Embracing Powerlessness in Pursuit of Digital Resilience

The Digital Challenge

The popularity of digital media among adolescents and the potential for this group to communicate with those who may do them harm raise anxiety. The use of digital media by those living in out-of-home care heightens such anxiety, regardless of social welfare landscape. In an English care context, Berridge, Biehal, and Henry (2012) illustrate such concerns, stating that staff members in residential homes “ . . . expressed a great deal of concern about how best to monitor appropriate internet use, including the social networking site Facebook” (p. 51). The need to improve outcomes for and enhance the resilience of populations living in out-of-home care is well recognized (Sergeant, 2006; Sinclair, Baker, Lee, & Gibbs, 2007). Residential care, which strives to provide a supportive environment, but is bound by regulation and the management of relationships, represents an important research context. Conversations about autonomy, responsibility, and risk management frequently occur, offering a research arena in which the risks and resources of digital media are magnified.

Increased mobility of digital media means that safeguarding via physical proximity has become obsolete. This has resulted in the introduction of top-down web-filtering technologies and the notion of “e-safety.” Although valuable, what local and remote top-down web-filtering systems fail to appreciate is the ability for adolescents to be online beyond the immediate care environment and from a range of devices. In the United Kingdom, recommendations have been published to guide those responsible for keeping children and adolescents safe online (Byron, 2008, 2010). In seeking to help vulnerable populations and those responsible for their well-being, top-down approaches become foregrounded. A commonly footnoted theme in guidelines is the notion that, despite web-filtering technologies, the digital world should never be considered safe. Aptly summarized by one child in Byron (2008), “Kids don’t need protection; we need guidance. If you protect us you are making us weaker. We don’t go through all the trial and error necessary to learn what we need to survive on our own . . . ” (p. 162).

As the digital media user is the only constant, more needs to be done to engage, educate, and empower the vulnerable to develop their own 24/7 protection from cyber-threats. This message is present in several key recommendations (Byron, 2008, 2010; Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills [OfSTED], 2010; Telenor Group, 2013). OfSTED (2010) reported that pupils across England were more vulnerable when schools used locked down systems due to a lack of opportunities to learn self-risk management. Telenor Group (2013) highlighted that an estimated 100 million new children will be online by 2017, with 85 million using mobile devices to access the Internet. Such figures demonstrate the magnitude of this issue. Calling for a more strength-based orientation, Byron (2008, 2010) emphasized the need to empower the vulnerable to keep themselves safe online. Summarizing this orientation, Telenor Group (2013) noted, “While it might be tempting to focus narrowly on this reduction through technology or legislation, building resilience among young people . . . will ultimately be the more powerful strategy” (p. 9).

Digital Resilience

Resilience is a psychosocial process involving the interplay of protective dispositional, relationship and social factors that promote positive adjustment through negotiating adversity (Rutter, 2007). Digital resilience relates to cyber-security. Central aspects include 24/7 protection from cyber-threats and the ability of protective procedures to rapidly learn from cyber-attacks. Rapidly learning from weaknesses enhances protective mechanisms. Gilligan (2005) suggested, “ . . . children may . . . acquire immunity to toxic elements by controlled exposure . . . ” (p. 107) to said elements. Similarly, we consider how professionals can reorient their dialogue with vulnerable adolescents to pursue digital resilience development. Digital resilience is defined as an orientation that recognizes digital vulnerabilities and seeks to empower the susceptible to navigate toxic elements in the context of supportive relationships.

Research on resilience has prompted a strengths-based practice approach with interventions aimed at enhancing protective processes. Recognizing the ability of self-efficacy to offer protective functions, interventions that engage individuals holistically to improve resilience are sought. This orientation recognizes that in an increasingly digital world, the vulnerable must be supported in protecting themselves. Accordingly, risk management needs to move beyond an overreliance on web-filtering technology.

Mobilizing Alternatives to Monitoring

From a discursive psychological perspective, digital media are experienced by individuals orientating in a risk society (Beck, 1992). In a risk culture, the ability to identify risks assumes that they can be managed and therefore become preventable. When risk has not been controlled, accountability and discourses of professional “failures” emerge (Ferguson, 1997).

Being under the age of 18 in Western society permits one to be labeled as at-risk (Eckersley, 1988). Being under 18 and living in out-of-home care heightens the focus of regulatory discourse. In this way, adolescents in care are different from their peers: Their world is more regulated and risk-averse. Digital media use by adolescents in care is experienced by professionals in a risk-averse context dominated by governance discourses and safeguarding procedures. Spratt (2001) highlighted the need to move beyond limiting discourses of child protection to a more strengths-based child welfare orientation. Limiting discourses operating in a risk society are informed by what Foucault (1972) referred to as an episteme.

For Foucault (1972), an episteme guides ways of thinking and talking, and the state of knowledge at a particular historical moment. Though an episteme “rules in” certain ways of talking about a topic, by definition, it “rules out” other ways of talking. Just as the dominance of child protection discourses marginalizes a strengths-based care approach, top-down monitoring marginalizes the role of empowering the vulnerable to protect themselves. In an episteme of child protection where risks need to be managed and safeguarding procedures created, top-down monitoring via auditable web-filters satisfies discourses of risk management and accountability. At a particular point in time, inherited common sense constructs cultural truths that appear to members of societies as “natural” or “inevitable” (Billig, 1997). For Billig (1997), such ideologies contain contrary themes that provide resources to rework “inevitable” cultural truths. So, while top-down web-filtering approaches manage risk in care settings, they can also disempower adolescents and close down supportive relationships. For social care professionals, the challenge appears to be how to mobilize a strengths-based approach that embraces digital media, while empowering adolescents to negotiate online toxicity via supportive relationships that foster digital resilience.

Participants

Adolescents and their carers were recruited from four residential homes across England. Homes were run by a mixture of government and independent sector providers; all were mainstream children’s residential homes. Informed consent was gained from gatekeepers and, innovatively, from adolescents (Hammond & Cooper, 2011). Extracts presented for analysis were recorded with the agreement of adolescents and professionals during the lead author’s visits to the homes. From 186 visits, 76 provided data relevant to the article’s aims. Analysis presented draws on data gathered from 10 adolescents (6 males, 4 females, M age = 15.3 years, age range = 14-18 years) and 35 carers (ages not sought). This provides a total sample of N = 45 and represents circa 49 hours of audio data. Participant and residential home names have been replaced with pseudonyms. Extracts presented for analysis contain those present and the visit typology in which the exchange occurred.

Generating and Transcribing Qualitative Data

Extracts analyzed derive from two sources: DLSW facilitation sessions, and staff forums specifically convened and led by the researcher. Audio files were transcribed using orthographic representations of verbal interactions with analytical attention drawn to workers’ mediation of digital media. Passages of relevant exchanges were then re-transcribed using Jeffersonian transcription methods (Jefferson, 1984). For those who use discourse analysis, an analytical approach that is sensitive to how an individual’s talk operates as social action (Potter & Wetherell, 1987), Jeffersonian transcription is seen as offering a rigorous representation of socially situated interactions via text. The Jefferson transcription system uses an array of symbols to represent interactions: “ . . . it represents those features of talk that have been shown . . . to be treated as relevant by the participants (emphasis, overlap, pause length, intonation and so on)” (Potter & Wiggins, 2007, p. 83). Such features and their representation are not “ . . . trivial things that can be ignored in research . . . these things are fundamental to the sense of talk for the participants” (Potter & Wiggins, 2007, p. 83). For readers unfamiliar with the Jefferson transcription system, see Table 1 for explanation.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

The Jefferson Transcription System.

Symbol	Meaning of symbol
[ ]	Square brackets mark the start and end of overlapping speech. They are aligned to mark the precise position of overlap.
↑↓	Vertical arrows precede marked pitch movement, over and above normal rhythms of speech. They are used for notable changes in pitch beyond those represented by stops, commas, and question marks.
Underlining	Indicates emphasis; the extent of underlining within individual words locates emphasis and also indicates how heavy it is.
CAPITALS	mark speech that is hearably louder than surrounding speech. This is beyond the increase in volume that comes as a by product of emphasis
°↑I know it,°	“degree” signs enclose quieter speech.
that’s r*ight.	Asterisks precede a “squeaky” vocal delivery
(.)	A micropause, hearable but too short to measure.
(0.4)	Numbers in round brackets measure pauses in seconds (in this case, 4 tenths of a second). If they are not part of a particular speaker’s talk they should be on a new line. If in doubt use a new line.
she wa:::nted	Colons show lengthening of a word the more colons, the more elongation.
Yeh,	“Continuation” marker, speaker has not finished; marked by fall-rise or weak rising intonation.
y’know?	Question marks signal stronger, “questioning” intonation, irrespective of grammar.
Yeh.	Full stops mark falling, stopping intonation (“final contour”), irrespective of grammar, and not necessarily followed by a pause.
Ybu-u-	hyphens mark a cutoff of the preceding sound.
>he said<	“greater than” and “lesser than” signs enclose speech that is faster than usual and are used the other way round for slower talk.
solid. = We had	“Equals” signs mark continuous talk between speakers, with no interval.
((shrill))	Double brackets mark comments from the transcriber, e.g., about features of context or delivery.

Source. Adapted from http://homepages.lboro.ac.uk/~ssah2/transcription/transcription.htm.

Powerlessness as Accepted or Embraced: “Things Will Go Wrong Sometimes”

When workers spoke about adolescents’ digital media usage, they tended to position themselves as powerless to prevent risk, constructing this as an inescapable truth. According to Davies and Harré (1990), negotiated positions in social exchanges, such as workers positioning themselves as powerless, provide speakers with a range of narratives, tropes, metaphors, and clichés to draw on. Importantly, these positions are neither stable nor fixed. As Potter (1996) suggested, positions, accounts, and narratives “ . . . have to be worked up and fitted to the specifics of the situations . . . and there is always the potential for them being undermined” (p. 119). In a professionalized care environment in which discourses of digital inclusion and children’s rights resonate alongside risk management, speakers used various resources to negotiate powerlessness positions. Analysis begins by illustrating how accountability was negotiated through accepting powerlessness while abdicating personal accountability. In Extract 1, Holly begins to underline what Billig (1997) called the ideological common sense, the prioritization of risk-management strategies.

Extract 1:

   Holly: Because things ↑will go wrong someti::mes,(.)

Researcher: Yeah

   Holly: But what about the thousands of things that go ri:ght? And

        the one time it goes wrong, (0.8)

Researcher: Big alarm [bells?]

   Holly:  [So no]body wants to be the perso:n, (.) that

        it goes wrong for that one ti:me

DLSW facilitation: Holly (manager) and researcher; also present: Richard (staff).

Holly’s rationale infers the inevitability that “things ↑will go wrong” and that when considering the use of digital media by adolescents in care, this will continue. Holly works up a position of powerlessness as accepted. This inferred inevitability means she cannot be held personally accountable. Her use of the word “things” within this context also mediates accountability. In a culture in which risk management relies on the identification of risk (Ferguson, 1997), professional accountability for “failures” remains mediated when specific “things” cannot be identified. With this reduced accountability, Holly’s talk accepts that these “things” will happen, and she is powerless to stop this.

However, social care professionals are held accountable for risk management. Holly’s sensitivity to this possibility is highlighted by an extreme case formulation (ECF). Pomerantz (1986) introduced ECFs as rhetorical devices where speakers use excessive positioning to present “ . . . the strongest case in anticipation of non-sympathetic hearings . . . ” (p. 227). In this case, Holly positions the “thousands of things that go ri:ght” in comparison with the “one ti:me” it goes wrong. In Holly’s talk, her ECF supports the thousands of times professionals get things right, simultaneously illustrating the precariousness of the professional position. In the context of digital media usage, an individual could work with adolescents many times, but “that one ti:me” they would need to manage their professional accountability.

In an episteme of risk, there is limited appreciation of the “thousands of things that go ri:ght,” as institutionally, risk factors are identified and management strategies implemented; failures occur on behalf of the individual. As professional responsibility appears, so does the individualized ethos of organizational accountability, and with it the possibility to apportion blame for failures. Holly illustrates her awareness of individualized accountability, stating, “[So no]body wants to be the perso:n.” Her position acknowledges inherent personal accountability when working with adolescents, bolstering support for explicit monitoring practices and the safety of institutional practices. A relational approach to working with adolescents and digital media carries with it the threat that emergent problems will be ascribed to individual conduct.

Claiming Powerlessness Acceptance as a Function of Generation: “I’m Just an Old, Fogey . . . ”

Professionals also worked up an acceptance of powerlessness in ways that mediated personal accountability as a function of generation. At an organizational level, failures can be especially situated at individual or residential home level if training to reduce risk has been provided. By utilizing widely available tropes that position adolescents as “digital natives,” those surrounded by digital technology from birth (Bennett, Maton, & Kervin, 2008), workers were able to adopt a juxtaposed position. By invoking a generational discourse, professionals performed accountability management, countering the individualized responsibility that mandatory e-safety training courses imply.

This rhetorical accomplishment revolves around the ability to invoke generational category membership. In talk, categories such as age and gender can be mobilized to denote specific characteristics. What these characteristics are, depends on what the interactional exchange is intended to accomplish (Sacks, 1992). The category of age and how such talk was assembled by workers were allied with digital incompetence.

Extract 2:

Peter: ↑I even hate text messages you see or mobile phones you see

     so I’m just an ol:d, fogey ((researcher’s name))

Reflective staff forum: Peter; also present: Mark, Sally, Laura, Craig, Hannah, Emma, and Joe (all staff), and researcher.

The term old fogey is used to describe an elderly person, or someone who may be considered younger but whose thinking, actions, or demeanor resemble that of an older person. According to a membership categorization analysis (MCA) approach (Baker, 1997; Sacks, 1992), categorization is associated with specific forms of activities and behavior. MCA explores how individual’s situated categorizations of themselves and others are claimed or ascribed in conversation (Drew & Heritage, 1992). Older people are assumed to be less digitally competent; by claiming “old” status, Peter positions himself as a nonuser and nonexpert. Though Peter was around the average age of the staff present, by working up category membership he relinquishes digital media engagement. Peter uses several subtle discursive devices in this short passage to work up his account and category membership. The numerous devices presented in this short extract begin to indicate the sensitivity of this accomplishment.

Peter’s choice of words, shared in front of his colleagues, accomplishes what Potter (1996) would call “reification” through defensive work. His account’s factuality and objectivity are worked up through confessions of interest that act as stake inoculation, and via presenting these interests using ECF. Introducing the term stake inoculation to label ways in which speakers can protect descriptions under construction before they are harmed, Potter (1996) states this works to “ . . . head off the imputation of stake or interest . . . ” (p. 125). The public nature of Peter’s talk also invites consensus across accounts to work up its power.

Peter’s talk confessed his discomfort when using the widely accepted practice of “texting” via mobile phones. In the context of a staff forum discussing innovative uses of digital media with vulnerable adolescents in care, this would appear to be an ECF (Pomerantz, 1986). Peter is not simply uncomfortable with digital media; he even hates the widely accepted practice of texting. But this “hate” position is “just” a result of his category membership. Peter works up his dislike for digital media, but critically as a product of generation, not personal choice. His justification does not belong to any one individual, but to a category of which he is a member as a result of generation.

Seemingly, Peter’s performance was aimed at the younger and more technologically proficient outsider present: “((researcher’s name)).” This arrowed statement also worked up an opportunity for Peter’s colleagues to align their own category membership and orientation. The success of categorization claims can be dependent on others present, and creating consensus across a range of different accounts is “ . . . readily invoked as a warrant for their truth . . . ” (Potter, 1996, p. 227). This consensus is offered moments later in the same staff forum.

Extract 3:

Sally: It’s a generation thing (1.0) that’s what it comes down to (.)

    isn’t [it?]

Laura:   [Yea]h

Reflective staff forum: Sally and Laura; also present: Peter, Mark, Craig, Hannah, Emma, and Joe (all staff), and researcher.

Sally’s talk provides consensus to Peter’s earlier performance. The rhetorical nature of Sally’s talk and indeed Laura’s agreement demonstrates the ideological common sense referred to— in this case, digital competency as generational. As demonstrated by Extract 4 taken from a different residential home, through recruiting generational competency, workers simultaneously worked up the mutually sustaining symmetry of accounts.

Extract 4:

Cameron: she’s< got her own laptop now she’s got her own access to i:t (.) and whereas,(0.4) her m- m- the other (0.4) things outsi::de going ↑ou:t and doing stuff she’s (.) sh- she’s much more happy=

 Terry: = but then

Cameron: =in a ↑ni:ght to spend four or five hours on ↑her laptop

 Terry: ↑That’s

Cameron: You know what I mean?

 Terry: That’s that’s people of their a:ge mate=

Cameron: I know I kno:w it’s a culture thing isn’t it?

Reflective staff forum: Cameron, Adam, and Terry; also present Veronica, David, Julian, William (all staff), and researcher.

This symmetry works up adolescent experiences of digital media as different as a function of generation. Terry’s final comment attempts to rationalize the adolescent in question and her frequent use of digital media. Terry’s talk cites category membership as generational. In working up “people of their a:ge” as an inclusive category in which such behaviors are commonplace, he concurrently positions professionals in a different category.

People working with adolescents support forays into independence, yet can struggle to encourage such forays in the episteme of accountable risk. In conventional adolescent–parent dyads, parents are entitled to enjoy their offspring’s forays into independence. Adolescents becoming competent and powerful in ways in which their parents are not is conceptualized as positive. For individuals working in a care context, adolescent mastery of digital media tends to be experienced as risk.

As Billig (1997) recognized, speakers are able to recruit discursive resources from wider societal beliefs. Here, notions about “older” people, learning, and technology are retold. Digital immigrants remain immigrants by virtue of their age, lacking the knowledge and experience of younger digital “natives.” Within childcare practice, training is frequently designed to enhance professional knowledge and reduce identified risks. Digital ability as a function of generation challenges the appropriateness and effectiveness of training courses. Maintaining the generational discourse within everyday talk bolsters an individualized defense against the organizational “solution” of mandatory e-safety training. Generational category membership foregrounded “inevitable” cultural truths. Because of the unidirectional nature of age, workers seemingly had no choice but to accept that they were powerless to protect adolescents. This acceptance performed subtly, advocating individualized absolution.

Embracing Powerlessness: “ . . . You Can’t Get Away From It . . . ”

Despite the dominance of powerlessness as accepted, a contrary mobilization of powerlessness as embraced emerged. This mobilization was framed by an inability to control access in a way that provided a stance to engage in dialogues about web-safety and promote digital resilience. Extracts 5 and 6, taken from DLSW facilitation visits in which Phil (15) requests help from worker Becky to protect his Facebook profile, illustrate this orientation.

Extract 5:

   Becky: Yeah the more you ban it the more you (0.4) >you can go on it

       on your pho::ne< you can’t get away from [it ]

Researcher:    [↑Mm,]

   Phil: I I’ve got I can get Facebook on ↑this pho:ne

Researcher: Can you↑

       (1.8)

   Becky: So you’ve (.) ºjust got toº (2.3)

Researcher: Accept it?

   Becky: Yeah it can bring a lot of problems but then it can bring

      ↑good things as we:ll,

DLSW facilitation: Becky (staff), Phil, and researcher.

Becky’s talk is still constructed in the adolescent–worker dyad and residential context, but performs differently. Becky works up her argument as a description that taps into the shared ideological knowledge of mobile phone saturation and Internet connectivity. After all, “>you can go on it on your pho::ne< you can’t get away from [it ].” Her talk preempts counter challenges to the legitimacy of her comments and their bias via managing dilemmas of stake through description (Potter, 1996). Phil supports Becky’s claims and assists in the construction of the account, commenting, “I can get Facebook on ↑this pho:ne,” illustrating to the audience that Becky’s claims were valid. Having worked up an account that foregrounded digital media as inescapable via prevalence and not her own bias, the researcher proposes that Becky needs to “Accept it?” However, Becky’s talk moves beyond acceptance, developing positive elements of digital media. Once access is constructed as inevitable, Becky is able to embrace powerlessness. Her talk moves from the anxiety of inescapable risk toward its reduction, moving from dilemmas of access to engaging directly with Phil and his digital media usage (Extract 6). In this way, embracing powerlessness permitted Becky to embrace digital media, use it to engage with Phil and to provide opportunities to pursue digital resilience development.

Extract 6:

Becky: Yeah so if someone Phil if someone’s hassling you Ph::l you

     can go on this bi:t,(.) block, (0.8) type in their na:me, (.)

     and it will come ↑up, (.) a:nd then you can just block ‘em

     >and they can’t< (.) do anything to your profile.

DLSW facilitation: Becky (staff); also present: Phil and researcher.

Although this exchange appears to depend on Becky’s proficiency in managing digital media, the relationship facilitates it. The exchange demonstrates the importance of relationships in which technology is managed. With a trusting relationship, the “expertise” could have operated differently, with Phil showing Becky how he managed his account, as Tony does when the researcher asks about privacy settings.

Extract 7:

Researcher: So what’s (0.4) so what ºyou in [now then?º]

 Tony:   [There you] go look (2.6) >Its where you go onto the change skins bit< yeah, and you change (0.4) your PASS:::word↑, just go to there (3.1) and then go down (.)and (1.5) then look fo:::r settings you, you want.. (0.7) <and li::ke >click it<

DLSW facilitation: Tony 17 and researcher.

Embracing powerlessness opens up conversational spaces by celebrating the opportunities digital media facilitate. Irrespective of digital proficiency, such spaces promote strengths-based practices.

Study Limitations

As the residential homes were part of an ongoing action research study that required the development of trusting relationships through regular contact with participants, the sampling strategy was restricted to residential homes in a small geographical area. Although homes operate within a common legal framework, there are local differences in how polices relating to young people and their care are enacted, which limits the generalizability of the findings. This study was also limited through the analysis of a small number of accounts of everyday talk within this narrow range of residential homes. As Hammersley (2008) recognized, there is a key methodological issue relating to generalization from such constrained analysis. In the context of other residential homes with distinct local arrangements, and different participants, the flow of conversations may diverge from our data. We recognize that the analysis reports dominant discursive formations across a small corpus of data and that the understanding of the research reality is inherently interpretative. In this way, the article is one narrative; others from adolescents and professionals are available in other spheres. However, there are some established techniques of ensuring quality in qualitative research, which were embedded in the research approach. Lincoln and Guba (1985) proposed that prolonged engagement and persistent observation help to enhance the credibility of research, and each residential home was subjected to routine visits over 9 months so that the extracts identified for analysis were regarded as characteristic rather than unusual exchanges.

From such a small sample, it is unfeasible to draw out specific recommendations. We also appreciate that creating opportunities to develop digital resilience and negotiate digital boundaries within the context of supportive relationships may not be straightforward. However, by adopting a discursive perspective, this article is able to closely examine the “inevitable truths” of the residential context in relation to digital media use by adolescents, providing scope for alternative ways of “doing” protection to be foregrounded.

Among the residential homes the project worked with, one home had set up a profile page adding current and former residents as “friends.” Although created by the manager in line with the top-down cyber-safeguarding episteme as a mechanism to monitor adolescents’ social media usage, the profile provided a valued point of contact for current and former residents and illustrated professionals’ willingness to engage (see Hammond & Cooper, 2014). Research needs to generate further knowledge regarding existing good practice and adolescents’ perspectives on these. Further research could use methodologies to triangulate with this discursive work. Triangulation could be with other qualitative methods to develop a multiple lens perspective (Frost, 2011) or with mixed approaches (Creswell & Clark, 2007) to examine issues such as data selection bias and test the transferability of the discursive work. For example, further qualitative research could involve interviews and focus group discussion to generate further data about how staff and young people are positioned and position themselves in relation to cyber literacy. Developing an understanding of how adolescents experience digital media and how supportive relationships may scaffold and create opportunities for digital resilience must also be explored. We have done this to a limited extent elsewhere (Hammond & Cooper, 2013, 2014), but a more comprehensive picture is needed. This knowledge would inform strategies to equip frontline practitioners with ways to embrace powerlessness and foster digital resilience.

This article illustrates that a shift from top-down cyber-safeguarding policy to digital resilience facilitation would better protect institutions and individual professionals’ contentions in relation to failing in their duty of care during these adolescents’ care careers. It would also better shield them from accusations of failure in their duty of care to send out digitally savvy yet unsafe adolescents into the world. Professionals may not always be there when things go wrong. Nevertheless, by pursuing opportunities to foster digital resilience, they can help to empower this particularly vulnerable group to keep themselves safer online.