An investigation into the notion of "parental responsibility" as it features in the home-based regulation of children's video viewing habits

This thesis focuses on the notion of "parental responsibility" which characterises contemporary concerns over the regulation of children's video viewing in the UK. Previous studies of horne-based regulation have tended to concentrate on television at the expense of video viewing, and most studies employ quantitative methods. This thesis expands the research agenda, challenging the findings of previous research, through the employment of qualitative methods to examine family relationships at the heart of the horne-based regulation of video viewing. The work is based upon interviews with ten families from North London.
This analysis is accompanied by an examination of the demands made of parents by agencies outside of the family home who are concerned with video regulation (Parliament,
the print news media, the British Board of Film Classification and the video software industry). These expectations have remained unexplored by previous authors. This inquiry is located within an account of teenagers' video viewing habits, derived from a questionnaire survey of approximately five hundred year nine pupils.
Central to the theoretical project of the thesis is a distinction between the concept and conceptions of "parental responsibility". It is argued that there is a broad consensus around the concept of "parental responsibility" (the notion that parents ought to have ultimate authority over their children's video viewing habits in the home). However, there is much
less agreement about what constitutes responsible action in this regard. There are a variety of conceptions of parental responsibility across the accounts examined. Thus, it is
impossible to draw clear distinctions between "responsible" and "irresponsible" parents, although participants in public debates frequently make such judgements. In an attempt to
move beyond this impasse, the thesis provides a reconceptualisation of the "problem" of "under-age" video viewing, one which takes into account the ways in which parents currently approach the regulation of their children's video viewing habits in the home.