Hi everyone, welcome to the brief introduction of our paper titled “Family Negotiation
in Joint Media Engagement with Creative Computing”
This paper was presented by Junnan Yu from the School of Design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Sari Widman from the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder
and Ricarose Roque from the Department of Information Science at the University of Colorado Boulder
Joint media engagement, or JME, was coined by Takeuchi and Stevens in 2011 to refer to
spontaneous and designed experiences of people using media together
Understanding family JME is essential to fostering “productive” shared experiences with technologies
However, current family JME studies are mostly either lab-based or interview-based
and only a few involve families from non-dominant groups
In other words, current studies have limited perspectives of family JME dynamics, and more
observational studies with more diverse demographics are needed
In this study, we approach family dynamics through the lens of negotiation, a concept
grounded in the sociocultural learning perspective
According to sociocultural learning theory, learning is a dynamic process in cultural spaces
where individuals form and reform themselves and their relationships within
and across communities, and consistently negotiate their roles and manage their participation
in relationships with others
The current study, from a negotiation perspective, complements existing parent-child JME by highlighting
family members’ agency and the nuances of their back-and-forth interactions
We investigated family negotiation in an informal family learning program called Family Creative Learning
In the program, families historically marginalized in computing are invited to participate in
a series of 4 to 5 workshops in community-based organizations like libraries and museums
during which they jointly create projects with creative computing technologies
like Scratch and Makey Makey
In this workshop implementation, families were invited to create a travel-related story
using a coding app for young children named ScratchJr
We collected families’ making process data, artifact data, and reflective data through
the means of screen recordings, field notes, photos, and interviews
For our data analysis, we ask How do family members engage in negotiation during joint
creation with computing?
This table shows an overview of the negotiation strategies employed by family members during co-making
The strategies were mainly centered around device control and creativity control
Next, I will introduce examples of some of the negotiation strategies
Negotiating device control is about negotiating who gets to operate the device
Some family members would request device access, such as asking for permission from each other
to operate the device, assertively demanding to operate the device, reminding each other to take turns
This example shows a vignette of parent-mediated turn-taking between two sisters
In other cases, family members would step up for device control by pulling the device
to their side or directly inputting on the device interface without asking for permissions first
Additionally, family members sometimes voluntarily stepped back from device control and invited
participation from each other, especially when they needed help
This vignette illustrates an example of a child’s stepping back from device control
when seeking help from parents about how to add a character to their project
Beyond device control, family members frequently negotiated creativity for their project, namely,
what and whose ideas to be included and implemented in the project
For example, family members often invited creative input from each other and suggested
ideas for each other’s consideration
This vignette shows the parents Celso and Ana suggested adding an audio recording to
a cat character, which was turned down by their daughter Camila
When negotiating creativity, family members also sometimes enforced the incorporation
of their own ideas, directed project directions, gatekept others’ input, and remixed each
other’s ideas
In this vignette, the young boy Hamid did not like how his older brother Cal represented
him in the project using an inappropriate character, then he told their mother who forced
Cal to change it
In addition to the detailed negotiation strategies, different families demonstrated some common
negotiation patterns, including: different families have different negotiation dynamics
negotiation is an evolving and changing process for individuals
younger ones tend to be disadvantaged in negotiation and experienced more unsuccessful attempts
and family members cared about how they were represented in their projects
a big factor driving negotiation
Based on the findings, we shared some key arguments about family JME
First, the negotiation lens captures the dynamics between family members in the joint-making
with technologies and highlights children’s agency, such as the different roles they played
that were typically invisible in the lens of parent roles
Second, family members adjusted their strategies to advocate for themselves during tensions
and negotiation
Therefore, we argue that tensions and negotiation are important JME learning experiences
As such, the designs of JME learning experiences and technologies do not necessarily have to
avoid all potential conflicts but can instead embrace mechanisms that may give rise to tensions
between family members
Third, the family’s negotiation practices align with the productive JME principles shared
by Takeuchi and Stevens, such as mutual engagement, dialogic inquiry, and boundary-crossing
Therefore, we argue that negotiation is a form of productive JME
Accordingly, in JME experience and technology design, rather than avoiding tensions and
negotiation, we need to recognize families’ unique dynamics as important cultural assets
for learning and respect their expectations of what is meaningful and productive for themselves
This is a brief overview of our paper, thank you for your attention
For more details, please refer to the paper