Associate Professor (Department of Communication and Media Studies, LA&PS) and Director of the Institute of Digital Literacies (IRDL) at York University, Natalie Coulter’s research investigates critical issues pertaining to young people’s media cultures, focusing on the ways in which advertising, marketing and the media construct young people, and how young people respond, engage and negotiate with these framings.

With global tech companies working towards building a kids’ metaverse where children can create, play, shop, learn and socialize, Prof. Coulter’s research raises critical questions around the workings of KidTech and digital capitalism; focussing on the need to protect children’s digital rights by helping families, educators and policy makers navigate the rapid changes in their digital lives.

“KidTech is an emerging industry and is morphing at a dizzying pace. We need to slow down and ask critical questions about children, childhood, and digital capitalism by investigating what it means to be a child in these spaces. We need to understand what these digital spaces are, how they are experienced, and “what child is made possible” by the socio-economic, discursive and material spaces of digital capitalism.”

As the KidTech industry is a global enterprise stretching well beyond national borders, the project draws on international partnerships with prominent research centres on children and digital technologies. It aims to bring together international scholars from different areas of expertise related to KidTech to understand immersive digital spaces that tech companies view as the future of digital capitalism.

This project is funded by a SSHRCC IDG grant. Connect with Prof. Natalie Coulter to know more about her research and collaborations.