Natalie Coulter – författare

Uncovering the workings of the KidTech industry, this book explores how capitalism operates in digital spaces that are geared toward children and how this impacts children’s everyday lives.This book foregrounds the social, cultural, and economic logics of capitalism and the historical trajectories of how children, childhood, and what it means to be a child have been shaped by these logics throughout the 20th century. This is followed by three core sections of the book, which examine present concerns. The first explores how young people are now entangled in digital capitalism as data, the second traces how children are recruited into producing digital content and—by extension—value for digital corporations, and the third explores how KidTech platforms are increasingly constructing digital spaces that isolate children from parental involvement. The book concludes by questioning the wider implications of KidTech on children’s rights and its long-term consequences.This book will be of interest to students and scholars in a wide range of fields including digital media studies, children’s media studies, internet studies, media policy, children and youth studies, digital governance studies, and beyond. It will also be of interest to educators and policymakers seeking to understand the complex workings of children’s digital lives.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license.

Uncovering the workings of the KidTech industry, this book explores how capitalism operates in digital spaces that are geared toward children and how this impacts children’s everyday lives.This book foregrounds the social, cultural, and economic logics of capitalism and the historical trajectories of how children, childhood, and what it means to be a child have been shaped by these logics throughout the 20th century. This is followed by three core sections of the book, which examine present concerns. The first explores how young people are now entangled in digital capitalism as data, the second traces how children are recruited into producing digital content and—by extension—value for digital corporations, and the third explores how KidTech platforms are increasingly constructing digital spaces that isolate children from parental involvement. The book concludes by questioning the wider implications of KidTech on children’s rights and its long-term consequences.This book will be of interest to students and scholars in a wide range of fields including digital media studies, children’s media studies, internet studies, media policy, children and youth studies, digital governance studies, and beyond. It will also be of interest to educators and policymakers seeking to understand the complex workings of children’s digital lives.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license.

Tweening the Girl challenges the argument that the tween market began in the mid-1990s. It was actually during the 1980s that young girls were given the label «tweens» and were heralded by marketers, and subsequently the news media, as one of «capitalism’s most valuable customers». Tweening the Girl expertly traces the emergence of the tween during this era as she slowly became known to the consumer marketplace as a lucrative customer, market, and audience. It clearly illustrates how «tweenhood», which is often assumed to be a natural category of childhood, is actually a product of the industries of the youth media marketplace, which began to position the preteen girl as a separate market niche carved out of the transitory space between childhood and adolescence. Relying predominantly upon a textual analysis of trade publications from the 1980s and early 1990s, the book eloquently maps out the synergistic processes of the marketing, advertising, merchandising, and media industries as they slowly began to take interest in the girl and began to define her as a tween: an empowered female consumer who is no longer a child but not quite a teen.

Tweening the Girl challenges the argument that the tween market began in the mid-1990s. It was actually during the 1980s that young girls were given the label «tweens» and were heralded by marketers, and subsequently the news media, as one of «capitalism’s most valuable customers». Tweening the Girl expertly traces the emergence of the tween during this era as she slowly became known to the consumer marketplace as a lucrative customer, market, and audience. It clearly illustrates how «tweenhood», which is often assumed to be a natural category of childhood, is actually a product of the industries of the youth media marketplace, which began to position the preteen girl as a separate market niche carved out of the transitory space between childhood and adolescence. Relying predominantly upon a textual analysis of trade publications from the 1980s and early 1990s, the book eloquently maps out the synergistic processes of the marketing, advertising, merchandising, and media industries as they slowly began to take interest in the girl and began to define her as a tween: an empowered female consumer who is no longer a child but not quite a teen.

Youth Mediations and Affective Relations explores dynamic and expansive possibilities of young people’s affective lives as they engage with diverse social media in prolific and specific ways. It addresses the situated embodied and emotional experiences of young people as they actively use media in order to forge communities, play imaginatively, protest injustice, experiment with their identities, make media or explore friendships. Furthermore, it explores the relational and contextual dimensions of their everyday interactions. Against static knowledge and moral panics that abstract youth from the complex and changing worlds in which they grapple with digital media, this book hones in on the layered textures of youth experiences to consider how today’s youth think and feel in subtle and unexpected ways.

Youth Mediations and Affective Relations explores dynamic and expansive possibilities of young people’s affective lives as they engage with diverse social media in prolific and specific ways. It addresses the situated embodied and emotional experiences of young people as they actively use media in order to forge communities, play imaginatively, protest injustice, experiment with their identities, make media or explore friendships. Furthermore, it explores the relational and contextual dimensions of their everyday interactions. Against static knowledge and moral panics that abstract youth from the complex and changing worlds in which they grapple with digital media, this book hones in on the layered textures of youth experiences to consider how today’s youth think and feel in subtle and unexpected ways.