Sonia Livingstone

Sonia Livingstone OBE FBA is a British scholar on the subjects of children, media and the Internet. She is Professor of Social Psychology and former head of the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science.^[1]

Sonia Livingstone OBE
Awards	OBE, for services to children and child Internet safety
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Oxford
Academic work
Discipline	Media and Communications
Institutions	London School of Economics and Political Science
Main interests	Children's Rights, Digital Technologies, Social Psychology, Policymaking, Research
Notable ideas	The opportunities and risks afforded by digital and online technologies, particularly for children and young people

She has advised the UK government, European Commission, European Parliament, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, OECD, ITU and UNICEF, among others, on children’s internet safety and rights in the digital environment.^[2] In 2014, Livingstone was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for services to children and child Internet safety".^[3]

Career

Early career

Livingstone holds a BSc degree in psychology from University College London and obtained her DPhil in Psychology from the University of Oxford. She was supervised by Michael Argyle during her DPhil. Her doctoral thesis is titled "Social Knowledge and Programme Structure in Representations of Television Characters" and was submitted in 1987.^[4]

Livingstone’s work is closely tied to the field of audience studies, and she places herself in the tradition of ‘reception studies.’^[5]

Media and communications (1990s to present)

In 1993, Livingstone founded the MSc in Media and Communications degree at LSE, which continues to be offered today.^[6]

Throughout her career, Livingstone has won numerous awards and taken up more than 15 academic appointments, including  as a Professor II at the University of Oslo (2014–16), as a guest professor at the Paris-Panthéon-Assas University (Paris II) in (2009) and as a faculty fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University (2013-2014).^[7]

Early work

Livingstone states that one of her research interests is exploring how people "maintain a sense of themselves in a communication environment replete with meanings they didn't create".^[8] In her earliest research, Livingstone focused on how television audiences respond and create meaning from various television genres, focusing specifically on soap operas.^[9] This work was recognized for the innovative way in which she combined critical and social psychological theoretical frameworks and employed qualitative interview research methodologies, traditions that she still identifies with today.^[10]

Throughout the 1990s, Livingstone continued to publish on different types of audiences, including expansions from her initial research on soap operas to include TV debates or discussions and studio audiences. Early in the decade she also notably worked on economic social psychology alongside Peter Lunt.^[11][12][13] Some of these themes are captured in the book ‘Mass Consumption and Personal Identity: Everyday Economic Experience.’^[12]

Young People and New Media [late 1990s to present]

Starting from the turn of the millennium, Livingstone’s work shifted towards younger audiences and consumers of media, with her leading the research project ‘Children and their Changing Media Environment’ until 1999. The book of this titlem was released in 2001, closely followed by ‘Young People and New Media’ in 2002, this marking an ‘important’ contribution to the study of young audiences, noted reviewers.^[14] Here Livingstone was commended for ‘writing an inspiring book… delivering new and stimulating fresh insights into how young people manage to deal with ‘new’ (and ‘old’) media.’^[15]

Paying attention to innovations in media technologies at the time, Livingstone wrote in 1999 of the need for an ‘inclusive conception of new media,’ noting that there is an increase in ‘personally owned media’ with diversification in ‘form and content,’ a ‘convergence of information services’ and ultimately the decline of mass communication into more ‘interactive’ modes.^[16]

Children, Parenting and the Internet [late 2000s to present]

Her work about children's use of the internet seeks to go beyond common assumptions. In "Risk and Harm on the Internet," she "presented the main findings and policy recommendations that emerge from the EU Kids Online project, separating risk from harm, and focusing on the relation between opportunities and risk. She argued that, "although both research and policy have tended to treat these as separable parts of children’s experience, the two are inextricably inter-twined".^[17] In recent years Livingstone has called for conversations about children's growing use of devices to move beyond the fixation on 'screentime', a term often used in the media as part of quantitative calculations about the extent of children’s use of devices. She has pointed out that measures of 'screentime' can be faulty and mean different things for measuring bodies, parents and technology companies.^[18] Instead, she calls for policymakers and carers to also take into account the qualitative experiences children have with digital media, accounting for the ‘content, context and connections associated with children’s digital engagement’.^[19]

Work outside academia

Media and digital engagement

Her public talks are available on video streaming websites, including her talk at the Ted Summit in 2019.^[20] Matching her latter research trajectory, Livingstone runs the blog ‘Parenting for a Digital Future’ hosted by LSE, with regular contributions from practitioners, researchers and herself about children ‘growing up in a digital world.’^[21]

Selected research projects

Digital Futures Commission

As part of her association with the 5Rights Foundation, Livingstone led the 'Digital Futures Commission,'  an initiative aiming to place 'children's interests at the centre of the design of the digital world.'^[22] Its main focus areas included ‘play’ i.e. play in the digital and offline worlds, education (including work on the impact of EdTech), and innovation for digital design that impacts children. Since 2020, the commission’s work has been to drive ‘real world change for children and young people,’^[23] and this intention is reflected in the make-up of the commissioners, the list of which includes academics and leaders from The University of Leeds, The Alan Turing Institute, The Lego Group, EY, and the BBC.^[22][23]

Toddlers and Tablets: Exploring the risks and benefits 0-5s face online

Between 2015 and 2018, Livingstone worked as a co-investigator in a research project about the increasing use of smart devices, such as 'iPads, tablets and smartphones' by 'infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers.'^[24] Funded by the Australian Research Council, the project ‘investigated family practices and attitudes around very young children’s internet use in Australia and the United Kingdom’ and provided recommendations for policymakers and parents of children under 5.^[24]

The Class

Livingstone directed ‘The Class’ a research project that examines the emerging mix of on- and offline experiences in teenagers’ daily learning lives. The Class was part of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Connected Learning Research Network.^[25] A namesake book on the study with Julian Sefton-Green was published in 2016.^[26]

UK Children Go Online: Emerging Opportunities and Dangers

The project investigated 9- to 19-year-olds' use of the Internet through qualitative interviews with children and parents. Accounting for age, socio-economic background, gender and other demographics, the study aimed to understand issues around (i) Internet access; (ii) the nature of Internet use; (iii) inequalities and the digital divide; (iv) education, learning and literacy; (v) communication; (vi) participation; (vii) various risks of associated with the Internet and balancing these; and (viii) regulating the Internet at home.^[27]

EU Kids Online I, II & III

Livingstone founded the EU Kids Online project, (2006-2009) which, in the European context focuses on cultural, contextual and risk issues in children's safe use of the Internet and new media which was funded by the European Commission Safer Internet Programme. ^[28]

EU Kids Online II was the follow-up project which ran from 2009 to 2011.^[29] EU Kids Online III is the final follow-up project which ran from 2011 to 2014 and expanded to 33 countries.^[30]

Appointments and honours

In July 2018 she was elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA).^[1] Livingstone was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen's 2014 New Year Honours for services to children and child Internet safety.^[3] She received the Erasmus Medal in 2019 “the highest level of international scholarship [… and] a significant contribution to European culture and scientific achievement.”^[31]

Selected books

Among the books that Livingstone has written, include:

• Parenting for a Digital Future (with Alicia Blum-Ross). Oxford University Press, 2020
• The Class: Living and learning in the digital age. (with Julian Sefton-Green), New York University Press, 2016
• Media Regulation: Governance and the interests of citizens and consumers (with Peter Lunt). Sage, 2012.
• Children and the Internet: Great Expectations, Challenging Realities. Polity. 2009.
• Media Consumption and Public Engagement: Beyond the Presumption of Attention, editions 1 and 2 (with Nick Couldry and Tim Markham) Palgrave. 2007, 2010.
• Harm and Offence in Media Content: A review of the empirical literature, editions 1 and 2. (with Andrea Millwood Hargrave).  Intellect Press. 2006, 2009.
• Young People and New Media: Childhood and the Changing Media Environment. Sage. 2002