Responsible parents on guard: Exploring domestication and responsibilisation in parents’ lived experiences with baby monitoring technologies

IF 4.3 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

New Media & Society Pub Date : 2025-10-17 DOI:10.1177/14614448251380678

Julie Dereymaeker

{"title":"Responsible parents on guard: Exploring domestication and responsibilisation in parents’ lived experiences with baby monitoring technologies","authors":"Julie Dereymaeker","doi":"10.1177/14614448251380678","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Baby monitoring technologies (BMTs) are increasingly sophisticated and marketed as essential tools for responsible parenting, reinforcing expectations of constant vigilance and care. This study investigates how parents domesticate BMTs and how responsibilisation manifests in this process. The study draws on in-depth interviews with 15 Flemish families and employs constructivist grounded theory analysis. Findings show this domestication is an agentic negotiation where parents balance elements of reassurance, autonomy, rationality, peace of mind, cost considerations and the ideal of letting go. This negotiation, however, is framed by a process of moral responsibilisation which manifests through three distinct but interconnected pathways: the self-guided, social and technologically imposed pathways. This process challenges the delegation of care to trusted caregivers and calls for a critical assessment of the expansion of monitoring technologies. As these technologies enable parental omnipresence, the choice not to monitor one’s child may shift from a personal decision to a political act.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"342 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"New Media & Society","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251380678","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Baby monitoring technologies (BMTs) are increasingly sophisticated and marketed as essential tools for responsible parenting, reinforcing expectations of constant vigilance and care. This study investigates how parents domesticate BMTs and how responsibilisation manifests in this process. The study draws on in-depth interviews with 15 Flemish families and employs constructivist grounded theory analysis. Findings show this domestication is an agentic negotiation where parents balance elements of reassurance, autonomy, rationality, peace of mind, cost considerations and the ideal of letting go. This negotiation, however, is framed by a process of moral responsibilisation which manifests through three distinct but interconnected pathways: the self-guided, social and technologically imposed pathways. This process challenges the delegation of care to trusted caregivers and calls for a critical assessment of the expansion of monitoring technologies. As these technologies enable parental omnipresence, the choice not to monitor one’s child may shift from a personal decision to a political act.

查看原文本刊更多论文

负责任的父母警惕：在婴儿监护技术中探索父母生活经验中的驯化和责任

婴儿监测技术（BMTs）越来越复杂，并作为负责任的养育子女的基本工具进行营销，强化了对持续警惕和照顾的期望。本研究探讨父母如何驯化BMTs，以及责任在此过程中如何表现。本研究对15个佛兰德家庭进行了深度访谈，并采用了建构主义理论分析。研究结果表明，这种驯化是一种代理谈判，父母在安抚、自主、理性、内心平静、成本考虑和放手的理想之间取得平衡。然而，这一谈判是由一个道德责任的过程构成的，这个过程通过三个不同但相互关联的途径表现出来：自我引导、社会和技术强加的途径。这一进程对将护理委托给值得信赖的护理人员提出了挑战，并要求对监测技术的扩展进行批判性评估。由于这些技术使父母无处不在，不监控孩子的选择可能从个人决定转变为政治行为。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

New Media & Society COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

12.70

自引率

8.00%

发文量

274

期刊介绍： New Media & Society engages in critical discussions of the key issues arising from the scale and speed of new media development, drawing on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and on both theoretical and empirical research. The journal includes contributions on: -the individual and the social, the cultural and the political dimensions of new media -the global and local dimensions of the relationship between media and social change -contemporary as well as historical developments -the implications and impacts of, as well as the determinants and obstacles to, media change the relationship between theory, policy and practice.