ABSTRACT

The sharenting practice, or the sharing of one’s parenting and children online, has become a popular topic of critical focus that decries it as an exploitative disregard for children’s privacy and rights. The practice is performed, however, by a population (i.e., parents) that is generally inclined to protect its children, raising the present research question of whether sharenting could be alternatively guided by self-presentational goals. Guided by the theoretical notion of the extended self, the present study qualitatively examines parents’ Instagram posts using constant comparative analysis to identify how parents self-present in their sharenting posts. The results identify three self-presentational categories that illustrate how parents’ social media posts that depict a parent–child relational identity may actually be intended representations of the parent’s self. Implications for theory are discussed, as well as practical implications for the appropriate management of parents’ identities in a manner that respects children’s rights and privacy.

摘要

分享实践，或在线分享一个人的育儿和孩子，已成为批评焦点的热门话题，谴责它是对儿童隐私和权利的剥削性无视。然而，这种做法是由通常倾向于保护其子女的人群（即父母）执行的，这提出了当前的研究问题，即共享是否可以由自我展示目标替代地引导。在扩展自我的理论概念的指导下，本研究使用持续比较分析定性地检查父母的 Instagram 帖子，以确定父母如何在他们的分享帖子中自我呈现。结果确定了三个自我表现类别，这些类别说明了父母在社交媒体上发布的描述亲子关系身份的帖子实际上可能是父母自我的预期表现。讨论了理论的意义，以及以尊重儿童权利和隐私的方式适当管理父母身份的实际意义。