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Books by Sonia Livingstone
Media and Uncertainty , 2021
Contains the transcripts of the keynote lectures delivered at the 2nd Lisbon Winter School for th... more Contains the transcripts of the keynote lectures delivered at the 2nd Lisbon Winter School for the Study of Communication.
This project examined the role that communication plays in promoting and hindering community amon... more This project examined the role that communication plays in promoting and hindering community among London’s diverse populations. Community represents a system of values and moral codes, which provide a sense of collective identity and identification with a bounded whole (Cohen, 1985) – in this case, with the city and, more particularly, the urban locale. While symbolic and structural resources such as education, local institutions and property have been systematically studied as community-building resources in the city, urban communication infrastructures are little studied and their potential as community assets remain largely unrecognised. Yet with over half of the world population now inhabiting cities (UN Population Division, 2014), how people communicate with, or withdraw from others in urban societies matters greatly. This is particularly challenging in the case in the global city, a city of concentrated difference, especially along ethnic and cultural lines. Such an investigation has even more relevance at times when the over concentration of minorities and migrants in cities is targeted by policy makers as a cause of community disintegration and urban anomie (Asthana & Parveen, 2016; Beebeejaun, 2008). Our research in a multicultural London locale represents a systematic effort to record the communicative opportunities and challenges for building community within/across/against ethnic and cultural difference.
Page 1. Edited by Sonia Livingstone Moira Bovill Media Envi'onmen A European Comparati... more Page 1. Edited by Sonia Livingstone Moira Bovill Media Envi'onmen A European Comparative Study EDUCATION Page 2. Page 3. Children and Their Changing Media Environment A European Comparative Study Page 4. LEA's ...
... Sonia Livingstone is a Lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science. ... ... more ... Sonia Livingstone is a Lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science. ... Page 4. Page 5. Talk on television Audience participation and public debate SoniaLivingstone and Peter Lunt London and New York Page 6. ...
Making Sense of Television Television has become so commonplace that the meanings of its images a... more Making Sense of Television Television has become so commonplace that the meanings of its images and genres appear obvious and clear. Yet this is far from the case. Sonia Livingstone presents original research which shows that audiences interpret programmes in diverse ...
Papers by Sonia Livingstone
EU Kids Online, 2020
This report presents the findings from a survey of children aged 9–16 from 19 European countries.... more This report presents the findings from a survey of children aged 9–16 from 19 European countries. The data were collected between autumn 2017 and summer 2019 from 25,101 children by national teams from the EU Kids Online network. A theoretical model and a common methodology to guide this work was developed during four phases of the network’s work, and is discussed at the outset of this report. The main findings from the key topic areas are summarised, which correspond to the factors identified in the theoretical model: Access, Practices and skills, Risks and opportunities, and Social context.
Throughout the report, findings are presented according to the countries surveyed, and the gender and age of the children. The survey findings are comparable across countries, and the methodology section presents the common methods followed. We also note where the methodology varied across countries: throughout the report, the differences among countries should be interpreted with caution.
These new findings raise many points to think about. The last section includes findings from national data by country, to provide some national contextualisation, and also to report on findings from country-specific questions. We conclude by drawing together the findings from within countries and across countries, relating these to the theoretical model. Important research gaps and policy implications for children’s online opportunities and risks in Europe are also discussed.
New Media & Society
Research and policy have invested in the prospect that gaining digital skills enhances children’s... more Research and policy have invested in the prospect that gaining digital skills enhances children’s and young people’s outcomes. A systematic evidence review of research on digital skills among 12- to 17-year-olds identified 34 studies that used cross-sectional survey methods to examine the association of digital skills with tangible outcomes. Two-thirds concerned the association with online opportunities or other benefits. Another third examined online risks of harm. Findings showed a positive association between digital skills and online opportunities, information benefits, and orientation to technology. Greater digital skills were indirectly linked to greater exposure to online risks, although any link to harm was unclear. While technical skills were linked with mixed or even negative outcomes, information skills were linked with positive outcomes. There was little research on the outcomes of communication or creative digital skills. Future research should examine the dimensions of...
The International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture, 2000
Research and policy challenges in comparative perspective, 2012
SUMMARY As UK households gain access to the internet, the growing significance of the internet in... more SUMMARY As UK households gain access to the internet, the growing significance of the internet in everyday life raises questions for social scientists and policy makers. The UK Children Go Online (UKCGO) project (www.children-go-online.net) was designed to contribute new qualitative and quantitative findings on how 9-19 year olds are accessing and using the internet to inform theory, research and policy. Key themes sought to balance an understanding of online opportunities and risks, examining how each relates to the other. The project adopted a child -centred approach, also seeking the views of parents to complement or contrast with those of children in building up a picture of domestic internet use. The research design included three phases:
Audiences and Publics: When Cultural Engagement …, 2005
Page 48. Daniel Dayan Chapter 2: Mothers, midwives and abortionists: genealogy, obstetrics, audie... more Page 48. Daniel Dayan Chapter 2: Mothers, midwives and abortionists: genealogy, obstetrics, audiences & publics1 Lunch in Leipzig 'The genealogical side of analysis,'writes Michel Foucault,'deals with series of effective formations of discourse. It attempts to grasp... ...
status: published, 2007
Page 1. Researching Children's Experiences Online Across Countries: Issues and Probl... more Page 1. Researching Children's Experiences Online Across Countries: Issues and Problems in Methodology www.eukidsonline.net www.e %5+IDS Co-funded by the European Union European Research on Cultural, Contextual ...
Children and their changing media environment: …, 2001
... Fragmented and divided by gender, race, disability, class, location or religion, their experi... more ... Fragmented and divided by gender, race, disability, class, location or religion, their experience of ICT will vary enormously as will their ... Examination of personal ownership of games machines reveals dramatically that in all countries, these are predominantly a male interest. ...
Media and Uncertainty , 2021
Contains the transcripts of the keynote lectures delivered at the 2nd Lisbon Winter School for th... more Contains the transcripts of the keynote lectures delivered at the 2nd Lisbon Winter School for the Study of Communication.
This project examined the role that communication plays in promoting and hindering community amon... more This project examined the role that communication plays in promoting and hindering community among London’s diverse populations. Community represents a system of values and moral codes, which provide a sense of collective identity and identification with a bounded whole (Cohen, 1985) – in this case, with the city and, more particularly, the urban locale. While symbolic and structural resources such as education, local institutions and property have been systematically studied as community-building resources in the city, urban communication infrastructures are little studied and their potential as community assets remain largely unrecognised. Yet with over half of the world population now inhabiting cities (UN Population Division, 2014), how people communicate with, or withdraw from others in urban societies matters greatly. This is particularly challenging in the case in the global city, a city of concentrated difference, especially along ethnic and cultural lines. Such an investigation has even more relevance at times when the over concentration of minorities and migrants in cities is targeted by policy makers as a cause of community disintegration and urban anomie (Asthana & Parveen, 2016; Beebeejaun, 2008). Our research in a multicultural London locale represents a systematic effort to record the communicative opportunities and challenges for building community within/across/against ethnic and cultural difference.
Page 1. Edited by Sonia Livingstone Moira Bovill Media Envi'onmen A European Comparati... more Page 1. Edited by Sonia Livingstone Moira Bovill Media Envi'onmen A European Comparative Study EDUCATION Page 2. Page 3. Children and Their Changing Media Environment A European Comparative Study Page 4. LEA's ...
... Sonia Livingstone is a Lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science. ... ... more ... Sonia Livingstone is a Lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science. ... Page 4. Page 5. Talk on television Audience participation and public debate SoniaLivingstone and Peter Lunt London and New York Page 6. ...
Making Sense of Television Television has become so commonplace that the meanings of its images a... more Making Sense of Television Television has become so commonplace that the meanings of its images and genres appear obvious and clear. Yet this is far from the case. Sonia Livingstone presents original research which shows that audiences interpret programmes in diverse ...
EU Kids Online, 2020
This report presents the findings from a survey of children aged 9–16 from 19 European countries.... more This report presents the findings from a survey of children aged 9–16 from 19 European countries. The data were collected between autumn 2017 and summer 2019 from 25,101 children by national teams from the EU Kids Online network. A theoretical model and a common methodology to guide this work was developed during four phases of the network’s work, and is discussed at the outset of this report. The main findings from the key topic areas are summarised, which correspond to the factors identified in the theoretical model: Access, Practices and skills, Risks and opportunities, and Social context.
Throughout the report, findings are presented according to the countries surveyed, and the gender and age of the children. The survey findings are comparable across countries, and the methodology section presents the common methods followed. We also note where the methodology varied across countries: throughout the report, the differences among countries should be interpreted with caution.
These new findings raise many points to think about. The last section includes findings from national data by country, to provide some national contextualisation, and also to report on findings from country-specific questions. We conclude by drawing together the findings from within countries and across countries, relating these to the theoretical model. Important research gaps and policy implications for children’s online opportunities and risks in Europe are also discussed.
New Media & Society
Research and policy have invested in the prospect that gaining digital skills enhances children’s... more Research and policy have invested in the prospect that gaining digital skills enhances children’s and young people’s outcomes. A systematic evidence review of research on digital skills among 12- to 17-year-olds identified 34 studies that used cross-sectional survey methods to examine the association of digital skills with tangible outcomes. Two-thirds concerned the association with online opportunities or other benefits. Another third examined online risks of harm. Findings showed a positive association between digital skills and online opportunities, information benefits, and orientation to technology. Greater digital skills were indirectly linked to greater exposure to online risks, although any link to harm was unclear. While technical skills were linked with mixed or even negative outcomes, information skills were linked with positive outcomes. There was little research on the outcomes of communication or creative digital skills. Future research should examine the dimensions of...
The International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture, 2000
Research and policy challenges in comparative perspective, 2012
SUMMARY As UK households gain access to the internet, the growing significance of the internet in... more SUMMARY As UK households gain access to the internet, the growing significance of the internet in everyday life raises questions for social scientists and policy makers. The UK Children Go Online (UKCGO) project (www.children-go-online.net) was designed to contribute new qualitative and quantitative findings on how 9-19 year olds are accessing and using the internet to inform theory, research and policy. Key themes sought to balance an understanding of online opportunities and risks, examining how each relates to the other. The project adopted a child -centred approach, also seeking the views of parents to complement or contrast with those of children in building up a picture of domestic internet use. The research design included three phases:
Audiences and Publics: When Cultural Engagement …, 2005
Page 48. Daniel Dayan Chapter 2: Mothers, midwives and abortionists: genealogy, obstetrics, audie... more Page 48. Daniel Dayan Chapter 2: Mothers, midwives and abortionists: genealogy, obstetrics, audiences & publics1 Lunch in Leipzig 'The genealogical side of analysis,'writes Michel Foucault,'deals with series of effective formations of discourse. It attempts to grasp... ...
status: published, 2007
Page 1. Researching Children's Experiences Online Across Countries: Issues and Probl... more Page 1. Researching Children's Experiences Online Across Countries: Issues and Problems in Methodology www.eukidsonline.net www.e %5+IDS Co-funded by the European Union European Research on Cultural, Contextual ...
Children and their changing media environment: …, 2001
... Fragmented and divided by gender, race, disability, class, location or religion, their experi... more ... Fragmented and divided by gender, race, disability, class, location or religion, their experience of ICT will vary enormously as will their ... Examination of personal ownership of games machines reveals dramatically that in all countries, these are predominantly a male interest. ...
Media and Communication
How do children understand the privacy implications of the contemporary digital environment? This... more How do children understand the privacy implications of the contemporary digital environment? This question is pressing as technologies transform children’s lives into data which is recorded, tracked, aggregated, analysed and monetized. This article takes a child-centred, qualitative approach to charting the nature and limits of children’s understanding of privacy in digital contexts. We conducted focus group interviews with 169 UK children aged 11–16 to explore their understanding of privacy in three distinct digital contexts—interpersonal, institutional and commercial. We find, first, that children primarily conceptualize privacy in relation to interpersonal contexts, conceiving of personal information as something they have agency and control over as regards deciding when and with whom to share it, even if they do not always exercise such control. This leads them to some misapprehensions about how personal data is collected, inferred and used by organizations, be these public inst...
European Review
Two developments in recent decades – the rising attention to children’s rights, and the growing i... more Two developments in recent decades – the rising attention to children’s rights, and the growing importance of the digital environment – seem on a collision course, with children’s rights arguably more infringed than benefited by the digital world, and with efforts to promote children’s rights in a digital world seen by some as threatening the freedom of expression that digital networks enable. Here, I set out the case for realizing children’s rights in relation to the digital environment, and then examine the difficulties that arise. Most recently, the status of the child online is shifting from one of invisibility to one of hypervisibility in an increasingly datafied world, and the child’s right to privacy has rapidly become the most contested of all the rights. With challenges ranging from that of identifying who is a child online to reining in the economic power of the major digital platforms, states seem to be facing an impasse when it comes to taking effective action. The resul...
Journal of Children and Media
Social Media + Society, 2015
I suggest that Social Media and Society will be substantially focused on questions of social chan... more I suggest that Social Media and Society will be substantially focused on questions of social change. Thus, I urge a historical perspective that avoids the temptation to consolidate the vision of mass media as concentrated, passively consumed, and unidirectional in influence by contrast with today's supposedly more dispersed, participatory, globalized, peer-to-peer social media. I then observe that many diverse disciplines are interested in social media and express concern that while they have considerable expertise regarding the "social" and "society," they too-often appear content to black-box "media." This requires us to enter the fray to explain how the media part of the equation matters too. Since, I suggest, this matters whenever the material or symbolic dimensions of communication are important to or contested within the unfolding action, that is very often indeed. I then suggest some pressing questions to which I hope this journal will contribute. These concern (1) the wider ecology of communication within which, intriguingly, the dimensions that best characterize face-to-face communication are still used as the yardstick by which to judge social (and other) media; (2) the imperative to adopt a multi-and trans-cultural gaze as we grapple with (rather than presume we already know) the ethnographic diversity of social media "users" in all their complexity-including emerging social media literacy and its relation to social media legibility; and (3) larger questions of the theoretical framework by which to conceptualize power relations "at the interface"-of speakers and hearers, producers and audiences, or, today, affordances and users.
Governance, Consumers and Citizens, 2007
Media Consumption and Public Engagement, 2010
Note: the present report has been revised since publication in Nov. 2010 of 'initial findings' fr... more Note: the present report has been revised since publication in Nov. 2010 of 'initial findings' from the UK survey. This report refers to findings for all 25 countries in the European survey, and incorporates minor corrections in UK data weighting.
Audience Transformations Shifting Audience Positions in Late Modernity, Jul 17, 2013
As children access to the internet at ever younger ages, questions arise as to whether the use of... more As children access to the internet at ever younger ages, questions arise as to whether the use of touchscreens at home contributes to literacy and digital skills, and whether and how parents scaffold children's learning. To date, research on parental mediation has shown that parental expectations of the role of ICTs in their children's future, discourses of the opportunities and risks of the internet, and the everyday practices of media engagement all shape the ways in which children are socialised into using digital media at home. These expectations, worries and practices depend on parents' education, socioeconomic background, and parent-ing culture. This article builds on prior research by the authors with 70 families in seven European countries. We compare lower income/less educated families and higher income/more educated families as they promote or hinder children's (digital) literacy practices. We found that lower income families experience a genera-tional digital divide and feel less confident in scaffolding children's digital literacy practices. Instead, when parents use ICTs for work and/or are techno-enthusiasts, they are more engaged in children's online activities irrespective of their background. The approach towards digital play-as either a vehicle or an impediment to children's learning – is therefore indicative of different imaginaries around ICTs, different parenting styles and different mediation strategies.
Hermès: Cognition- …, Jan 1, 2011
Social networking is arguably the fastest growing online activity among youth. This article prese... more Social networking is arguably the fastest growing online activity among youth. This article presents new pan-European findings from the EU Kids Online project on how children and young people navigate the peer-to-peer networking possibilities afforded by SNSs, based on a survey of around 25,000 children (1000 children in each of 25 countries). In all, 59% of European 9-16 year olds who use the internet have their own social networking profile. Despite popular anxieties of lives lived indiscriminately in public, half have fewer than 50 contacts, most contacts are people already known to the child in person, and over two thirds have their profiles either private or partially private. The focus of the analysis, then, is to understand when and why some children seek wider circles of online contacts, and why some favour self-disclosure rather than privacy. Demographic differences among children, cultural factors across countries, and the specific affordances of social networking sites are all shown to make a difference in shaping the particularities of children’s online practices of privacy, identity and connection.
Overview of the 'UK Children Go Online' project 5
Overview of the 'UK Children Go Online' project 5
- Online on the mobile: Internet use on smartphones. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/59960/ Ólafss... more 2014) Online on the mobile: Internet use on smartphones. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/59960/ Ólafsson, K., Livingstone, S. and Haddon, L. (2014) Children's use of online technologies in Europe: A review of the European evidence base. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/60221/ Hasebrink, U. (2014) Children's changing online experiences in a longitudinal perspective. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/60083/ O'Neill, B., Staksrud, E. with members of the EU Kids Online Network (2014) Final recommendations for policy. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/59518/ Vandoninck, S., d'Haenens, L. and Smahel, D. (2014) Preventive measures: How youngsters avoid online risks. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/55797/ Smahel, D. and Wright, M. (eds) (2014) The meaning of online problematic situations for children: Cross-cultural qualitative investigation in nine European countries. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/56972/ Barbovschi, M., Green, L. and Vandoninck, S. (2013) Innovative approaches for investigating how young children understand risk in new media. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/53060/ Holloway, D., Green, L. and Livingstone, S. (2013) Zero to eight. Young children and their internet use. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/52630/ Helsper, E.J., Kalmus, V., Hasebrink, U., Sagvari, B. and de Haan, J. (2013) Country classification: Opportunities, risks, harm and parental mediation. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/52023/ Livingstone, S., Kirwil, L., Ponte, C. and Staksrud, E. (2013) In their own words: What bothers children online?
Despite the growing number of very young children who go online and who are using a wide range of... more Despite the growing number of very young children who go online and who are using a wide range of technologies, little is known about children’s interactions with those technologies. This report presents a pilot qualitative study coordinated by the Joint Research Centre of the EC, designed and implemented in collaboration with a selected group of academic partners in different European countries that aims at pioneering in Europe the exploration of young children and their families` experiences with new technologies. It presents its results and discuss the findings at cross-national level on how children between zero and eight engage with digital technologies such as smartphones, tablets, computers and games; how far parents mediate this engagement and their awareness on the risks-opportunities balance. The report concludes on recommendations to parents, industries and policymakers.
Round Table 1: Media literacy: ambitions, policies and measures Participants: • Sonia Livingsto... more Round Table 1: Media literacy: ambitions, policies and measures
Participants:
• Sonia Livingstone, Professor, LSE - Chair
• Paolo Celot, Secretary General, EAVI – European Association For Viewers’ Interests
• Susanne Ding, European Commission, Directorate General "Education and Culture"
• Jane Rumble, Media Literacy Group, Ofcom
• Kirsten Drotner, Professor, University of Southern Denmark and DREAM (Respondent)
Conference Panel: Media literacy: ambitions, policies and measures
Participants:
• Sonia Livingstone, Professor, LSE - Chair and paper presenter
• Ben Bachmair, Professor, University of Kassel, and Institute of Education, University of London
• Conceição Costa, Assistant Professor and researcher at CICANT-Lusófona University, Lisbon
• Tao Papaioannou, Assistant Professor, University of Nicosia, Cyprus
• Kirsten Drotner, Professor, University of Southern Denmark and DREAM (Respondent)