Sharenting: Pride, affect and the day to day politics of digital mothering
Lazard, L., Capdevila, R., Dann, C. J., Locke, A. and Roper, S. (2019) Sharenting: Pride, affect and the day to day politics of digital mothering. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. 1751-9004.
The coming together of parenting and routine posting on social networking sites has become a visible and recognisable theme and the term ‘sharenting’ has found a place in everyday talk to describe some forms of parental digital sharing practices. However, while social media has undoubtedly provided a space for parents to share experiences and receive support around parenting, sharenting remains a contestable issue. Thus, one reading of sharenting would be as a display of good parenting as mothers ‘show off’ their children as a marker of success. However, the term also can be used pejoratively to describe parental oversharing of child-focused images and content. In this paper we explore the practice of sharenting in terms of pride, affect, and the politics of digital mothering in a neoliberal context to conclude that sharenting can be best understood as a complex affective and intersectional accomplishment that produces motherhood and family as communicative activities within digital social practices.
Creators:
Lazard, Lisa, Capdevila, Rose, Dann, Charlotte Jade, Locke, Abigail and Roper, Sandra