The problem of cultural childhood as a product of new media

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to show how new media influence and shape the image of cultural childhood. Cultural texts about children, especially those created in the social media space, are not ideology-free and constitute the tool of power in the adults’ hands. The child and childhood treated as socio-cultural constructs continually produce new meanings, creating simulacra. Starting from the McLuhanian assumption of media being determined by the medium itself, the author ponders over the relation between the image of the child and the medium which creates it. Hence she considers if media users produce media content consciously or rather a particular type of medium with its own rules and conventions influences the content which is produced by its users. New media as the invention of postmodern culture reflect the features of postmodernity itself. According to Roland Barthes, it also strengthen several myths of childhood, thus manipulating the perception of a child in culture. The analysis of parenting blogs and posts by mothers on Instagram provides insights into the dominant image of childhood, and shows what kind of roles and values are ascribed to children by culture. Additionally, it allows to propose a thesis about the infantilization of culture determined by visual media and the growing unification of human behaviour, and directs our attention to the mechanisms of power, to what is hidden and marginalized in the main discourse.