Elisabeth Staksrud
Biographic Data
| ID | 187565 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elisabeth Staksrud |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elisabeth |
| FAMILY NAME | Staksrud |
| SIGNATURE | STAKSRUD E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oslo |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9829-4817 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 49 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Can platform literacy protect vulnerable young people against the risky affordances of social media platforms
A qualitative study of young people with mental health difficulties sought to understand their digital experiences and identify whether their digital literacy helps them cope with online problems. The findings reveal how young people’s encounters with extreme online risk are amplified by platforms’ promotion of trending and viral content and intensified through the personalisation of content that can ‘trigger’ individual vulnerabilities. We conce…
Too Much of a Good Thing? Challenges to the Effectiveness of Digital Help Resources for Children and Youths
We investigate the accessibility of adult (professional) support for children encountering adverse online incidents. Emphasising the crucial role of adult intervention in serious cases, we underscore the significance of adults' awareness of children's online experiences. Drawing from the Norwegian context, a state with substantial child protection investment, we examine whether the abundance of support services may inadvertently compromise their …
Australian Teen Voices on Age Verification and Age Assurance Measures
Age verification and age assurance technologies, including biometrics, facial recognition software and digital identification, have been explored as potential measures to restrict access of young people to social media and sexually explicit media (SEM), including pornography. However, there is limited data regarding how teens targeted by such restrictions feel about such strategies. Drawing on qualitative interviews with Australian teens and pre‐…
Ethical inclusion of children in sensitive research: A four-dimensional model
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child ‘UNCRC’ provides that children should participate in research about matters that concern them. However, this is not always realised, particularly in the context of risky, sensitive and morally complex experiences. Failure to include children causes lacunae in our understanding of the factors that influence their lives and well-being. In this article, we propose to conceptualise approaches t…
Debating pornography and the notion of harm in public discourse: The case of Billie Eilish’s experiences with sexual content online
Young people’s experiences with sexual content online are a regularly featured popular topic in news media, feeding heated ongoing policy and academic debates. Concerns and calls for further regulation and youth’s self-regulation are exacerbated when celebrities and popular public figures share statements and confessions about their own sexual lives at a young age. In this article, we study the discursive conditions of media coverage and the cele…
Leveraging Ai-Based Interventions to Address Cyberbullying Among Children: A Rights-Based Perspective
One in three Internet users worldwide are children, and yet children are still insufficiently consulted on Internet governance-related matters as well as with respect to safety design decisions in online environments. Following the adoption of the general comment on the application of UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in digital environments, this article presents the results of empirical research that solicited children’s input on…
Platform Power and Experiences From the Margin: Adolescents’ Online Vulnerability and Mental Health
Internet and social media use can be both beneficial and harmful for vulnerable youth, offering support and increased self-knowledge, but also exposure to adverse content. Research on the critical question of what makes a difference between the digital pathways to wellbeing or harm is minimal. However, there is some indication that how adolescents engage with the internet and its particular digital affordances makes a difference to their wellbein…
Tox and Detox: Are Teens’ Smartphone Use and Non-Use Practices Fully Fungible
Introduction The public sphere includes a range of credible discourses asserting that a proportion of teenagers (“teens”) has an unhealthy dependence upon continuous connection with media devices, and especially smartphones. A review of media discourse (Jaunzems et al.) in Australia, and a critical review of public discourse in Australia and Belgium (Zaman et al.), reveal both positive and negative commentary around screentime. Despite the “emoti…
The Privacy Paradox by Proxy: Considering Predictors of Sharenting
Despite being worried that children may compromise their privacy by disclosing too much personal data online, many parents paradoxically share pictures and information about their children themselves , a practice called sharenting. In this article we utilise data from the EU Kids Online survey to investigate this paradox. We examine both how individual characteristics such as demographics and digital skills, and relational factors, including pare…
Time spent online and children’s self-reported life satisfaction in Norway: The socio-ecological perspective
Despite public discourses highlighting the negative consequences of time spent online (TSO) for children’s well-being, Norwegian children (aged 9–16 years) use the Internet more than other European children and score higher on self-reported life satisfaction (SRLS). To explore the possibility that TSO might contribute to high life satisfaction or other underlying explanatory factors, we investigate the relationship between TSO and SRLS in Norway …
Children as Crowbar? Justifying Censorship on the Grounds of Child Protection
This article studies how possible it is to use the need to protect vulnerable populations, such as children, as a justification to limit freedom of expression in democratic societies. The research was designed and conducted based on the idea that the regulation of speech and access to content is not only a matter of law and legislative interpretations, but also a question of social norms and values. The study is based on two surveys, one implemen…
Top ten types of informed consent your supervisor never told you about
When we conduct ethically sound research, we know that any reason given by an informant to decline or withdraw participation is a legitimate reason. However, some situations can be averted or prevented, increasing your chance of getting the data that you need for your study. In order to be most successful, it might be good to know of some core pitfalls, that you may plummet into when trying to ensure a properly informed consent from your young pa…
‘We always torment different people, so by definition, we are no bullies’: The problem of definitions in cyberbullying research
In this article, we investigate the power of prevailing definitions within the research field of cyberbullying. We address how these definitions, mostly deriving from developmental psychology, have had a problematic influence on the way researchers, policymakers, practitioners working with interventions, and children and young people themselves approach the challenge of understanding and preventing cyberbullying and its consequences. We analyse h…
Adolescents and children in global media landscape: From risks to rights
We examine what we see as some of the key developments in the field of adolescents and children and media research. With the caveat as regards to our specific research perspective and possible bias stemming from there, we identify two important developments that have begun to take place in the past five years – 1. The enrichment of the field by data and perspectives coming from so-called developing countries. 2. A greater tendency toward citing r…
European research on children’s internet use: Assessing the past and anticipating the future
In this article, we reflect critically on the research agenda on children’s Internet use, framing our analysis using Wellman’s three ages of Internet studies and taking as our case study the three phases of research by the EU Kids Online network from 2006 to 2014. Following the heyday of moral panics, risk discourses and censorious policy-making that led to the European Commission’s first Internet Action Plan 1999–2002, EU Kids Online focused on …
Where policy and practice collide: Comparing United States, South African and European Union approaches to protecting children online
That children have a right to protection when they go online is an internationally well-established principle, upheld in laws that seek to safeguard children from online abuse and exploitation. However, children’s own transgressive behaviour can test the boundaries of this protection regime, creating new dilemmas for lawmakers the world over. This article examines the policy response from both the Global North and South to young people’s online b…
Is big brother more at risk than little sister? The sibling factor in online risk and opportunity
This article uses data from the 25,142-child study EU Kids Online to investigate the impact of sibling status on a child’s experience of online risk and opportunities. In general, the effects associated with having a sibling appear to be comparatively small. The presence of older siblings slightly increases use and skills, while younger siblings are associated with slight reductions. These dynamics are particularly visible in the use of social ne…
Cyberbullying Victimization in Context: The Role of Social Inequalities in Countries and Regions
The phenomenon of cyberbullying is gaining ever more attention by media and policy makers in many countries. Theoretical frameworks using a socio-ecological approach emphasize the importance of contextual explanatory factors located at the societal level. It has been suggested that in addition to cross-national differences, the analysis of smaller units of more adjacent cultural contexts (i.e., regions) might yield more explanatory power. Leaning…
Internet Research Ethics
This anthology addresses ethical challenges that arise within the field of Internet research. Among the issues discussed in the book are the following: When is voluntary informed consent from research subjects required in using the Internet as a data source? How may researchers secure the privacy of research subjects in a landscape where the traditional public/private distinction is blurred and re-identification is a recurring threat? What are th…
Youth 2.0: Social Media and Adolescence—Connecting, Sharing and Empowering
The core ambition of Youth 2.0: Social Media and Adolescence – Connecting, Sharing and Empowering is, as stated by the editors, to explore the tension between opportunities for adolescents’ identit
Researching CAM: Our Herculean task
CAM researchers are in the position of having people outside the academic world take a great interest in their work and results. In this paper, I give an account of what I observe as our strengths and our extended relevance: to other researchers and research areas, to democratic processes and policy-makers, to parents and other adults, and to children. In this lies the need to tackle research dissemination challenges in a field where layman exper…
Internet Research Ethics
This anthology addresses ethical challenges that arise within the field of Internet research. Among the issues discussed in the book are the following: When is voluntary informed consent from research subjects required in using the Internet as a data source? How may researchers secure the privacy of research subjects in a landscape where the traditional public/private distinction is blurred and re-identification is a recurring threat? What are th…
Teaching CAM: From “The Ideal” to “The Real”
Additional informationNotes on contributorsElisabeth StaksrudElisabeth Staksrud, Ph.D., is Associate Professor & Head of Studies, Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo, Norway, and a former research fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University, USA and of the London School of Economics. She is the author of Children in the Online World: Risk, Regulation, Rights (Ashgate, 2013). Dr Staksrud's key re…
In their own words: What bothers children online
In an open-ended survey question to European 9- to 16-year-olds, some 10,000 children reported a range of risks that concern them on the internet. Pornography (named by 22% of children who mentioned risks), conduct risk such as cyber-bullying (19%) and violent content (18%) were at the top of children’s concerns. The priority given to violent content is noteworthy insofar as this receives less attention than sexual content or bullying in awarenes…
Children in the Online World: Risk, Regulation, Rights
What is online risk? How can we best protect children from it? Who should be responsible for this protection? Is all protection good? Can Internet users trust the industry? These and other fundamental questions are discussed in this book. Beginning with the premise that the political and democratic processes in a society are affected by the way in which that society defines and perceives risks, Children in the Online World offers insights into th…
European research on children’s internet use: Assessing the past and anticipating the future
In this article, we reflect critically on the research agenda on children’s Internet use, framing our analysis using Wellman’s three ages of Internet studies and taking as our case study the three phases of research by the EU Kids Online network from 2006 to 2014. Following the heyday of moral panics, risk discourses and censorious policy-making that led to the European Commission’s first Internet Action Plan 1999–2002, EU Kids Online focused on …
Risky Social Networking Practices Among “Underage” Users: Lessons for Evidence-Based Policy
European self-regulation to ensure children's safety on social networking sites requires that providers ensure children are old enough to use the sites, aware of safety messages, empowered by privacy settings, discouraged from disclosing personal information, and supported by easy to use reporting mechanisms. This article assesses the regulatory framework with findings from a survey of over 25000 9- to 16-year-olds from 25 European countries. The…
In their own words: What bothers children online
In an open-ended survey question to European 9- to 16-year-olds, some 10,000 children reported a range of risks that concern them on the internet. Pornography (named by 22% of children who mentioned risks), conduct risk such as cyber-bullying (19%) and violent content (18%) were at the top of children’s concerns. The priority given to violent content is noteworthy insofar as this receives less attention than sexual content or bullying in awarenes…
Where policy and practice collide: Comparing United States, South African and European Union approaches to protecting children online
That children have a right to protection when they go online is an internationally well-established principle, upheld in laws that seek to safeguard children from online abuse and exploitation. However, children’s own transgressive behaviour can test the boundaries of this protection regime, creating new dilemmas for lawmakers the world over. This article examines the policy response from both the Global North and South to young people’s online b…
Time spent online and children’s self-reported life satisfaction in Norway: The socio-ecological perspective
Despite public discourses highlighting the negative consequences of time spent online (TSO) for children’s well-being, Norwegian children (aged 9–16 years) use the Internet more than other European children and score higher on self-reported life satisfaction (SRLS). To explore the possibility that TSO might contribute to high life satisfaction or other underlying explanatory factors, we investigate the relationship between TSO and SRLS in Norway …
Ethical inclusion of children in sensitive research: A four-dimensional model
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child ‘UNCRC’ provides that children should participate in research about matters that concern them. However, this is not always realised, particularly in the context of risky, sensitive and morally complex experiences. Failure to include children causes lacunae in our understanding of the factors that influence their lives and well-being. In this article, we propose to conceptualise approaches t…
The television of politics, the politics of television
Norwegian Children's Experiences of Cyberbullying When Using Different Technological Platforms
Cyberbullying is an emerging threat to children in Europe. However, European research into this topic is scant and knowledge of it incomplete. In this study, “cyberbullying” involves the use of different technological platforms to support hostile behavior by an individual or group that harm others. The article examines whether children's experience of cyberbullying differs according to technological platforms and socio-demographic variables. Resu…
Children and Online Risk: Powerless victims or resourceful participants
Research on the risks associated with children's use of the internet often aims to inform policies of risk prevention. Yet paralleling the effort to map the nature and extent of online risk is a growing unease that the goal of risk prevention tends to support an over-protective, risk-averse culture that restricts the freedom of online exploration that society encourages for children in other spheres. It is central to adolescence that teenagers le…
Children in the Online World: Risk, Regulation, Rights
What is online risk? How can we best protect children from it? Who should be responsible for this protection? Is all protection good? Can Internet users trust the industry? These and other fundamental questions are discussed in this book. Beginning with the premise that the political and democratic processes in a society are affected by the way in which that society defines and perceives risks, Children in the Online World offers insights into th…
European principles of protection: Convergent media protection in divergent media cultures – Is breastfeeding in computer games sex
Risky Social Networking Practices Among “Underage” Users: Lessons for Evidence-Based Policy
European self-regulation to ensure children's safety on social networking sites requires that providers ensure children are old enough to use the sites, aware of safety messages, empowered by privacy settings, discouraged from disclosing personal information, and supported by easy to use reporting mechanisms. This article assesses the regulatory framework with findings from a survey of over 25000 9- to 16-year-olds from 25 European countries. The…
Online grooming legislation: Knee-jerk regulation
The study explores whether or not the perceived threats of paedophiles grooming online cause disproportionate legislative reactions. This is done by reviewing if and how the legislative assumptions about the nature of grooming leading to specific grooming legislation in Norway match the actual user experiences of Norwegian children in general and those subjected to physical abuse following Internet encounters in particular. The expressed politica…
Teaching CAM: From “The Ideal” to “The Real”
Additional informationNotes on contributorsElisabeth StaksrudElisabeth Staksrud, Ph.D., is Associate Professor & Head of Studies, Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo, Norway, and a former research fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University, USA and of the London School of Economics. She is the author of Children in the Online World: Risk, Regulation, Rights (Ashgate, 2013). Dr Staksrud's key re…
In their own words: What bothers children online
In an open-ended survey question to European 9- to 16-year-olds, some 10,000 children reported a range of risks that concern them on the internet. Pornography (named by 22% of children who mentioned risks), conduct risk such as cyber-bullying (19%) and violent content (18%) were at the top of children’s concerns. The priority given to violent content is noteworthy insofar as this receives less attention than sexual content or bullying in awarenes…
Internet Research Ethics
This anthology addresses ethical challenges that arise within the field of Internet research. Among the issues discussed in the book are the following: When is voluntary informed consent from research subjects required in using the Internet as a data source? How may researchers secure the privacy of research subjects in a landscape where the traditional public/private distinction is blurred and re-identification is a recurring threat? What are th…
Youth 2.0: Social Media and Adolescence—Connecting, Sharing and Empowering
The core ambition of Youth 2.0: Social Media and Adolescence – Connecting, Sharing and Empowering is, as stated by the editors, to explore the tension between opportunities for adolescents’ identit
Researching CAM: Our Herculean task
CAM researchers are in the position of having people outside the academic world take a great interest in their work and results. In this paper, I give an account of what I observe as our strengths and our extended relevance: to other researchers and research areas, to democratic processes and policy-makers, to parents and other adults, and to children. In this lies the need to tackle research dissemination challenges in a field where layman exper…
Internet Research Ethics
This anthology addresses ethical challenges that arise within the field of Internet research. Among the issues discussed in the book are the following: When is voluntary informed consent from research subjects required in using the Internet as a data source? How may researchers secure the privacy of research subjects in a landscape where the traditional public/private distinction is blurred and re-identification is a recurring threat? What are th…
Adolescents and children in global media landscape: From risks to rights
We examine what we see as some of the key developments in the field of adolescents and children and media research. With the caveat as regards to our specific research perspective and possible bias stemming from there, we identify two important developments that have begun to take place in the past five years – 1. The enrichment of the field by data and perspectives coming from so-called developing countries. 2. A greater tendency toward citing r…
European research on children’s internet use: Assessing the past and anticipating the future
In this article, we reflect critically on the research agenda on children’s Internet use, framing our analysis using Wellman’s three ages of Internet studies and taking as our case study the three phases of research by the EU Kids Online network from 2006 to 2014. Following the heyday of moral panics, risk discourses and censorious policy-making that led to the European Commission’s first Internet Action Plan 1999–2002, EU Kids Online focused on …
Where policy and practice collide: Comparing United States, South African and European Union approaches to protecting children online
That children have a right to protection when they go online is an internationally well-established principle, upheld in laws that seek to safeguard children from online abuse and exploitation. However, children’s own transgressive behaviour can test the boundaries of this protection regime, creating new dilemmas for lawmakers the world over. This article examines the policy response from both the Global North and South to young people’s online b…
Is big brother more at risk than little sister? The sibling factor in online risk and opportunity
This article uses data from the 25,142-child study EU Kids Online to investigate the impact of sibling status on a child’s experience of online risk and opportunities. In general, the effects associated with having a sibling appear to be comparatively small. The presence of older siblings slightly increases use and skills, while younger siblings are associated with slight reductions. These dynamics are particularly visible in the use of social ne…
Cyberbullying Victimization in Context: The Role of Social Inequalities in Countries and Regions
The phenomenon of cyberbullying is gaining ever more attention by media and policy makers in many countries. Theoretical frameworks using a socio-ecological approach emphasize the importance of contextual explanatory factors located at the societal level. It has been suggested that in addition to cross-national differences, the analysis of smaller units of more adjacent cultural contexts (i.e., regions) might yield more explanatory power. Leaning…
Top ten types of informed consent your supervisor never told you about
When we conduct ethically sound research, we know that any reason given by an informant to decline or withdraw participation is a legitimate reason. However, some situations can be averted or prevented, increasing your chance of getting the data that you need for your study. In order to be most successful, it might be good to know of some core pitfalls, that you may plummet into when trying to ensure a properly informed consent from your young pa…
‘We always torment different people, so by definition, we are no bullies’: The problem of definitions in cyberbullying research
In this article, we investigate the power of prevailing definitions within the research field of cyberbullying. We address how these definitions, mostly deriving from developmental psychology, have had a problematic influence on the way researchers, policymakers, practitioners working with interventions, and children and young people themselves approach the challenge of understanding and preventing cyberbullying and its consequences. We analyse h…
Children as Crowbar? Justifying Censorship on the Grounds of Child Protection
This article studies how possible it is to use the need to protect vulnerable populations, such as children, as a justification to limit freedom of expression in democratic societies. The research was designed and conducted based on the idea that the regulation of speech and access to content is not only a matter of law and legislative interpretations, but also a question of social norms and values. The study is based on two surveys, one implemen…
Tox and Detox: Are Teens’ Smartphone Use and Non-Use Practices Fully Fungible
Introduction The public sphere includes a range of credible discourses asserting that a proportion of teenagers (“teens”) has an unhealthy dependence upon continuous connection with media devices, and especially smartphones. A review of media discourse (Jaunzems et al.) in Australia, and a critical review of public discourse in Australia and Belgium (Zaman et al.), reveal both positive and negative commentary around screentime. Despite the “emoti…
The Privacy Paradox by Proxy: Considering Predictors of Sharenting
Despite being worried that children may compromise their privacy by disclosing too much personal data online, many parents paradoxically share pictures and information about their children themselves , a practice called sharenting. In this article we utilise data from the EU Kids Online survey to investigate this paradox. We examine both how individual characteristics such as demographics and digital skills, and relational factors, including pare…
Time spent online and children’s self-reported life satisfaction in Norway: The socio-ecological perspective
Despite public discourses highlighting the negative consequences of time spent online (TSO) for children’s well-being, Norwegian children (aged 9–16 years) use the Internet more than other European children and score higher on self-reported life satisfaction (SRLS). To explore the possibility that TSO might contribute to high life satisfaction or other underlying explanatory factors, we investigate the relationship between TSO and SRLS in Norway …
Leveraging Ai-Based Interventions to Address Cyberbullying Among Children: A Rights-Based Perspective
One in three Internet users worldwide are children, and yet children are still insufficiently consulted on Internet governance-related matters as well as with respect to safety design decisions in online environments. Following the adoption of the general comment on the application of UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in digital environments, this article presents the results of empirical research that solicited children’s input on…
Psychology (23 works) · Political science (18 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Child Development and Digital Technology (16 works) · Social Psychology (16 works) · Social Media and Politics (15 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · The Internet (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Internet privacy (11 works)