TY - ABST
T1 - Communicating and Spatialising Parentcraft
T2 - International Pragmatics Conference, IPrA 2007
AU - McIlvenny, Paul
N1 - Conference code: 10
PY - 2007
Y1 - 2007
N2 - Since 2003, British television has seen a new set of media therapeutic genres emerge around the spectacle of the parenting of so-called ’problem’ children. What is significant in these television programmes is the pervasive use of language, talk and space to inculcate better parenting practices. This paper focuses on one hybrid genre that mixes the counselling format with the Big Brother reality TV format. The House of Tiny Tearaways first appeared on British television in May 2005. Over a six day period, three families are invited to reside in a specially designed house together with a resident clinical psychologist. The child-friendly house is equipped with two-way mirrors and video cameras, as well as hidden rooms and passages. The programme relies heavily on routine video and audio surveillance (eg. wireless microphones) as a therapeutic tool. Moreover, the House is a laboratory for producing problem behaviours and communicative troubles.The analysis presented in this paper focuses on the mediation of familial spaces and technologies and the work of governmentalising parenting (ie. the conduct of parental conduct) through spatial practices. The paper draws upon mediated discourse analysis, conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis, combined with contemporary theories of space and place, as well as a Foucauldian perspective on governmentality and the care of the self. The analysis focuses on several key phenomena: 1) practices of video observation and translocality; 2) use of inscription devices to visualise behaviour and action, such as sleep graphs, reward schemes and video displays; 3) practising ‘techniques’ of parentcraft in place, such as the ‘timeout’ and the ‘naughty step’; and 4) doing ‘becoming’ the proper object of family therapy or counselling. For example, a variety of interactional routines are available for the ‘truth’ of parenting to be staged within regimes of ‘truth telling’ (eg. interviews and therapy sessions). By careful analysis, this paper documents how the cultivation of communicative competences amongst the ‘caring-but-not-coping’ parents (and their children) affords the governing-at-a-distance of the responsible, autonomous family.
AB - Since 2003, British television has seen a new set of media therapeutic genres emerge around the spectacle of the parenting of so-called ’problem’ children. What is significant in these television programmes is the pervasive use of language, talk and space to inculcate better parenting practices. This paper focuses on one hybrid genre that mixes the counselling format with the Big Brother reality TV format. The House of Tiny Tearaways first appeared on British television in May 2005. Over a six day period, three families are invited to reside in a specially designed house together with a resident clinical psychologist. The child-friendly house is equipped with two-way mirrors and video cameras, as well as hidden rooms and passages. The programme relies heavily on routine video and audio surveillance (eg. wireless microphones) as a therapeutic tool. Moreover, the House is a laboratory for producing problem behaviours and communicative troubles.The analysis presented in this paper focuses on the mediation of familial spaces and technologies and the work of governmentalising parenting (ie. the conduct of parental conduct) through spatial practices. The paper draws upon mediated discourse analysis, conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis, combined with contemporary theories of space and place, as well as a Foucauldian perspective on governmentality and the care of the self. The analysis focuses on several key phenomena: 1) practices of video observation and translocality; 2) use of inscription devices to visualise behaviour and action, such as sleep graphs, reward schemes and video displays; 3) practising ‘techniques’ of parentcraft in place, such as the ‘timeout’ and the ‘naughty step’; and 4) doing ‘becoming’ the proper object of family therapy or counselling. For example, a variety of interactional routines are available for the ‘truth’ of parenting to be staged within regimes of ‘truth telling’ (eg. interviews and therapy sessions). By careful analysis, this paper documents how the cultivation of communicative competences amongst the ‘caring-but-not-coping’ parents (and their children) affords the governing-at-a-distance of the responsible, autonomous family.
KW - diskursstudier
KW - stedbundne aktiviteter
KW - medier
KW - børn
KW - discourse studies
KW - place bound activities
KW - space
KW - conversation analysis
KW - media
KW - children
KW - television
M3 - Conference abstract in proceeding
BT - Abstracts: 10th International Pragmatics Conference
Y2 - 8 July 2007 through 13 July 2007
ER -