Online connectivity permeates the lives of contemporary children. Nonetheless, the history of childhood and the World Wide Web (the Web) has not been studied—a lacuna which mirrors the wider absence of the Web in contemporary history despite its invention more than 30 years ago.
WEB CHILD combines the history of childhood and the Web to investigate how the emergence of the Web as a new interactive and connected medium with little adult oversight impacted childhood at the turn of the millennium (c. 1995-2005). To study the Web’s wide-ranging influence, three countries have been selected for comparison: the United States, Denmark, and South Korea. These were all digital pioneers, but had very different cultures of childhood.
WEB CHILD project runs from 1 April 2025 to 30 March 2030
Prof. Niels Brügger (Aarhus University)
PhD student Sascha Bjerg Bøgebjerg (Aarhus University)
WEB CHILD is an ERC Consolidator Grant project and has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
