Performing Contemporary Childhoods: Being and Becoming a Viral Child

The book "Performing Contemporary Childhoods: Being and Becoming a Viral Child" explores how children's and young people's digital media create new ideas about youth agency by positioning them as authors and owners of their self-representations. It finds that reshaped social relations and a context of crisis cultivate nostalgia for ideals of innocent childhood, but young people's complex, ambiguous, and resistive acts disrupt these ideals.

Format: Hardback
Length: 172 pages
Publication date: 22 September 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

The book "Performing Contemporary Childhoods: Being and Becoming a Viral Child" delves into the transformative essence of contemporary childhoods by examining the profound impact of children's and young people's digital media on shaping new perspectives on youth agency. Traditionally, the study of visual cultures of childhood has relied on photography, while material cultures of childhood have been traced through archives, scripts, and even toys. However, this groundbreaking book reveals that performance cultures, characterized by their digital literacies expressed in viral forms such as TikTok dance challenges, tweets, and viral GIFs, have the power to create entirely new ideas about childhood. By positioning young people as authors and owners of their self-representations, these performance cultures redefine the concept of childhood, granting them a central role in shaping their own narratives.

In the backdrop of the global pandemic, the book explores how reshaped social relations and a context of crisis in our political, social, and ecological realms foster a longing for ideals of innocent childhood. However, it cautions that these nostalgic aspirations are likely to be disrupted by the complex, ambiguous, and ultimately resistant acts that young people generate for and about themselves. This book serves as a valuable resource for students and scholars engaged in the fields of childhood studies, performance studies, social and cultural history, and visual and digital culture. It offers insightful perspectives and methodologies that contribute to our understanding of the evolving nature of childhood in the digital age.

Weight: 480g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032267388