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FINNUT-Forskning og innovasjon i utdanningssektoren

PlatFAMs: Platforming Families – tracing digital transformations in everyday life across generations

Awarded: NOK 4.7 mill.

The goal of the PlatFAMs project is to understand the digital lives of families. We will do this by tracing the activities and practices of families interacting with online platforms across Europe and explore how different generations – grandparents, parents and children in each family – use digital media and online platforms in their everyday lives. In doing so we will unpack their digital lives, as lived experience, comparing families in five European countries/regions (Norway, Estonia, UK, Romania and Spain/Catalonia). Digital platforms (like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, but also platforms used within education and work) have become the dominating infrastructure for online participation and creation by all citizens and with huge impacts on our daily lives. The main research question is; What are the lived experiences and practices of families (teenagers, parents, grandparents) in dealing with digital transformations and participation across online platforms? Key topics in the research will be on ‘digital navigation’ (how children, parents and grandparents by themselves navigate across different platforms in their daily lives), ‘digital negotiation’ (how children, parents and grandparents negotiate and interact within the family about regulations, connections and networking using digital technologies and online platforms), and ‘digital futuremaking’ (how different age groups make opportunities and think about their own future trajectories within families and communities, as well as matters of sustainability, in their digitalized lives and as part of digitalized societies). We will follow 20 families in each country over 2 years, and for each family we will document the digital lives of teenagers, their parents and their grandparents of each family to see how family life in the digital age is changing, The potential impact for the project is high for both future policy, practice and research on family life in the digital age.

Funding scheme:

FINNUT-Forskning og innovasjon i utdanningssektoren