liars (2010-present), Revenge (2011–2015), and The Vampire Diaries (2009-present). Specifically, the research considers how, and where, we can lo‑

cate‘the digital’in teen television fandoms. My findings suggest that fandom permeates multiple and overlapping spheres of fans’everyday lives, including

in social, domestic, and work-related spaces. Furthermore, fandom is largely enacted through online, networked, and data-driven technologies, which are

themselves deeply embedded within these ordinary and everyday spaces (see Hine, 2015). This process of embedding ultimately destabilises the digital

technologies, which means that pre-existing binaries like online/offline, public/private, and leisure/work are disrupted. In this paper, I will argue that

teen television fans construct spaces like leisure and work, online and offline, and public and private, not as binaries, but as frameworks to move around,

as a way of negotiating their pleasures in derided feminine media texts. My research thus draws upon longstanding and well-theorised feminist debates

around pleasure, specifically thinking about fans’pleasures in (young) women’s - and therefore culturally derided and devalued - popular media texts (see

also Radway, 1984; Ang, 1985; Brunsdon, 1997, 2000; Baym, 2000; Thornham, 2008, 2009, 2011). Moreover, although a plethora of literature exists around

fandom and digital cultures, such as online communities (see Baym, 2000; Bury, 2005; Hellekson and Busse, 2006), and digital fan labour and the political

economy of online fandom (Baym and Burnett, 2009; Jones, 2014; Stanfill and Condis, 2014), this paper will also open up a discussion about how fandom

can enter into recent debates around data and society (see Gitleman, 2013; Clough et al., 2014; Kitchin, 2014; van Dijck, 2014). Thus, in this paper, I will

also suggest that fans construct (and collapse) these frameworks in order to facilitate identity performativity in online spaces; their participation within

which is often characterised by anxieties about privacy, the risks of visibility, and a deep distrust of data-driven digital media technologies. Finally, and most

crucially, I will consider how ‘the digital’ can be located and situated in enactments of, and discussions around, fandom, thinking specifically about how

the embeddedness of ‘the digital’in fans’everyday lives drives their practices and perceptions of fandom.

PP 586

Adolescents and Audiovisual Sexual Contents: Analysis of the European Policy

A. Pastorino

Sorbonne University, Sociology, Paris, France

The aim of the paper is to present the contemporary implementation of European policies related to the use of audiovisual sexual contents by adolescents

on the Internet. The study wishes to answer to the following question: "Over the last twenty years, how do stakeholders have been tackling potential online

risks, especially the ones related to audiovisual contents?". The exposure of children and adolescents to online risks has raised a public debate between lib‑

ertarian positions - more favourable to a free use of the Internet - and protectionist approaches - highlighting the need to control cyberspace from potential

damages. Apart from this simple opposition between pro- and con- views, several stakeholders are actively involved in applying and experimenting techni‑

cal, regulatory and educational solutions. The results presented are based on the content analysis of the European parliamentary debates concerning three

thematic areas: media literacy, children protection and cybersecurity. These discourses have been compared with the actions put in place by main European

stakeholders, such as self-regulatory, co-regulatory and regulatory practices, promoted by the European Commission. The choice of focusing on adolescents

and pornography has resulted as the most appropriate for surveying both online freedom and ethics in post-modern society. The research has been carried

on within the PhD in Sociology (Sorbonne University, Paris) under the co-supervision of Prof. Olivier Martin (sociologist) and Michela Marzano (philosopher)

and within a BluebookTraineeship at the European Commission (DG CNECT, Luxembourg), by working for the Better Internet for Kids programme and taking

part to the high-level meetings amongst the stakeholders.

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‘The Tablet Is My BFF’: An Overview of Young Chidren’s Engagement with Digital Technologies

P. Dias

, R. Brito

Catholic University of Portugal, Research Centre for Communication and Culture, Lisbon, Portugal

Universidade de Lisboa, UIDEF- Instituto de Educação, Lisbon, Portugal

Our research explores the way young children (under 8 years old) engage with digital technologies in the home, looking particularly at the family dynamics.

Our approach is qualitative and combines grounded theory with a theoretical framework including contributions from Education Studies, Psychology and

Communication Studies.The engagement with digital media is explored along two dynamics: a) between the child and the family; and b) between uses and

practices and self-reported. Thus, we address four research questions: 1) How do children under the age of 8 engage with new (online) technologies? (in‑

dividual use); 2) How are new (online) technologies perceived by the different family members? (family dynamics); How do parents manage their younger

children’s use of (online) technologies? (parental mediation); and 4) What role do these new (online) technologies play in the children’s and parents’lives?

(awareness of benefits and risks). This proposal presents national results that integrate the wider project “Young Children (0–8) and Digital Technologies”,

that in 2015 will include 180 qualitative interviews to families with children aged 6 or 7 years old. The methods used are a set of interviews with three

moments - an icebreaker activity and simultaneous but separate interviews to the parents and children – and observations collected withmultiple activities

– a schedule with stickers about daily routines, a card game about favorite activities, a grid for identifying apps, a digital tour given by the children, a chart

of digital media use built by the parents and several photos. Regarding practices, the favorite device is the tablet. The main activities are playing games

and watching videos on YouTube, and the choices mirror offline preferences, as children tend to choose games related to their favorite activities/sports

and fictional characters/toys. Children’s choices are gendered: boys like adventure and fighting games with superheroes while girls like dressing, nails and

make-up, princesses and taking care of virtual pets. Children know more about digital media than parents think, as they observe the parents and mirror

their behavior. Also, children are resourceful and savvy with digital technologies, experiment and explore alone, and only ask the parents for help when