Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“Phone Home”: Remote Parenting Across National Borders – Jamaican Students In North America And The Role Of Mobile Communication Devices, Marian Stewart Titus

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

This study presents a snapshot of geographically distributed families and how they use information and communication technologies (ICTs). The setting is in the Caribbean nation of Jamaica, and by way of qualitative interviews with eleven parents, the study explores the extent to which Jamaican parents communicate with their adolescents overseas using ICTs. Despite the barriers of distance, the parents were able to maintain strong emotional bonds with their adolescents overseas, and used mobile phones and voice over Internet protocols to enact a virtual co-presence with their children, as well as to maintain existing, and create new family rituals. The study …