- Parents’ Concerns
2
ambivalent and contradictory, struggling to articulate ad-hoc resolutions that will
resonate with deep (but responsive) cultural sentiments (Billig et al., 1988). The
construction of the Internet and of related issues of privacy, commercialization and
socialization in terms of concern, which appears prevalent in mainstream academic as
well as popular works (e.g. Andrejevic, 2002, Lyon & Zureik, 1996; and Cavoukian
& Tapscott, 1997, Garfinkel, 2000), may therefore derive not from the specifics of the
technology but rather from the specific cultural reservations with which it is
encountered.
In this study I explore the possibility of such cross-cultural variation: Can parents be
indifferent to the threat of the Internet? Can they tolerate disclosure of information
over the web? And can they be unconcerned over their children’s exposure to
objectionable web materials? The study draws on a cross-national survey that
compared Israeli and US parents’ concerns over uses of the Internet. The differences
that emerged between the two groups suggest that the construction of the Internet as
inextricably implicated in the erosion of the private sphere may be primarily specific
and situational. The paper proposes, therefore, to frame the encounter with technology
within a cross-cultural and time-bound perspective.
Concerns over the power of technology
Modern constructions of the machine are ideologically divided (Billig et al., 1988)
between an enchantment with technology and suspicion over its harmful effects
(Marvin, 1988). Technology embodies both the promise of better individual and
communal life and the dread of moral decay and disintegration. The car, the
telephone, the television can connect—but they can connect to questionable people or
Convention