The Exposed Childhood: An Examination of Chinese Parents’ Online Sharing of Children’s Photos and Videos—An Analysis Based on Douyin Network Data

Amid the prevailing trend of “pan-entertainment” in cyberspace, adults increasingly interpret children’s lives through utilitarian, adult-centric, and entertainment-focused perspectives, leading to the alienation of children’s online images. This study examines child influencer accounts on Douyin—typically managed by parents—and conducts content and discourse analysis on them. Drawing on critical theories by Douglas Kellner, we employed Scrapy and NVivo to analyze 30 popular children’s videos and 15,000 user comments posted beneath them. The analysis identifies five key characteristics in the construction of such images: spectacular visual mechanisms, younger-age production trends, covert commercial penetration, homogenized spectacle types, and adult-centric implicit influence. The study underscores the urgency of strengthening protective mechanisms to counteract platform capitalism’s intrusion into childhood and to uphold children’s digital privacy and agency.