TikTok as a peer playground: Understanding how children in middle childhood use TikTok to shape their peer relations

This paper studies children’s (aged 8–12) news-related practices and subsequent acts of lived citizenship in formal and informal social contexts. While children in this age group are increasingly exposed to various types of news that shape their understanding of the world, little is understood about their interactions with news. We employ the concept of “news-related practices’ to analyze how news is integrated into or excluded from their daily routines. Based on longitudinal participant observations of children (N = 256) at four afterschool care locations and five primary schools in the Netherlands in combination with semi-structured interviews with teachers (N = 9), we find that children employ a wide range of playful news-related practices that allow for light-hearted explorations of news and create opportunities for acts of lived citizenship. Play allows children to explore societal issues with peers and form moral opinions. However, conceptualizations of news as serious’ hindered primary school teachers” recognition of playful news-related practices. Following these findings, we argue that the acknowledgement of such practices as an effective tool for civic education, may support children in their development of news practices and foster their first steps into becoming informed citizens.