Not long before COVID-19 closed down schools and sent families into social isolation, Brock University Associate Professor Shauna Pomerantz set to work on a new project to learn what makes her 11-year-old daughter tick \u2014 or, more specifically \u2014 what makes her TikTok.<\/p>\n
The social media platform TikTok, with more than a billion users worldwide, encourages users to post short, amusing videos. Pomerantz\u2019s daughter, Miriam Field, is an avid user.<\/p>\n
After observing her daughter\u2019s extensive creativity and perseverance in producing TikTok videos, Pomerantz, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Child and Youth Studies, began to wonder if there might be something worth exploring in the platform other than, as she describes it, the \u201cbackdrop of surveillance and fear surrounding kids\u2019 lives online.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMiriam and I began co-researching TikTok to offer a counter-narrative that shows its inventive, generative and formative force,\u201d says Pomerantz. \u201cWhat we hope to offer is a deep understanding of youth cultures by highlighting what TikTok can do as an artistic and imaginative forum for young people\u2019s expression.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though the project was already underway when the province declared a state of emergency, Pomerantz notes that current concerns over kids, screen time and productive learning during the COVID-19 crisis might also be informed by this research.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our study will speak to this context by showcasing TikTok as a different kind of learning that has value,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s escapism, yes, but also engagement in the creative process, production, interconnection with friends and an online community, cultural literacy, and the cultivation of one\u2019s own taste and style.\u201d<\/p>\n
Field doesn\u2019t think parents truly understand how important TikTok can be to kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they take the time to learn what their kids are doing, they might actually see that TikTok isn\u2019t a bad influence and they might see that it helps them a lot, especially during this isolation period,\u201d Field says.<\/p>\n
If co-researching with a school-age child sounds unusual, that\u2019s because it is. But Pomerantz suspected that it would be best to enlist a young expert if she was going to delve into the vast and growing world of TikTok. She put in extra work to gain clearance from Brock\u2019s Research Ethics Board, believing that the result of pursuing the study with Field as a collaborator could be truly innovative.<\/p>\n
Their research partnership has yielded rich and often unexpected results.<\/p>\n
\u201cMiriam feels comfortable to say \u2018no,\u2019 to ignore me, to assert her own voice, to laugh at me, to decentre my adult-researcher power and to shift the direction of the conversation,\u201d Pomerantz says of her working relationship with her daughter. \u201cThe amazing moments we\u2019ve had would not have been possible with unknown participants.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pomerantz describes the study as a \u201cpost-qualitative\u201d exploration.<\/p>\n
She says post-qualitative research \u201csuggests that you cannot follow a recipe or formula for collecting data but should, instead, feel out the moment and engage radical new approaches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Working with her daughter has created several novel opportunities \u2014 both for discovery and for laughter, as Pomerantz tried to learn a few popular dance routines from Field so they could perform them together for the TikTok world to see.<\/p>\n
Once their study is complete, Pomerantz and Field will share their research in a chapter of the upcoming Routledge anthology, Visual and Cultural Identity Constructs of Global Youth: Situated, Embodied and Performed Ways of Being, Engaging and Belonging<\/em>, edited by Fiona Blaikie, Professor in Brock\u2019s Department of Educational Studies.<\/p>\n But for now, in the unusual circumstances of the provincial shutdown, it has an added advantage of giving Pomerantz and Field a welcome focus during difficult times.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the project wasn\u2019t born of COVID-19, this unprecedented context has made doing research with my daughter feel so much more meaningful,\u201d says Pomerantz. \u201cEvery time we make a video, we forget about what is going on in the world and just laugh and laugh. I am so grateful for the opportunity to spend time with Miriam in this way, and I think we are both thankful for the distraction.\u201d<\/p>\n Field has enjoyed her role as co-researcher and the opportunity to help parents get a better sense of how young people interact with the platform.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re a parent, maybe you should take the time to ask your kid to make a TikTok with them,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s very good content for their TikTok accounts and it\u2019s really fun to see your kid\u2019s world up close.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Not long before COVID-19 closed down schools and sent families into social isolation, Brock University Associate Professor Shauna Pomerantz set to work on a new project to learn what makes her 11-year-old daughter tick \u2014 or, more specifically \u2014 what makes her TikTok.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":65328,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,188,4767,1,4,5,38],"tags":[159,45,8791,2592,522,8885,8887,3325,4211,118,8886],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65329,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65327\/revisions\/65329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}