Connected Parenting: Digital Discourse and Diverse Family Practices

(Hardback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Changing practices and perceptions of parenthood and family life have long been the subject of intense public, political and academic attention. Recent years have seen growing interest in the role digital media and technologies can play in these shifts, yet this topic has been under-explored from a discourse analytical perspective. In response, this books investigation of everyday parenting, family practices and digital media offers a new and innovative exploration of the relationship between parenting, family practices, and digitally mediated connection. This investigation is based on extensive digital and interview data from research with nine UK-based single and/or lesbian, gay or bisexual parents who brought children into their lives in non-traditional ways, for example through donor conception, surrogacy or adoption. Through a novel approach that combines constructivist grounded theory with mediated discourse analysis, this book examines connected family lives and practices in a way that transcends the limiting social, biological and legal structures that still dominate concepts of family in contemporary society.

Reviews

Connected Parenting brilliantly showcases the power of discourse analysis to inform our understanding of how people communicate, support each other and get things done. Through impressive attention to linguistic detail, the book explores the implications of parents digital practices for their lives and for what it means to be a family in contemporary society. -- Caroline Tagg, Open University, UK
In this impressive work, Mackenzie develops an insightful and inclusive theory of connected parenting which makes a crucial contribution to multiple fields concerned with parenting practices. The theory is robust enough to account for the significant complexity of everyday parenting, family practices, and digital media in contemporary social life. Particularly illuminating is the deft analytical attention paid to collective, epistemic and affective connection. -- Michele Zappavigna, University of New South Wales, Australia

Author Bio

Jai Mackenzie is a Senior Lecturer at Newman University, Birmingham, UK. Her primary research expertise lies in explorations of language, gender, sexuality and parenthood, especially in new media contexts. She is the author of Language, Gender and Parenthood Online: Negotiating Motherhood in Mumsnet Talk (2019).