The thesis deals with parenting and screen time from a moral perspective. Through interviews with parents, the study shows how they negotiate strong, often unattainable ideals that are part of discussions about screen time in everyday life. Parents encounter these ideals in debates and expert advice, but also from other parents. Everyday negotiations about screen time are often moral in nature and can be understood as manifestations of how ‘good’ parenting is expressed. Through theoretical frameworks on morality, class and media practices, Johansson reveals parents' subjective experiences of screen time in modern, media-intensive family life.
Faculty opponent Maja Sonne-Damkjær, associate professor at Aarhus University, described the thesis as ambitious and courageous, and an important contribution to research on parenting, media and everyday life. She particularly commented on the analysis of parents' experiences of comparing themselves with other parents' ideals and practices as particularly insightful. She also highlighted how one of the thesis's many strengths lay in its cross-disciplinary approach, which she felt skilfully spanned phenomenology, sociology and media and communication studies.
After about half an hour of deliberation following the defence, the grading committee, through its chair, Professor Sara Eldén, congratulated the candidate and announced that the thesis had been unanimously approved.
