Changes To Family Structure
The recent and rapid development of new media technologies has not only had a dramatic affect on the individual, but also to the individual’s role with in his or her family. The discourse of family and its social organisation of the family are also changing undeniably, and the synergy between a family and the technology that is incorporated into its life is vitally important to understanding this change.
The traditional hierarchy that stood to symbolise the iconic family a few decades ago now hardly exists. Although the prescribed roles for example, husband, father, wife, mother etc, are often extended through the technologies in two ways. Through control over them; in terms of their length and frequency of use of a computer, and control through them; by means of electronic leash, keeping track of children’s whereabouts by mobile phone or pager. (Caron: 2001: pp: 51) Clashes of TV scheduling are prime examples of a display of household dominance and power, who gets to choose the program, who gets to hold the remote control, who watches the big screen television in the entertainment room and who gets a small one in the bedroom.
The type and number of new technologies that are found in a household reveal many things about uses and users; the relations between family members and their dynamics, roles and status. (Caron: 2001: pp: 43) The “cascading adoption of technologies� seems unavoidable, with updates, downloads, upgrades and improvments, modifications and substitutions occuring regularly - mostly initiated and completed by person's in the household of an increasingly younger age.
The idea of the economics of domestic consumption is a highly volatile area, which is being fuelled not only by our percieved and real needs of communication, self-importance and personal comfort or luxury. (Moores: 2000 pp: 90)
Technologies either facilitate or prevent communication. With this generation of youth dividing their time between doing assignments, downloading and listening to music, talking on msn and checking email, with the television in the background, family members arguing in the next room. Any one experience is splinted, even in our own homes. (Meyrowitz: 1999: pp: 202)
The metamorphosis between family habits and the technology itself is surely one that will need to be monitored and studied over the coming years as radical changes in both technologies and families continue to take place. (Caron: 2001 pp: 46)
References:
Gordon, J. (2002) “The Mobile Phone: An Artefact of Popular Culture and a Tool of the Public Sphere� in Convergence, Volume 8, Issue 3, pp: 15 - 25.
Meyrowitz, J. (1999) “Shifting World of Strangers: Medium Theory and Changes in ‘Them’ versus ‘Us’ in, K.B. massey (ed.) Readings in Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture, Mayfield Publishing, California, U.S.A.
Caron, A. and Caronia, L. (2001) Active Users and Active Objects: The Mutual Construction of Families and Communication Technologies, in Convergence, Volume 7, Issue 3, pp: 38 –59.
Moores, S. (2000) Media and Everyday Life in Modern Society, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
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Related Topics
Identity
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MSN Messenger
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Homepage
Self Expression
Youth Access to Information
Reduction of Boundaries
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Frances Curro 19:03, 9 Sep 2004 (EST)
Frances Curro 18:59, 28 Oct 2004 (EST)
