Examination of parents' social media share about their children

The aim of this research is to examine shareting behavior, which is defined as the sharing of parents on social media about their children. For this purpose, the dimensions of sharenting were determined, the sharenting scale was developed and the change of sharenting according to the demographic variables of the parents was examined. The exploratory sequential design, which is one of the mixed method designs, was used in the research. In this context, firstly, qualitative interviews were made and the sharenting dimensions were determined. Moreover, the data obtained from the qualitative interview were used in the development process of the sharenting scale. After the sharenting scale was developed, the effect of some demographic variables on sharenting was examined. The research was carried out in three stages with three different study groups. Study-1 includes qualitative interviews with 10 parents (study group-1) who have children under 13 years of age and active social media accounts. At this stage, the phenomenology design was used. The data obtained from the qualitative interviews were analyzed with thematic analysis and the sharenting dimensions were determined. These dimensions are; motivation of sharing and risk awareness. Study-2 covers the scale development process with data obtained from qualitative interviews and literature review. For the construct validity (EFA) and various reliability analyzes of the scale, 330 parents (study group-2) who have children under the age of 13 and who have shared their child's image on social media at least once, were included in the study. The CFA and criterion validity analyzes of the Sharenting scale were carried out with a participant group consisting of 302 parents (study group-3). As a result of all these processes, a 9-item 2-factor sharenting scale was brought to the literature. In Study-3, the effect of parents' gender, monthly income, education level and frequency of sharing their children's images on sharing was examined. At this stage, the data obtained from the study group-3 were used. Results; showed that the sharenting sub-dimensions did not differ significantly according to the gender variable. On the other hand, sharing sub-dimensions differed significantly according to education level and monthly income. It was observed that the sharing frequency variable created a significant change only on the sharing motivation sub-dimension.