The Wired Homestead

The Wired Homestead by Joseph Turow

The use of the internet in homes rivals the advent of the telephone, radio, or television in social significance. Daily use of the World Wide Web and e-mail is taken for granted in many families, and the computer-linked internet is becoming an integral part of the physical and audiovisual environment. The internet's features of personalization, interactivity, and information abundance raise profound new issues for parents and children. Most researchers studying the impact of the internet on families begin with the assumption that the family is the central influence in preparing a child to live in society and that home is where that influence takes place. In The Wired Homestead, communication theorists and social scientists offer recent findings on the effects of the internet on the lives of the family unit and its members. The book examines historical precedents of parental concern over new media such as television. It then looks at specific issues surrounding parental oversight of internet use, such as rules about revealing personal information, time limits, and web site restrictions. It looks at the effects of the web on both domestic life and entire neighborhoods. The wealth of information offered and the formulation of emerging issues regarding parents and children lay the foundation for further research in this developing field.

ContributorsRobert Kraut, Jorge Reina Schement, Ellen Seiter, Sherry Turkle, Ellen Wartella, and Barry Wellman

Joseph Turow is Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. He has authored eleven books, edited five, and written more than 150 articles on mass media industries. Turow is an elected Fellow of the International Communication Association and was presented with a Distinguished Scholar Award by the National Communication Association. A 2005 New York Times Magazine article referred to Turow as probably the reigning academic expert on media fragmentation. In 2010, the New York Times called him the ranking wise man on some thorny new-media and marketing topics. In 2012, the TRUSTe internet privacy-management organization designated him a privacy pioneer for his research and writing on marketing and digital-privacy.