Child and cyberspace: Analysis of parental mediation in children's use of the Internet

The main purpose of this study is to identify parenting mediation experiences in the relationship between their children and cyberspace, and therefore the main question of the study is what strategies do parents use to mediate and regulate their children's use of the Internet? To answer these study questions, "mediation" has been used as an approach in media studies. The samples of this study were the parents of children aged 9 to 12 years who were selected by purposive sampling method and the sample size was based on sampling to theoretical saturation. The transcripts of the interviews were thematically analyzed using MaxQUD software after implementation, and the data were presented under three headings: Parents' Attitudes, Parents' Strategies, and Parents' Challenges. The key finding of this study is that each parent uses a wide range of mediation strategies that are directly related to parents' gender, age and perceptions of their children's maturity. Parents' limited awareness of the dangers of cyberspace has led to an increase in proactive mediation among parents. In addition, the digital literacy gap between them and their children causes some of them to adopt a release strategy at a later age, knowing that their children are incapable.