MEDIA, SOCIAL LEARNING AND CULTURAL TRANSMISSION: PARENTS RESISTANCE ON CHILDREN’S MEDIA: CHILDREN’S RIGHT OR PARENTS’ AUTHORITY?

Recently, the arrival and flourish of digital media increase variation of children’s media and broaden children’s access to enter wider world. Many adults may see these contemporary media are just playing tools for children, but there is something significant behind children interaction with their media. They are not just having fun with their favorite media, but unconsciously, children construct their self identity, explore their childhood world, express their self, engage with their external environment beyond the context of here and now, create their own world and learn cultural values. Within this process, they construct their knowledge and who they are. However, this self formation is frequently restricted by their parents. Parents may feel that they should protect their children since unconsciously children can be victim of media. Parents have obligation to redirect their children, enforce which values they should internalize or they should drop. However, children may have their own way to accept and interpret cultural values from their media. This emerges an issue relating to children’s right to enjoy their media and parents’ authority to shape children’s behaviour. Thus, this study aims to explore how do parents respond to their children’s media, how do these media affect children’s behaviour and do children develop their own thinking and feeling which are different from their parents? This study adopts qualitative-case study by conducting in-depth interview and reflection notes on parents’ experiences. This study is grounded on social cognitive and constructivism perspectives. The data show that parents restrictive behaviour is grounded on their expectation for their children to develop self-control, self-discipline, grow social awareness and create proper self social relationship (social self construction). Differently, children want to have sense of freedom to play, explore their world, construct their own problem solving, and see their real environment in their fun way. Keywords: media, childhood, self construction, identity, parents’ authority, children’s right, cultural transmission Theme : Media and Cultur