Table Of ContentDiscourses of Anxiety
over Childhood and Youth
across Cultures
Edited by
Liza Tsaliki · Despina Chronaki
Discourses of Anxiety over Childhood
and Youth across Cultures
Liza Tsaliki · Despina Chronaki
Editors
Discourses
of Anxiety over
Childhood and Youth
across Cultures
Editors
Liza Tsaliki Despina Chronaki
Department of Communication Department of Communication
and Media Studies and Media Studies
School of Economics and Political School of Economics and Political
Science, National and Kapodistrian Science, National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens University of Athens
Athens, Greece Athens, Greece
ISBN 978-3-030-46435-6 ISBN 978-3-030-46436-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46436-3
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A
cknowledgements
We would like to thank Dafna Lemish for her valuable comments in
reviewing this volume, as well as our editor at Palgrave Macmillan,
Liam McLean, and our production editor at Springer, Sooryadeepth
Jayakrishnan, for making sure that this project came into fruition.
v
c
ontents
1 Introduction: Anxiety Over Childhood and Youth
Across Cultures 1
Liza Tsaliki and Despina Chronaki
Part I Neoliberal Self-Governance, State Regulation
and the ‘Child at Risk’
2 The UK ‘Video Nasties’ Campaign Revisited: Panics,
Claims-Making, Risks, and Politics 29
Martin Barker
3 Youth Hypersexualization Discourses
in French-Speaking Quebec 51
Élisabeth Mercier
4 Child Protection Anxieties and the Formation
of UK Child Welfare and Protection Practices 75
Gary Clapton
5 The Quantified Baby: Discourses of Consumption 99
Donell Holloway, Giovanna Mascheroni,
and Simone Inglis
vii
viii CONTENTS
6 Responsible Girlhood and ‘Healthy’ Anxieties
in Britain: Girls’ Bodily Learning in School Sport 119
Sheryl Clark
Part II Cultural Practices and Media Discourses
of Childhood
7 (De)Constructing Child-Focused Media Panics and
Fears: The Example of German-Speaking Countries 145
Christine W. Trültzsch-Wijnen and Markéta Supa
8 Free to Roam? Pokémon GO and Childhood Anxieties 167
Bronwin Patrickson
9 Children’s Grasp of Crime Discourses in the City
of Monterrey, Mexico 203
Beatriz Inzunza Acedo
Part III Public Anxieties about Children’s and Youth’s
Sexual Health
10 Risk, Anxiety and Fun in Safe Sex Promotion
in Australia 235
Alan McKee, Johanna Dore, and Anne-Frances Watson
11 National Contexts for the Risk of Harm Being Done
to Children by Access to Online Sexual Content 261
Lelia Green, Catharine Lumby, Alan McKee,
and Kjartan Ólafsson
12 Uncertain Abuse and Insider Credentials:
Examining Ambiguous Cultural Representations
of Childhood Sexual Abuse in the 2005 British
Comedy Series ‘Nathan Barley’ 279
Bethany Rose Lamont
CONTENTS ix
13 Teenage Perspectives on Sexting and Pleasure in Italy:
Going Beyond the Concept of Moral Panics 297
Cosimo Marco Scarcelli
Part IV Anxious Parenting: Parental Concerns about
Children’s Media Uses
14 Is It Me, or Is It You? Exploring Contemporary
Parental Worries in Norway 323
Elisabeth Staksrud and Kjartan Ólafsson
15 Parental Anxieties and Double Standards
in Their Discussion of Young People’s Use
of Social Media: Perspectives from a Qualitative
Project in Sao Paulo, Brazil 347
Monica Barbovschi, Tatiana Jereissati,
and Javiera F. M. Macaya
16 “Be Careful with Whom You Speak to on the
Internet”—Framing Anxiety in Parental Mediation,
Through Children’s Perspectives in Portugal 373
Teresa Sofia Pereira Dias de Castro and Cristina Ponte
17 Conclusions: Why Is ‘Childhood at Risk’ so Appealing
After All? The Construction of the ‘Iconic’ Child
in the Context of Neoliberal Self-Governance 393
Liza Tsaliki and Despina Chronaki
Index 409
n c
otes on ontributors
Monica Barbovschi, Ph.D. is an Associated Researcher with the Institute
of Sociology at the Romanian Academy, a Researcher @ University of
Oslo, Department of Media and Communication and a research con-
sultant with CETIC.br in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Since 2009, she has been
involved in the cross-national EU Kids Online network, working on topics
related to privacy on social media, coping strategies, and ethical challenges
in investigating young people’s use of internet and social media. She had a
postdoctoral appointment as an Arnold F. Graves Fellow with the Centre
for Social and Educational Research at Dublin Institute of Technology
(2011–2012) and as a Senior Researcher at the Department of Psychology
at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic (2012–2015).
Martin Barker is Emeritus Professor at Aberystwyth University, and
Visiting Professor at UWE Bristol. He retired from teaching in 2015,
but continues to research, and to edit the online journal Participations.
Across a long research career he has studied among other things con-
temporary British racism, children’s comics, media scares, and film
adaptations. Over the last twenty years he has particularly focused on
audience research for film and television, leading several large interna-
tional projects, and conducting research for the British Board of Film
Classification. He is the author of fifteen books, and numerous research
essays. He is currently (2020) completing work (with Feona Attwood
and Clarissa Smith) on the book of main findings from the international
Game of Thrones audience project.
xi
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Dr. Despina Chronaki is an adjunct lecturer at the National and
Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Hellenic Open University. Her
research focuses on audiences of popular culture, media ethics, porn studies,
sexuality, and children’s experiences with media. Most of her publications
focus on audiences’ constructions of popular culture, including children’s
experiences as audiences of sexual content, media literacy, and ethics. Since
2007 she is collaborating with media scholars from around the world in a
number of EU-funded European, National (Greek) and International pro-
jects and has been invited to present her work in domestic, European, and
International conferences and meetings.
Dr. Gary Clapton is senior lecturer at the School of Social and Political
Science, University of Edinburgh. His academic interests and specialities
are children and family social work practice; adoption and fostering; fathers
and fatherhood; and moral panics.
Dr. Sheryl Clark is a researcher and lecturer in the field of educa-
tional studies with particular interests in gender, sport, identities,
youth, schooling, and girlhood. In particular, Sheryl’s research makes
use of qualitative methods working with children and young people
in schools and other physical activity settings. Sheryl’s work draws on
post-structural perspectives to consider processes of social identification
in relation to learning, gender and achievement in schooling, and other
contexts. Her work critically interrogates the discursive effects of health
and achievement codes on children and young people’s embodied sub-
jectivities with particular attention to social inequalities.
Johanna Dore is the Community Engagement Coordinator for head-
space Nundah and headspace Woolloongabba. In this role she provides
advocacy and mental health literacy for young people aged 12–25.
Formerly, Johanna worked as the Project Manager for the NaYonal and
InternaYonal Research Alliances Program: Improved surveillance, treat-
ment, and control of chlamydial infecYons: Research Programme 5:
EducaYon–Developing improved sexual health educaYon strategies–at
the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane Australia.
Lelia Green is Professor in Communications within the School of Arts
and Humanities, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia. Her lat-
est research grants include Toddlers and tablets: exploring the risks and
benefits 0-5s face online, Australian Research Council, Grant–Discovery
Projects, 2015–2019, $714,280. The spaces between us: Interdisciplinary,
