Gerelateerde Factoren aan Ouderlijke Mediasturing op Mediagebruik van het Kind

Abstract

An increase in the daily usage of media by children has been noticed over the past decades. Several strategies can be applied by parents, in order to mediate the media-related behavior of the child. The aim of the study was to investigate whether a relation between parental- and child-related factors and parental media mediation could be identified. N = 301 subjects participated in this study and completed an online questionnaire on parental media mediation of children aged from 4 to 12 years old. The socio-economic system theory of Bronfenbrenner (1986) was used to determine the factors influencing parental media mediation. Several parental- and child-related factors were analyzed. A negative parental attitude towards media represented 12% of the total explained variance of restrictive parental media mediation (R2 = .12), when controlled for age and gender of the child. The frequency of media usage by the child was found to negatively correlate with restrictive parental media mediation (p = .050). Boys were found to receive significantly more active (p = .004) and restrictive (p = .012) media mediation by the parent. Parents exhibiting a negative attitude towards media were found to predict restrictive media mediation. In addition, frequency of media usage by children was found to correlate with this restrictive media mediation. Furthermore, gender of the child was found to predict the level of provided active and restrictive media mediation by the parent. Although the results of this study seem promising, several limitations have to be taken into account interpreting these results.